In an exclusive interview with TheOneRing.net, Guillermo del Toro talks about Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Howard Shore, Animatronics vs CGI, the ‘tone’ of the upcoming ‘Hobbit’ films and much more!
We had the opportunity to chat with Guillermo del Toro this morning from his current HQ in London. He’s hard at work putting the finishing touches on ‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’ and taking interviews from news outlets about that film, and the recent announcement that he’ll be doing ‘The Hobbit’ and a subsequent Hobbit sequel down the line.
First things first, YES, that is him on our message boards, he told me he intends to post there as often as he humanly can. And yes, he is as cool and approachable as he sounds. Take a look at my interview! Read the rest of this entry »
From Digital Spy: “The opening episode of Doctor Who’s new season used groundbreaking special effects technology that was created for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.” ‘Who’ uses ‘Lord of the Rings’ technology (spoiler free for tonight’s premiere)
If you have a spare couple of weeks to take a tour of New Zealand next October, Red Carpet Tours has setup a wonderful tour that includes Daniel Reeve. He will be leading sketching workshops and traveling with the group to a variety of locations where the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed. I haven’t had the pleasure of taking one of these tours, but according to the people who have, they are fantastic. [More]
Stan writes: LOTR artist Daniel Reeve has a new font, “Shire Regular, as written by Frodo Baggins” available for purchase on his website danielreeve.co.nz.
Rachel, Web Content Manager for Weta, sends this along: Tomorrow, Weta Workshop’s Senior Prosthetics Supervisor Gino Acevedo will be interviewed on National Radio’s Nine to Noon programme. Gino will be interviewed by host Kathryn Ryan on National Radio’s Nine To Noon programme about his work on King Kong and his little known conservation projects. The interview will broadcast on NZ Tues 17 July at 10.05am. Take a listen to the archived interview here.
Recent travellers on Red Carpet’s Lord of the Rings locations tour have been wowed by a new guest attraction - none other than Brett Beattie, body double to Gimli. Tour chiefs Vic and Rae James say they’ve been fascinated by the stories Brett can tell from his long days on the set. Brett probably spent as much time as any of the actors filming up and down the whole country, and his recollections can hold a tour party spellbound. Check out tours
The March tour was so enthused by their tour experience that some members put together a messageboard for past, present and future LOTR tour parties to share their stories. [More]
Shane Rangi, the stuntman/actor who played several characters in the Rings-trilogy and was recently spotted in as General Otmin in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, will be amongst this years guests at the Elf Fantasy Fair. Other guests include cartographer Daniel Reeve and fantasyauthors Stan Nicholls, Tad Williams and Cate Tiernan. The event, which draws some 20.000 visitors to The Netherlands each year, will be held on the 22nd and 23rd of April. Head over to their website for more information! [ElfFantasy.nl]
Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson needed to view what seven film crews were shooting. His solution: push the envelope on videoconferencing technology. In the pitch-black night of the New Zealand winter, Duncan Nimmo, information technology manager of 3Foot6 Ltd., and his two-man crew hoisted heavy equipment—including spools of military-grade fiber-optic cable, a battery pack, wireless computer modem and an eight-foot-high antenna—up Mount Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park. They had followed worn goat tracks up the slope, and were high in the clouds. A snowstorm threatened to blow them off the mountain. [More]
Ringer Celebriel reports: Calligrapher and mapmaker Daniel Reeve met with a warm and enthusiastic reception from fans at ORC. He presented a slide show with dozens of images of items he created for The Lord of the Rings: countless books, invitations, scrolls, labels, maps, and even props like the telescope in the library at Rivendell.
Daniel explained that the creating the actual film props turned out to be only part of his work. He went on to work with dozens of merchandising licensees, preparing a massive style guide for them to ensure uniformity in graphic presentation, and then also created the titles and graphics for the DVD releases in dozens of languages.
The scope of his work is pretty amazing: Every character and location in The Lord of the Rings has its own unique type treatment, a graphic style and look that helps communicate the essence of that character or place. Even individuals in the same culture were distinguished from one another – Daniel created different handwriting styles for Bilbo and Frodo even though they both wrote using the same hobbit alphabet. Daniel also trained the actors, like Elijah Wood and Ian Holm, who had to write on screen. Fan-favorite exhibits include Elijah’s calligraphy practice sheets.
After the Lord of the Rings, Daniel continued to work with WETA, creating maps and calligraphy for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and King Kong. If you saws these two films, you’d recognize his handiwork in Tumnus’ arrest warrant, signed and paw-printed by Maugrim, and in the map of Skull Island, which resembles a gorilla print, and the New York newspapers and posters.
In an informal Sunday morning breakfast, Daniel talked a bit about his recent projects. He was selected by the New Zealand government to work on a prestigious calligraphy project creating replicas of the Treaty of Waitangi (1840), the founding documents of the New Zealand nation, consisting of nine documents recording agreements between the British Crown and over five hundred Māori chiefs. The materials are a central part of an exhibition on the treaty, called Treaty 2 U, that’s touring New Zealand in a mobile exhibition trailer from January to May 2006.
He also worked on Dead Letters, a short independent film shot recently in Wellington by Quarter Acre Pictures and directed by Paolo Rotondo. The film, shot in just six days, is a wartime love story set in 1943 involving piles of letters sent to soldiers serving overseas. Grant Major is working on the film’s production design, and Park Road Post is one of many Wellington area businesses supporting the project. Dead Letters was one of only nine films funded by the New Zealand Film Commission’s Short Film Fund in 2005. It will be released this year.
For the film Daniel created letters in different handwriting. Daniel, or actually his hand, makes its film debut writing on camera, in an extreme close-up because the letter writer is supposed to be a woman. Like many others working on this independent film project, Daniel donated his time and talent.
He’s also created a set of illustrations for game cards for Hasbro’s upcoming game based on Pirates of the Caribbean (Reminder: Orlando Bloom fans can see their man in action as Will Turner starting July 7 in the US).
For ORC, Daniel had brought just under a hundred handwritten copies of Bilbo’s birthday party invitation to personalize for attendees and sell. They all sold out Friday, with lines forming at his table immediately after the presentation.
Daniel is a wonderfully talented, gentle, and unassuming artist. I found him standing in the back of the auditorium Saturday while Elijah and Sean were speaking and had to tell him more than once to go up and take an empty seat in the front so they could see he was there.
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In an exclusive interview with TheOneRing.net, Guillermo del Toro talks about Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Howard Shore, Animatronics vs CGI, the ‘tone’ of the upcoming ‘Hobbit’ films and much more!
