Yesterday saw the release of a 40-minute-long Lord Of The Rings fan film that is based off the original Tolkien text, following Aragorn (still Strider) at this point in the months leading directly to Fellowship of The Ring.

Producer Brian Lavery assembled a team of 160 volunteers to make his piece, directed by Chris Bouchard (who Lavery described as “the biggest” LOTR fan in the team), for a budget of 3,000 pounds, about $4,464 dollars. The film’s epic scope owes a lot of it’s look to digital matte paintings and rotoscoping, allowing this low-budget fan film to take on a look similar to Peter Jackson’s trilogy.

As a guy who has a semi for fan films, sitting down to watch a good one last night made me geekily-giddy.

If your interested in LOTR, independent film, no-budget costume design or digital matte painting, you should check it out for FREE (long live independent online cinema!) at TheHuntForGollum.com