From: Finarfin
Ok here goes trying to dredge from my holiday season alcohol soaked brain the memory of the Lord of the Rings Wrap Party….
Actually its not that hard to remember given that I was on Cloud Nine from when I received the tickets until days after the party ended.
Party night arrived and a friend (who had managed to hike up from Christchurch; not a bad feat two days from christmas) and I dressed and ambled down to the Wellington Waterfront. We debated whether or not to take a camera and risk getting it confiscated, but in the end we bought a cheap disposable on the off chance that we would be allowed to use it (we were, and we both have photos which I’d share but for the lack of a scanner).
But eventually we arrived and tried to look inconspicuous among the slowly gathering throng. Doors (really they were chain link gates) were set to open at 9pm but 9 rolled by withut a movement from the large securty throng. People stood and chatted and it was obvious they were well into the process of remembering good times over the shooting period, and promising not to loose touch over the coming years. Then without the clap of thunder or the shining light from the clouds that (for me anyway) the moment deserved, the gates opened and we started to enter.
We got through the security check, and quickly walked through the venue so that we knew the locations of all the places and things that needed to be checked out. The main building was essentially a waterside wharehouse with huge shed doors spaced along its side. one door led to the food tent where great food (you already have the menu) was served all night. Others led to the toilets, and a coffee cart that saw many people (including me ) exceed the recommended lifetime intake for caffine in a single night).
Mind you that sought of self abuse did not come before we took total stock of the bar facilities. Now if memory serves there were…22 Bar staff on the main bar which occupied the middle of the warehouse, and at least four or five staff on the smaller bar which occupied the end of the mezinine floor reached by too large scaffolding stairwells. Alcohol for a party of this magnatude wass free and consumed with much vigour).
As I have read other accounts of the event I cannot fail to mention the other two features that dominated the warehouse. One was the stage at the far end of the warehouse, where the live acts played all night, The other was the number ( I recall at least three) of large projector screens that during downtime played slide shows of the production process, and at other times played live footage from the stage.
So far this has been a bit of a clinical account but I’m trying to prioritise my memories in order of least to best. (Now for a bit of emotion)
I would not have been suprised to learn that some gas had been released inside the venue (I mean I’m sure that many substnaces were circulating in the shadows) but seriously one thing that immediately struck me even before we got through the gates was the enourmous feeling of empathy and togetherness which was just awesome. These were a huge group of people who had worked on a project that they all believed in. That sence of achievement which was there throughout the nightwill be with me always.
Who did I see?
Well there were heaps of faces I recognised etc. And I won’t list all the cast the were present and who I saw from a distance or close up etc. But I’ll simply say that the highlight of the night for me, in terms of people, was meeting Orlando Bloom, seeing the tattoo (awesome) and having my photo taken with him. Since I’ve had it developed I show people who lack my sence of attention to the production thus far, and they say “who’s he?” and I say ” that’s Legolas” and they reply as comprehension dawns on their faces “cool”. Yep it was cool. Other words will not express it better.
What did I see?
Well a hell of a lot….but the highlight would be:
The Blooper Real – 10-15 minutes of fantastic footage including wonderful shots from Meduseld, Minas Tirith, Moria, Bag End, The scene of the Long Expected Party, Weatertop, Lorien, Fangorn and wonderful shots of Gandalf, Treebeard, The Nazgul singing “You make me feel like a natural Woman”, Helms Deep and massive charges of Orcs and wildermen and the battle for the Hornburg, Gandalf admonishing Sam for listening to his conversation with Frodo at Bag End, Wonderful shots of the Fellowship travelling up Carhadras, etc. Truely I wish I could remember it all but al that needs to be said is that all of this was good. Perfect even, except for the somewhat confusing shots of Arwen atempting to fire her bow (and failing almost as many times as Legolas) at what apeared to be Helm’s Deep. I’ve paid attention to the talk of changes to the book, and was most pleased to hea that Arwen would not be changed much…I do not know however that this change is a good one. But on the weight of the rest of the footage I am fully prepared to bow down in front of PJ and the crew and say “well done, it could not be better”.
And now I put on my nationalist hat and say my proudest three moments in the next three years have already been heralded, and I belive when they come I may even cry. They will be at Christmas 2001, 2002, and 2003 when as the credits role at the conclusion of each film, I sit and see the words “Filmed entirely on location in New Zealand”. For the little that I have been privileged enough to see has utterly convinced me that PJ and his team has worked creative magic truely worthy of Eru.
I left the party after all the major acts had played, about 2/3 of the guests had left, and 90% of the alcohol had been drunk. Truely a worthy party for what I am now wholly conviced will be a worthy adaption of a masterpiece of fiction.
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From: Jim
Lord of Rings biggest project in movie history
2,500-member crew worked on trilogy, which was shot in New Zealand and has 77 speaking parts
Mark Feeney
The Boston Globe
A year from now there is a good chance you or someone you know — or, at the very least, someone who knows someone you know — will be buying a ticket to see the first instalment of what is already being called the biggest project in movie history.
J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, is coming to the screen. On Dec. 19, the film version of the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring, is scheduled to open. A year later will come The Two Towers, and a year after that, the trilogy concludes with The Return of the King.
“It’s a genuine cinematic first,” says Mark Ordesky, the film’s production executive and president of Fine Line Features, the arthouse subsidiary of New Line Cinema, which is producing Lord of the Rings. “At no time in the history of film has anyone made a commitment to a simultaneous filming of a trilogy of films.”
That commitment is to the tune of a reported $270 million. The production, which was shot in New Zealand, has 77 speaking parts, a 2,500-member crew, and a 438-day shooting schedule. Principal photography concluded Dec. 22.
“It was a helluva wrap party,” chuckles Ordesky.
The director and co-scenarist is Peter Jackson, best known for Heavenly Creatures (1994). The cast includes Ian Holm as Bilbo, Elijah Wood as Frodo, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Viggo Mortenson as Aragorn, and Liv Tyler as Arwen.
In Boston, some 15,000 kilometres from New Zealand, the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring is keenly anticipated at Houghton Mifflin Co., Tolkien’s U.S. publisher. With 50 different editions of Tolkien’s works in print, Houghton Mifflin has a vested interest in the success of the films. It has seen sales of the trilogy triple over the past three years, thanks in no small part to publicity about the movies.
The opening is even more eagerly anticipated in New York, where New Line’s owner, Time Warner Inc., has its headquarters. The studio is hoping the Tolkien movies will help it recover from a string of costly flops, the most recent being the Adam Sandler vehicle Little Nicky.
But where the opening is most eagerly anticipated is on the World Wide Web.
“The collective enthusiasm from the Internet has been a roar,” Ordesky happily notes.
“There are Web sites out there that watch every little tidbit they can find on, literally, a daily basis,” adds Clay Parker, Tolkien projects manager at Houghton Mifflin. “To keep up with that stuff, I check some of them three times a day, and have for more than a year.”
There are at least 400 fan sites exclusively devoted to the production. Many of them feature countdowns to the first film’s opening and list not just how many days remain, but hours, minutes, and, yes, seconds.
When New Line made available a Lord of the Rings trailer in April, 1.7-million users downloaded it the first day. By comparison, the first day the trailer for Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace went online, a million users downloaded it.
Such fervour is a two-edged sword for New Line. It guarantees the films a vast presold audience. It also means that audience has very strong ideas about what it wants. Production news often takes a back seat on the Web sites to complaints about casting (Ian McKellen is playing the wizard Gandalf, but Sean Connery clearly seems to be the chat-room choice) or deviations from Tolkien’s text. The trilogy runs to a thousand pages. The films are expected to run between six and seven hours. Clearly, something’s got to give — though try telling that to Tolkien buffs.
Mike Foster, U.S. representative for the English-based Tolkien Society, admits he will be one of those waiting in line next year. “But it’ll be with a dire foreboding,” he says. Referring to two characters in the trilogy, one of whom has a pronounced lisp, Foster expresses fears that “the merchandising tie-ins could be ludicrous: a Gollum Happy Meal with a fissRating four & chipsss McLunch? A Mattel Barbie Galadriel?”
The Lord of the Rings inspires a loyalty on the part of its admirers — who have included such eminences as W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and C. S. Lewis — that can make the enthusiasm of, say, Harry Potter fans seem tame by comparison. Three separate reader polls in England in 1997 saw the trilogy named best book of the century, and it won handily in Amazon.com’s Best of Millennium survey.
Tolkien’s tale of hobbits and orcs and elves in an imaginary land called Middle-earth has sold 50-million copies and been translated into 26 languages since it first appeared some 45 years ago.
“It’s not only a franchise,” says New Line’s Ordesky. “It’s also the collective imagination of tens of millions of people who are passionate about these books.”
The trilogy was well received in the mid-’50s, when it first appeared. But it wasn’t until the mid-’60s, when it appeared in softcover editions, that the books became a phenomenon. Bumper stickers proclaimed “Frodo Lives” and “Gandalf for President.” Rather to his chagrin, Tolkien became as much an icon of youth culture as the Beatles. (There was actually discussion of the Fab Four starring in a film version of the trilogy, with Paul as Frodo and John as Gollum).
By no means did the trilogy disappear in the ’70s — there were, for example, animated versions of its predecessor novel, The Hobbit (1977), and The Lord of the Rings (1978) — but it lost its talismanic status. The success of the Star Wars films helped make Tolkien seem passe — unless one realized the debt George Lucas owed him (Obi Wan-Kenobi is a galactic Gandalf, Yoda’s maddening syntax and lizardy look are straight out of Gollum). The trilogy had been absorbed into the culture. Wherever one finds sword or sorcerer, whether on page or screen, odds are one will find a Tolkien influence, too.
The enormous commercial success of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion (1977), a posthumously published collection of fairly esoteric writings on Middle-earth history, indicated both the extent and staying power of the trilogy’s popularity. “It never went back down” in terms of sales, says Houghton Mifflin’s Parker, who estimates the company’s Tolkien sales this year to be in the mid-eight figures.
That New Line has a very solid property on its hands there can be no doubt. The big question about The Lord of the Rings on-screen isn’t why, but how. The nature of the property guarantees the crowds will be there next year. It’s what’s been done to the property that will determine whether they’re still there for the subsequent films.
In the rueful words of William Goldman, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men, “When you’re dealing with three movies, your first one (had) better be good. Because if it isn’t, there’s no interest in the second or third.”
The Author
John Ronald Reul Tolkien, the lord of The Lord of the Rings was an unlikely cult author. A pipe-smoking Oxford don who was a leading authority on medieval English, Tolkien was from an early age fascinated by languages. He began making up new ones as a boy, and in that hobby lay the inspiration of The Lord of the Rings.
“The ‘stories’ were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse,” he once said. “I should have preferred to write in ‘Elvish.’ … It is to me, anyway, largely an essay in ‘linguistic esthetic.’ ”
Born in South Africa in 1892, Tolkien moved to England when he was 4. He graduated from Oxford in 1915 and married the next year. As a junior officer, Tolkien saw action in the Battle of the Somme. After the war, he worked as a lexicographer on the Oxford English Dictionary, before taking a teaching post at the University of Leeds, then Oxford.
One day, while grading examinations, he came upon a blank page and wrote the sentence “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.” Thus was born The Hobbit (1937), a book for children. It met with such success that Tolkien’s publisher urged him to write a sequel, which proved to be The Lord of the Rings. A far more complex and sophisticated book than its predecessor, it comprises The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1955) and The Return of the King (1956).
Tolkien died in 1973.
The Trilogy
J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, is set in Middle-earth, a pre-industrial land with a society vaguely reminiscent of medieval England. Its inhabitants include not just people but elves, dwarves, orcs (also known as goblins) and hobbits. Hobbits are very much like humans, only about half the size and with furry feet.
The trilogy is a classic quest. It centres on a gold ring with magical powers that a hobbit named Frodo Baggins has inherited from his uncle Bilbo (how Bilbo came to possess the ring is told in Tolkien’s children’s novel, The Hobbit). Frodo learns from the wizard Gandalf that the ring belongs to Sauron, the Dark Lord, a figure of absolute evil. Sauron’s regaining the ring would enable him to conquer Middle-earth. Frodo’s task is to take the ring to the place of its making, in Sauron’s kingdom, Mordor, and destroy it.
The trilogy is also a classic morality tale.
In attempting to destroy the ring, Frodo must battle himself as well as Sauron’s many minions. For the ring corrupts its possessor even as it bestows great powers. Frodo must destroy the ring before it, or Sauron, can destroy him.
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