I was a fly on the wall at the set of The Lord of the Rings recently.

There was a whole bunch of extras AND Sauron (20 Elves 20 Gondors) and six Orcs.

I saw Sauron sitting on a chair on a dolly with the 40 Elves and Gondors shouting at him

The 6 Orcs were just dead bodies in the scene. Having been recently dispatched by the Elves and Men. Saurons outfit is pretty cool its black evil looking armor all over with a full face helmet, that has 4 big spikes on it, one in each corner, they had SPFX smoke coming out the back of his suit.

He reminded me of the bad guys from the movie KRULL except they only had three spikes on their helmets

Now here’s the BIG news Sauron is played by…..MICHAEL HUGHES. As an actor he’s nobody but he’s a major player from the WETA workshop, he still works there part time and he’s the one who designed and made Saurons suit. I’m thinking maybe he’ll be a sort of Darth Vader character with somebody else doing the voice perhaps, he’s got a full face helmet, and we never see his face.

The day before they filmed something using the gate to Rivendell which was a great looking (if basic) set consisting of an arch way and a bit of wall each side of it.

The Orc weapons were very cool rough shaped and each was different some of latex foam and some of crude aluminum they looked like scimitars.

Here are some picture from the encampment in Golden Bay. They fly the cast and crew out of here everyday with 5 helicopters. They had to stop filming at Mt Olypus today and moved up to Canaan downs, (the old gathering site http://gathering.co.nz/ .) because of bad weather. Filming is due to stop on thursday (weather permitting).

I just had a call from The Evening Post (I had pre-ordered posters).

Lawyers from the movie producers have told them that they are infringing copyright and that they are not allowed to sell the posters. They’ve all been printed already and will have to be destroyed.