The day-to-day operation of the website, and the events we host, require a lot more resources than when we first started nearly 15 years ago. We sometimes find it hard to ask our readers for the help we need to keep running, so we began discussing what it is that makes TheOneRing.net worth helping out. It started out as a search for the Top Ten Moments of TORn, but the list got so long because each staff member had their own idea of important moments in TORn history. Here, instead, is something more encompassing: Ten Ways TORn helps serve Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fandom (listed in no specific order).

And, if you enjoy what we do, consider a donation (no amount too small, because every bit does help!) to keep us running!

If you can’t, that’s fine as well — keep reading, commenting and contributing. Because TORn is as much you as it is us!

If you’ve ever sent in an article, submitted a photo or report, posted on our messageboards, visited our chat, or commented on our twitter, facebook or g+, you’re the reason TheOneRing.net is among the largest and most-respected pillars of the Tolkien community on the web.

• Spy Reports

• Spy reports were a big part of our content when the website first started. From casting announcements to secret location pictures to leaked images of important plot points, spy reports were our bread and butter stories. Some of the reports were from random, anonymous sources, while others were official leaks from cast and crew. In fact, there were many production members who said they used TheOneRing.net to keep track of what some of the other filming units were doing. Other spy reports were just someone stumbling upon a film location and sending in a story or images and then we’d all try and guess what location it actually was. Some of our biggest spy reports were of Arwen at Helm’s Deep (which subsequently didn’t happen), Saruman’s prone body on a spiky wheel (which did happen), and TheOneRing.net was given the honor of introducing Thorin to the world. And very soon, we will be seeing stories from MrCere’s visit to the set from his Production Embed last year.

• Hall of Fire Chats and the Message Boards

• Literary discussions on the message boards and Hall of Fire chats – From the very beginning of TheOneRing.net, discussions of the books, chapter by chapter, has been a hallmark. After all, while we waited for news on who would be cast, where filming would take place, and rumors of what might be cut out, we had the books to talk about. Discussions worked by talking about one chapter at a time, and luckily, there are enough books with enough chapters, to keep those discussions going on for a long while. Since the beginning, we’ve looped through the books several times, but luckily, there are always new readers joining the discussion, and new interpretations to be had. And for something a little more dynamic, there are the Hall of Fire chats in Barlimans. Sometimes the talk is about a specific chapter, or a certain character, and sometimes it is about current events, such as new character images or reviews of a recently released trailer. No matter which forum you use, there is always someone to talk to about some aspect of Tolkien, the books or our fandom.

• TORns Live Videos

• We began with TORn Live, which consisted of Red Carpet interviews at premieres, awards ceremonies and special events like Cannes 2001 and SDCC. These would be recorded, edited and released online a few days or weeks later. But technology now allows for live streaming interviews and vlogs and the like. Quickbeam hosts a weekly TORn Tuesday event with interviews and discussions, while he interacts with a live chatroom. The Happy Hobbit ladies record and post their vlogs and post them within a day or two of their recordings, for a much quicker turnaround on video content. And right now we have the Road to DragonCon in full swing with live streaming from across the country.

• Conventions

• Convention appearances – Calisuri and Quickbeam hosted a panel at San Diego Comic Con in 2001, before the release of FOTR, and since then barely a year has gone by that TORn hasn’t had a presence at at least one convention. At many of the conventions we appear at we also have a presence on the exhibit hall floor where we have sold some of our classic TORn shirts. We love it when we get up on stage for a panel and half the people in the audience are wearing some of our older shirts.

•  

  

  Baggins Birthday Party sign

  Line Parties and Fan Events

• Line Parties and other fan hosted events – TheOneRing.net has always been a grass roots type of fan-site and that is no more apparent then looking at the Line Parties of years past. Whether it is just a few friends, or some hundreds of people signing up on the website to attend, fans like you all over the world hosted Line Parties. A few even took place over several days, and included costume contests and trivia games for prizes. Other fan hosted events over the years have been the Hobbit Day/Baggins Birthday Bash events on Sept. 22, the Tolkien Toast on Jan. 3 and the Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. TORn staff in Los Angeles have been hosting a Baggins Birthday Bash party for 11 years now, but there are fan groups around the world that have hosted similar events. Smaller moots happen around the world all the time, there is a very active group in Wellington and one in Croatia. If you are hosting a fan event in the next year or two, please feel free to tell us about it.

• The Oscar Parties

• Originally conceived as a fan event to help raise funds to buy TORn a new server, who could have imagined the Cast and Crew actually showing up to the FOTR oscar party? Even more surprising, who could have imagined the ROTK sweep and all those Oscars on stage at a fan hosted party?

• O.R.C and E.L.F.

• TheOneRing.net hosted conventions – The One Ring Celebration on the West Coast (O.R.C.) and the Eastern Lord of the Rings Festival on the East Coast (E.L.F.) were co-productions with a professional convention company, but they definitely had a TORn stamp on them. The conventions allowed us to combine our love of the films by interacting with cast and crew with our love of the books through academic discussions, the art shows and costume displays. We really did break the mold on how a commercial scifi convention is run and hope everyone who attended had a blast.

• Academic essays and editorials

• TORn has long standing relationships with many in the academic community who have posted guest essays and editorials. Over the year several staffers have posted in depth analysis to fan questions on the site as well. In fact, we have a whole section on the ‘old TORn’ (pre-crash) called Green Books for academic posts. This section had so much good stuff in it, we published a book called “The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien” and a sequel book as well.

• Driving fan initiatives

• After Return of the King was done and Peter Jackson moved on to do King Kong, the fans waited to see what would happen with The Hobbit afterwards. Months turned to years and still no word while studios went bankrupt, copyrights issues got tangled up and various lawsuits were filed for missing payments. Finally, a few fans decided they had had enough and started a petition to ‘Make the Hobbit Happen’. They brought it to TORn and we got thousands of you to sign so that a big pile of names was delivered to TPTB. A similar thing happened when there was talk that the production would be moved out of New Zealand. The fans could see no where else as Middle-earth, so the ‘Keep the Hobbit in NZ’ campaign was born, but this time on Social Media. And most recently, there was an explosion of Tolkien fan love over the #Votebilbo twitter event prompted by an MTV Audience Award.

• TORn Community

• This list compiles many of the things that TheOneRing.net does to keep you informed, entertained and engaged, but there is really just one thing that makes TheOneRing.net so important to keep around. And that is the community of fans that convene on our message boards, in Barliman’s chat, on Facebook and Twitter.

This site was built by fans getting together to discuss what they hoped for from Peter Jackson long before FOTR ever saw the light of day. The fact that a long existing fan-base gathered here meant engaged and informed discussion began from day one, including analyzing all the spy reports about casting and location details. We didn’t have to wait for the release of the films, or for several episodes of a new show to take off before we could discuss the minutia of every detail because our fan base was already well established.

And what is ‘fandom’ if not a community of like minded people passionate about the same thing. Sure, everyone has their own opinions, so every time a new image was released, or a new trailer appeared, the message boards and chatroom erupted into heated discussions. But as the years wore on friendships were made, some turning into marriage, and we all began meeting up at various moots, conventions, concerts, premiere events, trips to New Zealand or just coffee and a movie. How many of you newer fans were galvanized by the #Votebilbo campaign and now have a wider array of Twitter friends because of it? The fact that TORn was able to continue to exist during all those lean years between film productions is due mostly to you, the readers, sticking around to discuss anything and everything to do with Tolkien, and sometimes other bits of pop culture. We know that after the release of The Hobbit: There and Back Again we will see another decline of readership, but we also know that the community is strong, the friendships have been forged and all of you take that fandom with you where ever you go next.

So again, if you are so inclined to help support us and keep the website going, please do make a pledge or bid on one of the many cool auction items we’ve been posting about the past few days. On behalf of the All Volunteer Staff at TheOneRing.net, you have our deepest gratitude for all the support over the years.

Martin Freeman waves goodbye on his last day as Bilbo Baggins.

Jackson, who shares photos and videos on his Facebook page, captioned a photo of Bilbo waving goodbye:

“Tonight Martin Freeman finished his last shot as Bilbo Baggins. The end of an incredible two and a half years. I cannot imagine anyone else in this role – a character that Martin has nurtured and crafted with love and great skill.

We have said goodbye to our elves, humans, wizards and now the hobbit. We now enter our final 2 weeks of pick-ups, and it’s wall to wall dwarves. These pick-ups have been gruelling and intense, but I’m so happy with what we’ve been shooting. These next two movies are going to be pretty great!”

Martin Freeman as Bilbo with Benedict Cumberbatch.

All reports and word from Jackson indicates there will not be pickup shooting next year but Jackson had a period of these after ever LOTR film and it is tempting to suggest there will be more next year. But with such a large principal cast, such an effort might be impossible because of scheduling.

Still in Wellington are the Company of Dwarves which could mean a heavy dose of battle scenes as audiences will want to follow each of them in battle. The book plotting calls for ferocious and deadly action.

Luke Evans, playing the enigmatic Bard the Bowman in “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” also tweeted that his last day on the film is over. Evans’ Tweet suggests he is off to work as Dracula after a summer where his “Fast & Furious 6″ did big business at the box office.

Graham McTavish also tweeted his farewells to Freeman.

Jed Brophy (Nori), Adam Brown (Ori) Mark Hadlow (Dori), Dean O’Gorman (Fili) Aidan Turner (Kili) John Callen (Oin), Peter Hambleton (Gloin), Stephen Hunter (Bombur), William Kircher (Bifur), James Nesbitt (Bofur),  Graham McTavish (Dwalin).

Also Sylvester McCoy (Radagast the Brown) will be there doing a panel and is signing autographs all 3 days.

Resident hot dwarves Aidan Turner (Kili)  and Dean O’Gorman (Fili) will be signing and hosting photo sessions individually on Sunday only.

Check out the official website for more info! [Official Site] [Tickets]

Update 1: According to some sources, this is a sculptural representation of the Dragon from the cgi animated show ‘Jane and the Dragon.’ The show, co-produced and created by WETA Workshop is a likely candidate for something to appear in the Roxy, but upon further review of the Dragon from the show, it looks nothing like this particular sculpture. [seen here]

Update 2: The ‘beak’ of this Dragon does not seem to resemble the very brief ‘nose’ we see at the end of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. [Seen Here]

Update 3: The largest piece of evidence that this is NOT Smaug is the fact that our phones are not ringing off the hook from official entities. That is a pretty clear indicator that we are not shedding light on something that is ‘top secret.’ They are all probably sitting back and having a good chuckle as our fan community goes a little crazy for a few hours

Potential Spoilers Ahead! We cannot imagine a scenario in which the production would release an image, or in this case, a sculpture of Smaug prematurely. Yet here we are with an image from a theater in Wellington of a large dragon statue. Here’s the full report from the Ringer Arowin:

So, we went to the new Star Trek movie last night at Roxy Cinema here in Miramar, Wellington and when we came out a statue was sitting in the middle of the foyer which either we missed or was put there during the movie.
Not saying it’s Smaug or anything, but I took a picture for you to make your own mind up about it!

The statue placement is usually reserved for statues of characters from PJ films. THey’ve had TinTin, Gandalf, Gollum etc

We are including the image after the break in case you don’t want to be spoiled and this is actually Smaug from “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”!

Do we think this is Smaug? If you look closely at the eye in the picture and compare it to the eye from the end of “An Unexpected Journey” there could be similarities, but ultimately the fact that this statue is existing for all of the public to see right now in Wellington, makes it highly unlikely this is the real thing. That would just be crazy!

If you are in The Roxy soon, snag some more pics and send them our way!

Jed was a great host along side Peter Jackson who explained certain things on the way to the editing room, we saw snippets of work in progress, Azog and an Orc in motion capture, some Pre-Viz of Smaug the Dragon, of whom we only saw snippets of in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which is akin to the unfinished Gollum in his first but brief appearance in Fellowship of The Ring, before he was fully realized as a digital character in the Two Towers, he was a mere shadow of himself you could say..

Peter Jackson must have been walking around in bare feet all the way because I didn’t see him taking off his shoes on the way to the editing room..

Once there they made themselves comfortable, and they showed us one scene of Bilbo with the dwarves  and Bard the Bowman in a boat, who is transporting them across to Laketown just after picking them up in the barrels from the river, Peter explained about all the various camera angles which he used for that scene and how he could choose one from them for the final edit.

Then we were greeted and introduced to some new and old new actors, who will appear in the second movie the Desolation of Smaug, via a pre-recorded video, and then caught glimpse’s of them in character and in action on set.

A few fans were lucky enough to have their questions answered too, and we were presented with video or artwork of the new locations as answers, and a very tasty teaser of things to come, Very Cool!

So much was said in that one hour, and with only a one off chance (before the modified version landed on the net) of trying to take it all in, I took it upon myself to transcribe what I heard, this took away the flutter of videos and pictures, and let me hear what was being said and there were quite a few interesting things as you can read below:

Transcript:

Jed: Thank you for joining us here at Park Road Post. I’m Jed Brophy I play ‘Nori’ in the hobbit, films,  this morning you get to see behind the scenes, how we make these movies and where we make them and later on you get to ask Sir Peter Jackson some questions live, and speaking of which, its Peter Jackson himself, Morning Peter.

PJ: Jed how are you?
Jed: Very good nice to see
PJ: Great thank you, and here are all our folk tuning in, thank very much for making the time in your day or your night, speaking of which, for most of you in the America’s or Europe its Sunday March the 24th, not only is this live there actually a time travel element to this because of you look at today’s paper, down here in New Zealand its the 25th of march, Monday its 8:00 o’clock in the morning on Monday so your actually going ahead into time not just live, and I’ll tell you what look out your windows 7:00 o’clock Monday morning it’s amazing, spoiler alert but its incredible

Jed: bizarre there’s more of you cricket English cricket fans

PJ: Because England and New Zealand are playing a very intense game of cricket at the moment and just for the fans in England we thought you might like to look at the back of paper, yesterdays paper,  never mind, never mind lets ah move on

Jed: What are we going to look at today?

PJ: Well, we are going to end up in the cutting room, most of this is going to take place in the cutting room, but before we get there I just wanted to give everyone a tour, around our building for those of you how’ve watched our blogs Stone Street Studios where the filming is done about hundred yards down the road, and so this is our post production place, were we find ourselves for months and months after the film is finished, and this is the motion caption stage, performance capture stage, and Christian is doing in the middle of doing a bit of motion capture for the second Hobbit movie

Christian:.. Where doing the part where Azgo’s um and the Orcs…

PJ: All right spoiler alert, spoiler alert, let’s just stick to the look this is Azog you  see Azog, one of our chief Orc’s he’s actually friendly when he’s in a motion capture suit, more friendly then he is in the movie

*cut* to movie posters

PJ: Seven or Eight years old

Jed: Fantastic

PJ: Good movie

Jed: oh what have we got here?

PJ: Well this is a poster collection (six sheets) it’s a size. of a poster they don’t make any more, I’ve spent a few years trying to collect every James bond six sheet / 3 sheet, so this is just like the James Bond walk of fame

Jed: Wow

PJ: Its good

Jed: Which is your favorite?

PJ: Well this is the first bond movie I saw live and let die, but you know the posters, in the old days where just fantastic

Jed: Yeah

PJ: They used to paint movie posters, which

Jed: Alright

PJ: Never happens anymore unfortunately

PJ: That’s a great poster isn’t it?

Jed: Yeah it is,

PJ: You Never Live Twice

Jed: The detail in it is amazing

PJ: We should walk down this corridor and makes you feel good

Jed: Yeah, Yeah, you’ve got room for the ones coming up

PJ: Yeah, we got room for all of them, yep, yep

PJ: Now were are heading into the Pre-Viz department

Jed: That stands for per-visualization

*walks through doors*

PJ: Which is like story boards, except we really don’t do story boards any more we do these, like, like, animated you know animated…some sequences, which we work on for quite a few months, before we give them to Weta Digital for the final shots, and we have quite a lot of people working for this department its a big team

PJ: Hey guys

Jed: How’s it going?

PJ: Yeah so we got a little bit of spider work happening over here, Ah Christian

Jed: Ah, Christian

PJ: Christian is here, yep, so Christian has been working on um, designs for Smaug ,the dragon

Christian: ….

PJ: Let’s just have a little quick peek these are all friends, you’re not going to put this on the internet are you? let’s just have a quick look

PJ: Looks like he’s coming along well Christian

Christian: Yeah I kind of ah….we came up with this ourselves

PJ: Yeah that’s fantastic, no your doing so good, its original, great okay, keep up the good work

Jed: I don’t find it very scary

PJ: (whispers something I can’t hear to the camera), let’s keep going

Jed: Hey

PJ: Hey guys

PJ: So what we got? this is another Smaug is it?

Weta Motion capture guy: Ah some motion studies yeah, some ideas, what do you think

PJ: Yeah it looks a lot like kind a T-Rex with wings

Weta Motion capture guy: So close?

PJ: Well close no not close don’t think you close, But I think your wings should be bigger anyway, if a T-Rex is ever going to take off its going to need much bigger wings than that

Jed: We got a wee way to go

PJ: Shall we carry on

Jed: So these are some of the artworks from the Pre-Vis?

PJ: When you’re doing Pre-Vis you got to actually build a model of the set so you know, can actually portray the scenes, this is uh a set that we built for uh, it’s the Rivendell library, that we never used in the movies at the end of the day it was a sequence we never shot we cut that from the script before it ever got shot but we did do some early Pre-Vis on it

PJ: So we are officially entering the editing department now, and the first room is the room with all the brave editing team, the editing of this movie wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for all these people at the height of all there professional powers

Jed: The claim all this room the bunker  don’t they? The bunker

PJ: The bunker yep

Jed: Bunker

PJ: How’s it going guys alright?

Editing staff: Yeah

*spoiler on a monitor *

PJ: whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, lets don’t put ah oh dear oh dear

Jed: The elves are always watching, always

PJ: So now let’s head down the corridor, and then we will make ourselves comfortable, alright

Jed: That’s my favorite, Gold finger, everything he touch’s turns into excitement, just like my carrier

PJ: Hah, alright through here Jed

PJ: Here we are this is the editing room

Jed: Wow

PJ: Yep, its, its ah always a bit strange because, you know when we are shooting a movie, where dealing with two to three hundred people on set and, and while there’s a lot of people working on the film in post-production, Weta Digital and the sound, once I’ve done with shooting the film, I suddenly me and Jabez this is Jabez Olssen

Jed: Good to see ya

PJ: Its ah just me and Jabez in this room alone, so it’s a bit of a culture shock you know to suddenly

Jed: Big TV

PJ: Big TV, yeah, yeah

Jed: How big is that?

PJ: Um, I think it’s about one hundred and three inches

Jed: Wow

PJ: Yeah, no I know it’s good I, there is a reason why the TV is so big it’s not just  kind of an indulgence, because its, in the old days we used edit  movies on a little screen… and it was strange because you spend months editing a movie on a on a screen this size, and then when you finally projected it the cinema, which you do once you done you always had to go back to change the cut, because the difference in the rhythms and pacing between the small screen and the big screen, was, was strange was unexpected and so having the biggest screen as possible like literally, the biggest screen we could find to cut on is actually giving use the best sense we can, what it’s going to be like in the cinema

Jed: Right, so this is more like the end result

PJ: Yeah its so much better than cutting on a monitor screen size screen, um its good… I’ve got my poster this was on my bedroom wall when I was a kid

*One Million Years B.C* Poster

Jed: Really this actual poster?

PJ: Yeah

Jed: Have, have you got a copy of the movie?

PJ: I did, yeah it’s a okay, but it wasn’t really about the movie the dinosaurs where cool and Raquel Welch was cool for a teenage boy it is a very good poster on the wall

Jed: Indeed

PJ: So yes anyway, so we want to just um, before we get started we got questions, um that we are looking forward to answering and a, few bits and pieces, few surprise guests coming on but um, I thought I’d give everyone a little sense of what we do in the cutting room, because you know, when people are editing the movie it’s a little bit mysterious and um, I thought it would be fun for you know Jabez and I to just walk you through this you  where in the scene (Jed), we shot this about a year ago?

Jed: We did, yeah April last year

PJ: And um.. it’s a scene its very, just like a little piece of the scene were Bard is taking the dwarves across the lake, towards Laketown it’s the first time they have been to lake town are with Bard, he’s collected these barrels from the river, those of you that have read the hobbit kinda know where abouts  in the story we are, for those who haven’t look forward too it in December but um, I just wanted to give you a sense of how we kind of put these scenes together, it’s pretty much what we do every day, for months and months and months it takes months … takes months to do that

Jed: Yeah

PJ: We tend to shoot quite a fair bit of footage Jed, which is great

Jed: Yeah…we do year, I enjoyed it, that part

PJ: So um, as a director where shooting I’ve got to try to figure out  what camera angles your shoo ing, so you , you know generally you shoot a master a wide shoot, and we can have a look at example of a master  and will go wide for this particular scene, and then you,you, once , sometimes i don’t have a plan at all I shoot the master, then I’ll walk around and decide on what coverage, it’s called converge, which is basically the close up shots, the tighter shots that we would do once we done the wide, so this is uh, our wide shoot of the scene, the boats travelling, its  moving, its static where, where we shot because  it was easier to do that way but in the movie it’ll look its travelling across the lake hence all the green screen around it, so these are unfinished shots

Jabez: yep

PJ: But this will give you a sense of the process, so Jabez and I kinda go through

Bilbo: “I should never have left Bag End that was our first mistake .”, “you know we have a saying the shire, we learn it from birth never venture east”,  woman’s voice: “so tell me master hobbit why did you venture”

Bilbo: “I should never have left Bag End that was our first mistake,  “You know we have a saying the shire, we learn it from birth never venture east”  woman’s voice: “so tell me master hobbit why did you venture..”

PJ: So that was a couple of takes, and, and, how long,

Jabez: We got more than that

PJ: And um yeah, the interesting thing about Martin in particular since this is the line of Martins is that I always love the way he does a completely different performance each take

Jed: He does always take you by surprise quite a lot

PJ: Yeah, you get the idea that you know, he’s experimenting with how he can push and shove and work the lines around, just you know it’s always interesting, interesting to watch, so this is another angle, so now, what I’ve done is come in for, what you probably call a midshot I mean this is a particularly good shot, because Jeds is..

Jed: Right there, im right in the corner,  It is one of the better shots Jed isn’t it?

Jed: It is

PJ:  And um we but probably won’t…, let’s have a look at it you may not see it in the movie, so let’s look at it with Jed in the room here, okay this is the same line again from a midshot size, this is take one.

Bilbo: “I should never have left Bag End that was our first mistake”,  “Do you know we have an old saying the shire, we learn it from birth we never venture east”  woman’s voice: “so tell me master hobbit why did you..”

Bilbo: ” I should left never Bag End  “You know we have an saying the shire, we learn it from birth we never venture east”

PJ: And take three, lets have a look at the third one

Bilbo: “I should never have left Bag End  “You know we have an saying the shire, we learn it from birth we never venture east” female voice “so tell me master hobbit..”

PJ: Yeah so you can sorta see it’s great  because Martin gives you all these great choices its interesting too because on the wider shot, Martins performance, which tends to happen with, with, many actors um  performance a little bigger, because the camera is further away and as you bring the camera closer in, it’s a natural instant too play

Jed: Draw the audience in

PJ: Yeah you draw the audience in, so, so it’s interesting

Jed: Also the first time you do it with when your doing the wide-shot you’re not really sure how things are going to go because you..

PJ: It’s almost like a rehearsal isn’t?

Jabez: That’s if you shoot the wide shots first

PJ: Yeah which we usually do try to , I mean normal practice in a movie is to shoot your wide shots first it’s its almost like a rehearsal, you just do as many takes you need to get it working and too give you the pieces of the wide I wanna use , but generally, you know, I,I use wide’s and you use them sparingly you know to set the scene, and the geography for where everybody is, but, but most of the time you want to go to these kinds of shots, this is the a third angle we got now, where we look at the camera very low inside the boat, where low because, we, were really featuring our Aidan who plays Kili

Jed: He’s the hot dwarve

PJ: Well I yeah, he’s one of them

Jed: He’s one of them

PJ: We got two hot dwarves in the shot

Jed: Yeah

PJ: So, so let’s have a look at um this angel here, so again this is a different performance again everything your seeing is a different performance each time.

Bilbo: “I should never have left Bag End that was our first mistake,  “You know we have an old  saying the shire, we learn it from birth never venture east”  woman’s voice: “so tell me master hobbit why did you venture..”

PJ: Take two

Bilbo: ” never have left Bag End that was our first mistake,  “You know we have an old saying the shire, we learn it from birth never venture east”  woman’s voice: “so tell me master hobbit why did you venture..”

PJ: So what’s interesting about that, was that the camera was following him up, and it was deliberate because I wanted to have Martin down below and let him pop out of the top of the shot because I thought that might potentially cutting point, that he exits the top of the frame and I could jump to a slightly wider shot,  then we did, did chase him up to get the tail end of the line so I got the choice of using the tail end as a punch in on this close up too, because, see you sometimes when you are directing, your making those kind of decisions, um as you go

PJ: So there’s another angel here so let’s have a look at some more takes, so this one has got Bilbo and the hot dwarve

Bilbo: “never have left Bag End that was our first mistake, in the Shire we have this old saying we’ve known it since birth…”

Bilbo: “I should never have left Bag End that was my first mistake” in the Shire we have an old saying we’ve know in it since birth, never venture east!”

PJ: Yeah, basically that was different angles to cover Martin’s line, and then we shot other angels on other characters receiving the line so we can cut to reaction shots. as we need too, this was practically a long scene to shoot because as I said it was three or four pages long, and um it took us a couple of days to go through it all, but um we’ll just have a very quick look we’ll  show you how  we ended up cutting that little bit in the movie, just a few seconds long, and then ah we’ll move on with some more of our live event.

Kili: “It’s nothing, just a scratch”

Biblo: Its more than just a scratch it’s a wound, Goblins, Trolls, Wargs, none of that was in the contract, I should never have left Bag End that was my first mistake, we have an little saying in the Shire, we learn it from birth, never venture east!”

Bard: “so tell me master hobbit, why did you venture east?”

PJ: So that was the first look at Luke Evans, as Bard the bowman, now Luke has sent us a message, he wanted to say hi to everybody tuning into this live event, so  shall we have a look at what Luke has to say

Luke Evans:
Hello everyone, this is Luke Evans, I play Bard The Bowman, um i unfortunately won’t be able to be at the live event , um uh gutted that I can’t be there to seems like it’s going to be a very fun uh day and Pete is going to give lots of tidbits about the second movie, but i thought I would like to join in and say hello, and say how exciting I am about, ah the second movie and seeing what Pete’s actually done so far, what he’s done with my character, um with Bard, looking forward in seeing how Bard is shaping up in the second film, uh its uh been quite awhile since I’ve played him now, last august was the last time so, I’m looking forward to coming back in June, and uh I get to put on the costume and the hair , the character and jump back into middle-earth which um I’ve missed quite a lot ah, so have a great day and ah just say hi to Pete, look forward to seeing you soon again my friend, and uh hello to all the fans, TheOneringe’rs, the Hobbitier’s, whatever else you want to call yourself your all fabulous, love your work, bye.

Jed: Bye Luke

PJ: Great

Jed: Yeah so, when are you going to tell him he’s not in the movie anymore?

PJ: He’s absolutely  in the movie the Jed we couldn’t lose Luke he’s fantastic, he is one of the really cool things in the second film

Jed: Yeah he is

PJ: Yeah there might be the odd dwarves’ who expendable, depending on behavior

Jabez: There are a lot of them

PJ: Yeah there are a lot of them yeah

Jed: Well I actually wanted to remind the viewers right now we do have a hash tag on the screen now, its hash tag ask peter live, and be sure to send in your questions to Peter you use the hash tag and we’ll be answering those live later on in the show

PJ: If I was to send a question in, if I can just say if I can send a question in over twitter I’d be saying, it will be a question for Jed, and I’ll be saying why the silly hair style?

PJ: Because at least in the movie we get to cover it with a wig

Jed: This is just, this was all done by Weta this whole lot

PJ: Okay great so were on,  we’ve got some video questions I think, that we are going to be looking at, some of you very kindly sent in some questions over YouTube and we’ve selected a few and we’ve prerecorded our answers because we wanted actually edit in some clips and it was the easiest way for us to do that so you get to see some little glimpses of The Desolation of Smuag, so let’s look at it your questions, thank you.

PJ: So I have your questions here on the iPad, and we’ll have a look at them

Chris In The United States:  Hey Peter Chris here hope all is well, I’ve heard it said that for you and your writers, the most difficult chapter in the lord of the rings trilogy to craft as a story was the Two Towers and that totally made sense being the middle chapter it has no definitive beginning and it doesn’t have a conclusive ending, um I was just curious if last year when you guys went from two films of the Hobbit to three films, if there was at least one or two or three moments, where your kind of kicking yourself going “ah we’ve just resurrected old problems giving ourselves, again that middle chapter”, so I guess my question to you is how has the process now been? on gong from two to three, and finding the emotional arc for this middle chapter Desolation of Smuag. Thanks

PJ: Yeah Well your right, I mean it is complicated to do a middle film um, but the advantages is that we have multiple story lines this time, the first of the Hobbit movies is a fairly liner film, you know Gandalf leads the dwarves, across middle-earth in the beginning of his adventure, the great thing about the second movie, as it was with the two towers actually is that the story starts to split into multiple story lines and we can follow different characters, as the story intensifies, and the stakes go up.

* Thranduil shots talking to captured dwarves*

PJ: When Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in 1937, he created the character Thranduil who is now being played by Lee Pace and some ten or fifteen years later, as he was writing the Lord of the rings, he wanted an elvish character to be part of the fellowship so he created Legolas, so when we visit the Woodland realm in the Hobbit it just seemed like a great opportunity for us to actually have Legolas there, he is Thranduil son and it just seemed natural, it also gives us a ability too, expand the story line for the Wood Elves something we where very interested in doing, we also go into the world of men, as well to Laketown and we .. The Master played by Stephen Fry.

*Stephen Fry dressed up as the The Master*

Stephen Fry: Now he’s here, he’s here the Master

PJ: Alfred his man servant, the Master of Laketown is, is a rather political figure in terms of the story line he does present an obstacle to the dwarves

PJ: So he’s a valuable character to have, and Stephen Fry just seemed like a natural to us.

Stephen Fry: I’m savvy… somebody has to take over the mantle from Orlando Bloom, as the most desirable figure to be in a Tolkien adaptation

PJ: There was a lot of Ironic humor, um an sartorial kind of edge to the Master in the way he, in the book Tolkien wrote, plus we certainly used that tone in the film, but rather than talk about the Master why don’t we actually hear from the man himself Stephen

Stephen Fry:  Hello this is Stephen Fry here, I play the Master of Laketown, in The Hobbit two the desolation of Smaug, I can’t tell you sorry that I’m not in New Zealand at the moment, as we speak England is decimating New Zealand in cricket so that’s irrelevant that not the reason I want to be in New Zealand, though it’s good enough, I want to be in New Zealand because it’s a lovely place to be, but mostly because I just loved working on the Hobbit, um my part is in the Hobbit two and possibly The Hobbit three I don’t know, part of the glories book, magnificent book…

PJ: Surely Stephen won’t mind if we answer another question

Shaung Lui – China: Hello Peter we are from Beijing China we want to ask you some questions, I really like the role Legolas and uh its player Orlando Bloom, what’s the reason you choose him to play this role? um does he have some similarities with this role

PJ:  Bloom doesn’t really have similarities to Legolas, he’s much more relaxed, laid back and is a really funny guy

PJ: were as Legolas tends to be a little um up tight shall we say

*exchange between Thranduil and Legolas*

PJ: So no I mean Orlando brings Legolas alive brilliantly as an actor but the character is very different to Orlando in person, in fact um why don’t we say hi to Orlando

Orlando Bloom: To all my dear friends, and what quite honestly my extended family at this point, down in New Zealand, Peter all the fans down there, I heard it’s a live event I’m really, sorry I can’t be there, nobody understands these worlds or this character quite like Peter so I um, I have a question for Peter, out of your crazy wild creative imitation, what moment are you most looking forward to seeing and appear on the screen? You don’t have to say Legolas, we all know it’s who its goanna be

PJ: Anything your in Orlando, anything thing your in is obviously brilliant, in fact so good we don’t need to debate it here, people can see for themselves in December, but um in terms of other scenes that other people are in I would say the confrontation between Smaug and Bilbo

*Shots of Smaug Lair with Bilbo*

Martin Freeman: Smaug,  just woken up, so knows someone’s there, I have to put the ring on..

PJ: It’s probably the highlight of this particular movie for me it’s such an iconic Tolkien scene

PJ: We’ll just pop back to London to see if Stephen has anything more to add

Stephen Fry: Eye levels, orange spots and all that,  more or less  is my feeling is traditional acting, in real sets astonishing quality, I’m a extremely greedy character uh, uh corrupt character and its perhaps the only moment in wherein the Hobbit Tolkien gets into a bit of politics, satire on you know local government uh, I can’t tell you what kind of end I come too, um because I don’t actually know, that’s the mystery, I’m going back to help complete the film and we all hope that you get as much pleasure out of it as we have derived from making it..

*PJ flicks to next question*

Marinia – Canada: Hello Peter, my name is Marina, I want to ask will there be new characters and who they are, Hobbit’s is a great movie and love it uh thanks for watching me and I hope you will answer my question

PJ: Yeah well I mean the Hobbit has a lot of new characters um, that appear in the second movie the Desolation Of Smaug um, Thranduil who we saw very briefly in the prolog in the Unexpected Journey, Luke Evens as Bard the bowman

*cut to Luke Evans at Stone Street Studios*

Luke Evans: To all those brilliant fans, and I know there’s millions of you, I’m Bard the Bowman I’m part of the family now, am ah very glad to be here.

*cut back to editing room*

PJ: Luke is an absolutely traffic actor, and he has created a character with a sense of enigma about him he has a kind of almost Robin Hoodish kinda mystery slightly shady background

*shots of Bard in action*

PJ: Were having a lot of fun, a lot of fun with that character not really knowing whether he is a good guy or bad guy

*shoots of Tauriel*

PJ: But in terms of a new character if you literally want to say new character, in other words a character that doesn’t appear in Tolkien’s book we have created an Elvish character female character called Tauriel and Tauriel is like this bodyguard of the of Thranduil, she’s part of the elvens Woodland Guard, we call them there not the high elves, they are a more lowly form of elf, she certainly hasn’t got the status of say Legolas who’s the king’s son Evangeline Lilly plays Tauriel and where quite excited about the story line that we have created for Tauriel

*shots of Tauriel speaking elvish*

PJ: As you can see she’s uh, she’s not an elf guard to mess with

PJ: We have one last question so let’s have a look at that

Three kids from Brazil: Hi Mr Jackson I’m .. I’m … and where your biggest LOTR fans from brazil, um we recently moved to Brazil and LOTR has been in our family for many years, my older brother and sister where huge LOTR fans and went to premieres and uh your first movies of the Lord of The Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring and uh Return of the King, ah today we have a question for you our question is, what is your favorite Lord of The Rings or Hobbit weapon? ours you can see here Gloin’s and Gimli’s battle axe and or throwing axe all of his axes and uh yeah well it was an honor to be speaking to you, I hope you can answer our question,  bye, bye

PJ: Sure love to answer your question, just happen to have my favorite Lord of The Rings weapon here, here it is its um Théoden’s sword, from Two Towers and Return of the King, Théoden  um played by Bernard Hill, I just love this design of it, I love the fact it’s got sort of horses, um pretty much the culture of Rohan, it’s based on a almost Viking sword or Anglo-Saxon, early Anglo-Saxon sword, which is how the world of Rohan was really designed in the movies, and its, very, very heavy, I mean this is a real sword, its steel and brass, and it feels good, it actually very heavy you’d be surprised at how heavy it is, obviously when we were doing fight scenes, we usually create a much more light weight version of the sword for the actors to use, you wouldn’t wanna do .. anybody to get hit by this thing, and uh it is like a real sword, weapon made of steel , but look thank you very much for submitting those questions, it was a lot of fun and um, shall we just pop back to London and see how Stephens going

Stephen Fry: .. devoted to the Lord of The Rings trilogy and the first of the hobbits so we have a lot to um you know live up to I hope we done and give you some pleasure and some comedy  as well as the share delight, the human spirit shines out, it is one of the great paradoxes of fantasy. It is true fantasy and humanity shines out … anyway not through.. I’m probably talking far ,far to much, and just wanted to say all my love sorry I can’t be at Peters side doing this very special DVD Extra, much love.

*PJ switches off Video*

PJ: Sorry about that Stephen I love you, but honesty you can’t expect to make those comments about the New Zealand cricket team, and get away unscathed, alright

Jed: Will we actually we have our first twitter question on screen right now, and is, Mr.Jackson during the film process how difficult is it too stay on track on plans?

PJ: I can very difficult, I mean, you know staying on schedule and on obliviously on budget is incredibly important, there’s nothing more stressful than going over budget on a movie but ah, sometimes you don’t have any control over it particularly with weather you know if we are filming outside and especially if you’re in a remote location and it happens to be pouring with rain, there’s not a lot we can do about we didn’t have a lot of that on this film didn’t we,  it once or twice?

Jed: We had that one, two days at the end of location that we had to..

Jabez: That flooded out Nelson

PJ: Yeah we had to leave Nelson, which is actually a location that appears in the Desolation of Smaug, um where the dwarves are going down  a river in barrels and we the police turn up on set telling us there was a flood warning there was a torrential storm about to hit us so we literally had to get everything out of there about two days ahead than we plan to, so those things are stressful but, you know, what I do in the morning is I show up I look at the script you know at I have to film that day, I rehearse with the cast first thing we do on  a day shooting and then you literally plan out how many shots you can do that day, you know it depends on how difficult the shots are and how difficult the scene is it can vary, the number of camera angle shots, you can get in a particular day um, some days its as little as six or seven other days it could twelve or fourteen, and so you kind of know and you sit there and you plan it and actually you plow your way through the day to try to get to the end of it. but yup it is, one of the most stressful things about film making

Jed: We actually have another question, another video question for Peter, so ah shall we have a look to see who it is

Stephen Colbert: Peter Jackson, Stephen Colbert I got a question for you about the elves of Mirkwood or as it used to be called Greenwood The Great, now, here’s Mirkwood up here, I wanna know whether  your making a diffraction between Thranduil and Legolas who are Sindarin and the elves who live in Mirkwood, their subjects who are “Avari” or “Noldor” or a mixture of “Avari” “Noldor” and Sindarin but there are lesser elves than Thranduil and Legolas in the Tolkien methous, are you showing that diffraction, that these elves are members of the ” Avari ” who did not heed the call around the shores of the Lake Cuivienen When Orome. came and called them to Valinor, are you taking that into consideration? Thank You

PJ: Yes, the answer to your question Stephen is yes, but  I have actually have a question for you Stephen Colbert, you where very kind to invite me on your show last year and anyone who appears on the show, Jabez do you mind just handing me your mug, anyone who appears on the Colbert report show gets a free mug which is nice but it is quite small and when I was sitting at the table being interviewed, there was a much bigger mug sitting there and you know I like to have a big cup of tea several times a day and so I just happen to walk out with the largest sized mug, I don’t know how quite it happened but it is the one that was on the table one of your guests drink out off on air, now let’s just have a look at the difference between these two mug’s if we could, I’ll come closer to the camera, there you go, now can you see the difference? Basically the one that you give away for free has got dishwasher proof ink on it, the white ink stays, the one that your guests drink out off, look i mean all just worn away, this used to say the Colbert report but now it doesn’t, we’ve had this through the dish washer maybe once or twice and it just washed away, so my question for you Stephen is that the mug that the guests drink out of, do you ever clean it? do every you worry about spreading germs?

Jabez: When Peter steals something he likes it to be of certain quality

PJ: I didn’t steal it Jabez I mean I just happen to find it in my hand when I walked out of the building onto the street, I didn’t know how that happened. But it is apart from that it does actually taste quite nice the tea

Jabez: Right

Jed: Even if it has to be second hand

PJ: Yeah, yup

Jed: We actually, we do have a second twitter question up. Do you always edit barefoot?, Peter?

PJ: It’s actually a very good question and the answer is yes I do I, people I, I see, things written about me where they talk about me not wearing shoes on set, which I actually never do if you look of any footage of me,, I have to wear shoes because of health and safety don’t want a light to be dropped on my toe or something like that, but in the comfort, relative comfort of the cutting room, I can put my feet up on the table and sit back and its fantastic

Jed: Yeah,  I wish I could do that

Jed: We actually have another special ah another guest, who would like to say hello, so why don’t we roll it and see who, who we’ve got

Lee Pace:  Hi Lee Pace here, for those who don’t know I play Thranduil, King of the Woodland elves and in the Hobbit the Desolation of Smuag, I heard that Peter is giving a sneak peek of the new film and I’d figured that I’d logon and check it out, now you’ve seen a brief glimpse of my character in the prolog of the Hobbit An Unexpected Journey and the ancient animosity between the elves of the Woodland realm and the dwarves of Erebor, and I think it’s going to be really intriguing to revisit that but this time it will be in my halls on my terms, and I don’t think they are going to like it

PJ: Hmm elves are tricky aren’t they?

Jed: They are, they are very tricky and dwarves don’t trust them at all

PJ: And I don’t blame you

Jed: No, But we do have another question and this actually one from me

Jed:  Jed what torture would you like to put Peter Jackson through that was inflected upon the actors? Hmm, rotacery, Barrel or maybe a combination of all of  these things

PJ: Interesting

Jed: I’m not actually sure that I want to do any of those things because I would quite like to work with you in the future, but um probably the one that I would like to put Peter through is maybe putting him on the rotacery over the top of the fire

PJ: That did look incredibly uncomfortable

Jed: It was very uncomfortable

PJ: That did look, and um there was one funny story that actually, that I remember, we had all these dwarves on if you remember the first Hobbit movie, we had these dwarves are on a spit being cooked by the trolls, they, we literally strapped everybody into this harness, when we rotated you guys around

Jed: Yeah

PJ: We had to, like everything in a movie you where up there for hours being rotated around and around and then it seemed to go okay, Mark Hadlow looked very, very pale, even through prospect  rubber   make up when Jabez and I where editing the scene a few months afterwards that we, where watching every take we did, and we just heard very faintly on the sound track, which I never heard on the day, on the sound track we heard Mark Hadlow  say in a very, very, sick weak voice, he plays Dori saying “can we stop doing this I think I’m going to be sick”

PJ: What’s funny we didn’t hear it on the day he kept rotating him around

Jabez: .. Mark said can we just stop for a couple of minutes please, and then, Peter says pretty loudly “ok and roll them” and away they go

Jed: we were stacked on top of each other we had ah ,um  ah harness on the back of  it had these kind of metal plates which were hooked onto it, we had to go up in a certain order so those who went up first where up there for a much longer time than Mark Hadlow

PJ: Well rather you then me I was in quite a comfortable chair at the time

Jed: Yeah no, it was fun, fun, actually we have another special guest, another surprised guest video, um so I think we should probably look at that see who it is

Billy Boyd: Hello I’m Billy Boyd I played Peregrin Took or Pippin in the Lord Of the Rings trilogy, so I hear tonight that  Peter is doing a questions and answers, so I would like an answer to a question, and that question is, in the Fellowship we went as far as the Misty Mountains in middle-earth but here in The Hobbit we go further east, will we be seeing any new wild lands? In the next Hobbit film? that’s my question

PJ: That’s a very good question Billy, very good, very good, um, I think the most area’s of the lands we are going to is Mirkwood, we saw that  very briefly in the Unexpected Journey, in the Desolation of Smuag the company of dwarves get right into the darkness the heart of darkness of Mirkwood, now actually Billy if you remember in The Fellowship of The Ring and you should remember it was only ten years ago um, you guys went through the Misty Mountains, through the Mines of Moria you came out and then the Fellowship headed south straight away, down the valley to Lothlorien and then you took the Anduin River down to Amon Hen, so you actually manage to very cleverly to bypass the borders of Mirkwood, entirely, which was probably a good thing, I can show you a bit of art work, um, I just pulled out a couple of pieces to give everyone a glimpse of what Mirkwood is going to look like in the movie, now if we can zoom in on that, are you able to get closer to it?, so what we’ve designed and um actually Gus Hunter did this art, is the tiny dwarves in this great big looming creepy forest, I wanted to try to give it a sense of foreboding and um grandeur and it used to be Greenwood the Great but it has become sick and diseased, with this Dol Guldur , the fortress  Dol Guldur is spreading evil through the forest, and this is another view there’s dwarves there, there’s a broken bridge and they have to figure out a way to cross um this stream of Mirkwood, so yeah, I think that’s it’s going to be an interesting environment, one of the scarcer parts of this story.

Jed: Yeah the set itself was amazing to work with. it was pretty scary actually; it was very, very spooky set to work on and had that kinda dark feel about it, even from a physical perspective

PJ: Yeah, yeah,

Jed: That’s great, We have a have another question from a special cast guest I think we should cut to that and have a look to see who it is..

Evangeline Lilly: When I was working my ADR Philipa was naughty enough to show me, um the unfinished, mockup of Thranduil Realm, and it looked insanely cool but of course it didn’t have any of the amazing Peter Jackson love put into it and so I’m wondering if Peter you can verbally give us a glimpse into um what your vision your take on Thranduil realm will be?

PJ: Yes, let me show you Evangeline, I know it must be frustrating because your, your, I mean Evangeline was in the Woodland realm and yet we were pretty much surrounded by green screens… ah but I can give everyone a little look, so um Tolkien describes the Woodland Realm as being in like a subterranean world which is unusual for elves because usually dwarves live underground, but um, none the less that’s what have done, and this is a piece of art work John Howe did for us, if we can have a look at that, it’s the, it’s the entrance to the Woodland Realm, it’s a bridge a narrow bridge that goes over a raging river then you enter this elvish kingdom through this door, we wanted to make it seem like it’s very defensive and impregnable, this is the only way to get into this kingdom, and then once your inside, we tried to figure out a way to make a cavernous you know underground world look elvish in the way you expect a certain beauty and grandeur and so there’s light filtering in through the cracks in the ceiling, there’s, there’s roots of trees, they fashioned  into bridges and this, is sort of the feeling….

*cut*

Dominic Monaghan: The Hobbit questions and answers thing, and uh I want to be a little bit cheeky and ask a couple of  questions myself, the first one what’s the best Peter Jackson rumor you’ve heard? That isn’t  true? and the second one I’m compression to J.R.R. Tolkien’s work and your work, what’s the thing your the happiest about in the transferring of, from the literature to the film, mine would be the casting did you ever think of another Gimli another Gandalf another Frodo, another Merry obviously, this is the view from my house wild

PJ: Hey Dom thank you, um  your question the rumor, the rumor question, craziest rumor, the one that made me laugh the most was just after the Lord of The Rings and there was a rumor going around Wellington, that was pretty strong because several people came up to me and said is this really true, really true like they believed it, is that um in order to avoid paying tax, um I was going to move my entire family onto a ship and live outside of the New Zealand economic zone, outside the twelve miles away from the coast to sort of my life on a ship, to avoid paying tax, apart being feeling sea sick, badly seasick, I’m very happy to live on land and very happy to pay tax, that was kind of a funny rumor

PJ: I guess somebody starts these things and then they just, in the case of um these movies rumors tend to become fact and you tend to see things reported in the newspaper, aren’t remotely true its um  interesting, the world we live in

Jed: Indeed, we do have another twitter question now, and the question is will the Necromancer play a larger role in the plot of the Desolation of Smuag than it did in the first film?

PJ: uh, the answer is yes, that’s all I’m saying

Jed: Very conscience, well we heard we had an extra special treat for our viewers, do you know what that is?

PJ: I hope I know what it is, look um I didn’t want to wrap out of this live event without giving a little look at the movie, can’t show you the trailer yet, the trailer is still being made, as we speak um, visual effects being done, you can look for the trailer this summer, um films I’m sure no doub most of you will seet your going to see this summer, you’ll  our trailer, but uh at the moment, with the film being edited we are literally, cutting it together we are limited on what we can actually show, we do have a sequence which Jabez and I have ,have worked on that, we thought would be fun to show, it needs a little setting up, it’s part of the, kind of appendixes Tolkien wrote part of the expansion of the Hobbit were doing its not in the actual Hobbit book itself, but it is building on the story line actually of the Necromancer and ah Dol Guldur, which was um, that we just talked about, if you remember Galadriel in The Unexpected Journey, um, and she was commenting on the Morgal blade that Radagast had recovered from Dol Guldur and she talks about it belonging to the King of Angmar who was buried in the High Fells, a mountains’ range in Rhudaur, so in the Desolation of Smaug, Gandalf goes to the High Fells, to investigate how this blade may have got out into this world, the High Fells are the tombs where the nine kings of men were buried, so shall we just have a look at a little  clip from the movie.

*DOS movie clip*

PJ: Well there we go, so you can go and find out what happens next, a little mystery that Gandalf is following in the Desolation of Smaug, so Jed thank you very much for thank you for being, helping me get through this

Jed: Your welcome

PJ: Jabez, thank you

Jed: I wanted to thank the fans and of course, and for  Peter for taking sometime out of your busy schedule editing the film to be with us

PJ: Great now um this is really, in a way to get a first got the chance to say hi to everyone in 2013, I’m sure that a lot of people who’ve who are watching this have been following our blogs, and just to let you know the blogs will continue this year, in fact this is almost like the first blog quite a long one

Jed: We should turn it into a trilogy

PJ: But the um the blogs will continue and ah we look forward to catching up with you during the year as we move towards our release in December, so thank you so much for taking the time, to come here and sit where ever you are in the world, whatever time  it is and put up with us babbling along, and thank you for buying our DVD as well

Jed: Now it’s time for breakfast

PJ: Great

*lots of clips from behind the scenes of DOS*

Applicants need to be available between this month and August and live in Wellington.

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In addition, HarperCollins and Warner Bros. are teaming up to give away 10 Blu-ray™ Combo Packs of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as well as these first two books in the Hobbit series. The giveaway runs now through 4/9. [Giveaway]

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Official Synopsis:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles II: Creatures and Characters explores the amazing cast of heroes, villains, beasts, and beings that populate Middleearth in the fi rst chapter of Peter Jackson’s fi lm adaptations of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Richly illustrated with behind-the-scenes photographs, digital renders, and film stills, this comprehensive book goes species by species and character by character through the film’s huge ensemble cast and bustling menagerie of creatures, both physical and digital, and shows how each came to be realized for the film.

First-hand accounts from the actors, makeup artists, digital effects specialists, dialect coaches, prosthetics technicians, movement coaches, and many other crew members describe the process and how the production unfolded, while also sharing insights into the characters. A bonus feature, unique to this book, is the special fold-out character size chart, which compares all the major creatures and characters of the fi lm, from Radagast’s hedgehog friend to the towering Stone Giants!

Compiled by Weta Workshop designer Daniel Falconer and featuring a wealth of stunning imagery, this book puts the reader face-to-face with all the creatures and characters of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, from the Dwarf heroes to the dark denizens of Middle-earth–the Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, and Wargs–and, of course, the hobbit himself, Bilbo Baggins.

This week on Main the current Middle-earth Conspiracy Theory is asking us, “So why did Tom Bombadil keep himself apart from the wider world anyway?” Share your views here.

On Hobbit Movie board, Roheryn leads us in a look back at our early reactions to the announcement of the cast of The Hobbit. Some funny, some insightful and some just downright weird, join us as we look back here.

Over on Off Topic we remembered the second anniversary of the devastating Christchurch earthquake with our ChCh TORnsibs, “River of Flowers 22 February”.

We’ll share more topics next week and we hope you will come and join in the conversations!  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s message boards have over 9,400 registered Tolkien fans, just like you.  Let your voice be heard!

“No I never read it. And I probably never will. It’s not my cup of tea. Youthful society when I was younger was divided into Tolkien and non-Tolkien and I was a non-Tolkien and I didn’t like the Tolkien people,” he said.

“They were all corduroy and limp wrists and we were all string band people, banjos and bluegrass players and blues players, chasing women about the place, having long hair and they were all talking about the ginks fighting the gonks.”

As a renown comedian, we are pretty sure Billy is having a spot of fun. After you check out the full article at MSN UK, we can get back to talking about ginks and fighting with gonks : /  [Read more]

If sharing your thoughts with the world is not enough incentive…we are going to be giving away some great prizes over the next week to randomly selected reviewers. We’ll be contacting winners with the email they use when submitting their review. Prizes will be doled out over the next few weeks, so stay tuned to TORn’s homepage for winner announcements!

Also, we are going to be working around the clock to approve your reviews as they come in, so please be patient with the dedicated efforts of the TORn staff.  [Ringer Reviews]