Eric SaindonEric Saindon is a good guy to have on a movie. He is smart but also easy going and is able to manage the balance between doing serious business, like being on set every day of filming three movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” and creating a good working atmosphere and getting along. An American, he is an important part of one of the elite visual effects houses in Hollywood, New Zealand’s Weta Digital. He is nominated for an Academy Award on “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” facing competition from the same company for work on “The Avengers,” and “Prometheus.” Definitely a friend to TheOneRing.net, he did an interview with FlickeringMyth.com that you can read right here.
Its full of little gems from Saidon like this: A significant innovation was developed by the R&D team. “We came up with a new hair for example on this project,” remarks Eric Saindon. “We call it Barbershop. We always hated the way you have to move pixels around to layout a hair. Grab CDs and move them around on curves to design the way the hair is done; that’s not how you do it in a salon. You would cut the hair, brush, blow dry and gel it, however you would do it in a salon and that’s how we redesigned our hair system. We gave the artists tools such as a blow dryer, gel, comb, brush, scissors and they actually grow the hair on someone or a creature.” The interview digs deep into the world of visual effects. Saindon is one of the interview subjects TheOneRing.net spoke with on our set visit to The Hobbit. That content is expected to see publication in 2013.
Toy Fair 2013 is going on right now in New York, and those who were not buried under feet of snow have gotten a chance to see just what The Bridge Direct has cooked up for us with wave 2. The second wave of figures for The Hobbit will consist of the rest of the company of Thorin Oakenshield in 3.75″ scale, Radagast the Brown in both 6″ and 3.75, Azog in both scales and – it appears – with both versions of his left arm, Bolg in 6″, and Yazneg in 6″ – which figure was previously released in the UK. There also will be a new version of Sting for sure this time, coming with scabbard, and a full blue version of Sting, both of which will go with the version from wave 1. This wave will also have plenty of two packs of the dwarves in 3.75″ scale, single packs for the dwarves, 6″ single packs, new 6″ two packs, new battle packs, and new beast packs with Azog and his Warg. Pricewise, these figures will be the same price as we saw figures from wave 1, making it a very affordable and awesome line for fans of Middle-earth to collect. You can expect to find these figures out during the Summer of 2013.
Toy Fair 2013 also brings us goodies from Lego for fans of Middle-earth. As you all know, Lego has been creating some great sets based on events that happened during The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey movies. During Toy Fair we got to see more from The Lord of the Rings, covering The Council of Elrond, The Corsair Ship sequence, Gandalf the Grey vs Saruman, and The Black Gates. The Wizard Battle will be a 113 piece set with a price tag of $13, The Black Gates set is a 656 piece set with a $60 price tag, Council of Elrond a 243 piece set costing $30, and The Corsair Ship set, which has 756 pieces, costs $100. All four of these sets are due to arrive in June of this year. They also had a card at the show mentioning that sets for The Desolation of Smaug will be arriving in December of 2013.
You can check out a ton of pictures from Figures.Com in their The Lord of the Rings gallery.
You can also check out videos from the booth via FBTB.Com from their The Lord of the Rings video page.
Greetings all! As we come around the corner to the last two weeks before the Academy Awards, we are moving forward at lightning speed making preparations for THE ONE EXPECTED PARTY — and our friends down in New Zealand working hard on THE HOBBIT films have already won an award in the Science & Tech category (for creating Gollum’s skin software)! We will chat about these new developments and more on our *live* webcast TORn TUESDAY, hosted by your amiable entish friend Clifford “Quickbeam” Broadway and Justin (who will not make any comments about Jar Jar and Radagast in the same breath, we promise). Come join our show and bring your questions and comments via our Live Event Page here. It all starts at 5:00pm Pacific Time today (Tuesday Feb. 12th on this side of the world)… can’t wait to see you all there!
With an eye for attention to the minutest detail, Peter Jackson and his design team source for their movies with great care. Who could forget that wonderful fabric created by Stansborough Fibres for those magical elven cloaks in The Lord of the Rings? The same folks created Gandalf’s silver scarf for The Hobbit movies.
But just where did Ori get his amazing woollies? Who (apart from those elusive dwarf women!) knits for dwarves? A fascinating (and quite technical) article in Knitting Daily, sourced from The Wheel magazine, sheds some light on how the yarn for the films was created. Read the article here – thanks to ringerspy String for the heads up!
TheOneRing.net really does have some great friends. Yesterday we told you that Empire magazine is supporting The One Expected Party, and offering you, dear reader, a great deal on a three month subscription to their downloadable US edition. Today we can share that the fabulous René, owner of The Tolkien Shop, is also supporting our party! The Tolkien Shop is ‘the only brick-and-mortar shop in the world entirely dedicated to JRR Tolkien’! It can be found in the Netherlands, but thanks to the wonders of the internet, wherever you are in the world, you can take a visit to the store – and they ship worldwide. If you ARE lucky enough to be in Holland and want to pay them a visit, you can also see the wonderful Tolkien Museum located there.
Visit The Tolkien Shop here; and expect a gift from the shop in goody bags at The One Expected Party! It’s not too late – some tickets still remain, and can be purchased here!
