Ringer Spy nel writes: As you’re probably gonna receive lots of reports about the fantastic RingCon of this weekend, I just want to share with you some elements I very much appreciated. Mind you, there’s some minor spoilers!

Panel with Sala Baker (Sauron):
He spoke from some scenes that were filmed, but cut out and may make it in an hypothetical EE of the Whole trilogy in some years… For example, the Forging of the One Ring was much longer, with Sauron mixing his blood to the gold for the One Ring. Or other scenes in which PJ just gave more details about the characters (Aragorn being from a Line of Kings).

To the topic Wounds, he mentioned that as a stuntman he got many times wounded (broken leg, knie, ankle, fingers). Once he got his head “splitted” from a sword, he had to go to the hospital and get “recut”.

The Armour of Sauron was “amazing” but very heavy (about 50 Pounds, 25/30 Kg) so it was hard for him to move his arm and drink anything: it was very warm under the armour!

About PJ being a very precise director, telling exactly what he wants.

Some spoilers about the EE of TTT and his general impression: the EE feels shorter than the Theatrical Version; because of the details for the characters, it flows much better and its deeper.

On days off, he would hang around and learn much stuff about lighting, blue screens, paintings, Assistant Director etc. One day for example, he found the Treebeard-set so he helped manipulating the walking “animatronix” (or whatever the name is lol): we can see him on the DVD in the blue suits.

Last words about RotK: he plays three characters (orc, orc-lieutenant and didn’t catch the last). But he warned us: “folks, for the RotK-Screening, take lots, lots, lots of tissues”!!

Panel with Nathaniel Lees (Ugluk)
After 4 and a half hour Make-up, it was weird for him to see his face so “ugly-looking”. With the prosthetics (teeth etc) it was impossible for him to speak audible, so all his lines has been made in ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording). His fave line : “Meat back on menu boys!”

His make-up was very hard to wear, very hot: so physically exhausting. He would collapse on chair during the pauses.

Panel with John Leigh (Hama) and Bruce Hopkins (Gamling)
Bruce Hopkins arrived 9 months after shooting began. He knew already John Leigh and they enjoyed working together.

Both re-played the Warg-attack, it was very funny!

The scene where Gamling and Theoden get ready for the battle (speech from Gamling), the sons of Bruce Hopkings are sitting at the entrance of the room, their backs to the camera, as Refugees.

As Bruce Hopkins came on the last week of shooting in Helms Deep, he did no sword-fighting. But he had to learn Horse-riding with John Leigh during two months…this year for the pick-ups (Gamling is in RotK!) he had to ride a horse again, after about two years without any horse-riding: it was very epic for him!
He mentioned the danger in the word-fighting; for exmaple, Theoden (Bernhard Hill) got his earlob wounded by an Uruk-Hai.

Weta-Workshop: Rogier and Carola, the Make-Up Artists
They made a three-hours demonstration of transforming someone into an orc with all the prosthetics and dressing. It was very impressive. One detail: as the orc have black blood, they would give each orcs before almost each take some black melasse (mixture of black jelly) so that mouth, teeth and tongue would look black.

Panel with Lawrence Makoare (Lurtz)
In RotK he plays the Witchking of Angmar, Gothmog and an orc: was weird for him to play his boss and the boss of his boss….Especially in one scene where Witchking and Gothmog have a little chat (…) he would speak one role to a pingpong ball. He’s very excited to see himself on screen: two characters in one scene.

When watching FotR in a theater, at the death of the Balrog and the Cavetroll, all the audience was quite calm. But when Lurtz got killed by Aragorn, all the audience would cheer and Lawrence Makoare would sink into his seat.

He spoke from the enthusiasm of PJ during the filming of the battle-scene of Aragorn-Lurtz: after rehearsing each move many weeks so that they were sure of they movements (Lawrence Makoare had contact-linses so he was pretty much blind), PJ was looking for new ideas. When Aragorn planted his knife in the leg of Lurtz, the idea of LM was to take the knife out, leck it and throw it back to Aragorn. At this, PJ would cheer and enjoy this idea: “yeah!yeah!!!!”

Well, that’s a very short report, just to encourage people to try and get to Bonn for the next edition of the RingCon 2004!

Namarie, nel