WellingtonÕs Dominion newspaper had an interview with producer Barrie Osborne.There he talked about the hobbits, saying that although the public might recognise stars like Elijah Wood (Frodo) or Ian Holm (Bilbo), they might wonder about some of the others. Osborne revealed that the film would employ hobbit ÔdoublesÕ in the form of a group of people with a rare hormonal growth deficiency different from dwarfism.
“The doubles are pretty special,” said Osborne, “There are four or five of them..two from India, two from England, from Thailand.” They were not easy to find.
He went on to describe the hobbit ÔlookÕ Ð big ears, big feet, big smiles, curly hair Ð all helped by the prosthetics crews.
Each hobbit double is matched to a main actor.
Meanwhile, the ÔstarÕ hobbit actors can be shrunk using computer shrinking, high-rig filming and altered scale ratios.
October the 11th marked the first day of filming, in the Mt. Victoria town belt in Wellington. Filming was scheduled to continue until Christmas next year.
At times work was interrupted by driving rain. Osborne took time to discuss Peter JacksonÕs intention to stick very closely to JRRTÕs story. He also revealed that the hobbits were on their way to film in Bree next. Their scenes at the Ômerry old pubÕ would be filmed in an exterior set in Wellington somewhere, and an interior set in the studio.
A production crew of 400 was involved; travel would be necessary. For the extras, they were told to hold next week clear of commitments when they came for their first filming. Osborne let slip that there might be some orcs around in the coming week.
Before this project, Osborne was the producer for Face/Off and the Matrix, as well as being credited on films such as The Godfather II, All the PresidentÕs Men, The Big Chill, Apocalypse Now, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Good Morning Vietnam.
Thanks to Nanoo-x for the scoop!
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News has reached me from a very reliable source that PJ and crew have lost a MAJOR star. My contact tells me that some scheduled filming has been pushed up a week due to the loss of the said star, no word on who it is. I do not even know if it’s one of the handful that are down in NZ. My contact also tells me that we should expect news from NZ concerning this shortly.
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Recieved this from the Houghton guys:
Houghton’s New improved Tolkien websiteis now live on the web. We haven’t quite arisen from our “quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great,” but its a start.
Same bat-channel, new bat-station…have a look (you’ll only have to watch the animation once, I promise).
www.lordoftheringstrilogy.com
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Picked this up today from Harry over at AICN. I cleaned it up a little for you folks.
From Aicn:
Here we have our first costumed character in the film. Albeit… it is a horse…but still, it’s in a costume. Neigh, a badass bunch of armor…. really primal looking to me. I wanna see more! But.. well, here it is with the scoopy letter…
Dear Harry,
You probably don’t remember me .. I sent in some stuff on LOTR a while ago. Well, I was scanning the newspapers on Monday for anything to write in about LOTR, seeing as how filming was starting then .. and found something just a lil more interesting, i.e. the attachment below. It’s one of the many horses being used, decked out in very cool armour. This is NOT, I repeat NOT a film still, just a photo taken by a photographer for a newspaper here. On a side note, I know the location where this photo, and the filming, took place very well, as my brother lives nearby. And I can tell you, as any Wellingtonian can, the area is totally cool. Very Tolkien. Oh yeh, there’s an article to go with it, but I’ll leave that up to you to say if you want to read it.. I think it’s stuff you’d already know.
Keeping my eyes and ears open for ya,
Chopcloud
Hey folks, Harry here. I was poking around, TheOneRing.Net, and found a report about what had been shooting. Apparently it was the scene in which the Hobbits hide behind a tree stump from a ringwraith. So… the above horsey may in fact be from that scene. Note… these horses are meaner than your average horse.
Thanks to Gandalf, Grey_Pilgrim, Pippin_Took, and Pypesmoke from the Chat room for pointing that out to me!
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Nick, and the guys over at CHUD (CHUD.com) have posted a review of Liv Tyler’s latest flick ‘Plunkett & Macleane’. They describe Tyler’s preformance as: ‘surprisingly tolerable’. owch!
check out the review here.
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