DANCE OF THE GOBLINS/NEW INDIE THINKS EPIC

Strange beasts have been rampaging in the wilds of East Anglia? At least, that is what the village folk are whispering. Could it be true? Or have the locals had too much sauce to keep warm?

Actually, indie shingle Goblin Films has simply been stalking the lush grounds of a Norfolk stately home shooting a trailer to sell its feature length gamble, an epic fantasy titled Dance of the Goblins, .

Still, the activity has aroused interest in the project, from popular magazines to more level headed film news outlets, with producer Denise Channing even fiddling an attention grabbing appearance on the reality television show, Dragon's Den and stirring the interest of a Los Angeles based distributor.

Yes, Channing still needs to find further finance, as it seems that even a low budget epic fantasy costs more than many films.

Channing says, "One of the biggest expenses of the project is having professional prosthetics artists create the goblins."

Channing adds:

"The goblins for Dance of the Goblins are largely humanoid, and more realistic than the little fantasy creatures the audience might expect from films like Harry Potter. But despite their fearsome appearance, they are actually the heroes of the film.

The story is set in the future, five generations after a planetary shift has thrust the humans into a new dark age. Count Anton, the leader of the humans, is aware of the goblins and fascinated by their Shamanic society where The Dance is an expression of spirituality and connection to the earth, to the point where he falls in love with a goblin woman.

Not all of the goblins are scary. Some have an elf-like Lord of the Rings look.

But Talla, the female lead, is atypical even of the goblins of her own grotto. She can shape-shift to human appearance, and her light skin, white hair and eerily white eyes mark her bloodlines as something that even the goblins fear."

For Channing, the making of Goblins has at times seemed like a fairytale in itself. Although this is her first feature, she secured the involvement of Pirates of the Caribbean actor Kevin McNally early on and soon after added award winning director David Heinemann.

Now with the LA distribution set up, she hopes to move on to shooting, with a release in late 2008 or 2009.

Posted March 24, 2008.