Weta Workshop has produced well over fifteen thousand museum quality weapons for projects within the creative industries of film, gaming and replica collectibles, including Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “King Kong,” Peter Weir’s “Master and Commander,” Edward Zwick’s “The Last Samurai,” Andrew Adamson’s “Chronicles of Narnia,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Hellboy,” Stephen Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” the Microsoft Halo 3 short films and, more recently, James Cameron’s “Avatar” and Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9.”

Meet The Hobbit Artists

Meet several of the artists who worked on The Hobbit and learn more about what they’re up to, along with several other talented folks at Weta, including Greg Broadmore and the comedic antics of Daniel Falconer! [Happy Hobbit Goes to SDCC: Meet the Hobbit Artists]

Collectibles

Meet the lads! From Bridge Direct Toys to our very own Elessar and Weta’s Senior Model Maker David Tremont, learn a bit more about collecting and miniature-making… and have plenty of laughs along the way. These guys are a kick! Read David Tremont’s story of creating Barad-Dur here: http://www.wetanz.com/the-making-of-barad-dur-article-series-by-david-tremont/  [Happy Hobbit Goes to SDCC: Collectibles]

Badali Jewelry

Check out Badali’s latest Lord of the Rings/Hobbit jewelery and find out more about the stories behind each piece! [Happy Hobbit Goes to SDCC: Badali Jewelry]

The Hobbit Extended Edition

Hear a little bit about the upcoming DVD/Blu ray of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and glimpse what Comic-Con is like long after the crowds have departed! [Happy Hobbit Goes to SDCC: Extended Edition Teaser and Farewell]

Meeting Evangeline Lilly

And of course, the completion of “Hobbitception!” [Hobbitception: Meeting Evangeline Lilly]

You can join in the fun at the Happy Hobbit Facebook page!

Join Kili, Fili, and several surprise guests to learn how to camp like a Dwarf! [Happy Hobbit: Dwarven Camping Tips - Episode 21]

Last year, Warner Bros. really pushed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey into orbit with video games, 16 Lenticular posters, free Acorn button pins, and a massive panel with The Hobbit the clear headliner. This year, because Peter Jackson is not sending cast or video content, it is left to vendors such as WETA, Bridge Direct, Sideshow and Badali Jewelry, along with TheOneRing.net to bring share the Hobbit love. It was clear by the lines at the WETA booth that this was not going to be a tough sell, they nearly sold out of the day’s allotment of Smaug’s Eye exclusive T-shirts, so if you missed that shirt last night, be sure to head over there first thing this morning. In addition to the Smaug’s Eye shirt, WETA unveiled some pretty cool new items, and has another big figure dominating the exhibit hall floor.

Two of the new items are of Thranduil and Tauriel, both in action stances, while the dominating figure is that of Azog in full attack mod. The detail that I had never picked up while watching the film is that his loin cloth has faces on it, now we know where the ‘Defiler’ nickname comes from. A few of WETA’s artists were signing books during the evening, which was a nice bonus, since they weren’t really scheduled.

And lest you think staffers from TheOneRing.net do nothing but talk and work Tolkien all day long, here are two other big aspects of this year’s SDCC. The first is from the Marvel booth, where it is clear that Thor is reigning all week long, while the second is from an Off-site event location called the Godzilla Encounter where guests get to feel what a Godzilla attack is really like. Seeing the King of Monster’s profile walking past your office window is Awesome!

Our Panel will be today, Thursday, July 18 at 5:30pm in room 6A. Remember to wear your Tolkien themed costumes or TORn T-Shirts (past or present) and show your Ringer pride. We have quite a few little surprises in store for you, so please do come on down and support your favorite 100% volunteer based fansite. And don’t forget to visit TheOneRing.net at the Badali Jewelry booth #532/534 or at WETA’s booth #3513B, you never know who you might run into.

Rob Kazinsky visting the WETA booth.

But at times they did. In my previous installment of this series, “Places Full of Magic,” I wrote about the facilities I visited. Now it’s time to reveal a few things I learned there—and kept quiet about.

The End of All Things

As I mentioned in that installment, I met producer Barrie Osborne on my third full day in Wellington. One of the first things he said to me was “We may not make the foreign premieres.” What he meant was that the final film had to be supplied to the foreign distributors early, so that they would have time to prepare the dubbing and subtitling. For English-language countries, the deadline wasn’t looming quite as large–except for New Zealand, where the world premiere was set for December 1.

Still, as anyone knows who has watched the Return of the King supplement “The End of All Things” knows, there was a frantic rush to finish the film. (I love that supplement, since it portrays the situation much as I witnessed it during that first visit, though I ended up leaving Wellington on October 28, before the really frantic final weeks before the delivery of the negative.)

I don’t think the direness of the situation was general knowledge, though in Wellington there were rumors flying–and many of them were not inaccurate. Pickups were still being shot in October, though they were mainly things like minor orcs to be jigsawed into special-effects shots. Anyone wandering past the Stone Street Studios was likely to spot costumed extras taking breaks.

In my book I describe a scene during an October 1 meeting of the heads of post-production departments in Barrie’s office. These daily meetings’ purpose was to try and speed up progress on the film. A secretary came in and said there was going to be a story about the film being behind schedule on the evening news. Clearly the story was being aired because it was exactly two months to the premiere. We all watched it as a reporter indignantly told of how filming was still underway, which she seemed to assume meant that the deadline wouldn’t be met. The mayor was interviewed, giving reassurance that the premiere would take place as planned. Telephoto shots of orcs smoking cigarettes outside Studio A accompanied the story, as well generous clips from the brand new Return trailer.

Near the end of the story, the audio track of Gandalf’s line, “All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you,” was included. Everyone in the room burst out laughing and went back to discussing what to do with the short time they had left. All the deadlines were met. It was only later that the full story of the difficult final push came out.

The Ending

Long-time fans may recall that in the months before The Return of the King appeared, speculation concerning how the film would end ran rampant on the Internet. For such an epic tale, would the scriptwriters stick to Tolkien’s quiet ending, with Sam returning home from the Grey Havens? Would they end with the coronation? (Some reviewers and theater-goers obviously wished they had!) I saw discussion threads where fans expressed hope of seeing an epilogue with Sam or even Legolas and Gimli departing Middle-earth to cross the Sea to the Uttermost West (as happens in the appendices).

By sheer accident, during my first week in Wellington, I found out the answer. In that earlier installment, I mentioned that I met Peter Doyle early in that first visit. He’s the digital colorist who invented the first viable digital coloring system specifically for The Lord of the Rings.

In retrospect, I wish I could have interviewed Peter for my book, but who had heard of digital coloring at that point? I certainly didn’t know much about it; I don’t think many people did, since the process hadn’t been publicized or made available to the rest of the film industry. But Peter invited me to visit The PostHouse, a temporary facility set up to do the trilogy’s selective digital color grading, the next day.

The facility was at the back of a large warehouse across the street from The Film Unit (now Park Road Post). Peter offered to give me a demonstration of color grading, and we went into a large room next door. It was dark and filled with rows of computer stations where experts at this new craft were busily adding color to parts of shots, or making color more subdued, manipulating light levels, and making all the other amazing changes that digital technology had made possible.

Peter sat me down at a monitor and, using a close-up of Denethor as an example, he showed off the ways in which he could apply such changes in color or contrast or amount of light just to selected parts of a shot—the eyes, or a cheek, or part of the background. The program would then apply the same changes to all the other frames of the shot. Peter demonstrated with another example: the extreme long shot of Gandalf’s cart going along a path between lush green fields, heading for the Grey Havens. He could dial up a shaft of sunlight, making one of the fields brighter, depending where he wanted to guide the eye of the viewer. In the frame below, you can see that the field on the left is slightly lighter than the grassy hills on the right. Peter explained that that decision was made because that’s the direction in which the group is traveling, the Grey Havens side of the shot.

In the middle of this, Peter paused and said, “Oh, there’s the last shot.” I looked over, and the man sitting to our left was indeed grading the very last shot. The camera was tracking forward and the round yellow door was closing.

So then I knew that the film would end pretty much the way the book does. When I saw The Return of the King about nearly two and a half months later, it turned out that there were small differences: Sam and Rosie had two children here, not one, and he said “Well, I’m back” outside, not inside sitting by the fire with Elanor in his lap.

Close enough, though, I think. Whatever bombast fans might accuse the filmmakers of when it comes to battles or monsters, they opted for quiet domesticity and the return of peace, just as it should be. My husband, who has not read the novel, was surprised and impressed that the filmmakers chose such a modest, emotional ending.

Coincidentally, about three weeks later, I saw another vital shot being worked on. I mentioned in my previous entry that Weta’s digital models supervisor, Matt Aitken, gave me a tour of the main Weta Digital facility. During that tour I saw the main animation room. Matt introduced me to Georgie (if I caught the name right), who was working on the moment when Gollum falls into the lava. She wasn’t satisfied with the way it looked and was going to do it over. The animation team, she told me, referred to it as the “Gollum falls into the lasagna” shot. It did look a bit like that at the stage she had reached, but by the time she got through with it and we all saw it in the final film, it looked terrific.

What are the odds of happening to see both the final shot and the climactic shot still in progress, out of the thousands in the finished film?

 The Figure on the Embassy Theatre Façade

Last time I also mentioned that Daniel Falconer kindly gave me a Weta Workshop, where, among other things, he introduced me to Treebeard. What I didn’t mention was that on the floor of the same big studio room, there were large unassembled portions of the figure of the Witch King on his flying Fell Beast that would adorn the Embassy Theatre’s marquee during the world premiere of The Return of the King. These pieces were only partially painted. This was October 7, and the premiere was not until December 1. Daniel warned me not to tell anyone what I had seen. The figure on the marquee was a surprise each year.

I’m sure that in 2003 the figure was indeed a surprise. During my stay in Wellington, I went out for dim sum with film-faculty members and graduate students from Victoria University Wellington. They were convinced that the marquee figure would be Shelob. A logical guess, and widely shared, I’m sure. Still, since the Wellington premiere was scheduled well ahead of the film’s release in the rest of the world, the filmmakers clearly did not want the design of the main new monster for the third part to be revealed prematurely. Naturally, I kept quiet about what the real figure would be. (At top, a photo of the Nazgûl being raised onto the Embassy façade, taken by Ringer Spy Mr. MB.)

While the Gollum figure that had graced the theater façade the previous year had an extended life, perched on the roof of the Wellington airport, the Nazgûl and his Fell Beast met a more ignominious fate. There was a report in the Dominion Post on April 12, 2004, that the figure had been dumped in a field beside the Wellington dump–a “felled beast,” as the caption-writer put it. I wonder if the pieces eventually disintegrated or were salvaged by fans with really big garages. Any news on their current whereabouts, if any, would be welcome.

(The first two parts of this series are here and here.)

(A scan of part of my print-out of the original story. That story is still online but is difficult to access and no longer has the photo accompanying it.)

In the first entry I recalled getting the permission to interview the filmmakers and going down to start my work, back in September-October of 2003. The second one dealt with my first interview and tours of the Three Foot Six office building and the Stone Street Studios. Now, more of the facilities I visited.

The Film Unit

My third full day in Wellington was Wednesday, October 1. Melissa Booth called and said I could come to the new Film Unit building to meet Barrie Osborne. He, as I cannot stress often enough, was the one responsible for getting me New Line’s permission to interview the filmmakers for my book. This meeting, though, wouldn’t be for an interview. (I interviewed Barrie twice for the book, first a couple of weeks later and again during my third Wellington visit in December, 2004.) He was driving out to the old Film Unit facility that afternoon to give the people working there, sound mixers, editors, and other post-production crew members, a pep talk.

As most readers know, the race to finish The Return of the King was on by that point, and a lot of people were working long hours. I was told that Barrie often gave these pep talks, and the filmmakers really appreciated them; it was part of what gave the production that feeling of being one big family. I could at least introduce myself to Barrie and ride with him to the Film Unit; the half-hour drives there and back would allow us time to talk about my project.

The Film Unit was a government-owned post-production facility that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh bought in 1998 to keep it from being sold and probably closed down. As the only post-production house on that scale in New Zealand, it was vital to making LotR. When I arrived, the new Film Unit building (now Park Road Post) was being built in Miramar, a few blocks from the Weta building in one direction and the Stone Street Studios in the other. An old building that would eventually be replaced was still acting as a reception area (above, right). The three new sound-editing rooms that can be seen in the RotK supplement “The End of All Things” had been completed, as had some offices and a long corridor to the left as one entered the building.

I met Barrie in one of those offices, that of Rosemary Dority (left), familiar to fans of the supplements as the Post Production Supervisor of LotR. She was incredibly friendly and let me stash all the stuff I had to lug around behind her desk when I was in the building. Barrie used her office when he had meetings in the new Film Unit.

Barrie was wolfing down lunch, a sandwich, at about 2:30 in the afternoon before heading for Lower Hutt. As we headed out he gave me a quick tour of the new sound-editing rooms. I met Christopher Boyce and saw my first (unfinished) footage from RotK. It was a scene of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum in a desolate landscape, I think from their first scene in the film, before they get to Ithilien.

Then Barrie and I were off to the old Film Unit. Once inside, we entered a small auditorium where many members of the post-production team were gathered. Barrie thanked them all for their hard work and sprang a surprise on all of us. He was going to show us a brand-new 35mm copy of the first RotK trailer. Coincidentally, that trailer had premiered in American theaters the day I left for Wellington, so I hadn’t seen it.

More importantly, the team in that room hadn’t seen any finished footage from the film, despite having worked on it for so long. The trailer started on the big screen. You probably remember that trailer, which basically ended with you thinking, “I want to see that film, and I want to see it NOW!” The room went crazy, with people cheering and some even crying. It was an amazing moment and gave me a vivid sense of how dedicated these people were to this huge film project.

Afterwards Barrie introduced me to Sue Thompson, CEO of The Film Unit, who still had tears in her eyes. She agreed to let me interview her. My only other visit to the old Film Unit facility was two weeks later, on October 15, when I talked to her and then immediately afterward to costume designer Ngila Dickson.

I’ve looked for a photo of that building online, but no one ever seems to have been tempted to take a picture of it. It was austere, bland, and, as Peter described it to me when I later interviewed him, “a very government sort of ‘Soviet bloc’ feeling place.” It was already clear, however, that the new Film Unit in Miramar, in contrast, would be modern and gorgeous.

The PostHouse

On October 1, when Barrie and I returned to the new Film Unit building, I met Peter Doyle, the Supervising Digital Colorist for LotR (and many other films thereafter, including King Kong and six of the Harry Potter films). He agreed to let me come to The PostHouse the next day. It was housed in a warehouse across the street from the new Film Unit.

Peter had helped invent a new digital process called selective digital grading specifically for LotR. It allows a colorist to change the visual qualities (altering colors and changing light levels) for individual portions of a shot without changing the other portions. It was a revolutionary technology and has been adopted almost universally in the international film industry.

Unfortunately I had no idea that I was going to have this opportunity to talk with Peter, so I wasn’t prepared to interview him. Indeed, at that point there wasn’t much information on the new technique available. But Peter took me into a big dark room where dozens of experts were working at rows of computers, grading shots from the film. We sat down at a monitor, and he very generously gave me a 25-minute demonstration of how selective digital grading is done.

He used two main examples: a close-up of Denethor’s face and the distant view of Gandalf’s cart going along a road between some fields on the way to the Grey Havens. The tiny tweaks he was able to make on very limited parts of the image were wonderful. He could dial up a brighter patch of sunlight in one of the fields in the cart shot, subtly changing the tone of the image. It’s a beautiful process to watch, and even though I have very limited computer expertise, I thought it would be a very rewarding thing to do.

Peter can be seen at work in the all-too-brief supplement “Digital Grading” on the Fellowship of the Ring extended DVD/Blu-ray (right, with cinematographer Andrew Lesnie looking on). I think it’s a pity that none of the other supplements dealt with this technique.

Weta Workshop and Digital

About a week into my visit, on Tuesday, October 7, I went to the Weta Ltd. building for the first time for an interview with Richard Taylor. In order to get in, I was handed the only legal document I ever ended up signing during the whole project: an agreement not to bring a camera into Weta Workshop. I could see why. There were design drawings and models all over the place. Naturally I signed, since, as I’ve pointed out in previous entries, I wasn’t able to take photographs inside any of the filmmaking facilities. Hence the fact that most of my illustrations for this series either show the outsides of buildings or are frames from the DVD supplements.

Richard is absolutely as nice as he seems in the many interviews he has done over the years. To my surprise, he had invited two of his top designers, Daniel Falconer and Ben Wooten, to join us. It was a terrific interview, and we talked for about 85 minutes.

Afterward Daniel gave me a tour of Weta Workshop. Of course there were displays of all sorts of models and designs, including early conception images of Gollum. We saw the forge area, where the swords and other metal items are made. At one point we were in a big studio where the full-size version of the upper half of Treebeard was standing. That’s the one where Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan could actually sit on his hands.

I had read somewhere that there was a big snail, native to New Zealand, stuck in Treebeard’s twiggy beard. Sure enough, there it was. I commented to Daniel that I had known about the snail but, try as I might, during screenings I was never able to spot it. He replied, “Neither can I—and I put it there!” (That was another of those moments when it really struck me that I was right there in Wellington, talking to people who were still making LotR. How in the world had I actually gotten there?!)

Afterwards, as I left Weta Workshop, through an open door I spotted the giant model of the three trolls, turned to stone, which I had earlier seen inside the studio near Treebeard. Since they were visible from the public sidewalk, I allowed myself to take out a camera and photograph them (left). I trust that was not a violation of the legal agreement I had signed.

About two weeks later, Barrie suggested that I interview Matt Aitken of Weta Digital. Matt is another face familiar to fans as a talking head in the supplements (right). He’s in charge of scanning models for the digital effects. He didn’t work at the main Weta Digital headquarters on Manuka Street but at another facility further south on the Miramar peninsula. When I entered the building, I saw a bulletin board on the wall, with the number of shots remaining to have special-effects added. It was a reminder of the race to finish the film (again, documented in “The End of All Things,” see below).

Matt gave me a lot of specific information on the build-up of computing power at Weta, which grew hugely between The Frighteners and the end of the work on RotK. After that appointment, someone was supposed to pick me up and drive me to Manuka Street for a tour of the main Weta facility. Unfortunately, that person apparently never got the word. So Matt, busy though he was, drove me over himself and showed me around.

There was a big room full of animators working on various scenes, with full suits of the Elvish armor from the prologue of FotR hanging on the walls above them. (Another one hung on a stand just inside the main Manuka Street entrance. I must say I coveted that armor.) There was a series of rooms full of racks of 3000 hard drives laboring away at rendering and other tasks, accompanied by the roar of huge air-conditioning units. I also was introduced to the heart of the whole enterprise: the surprisingly small scanning room. There on one side were three big machines, all named after dragons and all scanning negatives straight out of the camera into digital files, to be color graded and to have their special effects done, among other procedures. On the other side of the room were two ArriLaser scanners putting the resulting frames back onto raw negative film. Back in the 1990s it took 45 seconds per frame to do that. By 2003 it took more like 2.5 seconds. Peter reportedly would not OK any special-effects shot until he saw it projected on a screen in 35mm, so there was a lot of footage to be scanned back onto negative film.

The Miniatures Unit

For some reason, on my first visit, I never asked to tour the miniatures department. I guess I was too busy. On my second visit, in June, 2004, I requested permission through Peter Jackson’s assistant, but was told I couldn’t see it. By that time, King Kong was well into production, and the facility was full of miniatures for that film. Secret stuff.

I interviewed Peter himself on the last day of that second visit. In December I returned and tried again, asking Peter’s assistant if he could get me permission to tour the miniatures department. Five minutes later I was given the name of a person to call and set up an appointment. I assume my interview with Peter reassured him that I was a serious and trustworthy person.

When I arrived at the miniatures unit, in yet another big building somewhere on the Miramar Peninsula, two other people and I got a tour from a pleasant young man who showed us such things as the model of the King Kong ship and lots of tiny jungles. Afterwards I went in to thank the woman who had arranged the appointment for me. She asked if I wanted to talk to Alex.

The name Alex didn’t ring a bell at that moment, I must admit. Still, I was willing to talk to anyone who was willing to talk to me, so I said yes. Luckily I had brought my recorder along. I was ushered into a conference room, and a few minutes later in walked Alex Funke. Oh, that Alex, the one who had worked on groundbreaking digital effects films such as The Abyss, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers. The Visual Effects Director of Photography for the miniatures unit and winner of two Oscars for LotR. (He’s now the motion-control supervisor for The Hobbit. That’s the technique that allows different elements of the same shot to be filmed at different times and/or places and joined smoothly together.)

That was the only interview I ever went into absolutely cold, with no advance notice or preparation. Fortunately Alex was a pro at interviews and basically just launched in, with me interjecting the occasional question. Apart from the technical information he gave me, he also conveyed a powerful sense of how congenial a working environment Peter had built up for his employees. Alex has enormous respect for the decent way in which people are treated. He himself, though having worked for years in the Hollywood film industry, had moved permanently to New Zealand to work with Peter—as Joe Letteri and others have.

Overall, the facilities built up for LotR make up the equivalent of a big Hollywood studio back in the golden days of the industry. A major, special-effects-heavy film can be made there, from script to screen. I feel enormously privileged to have seen so much of it.

We’ll encounter these places again in future entries.

Hi Nicole and a very big thank you for taking part and for being so patient with me.

This first question is from Rosie-with-the-ribbons who’s latest costume for RingCon has been inspired by your Balrog Showgirl costume.

R-w-t-r: Do you make your costumes yourself?

Nicole: Rosie – that is awesome!  Yes, for the most part the costumes I’ve been running around in for the past several years have all been of my own making.  I only started sewing back in 2004, after I moved to Los Angeles and started hanging out with even more LOTR people.  The first costume I made was to wear to Comic Con that year – I was the Mumak Mahud (the guy with the black and white painted face who steers the oliphaunt in ROTK), so you could definitely say I’ve always leaned towards costumes that were a little off the beaten path!  I’ve done some costumes that were direct recreations (“Barf” from “Spaceballs”is the most well-known one), but as I’ve gotten more into the sewing, I really like doing things that are more of an original design, like the Balrog Showgirl.  As someone who is not of supermodel proportions (and seriously, those chicks look like scary walking lollipops anyway), I like to have the opportunity to design something that I think is more flattering to me, and I always like to learn how to do something new, like dyeing feathers for the showgirl headdress.

Me: How was Comic Con?  What were your highlights and lowlights?

Nicole: Comic Con was amazing as ever!  This was my ninth year attending, and it’s changed a lot in that time, but it’s still an incredible opportunity.  The only real low point this year was that I had to leave about 15 minutes into the Hobbit panel on the Saturday to go to a rehearsal for the Masquerade, but I still got to see some amazing footage, cheer for PJ, and we went on to win Best in Show in the Masquerade competition that night, so not too bad!  Other high points were picking a fight with TORn’s Ostadan at their panel on the Thursday morning over a point of Tolkien and folklore canon – I’m still hoping Quickbeam will get him to agree to come on the TORn Tuesday webcast with me to finish the discussion!  Also, I always love visiting the Weta booth, and this year it was spectacular to stand in the shadow of the giant trolls!  Always consider it a privilege to get a chance to chat with Richard Taylor, David Tremont, Daniel Falconer and Greg Broadmore.  This year I picked up a copy of “Triumph!” the new Dr Grordbort book, and Greg signed it and drew a Grordbort sketch in it for me.

Me: You won a tour to NZ with your costume of the Balrog, how was it?

Nicole: This was an incredible privilege!  Even more than just winning the trip was the fact that I was competing against some absolutely gorgeous costumes, and Richard Taylor and Daniel Falconer picked my crazy Balrog Showgirl because they appreciated the creativity and originality.  These are the guys that absolutely inspire me, so to have them choose my costume as their favourite was the highest honour I could hope for.  The trip was amazing!  I was lucky enough to get to bring my sister with me as my “Plus One,” and we had a fantastic time.  They really rolled out the red carpet for us, and everyone was so nice.  Really want to thank Tim Launder at Weta for being the one to make all the arrangements.  Seeing the Hobbiton set all decked out from filming was so gorgeous and incredible, and I had a blast visiting filming locations in Wellington and Queenstown.

One of the coolest things was that on the day I visited Weta, artist Craig Campbell was doing a live sculpting demonstration in the Weta Cave, and he actually let me help out.  I got to work on a thigh, lol, as he sculpted a robot fighting a centaur.  Another amazing opportunity was when they hosted us for dinner at the Roxy Theatre in Miramar.  A number of the Weta execs have contributed to the rehabilitation of this classic theatre into a gorgeous Art Deco movie palace featuring both antique fixtures and new pieces created by the Weta artists, like bronzes and paintings by Craig Campbell and an unbelievable ceiling mural by Greg Broadmore.  We got to dine surrounded by Greg’s oil paintings of Dr Grordbort characters.  Oh, and of course I brought at least parts of the winning costume with me, so the picture of Daniel Falconer wearing the rhinestone-bedecked Balrog headdress is one of my very favourite souvenirs!

My favourite non-LOTR thing in New Zealand was seeing the Colossal Squid at Te Papa in Wellington.  I have a thing about squid – I just started a Facebook page called “Cephalopocalypse”.

Also, because of the contest wine, I was contacted to be the costume manager/coordinator/wrangler/miracle worker for a parody video production called “Todd of the Rings” written by and starring Anime voice actor Vic Mignogna, I contacted LOTR costumers all over the country and convinced them to loan us their creations, made a few things, faked a few things, and pinned a lot of stuff together with safety pins!  TORn staffer Quickbeam plays Gandalf, and I even got to do a little “cameo” doing the whispered elvish during the prologue, Todd of the Rings

 Me: What other costumes do you have?  And where do you wear them?

Nicole:  The costumes just seem to keep multiplying!  The Balrog Showgirl was part of a Comic Con Masquerade group entry called “Viva Las Villains”, and we won Best in Show that year. I’ve done the Masquerade for seven of the nine years I’ve gone to Comic Con, so those tend to be my most elaborate costumes.  I’ve been fortunate to have been a part of groups that have  won Best in Show three times, Best Presentation twice, Judges Choice once and Most Humorous once.  I’ve been Friar Carl from Van Helsing, Barf from Spaceballs, the Perfume Girl from the Wizard of Oz, Ursula from The Little Mermaid, the Balrog, Harley Quinn from Batman, and this year I was a fashion-forward version of R2D2 from Star Wars.  Our group did a presentation called “Project Runway: All Star Wars”.

I also have an array of various Pirate, Renaissance and Middle Eastern outfits hanging around in my closet, I’ve dabbled in a bit of Star Trek, and I was part of a Steampunk Roller Derby team called the Steamrollers with a character called “Malice in Wonderland”.  One of the great things about living in LA is that there are always *some* kind of crazy theme event going on that give you an opportunity to dress up!  I had a friend say to me once, “I refuse to believe that there’s a costume party *every* weekend!” To which I replied, “You don’t know me at ALL, do you?!?” There are parties and club nights and big events like the Labyrinth of Jareth, the Edwardian Ball, and the Renaissance Faire going on *all* the time!

Me: How did you come up with the idea of the Balrog Showgirl?  Did she make a reappearance at this years Comic Con?

Nicole: As I mentioned above, the Balrog was part of “Viva Las Villains” at the 2010 Comic Con Masquerade.  My friend Cordelia Willis (formerly of The One Ring Circus) had the idea to do Vegas Showgirl costumes using all different “evil” characters.  We had characters from a wide array of sources from comics to video games, and of course I wanted to see LOTR represented!  I loved the idea of creating flames with dyed ostrich plumes.  It was a lot of fun.  We ultimately had 11 showgirls, 2 Chippendale dancers and the Joker as Elvis.  It was quite the spectacular presentation! And yes, I wore the Balrog on the Thursday at Comic Con to TheOneRing’s panel.  This is the first time I actually had a couple of people recognise that it was a Balrog without me having to explain the whole concept, which was fun!

Me:  How did you get “introduced” to Tolkien – movies or books, and if books, which ones and in which order?  What was your very first impression of the Balrog?  And who is your favourite character?

Nicole: Book!  LOTR and the Hobbit were my mom’s favourite books when I was growing up, so I was raised with Bilbo and Frodo on the brain.  I was also a big fan of Peter Jackson’s previous films, so when I heard he was working on the ultimate LOTR film project, I was really excited.  I got involved in the online fan community as early as maybe 2000 on both the “Official Fan Club” message boards and TheOneRing.net.  The Balrog mostly captured my imagination in the film version – it was just so incredible!  The way the theatre shook with his every step, and you could practically feel the heat from the flames! So I became Rasputin the Evil Balrog pretty early on in my online incarnations.  We used to joke that a Balrog would need a flame-proof horse, so we’d yell, “Noro lim, Asbestos! Noro lim!” As for characters, I’ve always been rather partial to Merry in the books, but in the film, I really love Theoden – I think he has the most well-developed, 3-dimensional character arc, especially with some of the extra bits in the extended editions.  This is a bit different to Tolkien’s characters who were much more archetypal and less “human”, as he was trying to create a more traditional mythology – something I’ll be happy to take up in my discussion with Ostadan!

Me:  You’ve been given a Middle-earth time machine.  Which one event would you go back in time and see, and why?

Nicole:  Crickhollow bathing scene!  Nekkid hobbits, FTW!  Lol, actually, I’d probably love to go back to the night in The Hobbit when all the Elves of Mirkwood are having their big drunken party that allows the dwarves to escape.  I think too many people try to make out that the Elves are all stately and sober and boring and mystical all the time.  They forget that even in Rivendell they’re hanging out in trees and singing what almost equates to dirty limericks!  Just because you’re immortal and beautiful doesn’t mean you have to be a No-Fun Jones!  I paraphrase, but I believe Tolkien said something to the effect that the world would be a better place if more people valued the kind of simple pleasures that the Hobbits are most known for.

I just wanted to finish with, that before I moved to California, I founded Rings on the Range, the Fellowship of Texas Ringers, and my peeps in Austin still have a regular LOTR meetup every month!  They were a major part of the “Fandalf” project.

Thank you Nicole for sharing your photos and experiences with us all, it’s been a real delight talking to you.

Once again a big thank you to our Message Board regulars, Rosie-with-the-ribbons, zarabia, DanielLB and dernwyn for the questions we used this month.

If you’d like to ask any questions yourself, just head over to our Message Boards, the sign up process is mostly painless  A lead post requesting questions is made at the beginning of each month.

Till next time, from TORn’s resident tiger

Kelvarhin

The WETA team took the opportunity to show-off the full-size trolls they have on display. It’s the first time Frodo has seen the actual trolls. Andy Serkis was spotted with a Pocketses button from TheOneRing.net.

A couple more photos below the cut!

I haven’t seen an insect weta before in my travels (until this trip, but not this story) but I have plenty of experience with the folks who run and work at the special effects shop who identify themselves as “wetas”. Several Comic-Cons, (including the 2011 edition in San Diego) lots of emails and various TORn functions have made the crew at Weta Workshop friendly acquaintances if not just plain old friends.

My time in Wellington would need to include a visit of some kind with the very busy people who are working on The Hobbit, but as I have often joked (even though it is at least partially true) Weta’s second best talent is making special effects for movies. What they are really best at is keeping secrets from TheOneRing.net. I had no illusions that anybody was going to tour me around the workshop (I asked anyway, just in case) during the height of The Hobbit production, but they were kind enough to invite me along to a group they were hosting from a cruise ship that included one of our own message board members. (Her identity is her own to reveal.)

The great thing about Weta’s secret keeping is since I did visit, and they are beyond reproach, if data does fall into my hands or comes to us through our spy network, nobody will think Weta has a leak. It definitely does not.

The scope of Weta and what it does is slightly confusing for the public. Weta Workshop, where we visited, handles concept work for films, many of which never reach the screen. They produce and parade conceptual design in front of directors and studios, often aiding with pitches designed to attract investors. They also produce physical things that you can — and really want to — hold and touch but for film. Helms and ray guns and costumes and swords are all achieved with a high degree of craftsmanship and they build and dress sets and do all the physical stuff for movies.

Weta Digital, housed in a completely different building and a different company, does just what its name suggests: make digital stuff that you can never actually touch. Its specialty is making things on screen appear real even though they aren’t with the added trick of us not being able to see what is genuine and what is computer generated. Much of what they make could have been designed by Weta Workshop kids in a drawing or a sculpt and often both, but the artists and wizards at the digital side make computer pixels take on dimension and life. And, they also work on completely different projects at times.

I believe Weta Digital are good at a lot of things but are supreme at living creatures with skin and hair. In my probably biased opinion, there isn’t a match for their finished products on characters like King Kong or Gollum and the menagerie of creatures in Avatar and more familiar animals like the latest Planet of the Apes. The new Tintin film, while not meant to quite be “real” is a beautiful example that is a wonderful showcase of how masterful Weta Digital is.

There are other divisions in the special effects army: Park Road Post is a place to take a film through the post production and it’s just down the road too.

Anyway, we visited the public corner of Magical-Special-Effects-Land that is housed around Weta Workshops. I have been there before and I know how fun the Weta Cave is, full of its props and replicas and ceiling art and its 25-minute movie. I have also sat in the board room / meeting room and I was surprised to find myself there again, along with Tehanu, hosting the good people who have been sailing around the oceans.

It is stuffed with replica collectibles and awards of all kinds including five from The Academy. It is a fun and impressive room.

A Comic-Con panel from the past, L to R: Chris / Calisuri, Larry / MrCere, Richard Taylor, Keith Stern, Cliff / Quickbeam

Later, Tehanu and I spent a while in the Weta Cave with any of the public who wanted to have a chat but she was obligated to get the tour back to its ship so I went it alone with the good souls who turned up to say hi. A gentleman by the name of Magic, in particular, is a dreamer and a guy who drinks life to the lees and I like that and wish him well. (Big thanks to the Weta Cave for hosting the event!)

I carved out, or rather was granted, half an hour with Richard Taylor as well. Turns out he hears voices in his head constantly and once, maybe twice during our interview, he talked back to them. The workshop now is connected with earpieces with about 14 supervisors constantly talking back and forth, freeing the team leaders from the need to relocate constantly to have discussions or give updates. They just talk remotely instead and Taylor managed to track that and still listened keenly and responded intelligently to TheOneRing.net. I will write at length later, but in the very real sense of the word, and not in some hyperbolic way and with no exaggeration, the man is a genuine genius — and caring and warm.

I have interviewed rock stars and movie stars and authors and politicians and heads of religions but Taylor is on another level completely. I also loved that he was obviously still working with his hands and participating in the shop. He isn’t a guy in a suit telling people what to do; he is with them in the trenches. That interview splits nicely into two parts so I will post them like that. The Tintin part of the conversation has some urgency because of release of that film (with that one teaser trailer attached). The trailer was only a day or two old when I was at the workshop and of course now has been shown three times to a rabid response in Austin.

My biggest regret is that I missed hearing from Tania Rodger, Richard’s partner who is an unsung hero of the shop. The cruise ship contingent hopefully savored that rare experience while I was out for a few minutes and missed it. That is about all I can actually write about Weta day at the moment, but trust me, a stop there is an absolute must visit in Wellington.

While at the Weta booth at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego, we got our hands on a few pages of a prototype of this book and those few pages were pretty cool! Published by HarperCollins,
Richard Taylor, Weta’s Creative Director and five-time Academy Award winner, together with designers Greg Broadmore, David Meng, Leri Greer and Christian Pearce worked closely with Neill Blomkamp and have contributed many hundreds of pieces of conceptual art to this book. Authored by Daniel Falconer, you can order it directly from Weta or find it at bookstores.