Moviegoers who saw Walt Disney Pictures’ “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” over the weekend also discovered an unexpected bit of treasure. Buried beneath the usual movie trailers, just as “Dead Man’s Chest” started, Disney unveiled a new, computer-animated logo that the Burbank-based studio spent a year designing…The execs tapped Disney producer Baker Bloodworth and director Mike Gabriel, both Oscar nominated in 2004 for the animated short film “Lorenzo.” Gabriel devised three different treatments, created animatic storyboards, showed Aviv and Cook the frames and re-worked the designs until everyone was on board. Academy Award-winning studio Weta Digital in New Zealand was chosen to animate the story and add visual effects. “We chose to go to the world’s best (visual effects) studio, where they specialize in live action/real-life simulation,” Aviv said. [More]
Month: July 2006
Celebriel would like to remind all San Francisco Bay Area Ringers that the San Francisco Symphony is performing The Lord of the Rings Symphony on July 14 and 15. Also, the Tolkien Friendship Society is meeting for food, conversation, and trivia right after the Saturday concert! All welcome, email tolkienfriends@earthlink.net for meeting place!
Isabel writes: In Middle Earth in the quiet of the world, Gandalf convinces Bilbo Baggins to help Thorin recover the dwarves’ stolen gold and treasure. Their adventure is filled with danger as they encounter goblins, elves and trolls. Along the way Bilbo finds a magic ring which makes him invisible, a definite advantage when he meets Smaug, the ferocious dragon. [adventuretheatre.org]
July 8-August 13, 2006
Adapted by Markland Taylor
From the Book by J.R.R. Tolkien
Saturdays & Sundays 1:30 and 3:30
A ton of interesting new films are out on DVD this week. Take an early look on our ‘DVD Tuesday’ feature…every Monday! Check out Sean Astin’s ‘Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School’, National Geographic: Blackbeard – Terror at Sea, Negadon – The Monster From Mars and The HD DVD version of Pitch Black. [More]
A repeat airing of Ian McKellen on ‘Last Call With Carson Daly’ airs tonight on NBC. Daly, demonstrating his absolute lack of talk show host prowess, fumbles through most of the interview, calling himself a moron (rightly so) at one point. However Sir Ian was as charming as ever. He was there to promote his latest films, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’. Unfotunately my TV connection did falter at a few points in the video, so it is NOT a computer error. Take a look! (29MB MOV)[More]
We are very pleased to announce a chat with Jeffrey Steefel, executive producer of the Lord of the Rings Online game. Join us in #TheHallofFire Monday, July 10th at 5:30pm to find out more about this exciting game!
Jeffrey Steefel joined Turbine, Inc in early 2004 and is currently the Executive Producer in charge of the upcoming MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online. LOTRO will be the first and only online persistent world based directly on the literary works of J.R.R Tolkien and will host a world-wide community of fans and gamers.
Jeffrey has been a professional in the Entertainment and Technology industries for almost 20 years, serving as Executive, Director, Head of Production, Principal Designer and Business Strategist for multiple new-media, entertainment and technology organizations ranging from young start-ups to media and technology giant, Sony. [More]