The Music of The Lord of the Rings

Visitors to the studio website will know of earlier projects in connection with The Lord of the Rings Movie Trilogy. TOLKIEN: The Lord of the Rings 2007 Calendar, TOLKIEN: The Children of Húrin Calendar 2008 and The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook were all a true delight to design. Especially as they meant working creatively with Alan Lee. These days Alan is incredibly busy in New Zealand with The Hobbit Movies but he will soon be home, in Devon, for Christmas and we can't wait too see him again.  

Well, more pleasure yet! We had a call from a very nice man in Chicago, called Doug Adams. Doug is the author and driving force behind the book The Music of The Lord of the Rings. For two years he has overcome every obstacle to bring his project to this point. 

We love the power music has to bring emotion to movies. Naturally we are thrilled with great visuals, given our chosen crafts, but imagine Hitchcock's Psycho without Bernard Herrmann's score. Sergio Leone's Dollar movies without Ennio Morricone's wild talent. Southern Comfort sans Ry Cooder. 

Just imagine the vast sweep of a project it was composing music to all three The Lord of the Rings movies . . .  and then producing a score to join that musical elite. Howard Shore accomplished just that.

Doug Adams brings both his art as a musicologist, his boundless enthusiasm and scholarship together to create a diligent analysis of the composer, music, musicians, themes, instrumentation and recording process. Just fascinating. 

And we are proud to be appointed for Creative Direction & Design of the book which hopes to debut at a concert at The Albert Hall next autumn.

More over the coming months, but for now we would like to thank Doug and Joe Augustine at Howe Records for this juicy commission. And thank the follower's of Doug Adams' Blog for their kind welcome to their community. Now we roll up our sleeves for work in the hope of meeting the challenge and justifying their generous praise for our work.

The Two Sandies

Good news for the Great Women project. The Lady magazine, best known for au pair ads and country cottages, has a new Editor. The new broom is Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris, Mayor of London. She knows a good thing when she sees one!

Great Women celebrates the famous, the curious and, the frankly very peculiar, women in history. Joyfully written by Sandy Toksvig and gleefully illustrated by Sandy Nightingale, the spot will appear monthly starting December/January. We will announce the date when it is confirmed. Our thanks to Carol Macarthur for her skill in steering Sandy & Sandi to the start line.

Opening Time

Aficionados of Real Ale love the small, independent breweries that are enjoying a healthy revival these days. So we were delighted to take on an interesting commission from the new owners of Blackawton Brewery this summer. Keen to re-establish the profile of some very fine beers, the enthusiastic Dartmoor team set us the challenge of breaking away from the conventional heraldry of beer in favour of something clean and striking. All of their products were re-branded in their new livery. All under this fresh new banner logo. One highly recommended pub to visit and sample their beers (and food) is The Rugglestone Inn, Widecombe in the Moor. Cheers!