EXHAUSTION

Well, the journey has begun. We've made it past our first challenge: catch a flight from SLC to LAX via our standby buddy passes #thanksforthedonation. Now we come to our next challenge. Catch a flight to Sydney where we have confirmed tickets to Christchurch NZ. From there we will visit the Red Cross and then make our way up to the north island and to THE SHIRE. We will be trying to keep you updated. So far during our layover we've met some really interesting people. Everything from a Russian cab driver to a band of American "travelers" (gypsies) who were making their way on foot from Seattle to San Diego. (We met them at Venice beach during our 10 hour layover). One of them kept telling everyone that he was up for adoption--especially to attractive women. It was fascinating. For now this is all. Please enjoy this comatose pic of Olo Bracegirdle of Hardbottle. We were all pretty tuckered out including Toad who pulled an all-nighter before to finish the 4 ft tall portrait of Sir Peter Jackson we are going to deliver to him. Pics to come.

The inner workings of Road to the Shire.

Hello,

So...I'm not a hobbit, but I am on the road to the shire project and the boys told me to write a few things about the experience. Basically, it's the coolest project I have done at school so far. I am the account manager, so I keep the boys and the team organized.

We figured most people didn't realize how structured this whole thing was, so that's why i am here to let you know. There is me, Megan; and the three hobbit boys, Jon, Mitch, and John D; and then we have a  team of writers, who help with the scripts for our videos and help us keep facebook and twitter updated; and we have two PR people, who write the press releases we send them out to all our news outlets ;and then finally we have a group of people who help us with video editing, graphics, make-up and costumes, scrolls, choreography...you name it. There are about twenty people in all who help, but a lot of the work is done by our three hobbit friends.

I joined the project in the fall and it has been quite the adventure ever since. You really do feel like you're on a journey, only it's a viral journey mostly, and not a physical journey. I sort of feel like I am one of the fellowship. I am not going the whole way to New Zealand, but I am helping them get there, kind of how the rest of the fellowship never went the whole way to Mordor but they still kept fighting else where. Anyway, I bet that sounded really corny, but its true.

While the boys are in New Zealand our team of writers and I will be setting up for the documentary, writing the script, and compiling videos and photos from the past eight months.

I'll be honest, I never even dreamed this project would work as well as it did. But here we are, having articles published in New Zealand's top newspaper, writing blogs for the official movie blog, talking with the manager of the Lord of the Rings Franchise and sending our hobbits to the shire to be extras in a world  renown film.

It wouldn't have been possible without our fans though. Fans, you have helped spread Road to the Shire globally, you have helped legitimized us on facebook and twitter. You are the reason newspapers and  television shows have heard of us, and you are the reason the boys are on their way to New Zealand on Sunday. So just in case you didn't realize it and felt your part was minimal, I just want you to know, we would still be some odd characters taking videos of people dressed as hobbits in the woods if you hadn't helped us. So, thank you and I hope you continue to stay with us as we send the boys to the Shire and we make our documentary.

sincerely,
Megan
Account Manager

Party Time!!!!!!

Tonight is our epic Hobbit send-off party. Nothing could be better, we have pizza, chips, drinks, youtube on the big screen and...of course...hobbits. We are watching the Hobbit movie trailer as we speak. Prep for New Zealand is almost done and so now all we have to do is wait and enjoy the company of friends and fans.

For those of you who could not come to our party, know that you can party virally if you feel so inclined.  Send pictures our way of how you celebrate the this epic occasion. After all, its a celebration for all of us, because we could have never accomplished this without everyones help. So celebrate the fact that you are one step closer to making your mark on the Movie of the century.

 We will try and post stuff soon from the party. We had some awesome musical numbers from a friend who wrote a song dedicated to Hobbits, his name is Shredstin. It was pretty epic.

Anyway, best be getting back to the party. Just thought I best make an update since I promised one daily.

Yours Truly,
The Hobbits

Packing as a Hobbit is Hard.

I don't know how Bilbo and Frodo did it.

There is too much to pack. I guess neither Bilbo nor Frodo had to pack homework, textbooks, steady cams ,and other such electronics and school things, but still.

Fundraising for the documentary has been going so well. Thank you all for your support. We are just shy of our goal on kickstarter, which is so cool. We will be able to use the money to finish production of the film, and enter it into film festivals. If you care to throw a dollar or two our way, we now have custom made hobbit t-shirts that you can have as a thank you. On kickstarter we also offer other awesome gifts and prizes for helping us out. This is what the t-shirts look like. :)


It still is amazing to me how much power there is in social media and we cannot thank our fans enough for supporting us in this journey to experiment and see just how powerful it can really be. Just think of what you could do? Think of what anyone could do, if they really wanted to, anything is possible.

That's what our friend Ally Shields realized too when she sent a simple video to Ellen and was able to get on the show, then she went on to try out for American Idol and made it to Hollywood and kissed Usher! Just deciding you want to do something crazy, random and life changing is the first step.

Anyway, I'll step down off my soap box. Social media is legit though, just say'n.

Our friends here in Provo have told us they want to throw a going away party before we take off. So, as we pack, plan and do homework, we will also have a quick party then take off on Super Bowl Sunday for the ride of our lives.

So far we are planning a few events in New Zealand, so if anyone is going to be in Wellington next week, look out, cus the Hobbits will be there!

Until next time,
The Hobbits

The Adventure to the Shire Officially Begins.

This is it people!

 From here on out we will be posting on the blog every single day so you can all live the magic with us. We take off Sunday!

We will land in New Zealand on the 7th, drop off our money personally to the New Zealand Red Cross that we raised from our adventures on Dining with the Dean and then we will take off to Wellington that night and the fun will begin.

We have rented a van from this really cool place called Escape Van Rentals, our van is appropriately named "The Aragorn". So if you see it around New Zealand, honk, yell, scream, because that will be us, driving down the streets of Wellington in a van adorned in the face of the King of Gondor, what could be better?

This is a picture of one of the vans that will be like our van, only we will have Aragorn and not Gandalf, courtesy of Escape Van Rentals:

Pretty legit, right? The rest of the day on the 7th and the 8th we will be talking with a lot of press people who have been contacting us since last week, wanting to do stories on our adventure. So far everything is going awesome. 

Again, don't forget about our kickstarter, we need help funding our documentary and if we don't meet our goal, we lose all the money we have gained in the account so far. We already have our Director going down with us, so the documentary is happening, we would just love some help for the expenses. Anyway, until tomorrow. 

The Hobbits

California and Kickstarter

Nothing like sun-tanned hairy feet.

California was in one word....awesome.
Our trip was long but we made it. We graced Hollywood with our best hobbit manners. We took pictures with other tourists at the Hollywood sign and even got them to do the wave with us. I think they quite liked us after they got over the shock of our pointy ears.

Once we had had first and second breakfast we made our way to Warner Brothers Studios. Trying to get tickets to the Ellen show is harder than most would think and since our trip was spurred by a spontaneous desire to deliver our gifts personally, we didn't have a lot of time to get the tickets the old fashion way. So we just showed up.
The guards at The WB were a little nervous at first, what with three full-on hobbits and two camera people following in tow, but they warmed up to us pretty quick and we were having a great chat when the supervisor to the Ellen show came to see us too. He took our gifts for Ellen, told us our journey was brilliant, and then took our contact information and website address.
Later he came back, and though the studio audience was full, he gave us passes to the Riff Raff room behind the stage so that we could still come to cheer on Ellen.
We had someone claiming to be Ellen re-tweeting about our trip in January, but we are not sure it is really her, but hey, its one more fan supporting us who just happens to like Ellen too or it really is Ellen herself.
As of right now, we three hobbits are getting ready to leave very soon. Tell your friends, especially if you have any in New Zealand. Again, we can't reveal too much right now since it's not final, but lets just say things are on the up-and -up. Mark your calendars for January 31st people and get ready to celebrate this momentous occasion, the hobbits are FINALLY going home.
It's been such a wonderful adventure, we want to share it with everyone, so tell your friends and family, we have started a kickstarter account to fund our documentary about how this awesome social media experiment has worked so well. If you want prizes such as t-shirts, posters, signed documentary films or even personal skype interviews with the hobbits check out kickstarter.com and search road to the shire to help us out.
Well, thanks again everyone. We will let you know what happens as things progress.

Hobbits leaving for New Zealand January 31st and Ellen Twitter Blitz Round 2!

Its official! The Hobbits are leaving for New Zealand January 31st.  It has been a long hard journey, but the Shire is within sight. Last minute details are being taken care of and certain hobbit events are being planned with the New Zealand locals. It's too soon to say exactly what we are planning while in New Zealand...but lets just say its going to be epic and is going to involve certain Lord of the Rings movie set locations. :)

On another note, over the Christmas holiday we spend our days crafting the most beautiful arts.  We want to send these crafted beauty's to Ellen Degenerous and Stephen Colbert. We made both of them 4 foot high portraits of their faces as hobbits and bobble heads of them as them as hobbits. These precious gifts, we feel, cannot go to waste. So to Colbert, we are sending his gifts with a friend headed to New York in the next few weeks. For Ellen, we decided to give them to her personally.

Yes, that's right. The hobbits are headed to the sunny beaches of California. (A prior trip to the ultimate Shire trip.) We want to let Ellen know we are coming, so we are doing a Massive Ellen Twitter Blitz Round Two!  

This Thursday send tweets to Ellen #hostthehobbit and ask her kindly to please spare a moment for us to see her and give her our gifts we labored so hard to make.

Thanks to everyone who has been with us throughout this journey. We can't do this without you and we wouldn't have made it this far without the support of our fans. So, tell your friends, your family, your elderly neighbor, your dog. Tell everyone!  Tell them, that the hobbits are going to New Zealand!