GAMES Magazine talks about Knizia’s LOTR Game’. [More]
Month: July 2001
Another reliable spy has sent me more info on the WETA/SFX situation down in NZ. This spy, who wishes to remain secret, wanted to send us a few numbers regarding just how many SFX shots were farmed out and why.
WETA Digital were originally doing all 337 FX shots planned for The Fellowship of the Ring”. As the film was shot and cut, a further 150 FX shots were added to the WETA slate. Now that the film is in its last stages of Post Production, any additional shots are being farmed out.
This is simply because WETA are at maximum capacity. As it stands today, WETA are working on over 500 shots, Digital Domain are doing 6 and Animal Logic are doing 3.
I wish we could just find out which 9 shots DD and Animal Logic are working on!
The following report came to me by way of a very reliable source that has contributed things in the past that have proven to be right. It seems that WETA is going to shop out some of the effects work on the trilogy to some other (big and small) special effects houses around the world. [More]
The following report came to me by way of a very reliable source that has contributed things in the past that have come proven to be right. It seems that WETA is going to shop out some of the effects work on the trilogy to some other (big and small) special effects houses around the world.
It seems that the entrance of Jim Rygiel as Visual Effects Supervisor for the “Lord of the Rings” changed things a bit more than expected.
In order to keep up with the December deadline for “The Fellowship of the Ring”, it seems WETA Digital has had to farm out a part of the shots they were working on to third party studios. The biggest chunk went to Digital Domain (www.digitaldomain.com), one of the biggest houses in the U.S., known for award winning work like “Titanic”, “Apollo 13” or “The 5th Element” (as an interesting note, Digital Domain was the studio where Mark Stetson – the former VFX supervisor of Lord of the Rings – did most of his recent work).
Also involved now on the movies are Animal Logic (www.animallogic.com), the Australian leading visual effects company, which did ground breaking work for “Matrix” and the recent “Moulin Rouge”, and a lesser known company based in New Zealand, called Oktobor (www.oktobor.co.nz), specialized more in commercial and interactive design, rumored to be doing a couple of key sequences of the movie.
I have been working to get confirmation from all three SFX companies, they’ve all responded to my general inquiries, but I’ve only heard back from ‘Animal Logic’ on this topic so far. Their response was a ‘We cannot comment on this right now’, which is as close to a yes as you can get.
More on this as soon as I can get further confirmation.
Ringer Spy Kimi sends along news from NZ regarding the casting of another character from LOTR.
I heard an interview on National Radio this afternoon with veteran Kiwi actor Martyn Sanderson. In it he mentioned that he has a small role in The Lord of the Rings. [More]
Ringer Spy Kimi sends along news from NZ regarding the casting of another character from LOTR.
I heard an interview on National Radio this afternoon with veteran Kiwi actor Martyn Sanderson. In it he mentioned that he has a small role in The Lord of the Rings. He said it involved a couple of days’ filming and only a few lines of dialogue. He didn’t name his character, but said he played a human gatekeeper, and that he worked with the hobbits. This sounds as if he might be Harry Goatleaf, the gatekeeper at Bree.