Blake Willoughby

The gist of our application
1) We want to create a documentary about people that take part in LARPing. We will call this documentary, Swordcraft Quest!

2) Because we believe in getting involved, we want to enter the world of the LARPers...and take part in the games ourselves and film the epic adventure which is sure to ensue!

Who am I?
My name is Blake Willoughby and I am from a very small, Melbourne based, production company called Aardvarks Anonymous. We are behind a pretty awesome webseries called "Tales From The Table" from the escapistmagazine.com.

Despite being made on a shoestring budget, “Tales from the Table” had 1,000,000 views over the length of the series. We loved it.

Aardvarks Anonymous also had highly successful shows in both the 2010 and 2011 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which we are pretty chuffed about!

What is Swordcraft Quest?
Swordcraft Quest is a documentary that explores the somewhat strange world of LARPing, or Live Action Roleplaying, as people get together for weekends of INTENSE roleplaying in a forest somewhere. Everyone takes on characters within a made up fantasy world of Elves! Orcs! and Dwarves! Imagine World Of Warcraft, in real life.

In Melbourne there is a group of Larpers, who are starting up weekend long events, called Swordcraft Quest, of in-character roleplaying, This is where we come in...

We will join them!
At no point have any of us Aardvarks taken part in anything like LARPing before ..but now a few members of the group are going to dive headfirst into the world of Swordcraft Quest. We will be creating our own fantasy costumes, learning how to battle with weapons, roughing it in tents and around campfires as we attempt to take it to the experts with our ragtag group of adventuring heroes!

We will be filming the lead up to the two weekends as we show our group coming together, creating our own armour and other outfits, working out what weapons are best, planning our strategies and generally giving birth to these characters. We will be interviewing and meeting with people who are deep within the world of fantasy LARPing and explore what it is that interests them to act out adventures and take on completely different personae. All of the participants have different backgrounds, but all unite under the common banner of roleplaying their own awesome fantasies.

With just our small group, we could achieve so much by filming these entire events. We can see whether those of us that attempt these feats are able to handle it.

Here is a link to our webseries, "Tales From The Table" www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/tales-from-the-table

Also check out the Aardvarks Anonymous Youtube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/AardvarksAnonymousCo/videos

For details on the Swordcraft LARP group visit - http://www.swordcraft.com.au/

How will we use the funds?
All funds that go to the project will go into the full production of the documentary, with regard to camera hire, registration and creating the entire thing!