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.

This month we’re asking questions of one of our Four Founders, Calisuri.

Thanks Chris for agreeing to do this

Me: What was your favourite cartoon when you were growing up?

Calisuri: Oddly enough, the first one that pops into my head is Hong Kong Phooey! Though I know I really enjoyed He-Man, Thundercats and Gummy Bears! hah.

Me: You have been gifted a 30 second phone call with Tolkien, what would you say?

Calisuri: I think I would be a bit embarrassed to talk to him. Weird right? But ultimately, I don’t think Tolkien totally understood hardcore fans, and well, that is what I represent via TheOneRing.net. – even more-so today where fandom has escalated to a religious fervour in modern society.

I am also not a scholar in any capacity…as you can tell by my grammar! So I’d be embarrassed to even open my mouth!

But after all of that, I’d ask him about his experience in the war and how that affected his life. I’d love to know how he lived through the horrors of modern warfare with his own life experience.

Me: How do you avoid going mad under the pressure of running the largest and most-popular Tolkien and Lord of the Rings movies fan site in the world?

Calisuri: How do you know I have not gone mad? heh

But more seriously… I can’t claim to be solely running the site. I do handle most ‘business’ decisions and manage as much as possible, but there are so many other contributors to the site whom go unnoticed and unrecognised for their valuable efforts. TORn is blessed to have such an amazing group of volunteers – they are the ones that truly make TORn ‘run.’

For the business side of the site, I guess I can say I handle the pressure by putting things in perspective. I make an active decision to not sweat the small stuff. I know that seems clichéd and implies that I’m saying TheOneRing.net is the ‘small stuff,’ but…well, it is! My priorities in life are my family and my relationship with God. If I can handle those two extremely important aspects of my life, the rest just falls into place. So when something ‘bad’ happens on TORn (Server failure, etc) it never really phases me. It is just another day in the life of a thriving fan community. I have confidence in our team of volunteers to resolve whatever issue has come up and know that it ultimately will be resolved…at some point.

The only real time I get ‘stressed’ about TORn is when someone is attempting to abuse the community. In a nutshell, that means someone comes to us to promote their for-profit venture without appropriate reciprocation to our community. Basically looking to use the good will we’ve built up over many years for their own personal gain. That is the quickest way to get on my ‘bad side.’

Me: Why do you still do it? Why do you go to all the trouble?

Calisuri: I’ve often described TORn to friends and family as ‘my baby.’ Now that I have a real baby (my daughter was born in March 2011), I’m not sure its exactly the same, but close. In the early 2000’s, I aggressively protected TORn as I would my daughter and possibly burnt a few bridges. I’ve since come to a much more ‘calm’ place in my life and don’t let things get personal. So again, as I mention above, I’m not sweating the small stuff anymore and as a result TORn is simply an overall positive force in my life.

And it is a hell of a lot of fun! Where else can you throw a 220k+ party?! (Yea, that is what The Return of the One Party cost in 2004 – and we expect our next parties to be even more!)

Me: Ever been tempted to change the site so that you can hire staff to do the work?

Calisuri: No. If you check out the first wave of fan sites from the late nineties, many of them are no longer run by their original ‘owners.’ Most folks look to cash in and move on. I’m very proud of our ownership (Tehanu, Xoanon, Corvar and myself) for realising that the TORn community is more than just a website for a lot of folks. It represents years of hard work from our volunteers, but also is an outlet for Tolkien fandom worldwide. To move to a for-profit model would destroy us…you could really compare it to The One Ring itself. Yes, money would be awesome to have from our hard work on TORn, but ultimately it’s corrupting powers would overwhelm and turn us into Gollum? lol When people volunteer their time and talents to something, they are doing so because they have a real passion. You can’t pay for passion.

Me: What has been the BEST moment, the minute or day that has been most rewarding for all the years of effort?

Calisuri: Oh wow. Well, my memory is horrible – as many of our staff can tell you – so i can’t give you the minute and day. But I can say with certainty it was being invited to the Cannes Films Festival in 2001 before the release of The Fellowship of the Ring and spending time seeing exclusive footage of the film as well as partying with the cast/crew before the whole thing blew up.

Ha – look, the old page still exists explaining the experience: http://archives.theonering.net/movie/cannes2001.html

I know you asked for only one – but I’d have to put up there the ‘Charwen’ experience and the last Oscar Party.

Me: What’s your favourite thing about the TORn community?

Calisuri: Loaded question! I call foul!

My favourite ‘thing’ about TORn is the diversity of our community and the giving, generous and pleasant nature of Tolkien fans. We truly are the best fan base out there – sorry everyone else

Me: What is the meaning of your TORn nick and why did you choose it?  (“I’ve always wondered about it, but when you google “calisuri”, stuff about Chris Pirrotta is what you get.” Alassea Eruvande)

Calisuri: It is rather unique – and I have to give the credit to my brother Steve. You see, his email password was ‘Calusari’ – in reference to the X-Files episode ‘The Calusari.’ I just didn’t know how to spell it…and ultimately it served as a good nickname for use on the Nightmare LPMud I used to play. So there you have it…Calisuri.

Oddly enough…most people think it is a female name. I’m not sure why.

Me: Invent a word that might be heard in M-e and tell us what it means.

Calisuri: Wow – awesome question! How about Eve

Me: Do you have any irrational fears or phobias?

Calisuri: I have quite a few – I’m thinking the worst of which is I’m a hypochondriac. Just ask my poor wife! The slightest sniffle and I much have the flu or something much more horrible than the common cold.

I lived my whole life with another fear that I only recently overcame. Since I’m on a semi-soap box here, I would like to encourage anyone with an issue or fear that affects them daily to get some help. I only wish I would have addressed this particular topic 20 years ago – my life would have been so much different. I feel so liberated every day thanks to just a few sessions of therapy.

Me: How did you decide on what design to use for TORn? …in fact, how did you (and the other Founders) decide on the very name? (And do you have any comments regarding, ah, Charwen? )

Calisuri: The original concept for TORn was simply a collage of the great Tolkien artists – taking pieces from Naismith, Lee, Howe and others to compose an interesting backdrop. Nothing really that impressive – and ultimately today it is very out-dated. We should have a ‘reskin’ coming soon!

The name was directly inspired by TheForce.net – a Star Wars site that I often mention was my personal inspiration for TheOneRing.net. We thought by keeping a few parts of our name similar to TheForce.net, we could capture a bit of their success. So that is why we have a ‘the’ in our name and used ‘.net.’

Ah Charwen…that will live with me forever. The one thing I took away from that was I’m a HORRIBLY UGLY woman. My daughter takes after my wife fortunately

Thank you, again, Chris for taking the time to talk to us this month.

And as always thanks to all our message board regulars, Ataahua, DanielLB, Alassea Eruvande, SirDennisC, Xanaseb, grammaboodawg and dernwyn, and a special thank you to Senior Staffers MrCere and Demosthenes for this months’ questions.

If you want to ask any questions yourself, head over to our Message Boards, the sign up process is pretty painless. A lead post for questions is made at the beginning of each month.  Or you can just check the boards for this months interviewee and email me your questions at kelvarhin@theonering.net.

Till next time from TORn’s resident Tiger.

Kelvarhin.

I write this almost a full week after the events of the Oscar Party and Post-Oscar party have taken place. Most of the TORN staff have returned home and are exhausted, we worked our tails off making sure this party would go off without a hitch. And for the most part it did. Even though we spent most of our time in LA doing backbreaking jobs or working late into the night, we are all incredibly in a post-Oscar depression, the entire staff wants to go back!

Back to my story, I ended off with the whirlwind of events leading up to PJ and the entire LOTR crew leaving our party. They spent more than an hour on stage greeting the fans and taking photos. The entire Legion Hall was in a buzz, everyone was so excited! The VIP room was playing some great tunes as round after round of alcohol was served up. Soon desserts and coffee were making their way onto the buffet table and people began lining up for some. Kathy and I sat with Tinuviel and her husband for a while, the evening was getting on, and we were starting to feel it.

We moved over near the exclusive VIP tent (where no one was allowed in except special guests) and parked ourselves down onto some very comfortable sofas nearby. We tried to peak through the curtains and get Elijah Wood’s attention so he could let us in, no go, we were destined to be outsiders.

Just before 2AM the VIP tent and the Legion Hall was beginning to thin out. We noticed some commotion in the press tent area, Lawrence Makoare, Bruce Hopkins and Sala Baker were only just arriving! Apparently the New Line party was extremely dull, the party coordinator was begging people to stay because ‘Peter Jackson will be arriving soon’ (he was at our party most of the night). Sala, Lawrence and Bruce, not wanting to miss the chance to party with them, ditched the New Line party and got to ours as fast as they could. Unfortunately all of the Oscar winners had long gone, except Elijah and Dominic who partied well into the night with us.

Before security could rush them out of the room they launched up on stage and performed a kiwi ceremonial ‘Haka’ dance. The crowd loved it!

By this time Kathy and I had become zombies and we slowly made our way back to our hotel. I can’t remember much else except hitting the pillow and not moving until the next morning.

Late the next morning I awoke to the sound of my phone ringing, letting the answering machine pick it up I slowly fell out of bed and found the closest source of tea I could get to. After a shower and something to drink I checked my voicemail, it was the NY Daily News, they wanted to do a story about the party. On the way to return my tux my phone rang 3 other times, it was 3 other newspapers that wanted to talk to us about the party. Little did I know it but the LA Times wrote that we were ‘the party to be at on Oscar night’, that peaked the interest of newspapers around the country and they all wanted to know about it!

The rest of the TORN crew was slowly making their way back to reality but it was a painful morning. We partied hard the night before and Monday would be the official day of recuperation. It was decided that we’d celebrate our party with dinner at ‘The Stinking Rose’ restaurant in Hollywood. ‘The Stinking Rose’, if you haven’t guessed already, is a garlic themed restaurant. You can have anything you want to eat there, as long as it’s garlic-laced.

It was raining all day on Monday, a sharp contrast to the previous two days filled with sunshine and warm weather. We all met at the restaurant and began to tell stories, many of which you’ll read about in a special report we’re putting together for you.

‘Did you see when?…’
‘You know who I met?…’
‘Where were you when….’

It was great to hear so many different stories all about the same night; it really gives you a better feel for how massive this party truly was.

Calisuri made the first toast of the night, he thanked everyone for their hard work, and proudly quoted the LA Times story. Shortly after that Sala Baker, Lawrence Makoare and Bruce Hopkins strolled in! We were so happy to see them! They sat with us and shared their stories of the night too. Sala even made a small speech apologizing for being so late to our party. Sauron apologizing for his tardiness!

Dinner was fantastic, at one point Bruce Hopkins made a small speech thanking everyone; he then called for champagne all around! Great stuff!

After we had all ate and were content we began to share stories about LOTR. Bruce told us about the ROTK premiere in New Zealand, we told Sala and Lawrence all about the background of TORN. Tehanu even came up with a great new book idea that I cannot share with you at the moment!

All in all the day after the Oscars was almost as memorable as the night before. Being with the core TORN family is, and always will be and amazing experience. Like I told a crying Jincey when we were making our goodbyes, this will NOT be the last time we are all together, I guarantee it.

Click for more images

I’ll try to keep this short since I know you really want to hear about the Oscar Party itself. I cannot comment about the events of this past weekend without mentioning the HARD work and dedication the TORN Staff and volunteers showed out in Los Angeles.

The American Legion Hall was a great location to have the Oscar party, it’s large cavernous rooms and winding halls were great for dressing up and decorating to as we saw fit.

As we arrived Saturday morning to begin preparations TORN Volunteer Sarumann and Calisuri led the way by allocating tasks to various people. The heavy lifters were needed to unload 3 truckloads of goodies provided by Sideshow Toys, EA, Houghton Mifflin and others. The ‘Goodie Baggins’ crew was then needed to open all the boxes and individually prepare 1500 bags for every guest.

Meanwhile the decorating team was turning the Legion Hall into various places in Middle-earth, the Green Dragon, Mordor, Shelob’s Cave and other places. The building team was assigned to building a large beacon pyre that we ‘set alight’ on the roof when the sun went down. The result was so realistic that the fire marshal was called in to investigate!

Meanwhile folks from The One Ring Circus, Dorian Mirth, Emerald Rose, and Lord of the Rhymes each took the stage for sound checks and to practice. The sound crews and engineers were working around them to make sure all was going to work properly.

Arathorn and others were in the cramped control room making sure that the webcast for Oscar Night would work without a hitch. It didn’t help that TORN herself went down for the count thanks to a power outage in Kenosha.

Anastasia and the folks at Premiere Events were running around during this entire melee setting up the VIP area and getting the food ready. I saw them cooking chicken and vegetables at 12 noon the next day, talk about preparation!

When the ‘Goodie Baggins’ crew had finished their hard work in the main hall it needed some serious cleaning. Unfortunately the vacuum provided died before we could get started, so I flew over to the Holiday Inn and asked to borrow one. Muchos thanks for that folks!

By the end of the first day and well into the second the Store was ready to take its first customers….us! TORN staff and Volunteers had to pay for their own shirts (which we all gladly did). At the same time we were able to test out our credit card transactions and make sure all was working well. The auction room was setup and lit to perfection, with the bronzed Gandalf statue taking centre stage.

A large (and I mean LARGE) card was laid out for all the fans to sign, KJ and I took advantage before the doors opened and signed it. I hope you can read it PJ!

The above pictures detail all the pre-party madness, as well as some general shots from Hollywood. I will be adding more images from the Party and After-Party soon. You can also expect a TON of images fro fans to start flooding in soon.

I’ll give you a quick run down on the party with a promise of a more in-depth report and a whole slew of photos when I get back to TORN HQ.

This year we took over the Hollywood Athletics Club (HAC) as opposed to last year when we had only a select few rooms to play with. The main room was a gigantic auditorium complete with an amazing speaker system and a ceiling mounted screen where we presented the Oscars. This was one of 3 main viewing rooms, along with other smaller TVs all around the club. We had the main hall and registration area set up as Fangorn Forest, complete with trees and errie lights to give it that dark mood.

The entire club was Middle-Earth themed, with rooms called Edoras, the Golden Hall, Rohan, Henneth Annun and The Dead Marshes.

The Dead Marshes was of particular interest. Once a swimming pool, this room now housed a dance floor and bar. We transformed it into a viewing room with dry ice all around to give it a haunted look. Truly wonderful!

The lineup for the party went out the door, around the block and down the street! TORN staffers and volunteers were ready when the doors opened at 4pm. ABC aired it’s usual pre-oscar blitz with red carpet coverage. Food was laid out for our many guests, with free beer, wine and soda all night. Quickbeam was our emcee again this year and after a fairly shaky introduction (all in good fun) he stepped onto the main stage in the Golden Hall to welcome everyone to the party!

The Oscars began at 5:30pm, while many of our 1100 guests were still making their way into the club. The night started off with a bang when TTT won for best visual effects!

TTT also picked up best sound editing later on in the night. It lost to Chicago for best film however, but we were content to know that next year will be ours!

All TORN staffers were on a rotating schedule. We hopped around from the silent auction room, to the TORN shop, to VIP rooms and more. It was at around 9:30 when KayJay and I were manning the TORN Shop that Tookish popped in to tell us that John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) had arrived. We were quite surprised by this since he had never confirmed that he would be coming. We didn’t even know he was in the US. We patiently did our full hour at the TORN Store then shot upstairs to greet him. He told us that he was working on a small piece for the BBC, and found himself in LA at the time, so why not!

Craig Parker (Haldir) was next to arrive with a very excited Bruce Hopkins (Gamling). They were greeted by press asking questions and adoring fans behind baracades begging for photos. Bruce embraced me like a long lost friend, and was an absolue mad-house of energy. He was fired up from the moment he arrived, and indeed stuck around well after we left!

Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Dominic Monaghan (Merry) were the next to arrive. The roof nearly came off the ceiling when they turned the corner and were greeted by the adoring fans. We followed Billy and Dom up into the VIP area where they unfortunately made their way into the smallest room at the club! They were surrounded by fans and well wishers who wanted photos and a handshake.

About 30 minutes later we heard that Sean Astin (Sam) and his wife had arrived. Little did we know it but as we walked to the VIP entrance we passed right by them. Sean was amazingly gracious and dressed to the hilt in a tux as he had just returned from the Academy Awards. A throng of adoring fans converged around him. When one of them mentioned how they loved his short movie ‘The Long and Short of it’, he gave them the good news; His short will be seen on the theatrical version of TTT to be relased this August!

Sean immediately wanted to know where Billy and Dom were and we led him to the room they were hunkered down in (still the smallest room in the place). They then all decided to head down to the main room in the Golden Hall and thank all the fans at the party.

The next few minutes was a buzz of bodies, corridors and flashing lights as we led Billy, Dom, Craig, Bruce and Sean (John Rhys-Davies had already left) down to the main hall through secret back entrances. Kayjay and I were then lost amid the swimming masses of body-guards and HAC staff. The next thing I knew, Andy Serkis (Gollum) had arrived and was on stage with Barrie Osbourne, Mark Ordesky, Alan Lee, Jim Reigel, Randy Cook, Grant Major and a whole slew of other WETA talent that was present at the Oscars. How and when they arrived was a mistery to me.

Sean Astin played Emcee for the moment and introduced everyone on stage. The roof nearly DID come off as the crowds cheered for the Oscar winners. They all came to the mic to thank the fans and TheOneRing.net for all the dedication and love. Barrie Osbourne had arranged for Peter Jackson to call in from New Zealand to thank everyone ‘in person’. Peter and Fran, along with a whole slew of other NZ talent had opted to stay in New Zealand this year, much to our dissapointment. Peter came on the PA system over a phone line from New Zealand and the crowd erupted in applause. The only problem is that PJ couldn’t hear us very well, and we couldn’t hear him! It turned into a comedy routine with Sean Astin on the mic saying ‘Peter?’ and PJ on the loudspeakers saying ‘Yes?’. With a big ‘thank you’ (the only thing we could hear) Peter left the loudspeakers and the LOTR gang left the stage.

We escorted a few of the talent back up to the VIP room while some gathered their limos and headed off into the night. Mark Ordesky and his wife were kind enough to stop by and say ‘hi’ before leaving for the night.

Kayjay and I headed back to the VIP area and I finally got my chance to shake Barrie Osbourne’s hand. We had been playing phone tag in the morning, and I almost missed him at the party. We spoke about ROTK and what they have in store for this coming spring and summer re-shoots. Chris and Dan Hennah were also in attendance. I had met them in Toronto a few months back at the TTT Exhibit. They were as kind and genuine as ever, giving me a few details on the sets they are building and the number of folks currently employed at WETA (scheduled to increase soon).

I was led to our interview room where Craig Parker was signing Oscar posters for us (almost mis-spelling ‘Haldir’ in the process). We spoke for a while about New Zealand, Canada and accents. I mentioned to him the droves of emails I receive daily from a group of Haldir obsessed women who are petitioning for more Haldir in the TTT Extended DVD. He got a kick out of that, but thought that we’d seen the end of Haldir, Extended Edition or not.

By this time it was coming on to 2am and Kayjay and I (along with the rest of the staff) had been at the HAC on our feet for almost 12 hours. We were beginning to look like zombies as we gathered our things and made our good-byes. Bruce Hopkins was haming it up with a Hobbit standee when we arrived downstairs to leave. He wished me well and asked us not to leave, but at this point I was starting to loose the feeling in my toes. So we departed.

We will have other, more extensive reports about the party last night, on this and other websites. I know I’ve got a ton more to write about. And a whole camera full of pictures to post. For now I’ll leave you with these 12. Enjoy!

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 100 – Mini Posters
• 100 Mini Teaser Posters
• 1 XL Black Fleece Pullover with Two Towers logo
• 1 of each of the 4 Bus Character Shelters featuring Aragorn, Saruman, Gandalf, and Frodo
• 5 XL ‘Frodo Lives’ T-Shirts
• 10 Character Bookmarks (in packs of 5)
• 1 Sterling Silver Arwen Pendant – Compliments of the New Line Shop 1 Elven Broach (Leaf Pin) – Compliments of the New Line Shop
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 2003 Promotional Calendars

From the beginning we have worked to make the event as secure as possible, so party guests can expect to be wanded and searched when they enter the party.