Wellington played host to the Australasian premiere of the first film in Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring. [More]
Month: July 2002
Dwarf Sidious sends us this great report from MacWorld, WETA had a special presentation featuring LOTR! [More]
Dwarf Sidious writes:
Dunno if anyone else let you know, but AliasWavefront, makers of Maya software, had Jason (sorry didn’t catch the last name) (I’m guessing Jason Schleifer – A.) from WETA in to do a half hour on how Maya was used to help make FOTR and show the new trailer. I really hope some of the footage he shows makes it onto the DVD. The Massive tests were especially cool; PJ originally wanted 125,000 characters in the battle, but it just looked like mud onscreen, so they settled on 5,000 (which was still awesome, no?). Other things like how they created digital versions of the characters for various shots such as the Bridge at Khazad-dum (if I get this wrong, too bad–my intent is good), which I had thought was forced perspective or something. A bit on how they did the forced perspective, which was amazing in and of itself–check out how Frodo and Gandalf are on different ends of the table at one point, but look like they’re sitting across from each other. Also, digital versions of the costumes/armor were created with “Maya Cloth”, as was the Cave Troll’s chain–it is chain painted onto cloth which is then erased.
Oh, and watching PJ carry a camera through the virtual Balin’s Tomb to get the natural-looking shots was super-cool.
From NZCity: Filmmaker Peter Jackson is estimated to be worth $40 million. The NBR says after securing the $600 million to produce the epic “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Jackson is also building up an impressive property portfolio. [More]
Every year, the British Tolkien Society holds a big Tolkien celebration at Sarehole Mill, the old mill in the village where Tolkien lived as a child and which inspired him when he wrote of Hobbiton with its mill and miller. This year’s Sarehole event was really well-attended, not surprisingly. [More]
We’re finding that not every tourist with time to kill in New Zealand wants to visit boiling mudpools and glow-worm caves. “A trip to Hobbiton? Hmmm,that sounds interesting….” is the response even outside of the diehard fancore. [More]