telegraph.co.uk recently ran this small article, which should be taken with a large grain of salt: Sir Ian McKellen’s dream of reprising the role of Gandalf – the role that turned the stage actor into an international film star – looks like being realized after all. Last year, it had looked a distinctly forlorn hope after Sir Ian’s friend Peter Jackson, the director of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, said he wanted nothing to do with turning Tolkien’s other great work, The Hobbit, into a film after a row about money with the production company New Line Cinema. Now, however, Jackson appears to have patched things up with New Line’s founder, Bob Shaye, and the film looks back on course.
By a happy coincidence, Sir Ian is currently in New Zealand performing in King Lear and plans to dine with New Line’s bosses shortly when he will make it clear how keen he is to play Gandalf in the new film.
Month: August 2007
Flagship Studios is offering fans of the highly anticipated PC game, Hellgate: London, the chance to participate in the closed beta test of the game! Anyone who purchases a Hellgate: London statue from Weta Collectibles between 15 – 31 August, will be offered a key to the closed beta test for Hellgate: London. The closed beta is only available to a select group of video game industry insiders, and you only have a short time to join their ranks. [More]
seb writes: The BFI IMAX is doing a LOTR Trilogy on Saturday the 15th of September, starting at 22.45. Having been there before for a few of these nights, it is brilliant: people dress up and the atmosphere is great and very relaxed. Complementary tea and coffee ensure that no one falls asleep (as if true fans would!). Should you be interested in booking a ticket, please call the booking line on 0870 787 2525 or visit the website bfi.org.uk.
JUST BETWEEN US
Or A Few Words and Some Pictures
By John Howe
At rather a loss as to what to actually write for this newsletter, I’ve fallen back on the tried and true method of using something I’ve written before. (I have an excuse, I am working very assiduously writing texts for another book.)
Following is the introduction from FANTASY ART WORKSHOP, just so you won’t have to read it IN the bookshop come October, and can get directly to Terry Gilliam’s fantastic foreword and Alan Lee’s poetical afterword. (In between there are a few pictures, you can skip those if need be.)
Just Between Us
I wanted to call this book “How to Draw Like Me It’s A Cinch Anybody Can Do It”, but the editors seem strangely reticent. (They said it was too long, so we agreed on a different choice of words.)
It’s almost what the book is all about, but not quite. I will ramble on endlessly about how I draw and paint, but it’s REALLY all about how to draw like YOU. If you’re reading this introduction, and wondering if this would be money well spent, I’ll try to save you some time.
If you know how to draw already and you are quite satisfied with the results, then this book is not really for you.
If you feel figurative and narrative imagery is dull, this book is not for you.
If you feel that mythology and fantasy have little to say to our modern world, then this book is most definitely not for you.
If you are searching for off-the-shelf methods and surefire technical tricks of the trade, then this book is not for you.
If you believe pictures should speak for themselves, I’m tempted to tell you to buy it; there is an abundance of loquacious imagery inside.
However…
If you find your mind is so full of images that they keep escaping unbidden from your fingertips, then this book may be for you.
If you are unsure of the direction your artwork wishes to take, but know you should be heading somewhere, then this book may be a signpost of a kind for your journey.
If you find pleasure in telling stories in pictures, then this book may help you.
If life has obliged you to leave pages of yourself unturned, and you’d feel better with a little company for a chapter or two, then perhaps this book is for you.
I should say right from the start that I dislike most “How To…” books, unless they are purely technical, and concern themselves spark plugs, hot water pipes or computer software.. I dislike the temptation to reduce an intuitive and intensely personal process to a series of steps or a recipe. I am dubious of assemblages of rectangles and ovals magically becoming horses, tigers or trees. I moan when I see famous paintings divided into arbitrary circles, triangles and (fool’s-)golden means.
They reduce drawing to a method, in exactly the same fashion that first-graders learn to form legible letters – they are the equivalent of row upon row of vertical strokes, circles and diagonals.. Naturally, you will learn to write legibly, but you may not learn to express yourself.
Drawing is giving oneself up to an exercise with no immediate application. It is a form of communion with your subject, be it in front of you or in your head. Expertise and skill go hand in hand with your desire to express feelings, to tell stories, to create and share worlds.
It’s personal.
So, I have tried to find the words to say how I feel. With each picture being worth a thousand, that makes quite a few. The editors have had to seriously cut their number, and I’m grateful to them for allowing my thoughts such unruly growth, only pruning when necessary.
This book is personal too. I can only speak for myself, not for illustration theory. Nor am I trying to speak to some fictitious potential average buyer/reader.
If I could, I would rewrite this book for each one of you, and include a couple of chapters of your work. Of course, this isn’t possible, so I beg your indulgence.
Inside, you’ll find a first section that talks about how I get along with the Muse and find my inspiration (wherever and however I can), the second about what materials and techniques I use and how I use them (as best I can).
A third looks at a selection of my work, with step-by-step case studies to give blow-by-blow accounts of the process (this is the book’s reality show slice of life, complete with commissioning editors, deadlines and last-minute deliveries), while the fifth section deals with presenting your work and a last bit about the varied fields illustration can lead you to wander in.
And, lastly, to my comrades-in-art and fellow illustrators, I beg your indulgence also for this foray into the dreaded land of Explanation and the perilous realm of Reason, momentarily forsaking the foggy shores of Inspiration. I am speaking only for myself, not for my profession. All of you have your own voices. (But buy the book anyway.)
TALKING AGAIN
Otherwise, I’d like to mention a couple of recent interviews. (Please do go read them, the authors deserve every encouragement for patiently dealing with my inconsistencies and tardiness with a rare brand of perseverance.
Interview done in Saint-Ursanne with Pieter Collier, at the Tolkien Library.
This one is very short and tongue-in-cheek, on the LCSV4 site.
And while we are on the subject of talking to strangers, here’s another on-line interview: Middle Ages Meets Middle-Earth.
Udi writes:
“For the third year in a row, Mythopia is one of the most prominent literary conventions in the Israeli landscape. Starting off with academic lectures on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, it began to house other literary endeavours such as those of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”, G. R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” and C. S. Lewis’s “Narnia”.
The convention attracts a wide range of audiences, from early teens to mature adults, all interested in fannish delving or academic exploration, with no correlation to the age of the audience, who enjoys the stage of Israel’s top academic lecturers concerning literary works in the fantastic genre, producing a fantastic convention.
One of the lectures about Tolkien’s work is
Túrin and Frodo: A Fate Too Similarly Different / Ran Bar-Zik
Túrin, the hero of “The Children of Húrin”, seems vastly different than Frodo, the hero of “Lord of the Rings”. A closer inspection
reveals that the similarities outnumber the differences, and sometime Frodo mirrors Túrin to extremes.
The lecture shall examine the similarities and difference and will attempt to reach a conclusion on Tolkien’s storybuilding and the eternal element of the dance between myth and modern.”
I can’t read a word of it but Udi tells us the official site can be found right here
August 31 marks the begining of one of the best geek events in the world! DragonCon 2007 kicks off for a weekend that features something from nearly every nook and cranny of pop-culture and genre entertainment. DragonCon features a robust Tolkien Track of programming, details of which can be found right here. TORn will be well represented this year with a message board moot and half of TORn’s four founders attending as well as this reporter. Stay tuned for more details before during and after the event. Hope to see you there!