Elycia writes: This year’s list of Academy Award winners already has a LOTR connection.
(From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Atlanta-based Giant Studios has won a technical achievement award and in a Feb. 12 ceremony will receive an academy certificate noting the development of the company’s motion-capture technology, instrumental in the creation of Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” movies.
Matt Madden, vice president of research and development for Giant Studios, will be among four recipients being honored at next month’s “technical Oscars” for the company’s innovation. The others are Nels Madsen, Vaughn Cato and Bill Lorton.
Giant Studios’ technology was also used to capture the movements of Tom Hanks for the computer-animated “The Polar Express” and for special effects for “The Day After Tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, Giant Studios recently signed a contract for its motion-capturing technology to be used in director Peter Jackson’s “King Kong,” expected to open Dec. 14.
The studio is also working on motion-capturing for director George Miller’s “Happy Feet,” expected in 2006, and Andrew Adamson’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe,” expected to open Dec. 9.
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Obviously the next best thing to getting a plug on Oprah’s Book Club is having Peter Jackson announce he wants to make your book his next movie project. Sales of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones have exploded since the local director confirmed it will be next on his filming agenda. “We’ve increased our sales by 400 per cent,” Whitcoulls book promotions manager Dorothy Vinicombe said. [More]
Order ‘The Lovely Bones’ on Amazon.com today!
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The characterization may not be fair, but for 11 years the Slamdance Film Festival has been seen by many movie-industry types as merely the Sundance stepchild. And the notion is only reinforced by the two festivals’ concurrent scheduling in Park City each year, as if Slamdance is merely riding on Sundance’s considerable coattails. But as Hobbits invade this year’s festival, Slamdance may finally get the respect it deserves. Slamdance has scored what is arguably the biggest star event in Park City this year — the documentary “Ringers: Lord of the Fans,” a look at J.R.R. Tolkein fans, narrated by “Lord of the Rings” star Dominic Monaghan, who is also a star on the new hit TV series “Lost.” Monaghan is expected to be in attendance for some of the film’s screenings, along with “Rings” co-stars Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen and Billy Boyd. [More] [RINGERS: Lord of the Fans]
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From the Dallas Comicon website: LOTR fans unite! We are very pleased to annouce the addition of a fan-favorite actor, Sean Astin! Sean, known to many fans as ‘Samwise (Sam) Gamgee’ in the LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY and Mikey from GOONIES has just finished writing his first book “There and Back Again, An Actor’s Tale”. [scifiexpo.com]
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Michael Drout, a professor at Wheaton College in Norton, will deliver a lecture Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Duxbury Library on “The Lord of the Rings: What the Films Left Out.” A professor of Anglo-Saxon literature, Drout is considered an authority on J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings.” He has spoken twice before at the Duxbury Library on the connections between Tolkien’s fantasy series and the literature of the early Middle Ages. Wednesday’s talk will focus on elements of Tolkien’s epic that the filmmakers could not fit into the three recent films on the “Rings” trilogy. Drout said those missing aspects of the books are important to understanding the fictional world of Middle Earth. [More]
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The 62nd Annual Golden Globes awards are being presented tonight in Los Angeles. The Globes celebrate work in television as well as motion pictures. They tend to be a bit more laid back than the Oscars, mainly because they serve alcohol. Take a look at these nominations of interest. The Golden Globes air tonight on NBC at 8 p.m. Eastern. [More]
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