Way back when this film was first announced and Peter Jackson gave his first interviews on the subject, he mentioned that a Wellington knitting club was making the chainmail that the background extras would wear. Once sprayed with metallic spray, it would look great from a distance…at the time I thought that was pretty inventive.
A while ago I was talking to somebody in a pub who rather demanded attention, given that he was leaning on a sword that was longer than I am tall. He and his mates had gone in to an electroplating workshop here to get their armour done and there they saw racks and racks of plastic armour.
The guys at the workshop admitted it was for Lord of the Rings, and that they were going to chrome it. It would be worn by the extras in the background. My informants scoffed at the notion of plastic armour but had to admit that it looked very good and would certainly pass muster from a distance. It was made in India, according to one person I asked.
Month: November 1999
We’d love to hear from anyone that attended the talk that Weta’s special effects gurus gave there.
There’s an interesting snippet in the Otago Daily Times quoting Tim Bevan, who’s in NZ to address the NZ Film and TV conference that’s on in Wellington at the moment. He laments the fact that most talent in NZ goes overseas as soon as they’ve made one movie that’s sufficiently successful to get them out of here. As he himself has done. This is something that Peter Jackson mentioned in an interview years ago. The fact that Jackson is now bucking this trend is something that Bevan mentions in passing.
The full article’s available here
Update to the update! The instructions for setting up your mIRC program to use sounds are here. Enjoy!
We have sound. And now we have color and how to put color and sound together! In the extras section, some instructions on how to use the features of mIRC are provided. They explain how to use color, how to make preset phrases, and how to make that all important lightsaber. As you remember, each Jedi had to construct his/her own lightsaber as part of their training. Here is your opportunity to begin your own training as a mIRC Jedi. Check it out in mIRC Instructions and Scripts.
The instructions will help you to use some of the common commands in mIRC like color, sounds and scripts.
Coming soon, some instructions on how to set your mIRC program to use sounds.
There be DRAGONS…
and goblins and elves
The Hobbit
Theatre Royal, Sydney
There’s nothing to beat the thrill of a shivery, skin-prickling fright when you’re a kid. My childhood fascination with scarifying literature ranged from the sadistic cautionary tales of Strewelpeter, which make the Grimm Brothers’ stories look like the work of a pair of sissies, to the Victorian Gothic of Edgar Allan Poe.
And then there’s nutty, Norse saga-loving John Tolkien and his gang of dwarfs (sic), elves and trolls. “Warning,” runs the tongue-in-cheek advertising for this stage adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, “parental guidance is recommended. Contains giant goblins, scary spiders and dangerous dragons.” Woo hoo!
As much as I enjoyed this visually stunning production, which combines superb puppets (small, large and extra large) with amazing lighting effects and a strong musical score, the highest praise I can offer is that I wish I could see it again through the eyes of a 10-year-old.
Not that I had difficulty being transported to Tolkien’s Middle Earth (sic), Henri Szeps, hidden behind a lengthy grey beard, plays the wizard Gandalf, who narrates the story as well as proving to be quite handy with a “goblin cleaver”
Bilbo Baggins, pint-sized Hobbit, is recruited by Gandalf for his band of crotchety dwarfs (sic) and they’re off in search of Smaug the dragon, a huge pile of gold and along the way some “nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable” adventures.
If this rough outline sounds overly familiar, then it’s because the same mythology Tolkien drew on continues to be reworked by his imitators, In the space age Bilbo would be Luke Skywalker, Gandalf Obi-Wan Kenobi and the dragon’s lair the Death Star. What’s missing, regrettably, is a princess, because there’s no much in The Hobbit to temper all that masculine energy.
Guest reviewers for the evening, Joshua (nine) and Eliza (12), loved it. Josh couldn’t decide whether he like the dragon (which is spectacularly huge, has fiery red eyes and belches smoke) the best or the lumbering, dim-witted trolls. Eliza was particularly impressed by the fine detail in the look of the dwarfs (sic) (Philip Millar designed the puppets).
And as their mother pointed out, when the 11 puppeteers step forward to take their curtain call after two-and-a-bit hours of goblin bashing and giant spider slaying, this is one fantasy that’s clearly over. There’ll be no need to check what’s hiding under the bed when you get home.
Director Christine Anketell, playwright Gilly McInnes, set designer Mark Thompson and lighting designer Philip Lethlean have crafted a seamless piece of imaginative entertainment.
At $140 for a family of four, parents may hope they too had a share of the dragon’s gold: a special pre-holiday treat perhaps.
Playing to December 18
(Sun Herald, Australia. Sunday November 21, 1999)
Thanks to Trufflehunter for the article!