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Hobbit Movie News and Information at TheOneRing.net Serving Middle-earth Since the First Age.Background 'Rivendell' by Ted Nasmith

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Watch our DragonCon Hobbit Panel LIVE! 1pm ET/10am PT

Our fellowship of travelers have made it Atlanta, GA and as you can see by the black screen on the feed, they are sleeping soundly, catching a few winks before the madness of DragonCon begins! We have a few exciting events taking place on our LIVE stream today. First, you can tune in LIVE as we present the latest news and information about The Hobbit Movies at our panel presentation. Like the one from Comic-Con, we will LIVE stream the entire panel, including any questions and audience participation. The panel begins at 1pm ET/10am PT and you can view it all in our TheOneRing.net LIVE section. [Here] The second scheduled event on our LIVE feed is the ever popular Evening at Bree! That will start at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT and feature our good friends Emerald Rose performing with lots of fun and frivolity! And of course, today is the anniversary of JRR Tolkien’s passing, so we’ll take some time to honor the Professor. We will most likely be streaming other events during the day, so we encourage you to stay tuned and participate in the LIVE stream area. [TheOneRing.net LIVE] [DragonCon.org]


Meet WETA Tech Heads at Kiwi PyCon 2011

Kiwi PyCon 2011, New Zealand’s conference dedicated to the Python programming language, is on this weekend at Te Whaea in Wellington. With a great lineup of speakers from Weta Digital, GitHub, a strong local and overseas contingent, as well as three international keynotes, there is still time to participate in this fantastic conference. More..


Collecting The Precious – Weta: The Collector’s Guide Contest Winners

Last Friday we announced a contest in conjuction with the folks at Weta for three copies of their amazing Collector’s Guide. As I said in the article this book came out during Comic-Con this year and the books first 147 pages cover their work on The Lord of the Rings line of collectibles. The contest ended this past Thursday at midnight PST and after receiving several entries I am proud to announce the winners: Tom F. of Visalia, CA, Alex G. of Australia, and the final winner Mike S. of England. We want to thank everyone for your entries!! If you would like to check out the review you can check it out my thoughts of the Collector’s Edition and buy your own copy from Weta.


Weta opens shop in Auckland’s Sky Tower

Local news coverage of Richard Taylor, speaking about the new Weta shop in Auckland’s Sky Tower, setup in time for the rugby world cup. [TVOne]


Collecting The Precious – Weta: The Collector’s Guide

The artisans at Weta as most folks know are some of the kings when it comes to the special effects world. We know their work from films such as; District 9, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Lovely Bones, The Adventures of Tintin, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and of course both of The Hobbit films. In other words some of your favorite films and mine have been worked on or touched by some truly skillful folks.

However, these fine artists are also some of the masters behind many of you Ringers favorite collectibles. That’s why I’m writing about this particular item because it shows the amazing work that the creators working at Weta have made over the last ten years. The item I will be writing a bit about is the brand new released at Comic-Con 2011 Weta: The Collectors Guide. This amazing book captures the work Weta has done over the last ten years into one of the best reference books and coffee table books I’ve had the pleasure to own. Just a couple of the reasons I love this book are the amount of pictures taken of the items ranging from The Lord of the Rings to Halo. They’re all beautifully done and show off just how great the work coming from Weta has been over the last ten years. The other being the amount of information in the book not just on the collectibles, but the people behind the scenes the artists themselves will give collectors a real insight into who made these pieces. Finally, a nice addition is quotes and pictures from collectors who own many of these pieces. It’s nice to see people who I call friends pictures or quote from people who say what I’ve felt when looking at these items.



The History of CG Characters in Film

a short history of CG characters in movies from lnrdshelby on Vimeo.

David writes: I thought your fans may like this video about the history of CG characters in film at Awards Daily.com


Andy Serkis: The Biggest Movie Star You Haven’t Seen

Andy Serkis has had leading roles in mega-blockbusters that have earned over $2.5 billion worldwide. He’s the main character in a major movie opening this weekend, and this winter he’ll appear in a new 3D adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. And yet, odds are good that if you bumped into him on the street you’d have no idea he was a movie star. Because usually you never see his face. Serkis is one of the preeminent actors in the field of “performance capture.” That’s the process where an actor’s movements are recorded in three dimensions and used to create the animation of a fully digital character. Serkis broke new ground when he portrayed the computer-generated Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” films, and he is taking the form to another level in the new film “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” More..


Exclusive: Andy Serkis talks ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes,’ ‘Hobbit’ with TORn

Fans of The Lord of the Rings films already know that Andy Serkis can act his face off and act without ever showing his face. He first proved it with his landmark performance of Gollum in The Two Towers. Film making and acting without a net, portions of the film hinged on Serkis’ performance of a creature and Weta Digital’s ability to put the emotion on screen digitally. It worked. Beyond all expectations, it soared.

When the screenwriters threw in some character twists of the twisted character for Return of the King (for good or for ill, but don’t blame the actor) Serkis did it again. And of course his return as the same character to The Hobbit is as essential a tie between the films as any character. He went from Middle-earth to Monster Island with King Kong and even got to die a horrible death in his own skin on screen.

Weta went on to create Pandora and its blue skinned inhabitants with James Cameron in Avatar then teamed up again on Tintin with Serkis playing a human in the hilarious Captain Haddock.

But his role as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, just about to open in theaters everywhere, is his greatest performance yet. He moves from being a central character in a big movie to being the center of the film and stealing the show from the actors who get flesh and blood on screen.



Collecting The Precious – Orthanc Pre-Order from Weta

Alright, Ringers today is the day! The Orthanc Pre-Ruin environment has gone up for Pre-Order! Orthanc of course is the newest environment to join the environment line with amazing pieces like Bag End and Rivendell. The price of this Orthanc is $250 and for the first 400 orders you will get a 24k gold Sauron Eye pin as well as a numbered piece. After this the piece will be an open edition but don’t wait too long as this will be a piece you will be kicking yourself if you never add it to your collection. Don’t forget after you order to enter what you want the official name of this piece to be when it ships. The contest ends August 5th at 5pm PST! [Orthanc naming contest]


Movie City News Talks Tintin, WETA & NZ

RingerDingerDoo! writes: David Poland at Movie City News was invited to Wellington to meet with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson to talk about Tin Tin and see some new footage. He took some pictures that reference Weta. More..


Collecting The Precious – Orthanc Pre-Ruin by Weta

During, Comic-Con 2011 Weta released the next amazing environment from their The Lord of the Rings line. The item is noneother than Orthanc the home or Saruman during the battle for The One Ring. This version of Orthanc is before we see Saruman tear apart Isengard to use in his part of making war in Middle-Earth.

The detailing in Orthanc is off the charts! It looks like the statue is made from real obsidian and pulled from what we saw on screen during the trilogy. The addition of the trees add a feel of peace that this location had before Saruman sold himself out to Sauron. For owners who have Orthanc after Saruman destroyed the beauty that you see here the comparisons will make for one of the cooler looks in any The Lord of the Rings collecton.



Collecting The Precious – Weta Gandalf the Grey statue

The awesome folks at Weta have a brand new The Lord of the Rings collectible for us today! Gandalf the Grey is going to be thenext item coming from Weta in a line of statues of characters from The Lord of the Rings. As many of you know the first statue done in this line by Weta was the Gollum statue which had two versions. One with the Weta Cave logo can only be bought at the Weta Cave in New Zealand and Gandalf will be the same here. However, there is a second version for those of us not able to make the trip to the Weta Cave and purchase the version with the logo on it.

Gandalf the Grey will come with a price tag of $69 US or $99 NZ and will be like Gollum an open edition size. That does not mean he will be around forever and with a piece that has such an amazing likeness to Sir Ian McKellen I implore my fellow Ringers to get this piece before its gone. Also, Gandalf the Grey will be making an appearance at Comic-Con starting next week along with yet another surprise from Middle-earth! [Order Today]



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