BONN — HobbitCon 2, in Bonn, Germany is just hours away from starting with a hotel packed full of special guests, lecturers, and fans from around the world.
The Maritim Hotel in Bonn hosts the entire event, which takes over the whole property for the weekend. A full slate of lectures and presentations are scheduled starting just a few hours from now. All of the 13 dwarves from The Hobbit movies are present save Richard Armitage, who is at WonderCon, James Nesbitt who was scheduled but had to cancel and Aiden Turner. That means Adam Brown, Jed Brophy, John Callen, Ken Stott, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, Dean O’Gorman, Graham McTavish and William Kircher are all involved. (That means three trolls are here as well!) The gentlemen were present and were rumored to have been observed hanging around the hotel last night talking together and to each other. Reportedly, 26 countries are represented at the event.
The first HobbitConRichard Taylor and Royd Tolkien were also in the house as was Mark Atkin — Thorin Oakenshiled in scale size. TheOneRing.net has three panels scheduled for the weekend, including one tomorrow evening, speculating on the third film in Peter Jackson’s adaptation. With the entire event scheduled in one place, it gives the whole affair a remarkable, intimate feeling that is a little challenging to explain. Its one of those things where you have to be there.
In fact, European fans can still make that happen, buying tickets by walking up to the hotel. Details can be found RIGHT HERE. TORn would love to see you in person around the hotel and at the first panel at 5 p.m.!
– Comprehending and Conceptualizing the Ainulindalë in the real world
Ever read Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova?
That passion. That love. All the emotions in just a few cleverly-constructed sentences.
Transform that text into music and you get Patrick Cassidy’s Vide Cor Meum; and you might just start to comprehend what the Music of the Ainur may have sounded like.
No discords of Melkor. At first.
Just all the Ainur signing in unison before the seat of Ilúvatar – the glory, the majesty, love and subtleties of nostalgia.
Bard the Bowman as played by Luke Evans. Here, Luke Evans chats with IGN about The Hobbit while playing the new Lego Hobbit video game as his own character — Bard. IGN does make it awful hard by firing questions at him about the films and his character while he’s playing! Continue reading “Watch Luke Evans — aka Bard — play The Hobbit Lego video game”
Here’s a really interesting behind-the-scenes clip from the folks at Weta Digital that delves into the virtual cinematography of The Desolation of Smaug.
Apparently, fully a quarter of the film is made of all-CG shots, and this clip describes the typical workflow of developing the camerawork, keyframe refinement and how lighting choices were dictated by the mood of each scene. Thanks to Ringer Sandesh for the heads-up!
TORn staffer greendragon says: Continuing my ‘Inside the Middle-earth Actor’s Studio’ series of interviews, I recently had the great pleasure of a phone conversation with Peter Hambleton, who plays Gloin in The Hobbit movies. What a charming, erudite, intelligent and modest chap he is! He has nothing but praise for his fellow cast members, and for director Peter Jackson; I’d wonder if he was perhaps being too generous in his kind words, were it not for the fact that ALL the cast talk about each other, and their experiences on set, in such glowing terms. It’s really no surprise that all the cast talk about having a great time making The Hobbit movies; they’re all such nice people!
Hambleton and I talked for an hour, and covered topics such as what he’s working on now, how he prepares for a role, what he thinks of Middle-earth fandom, and just why Peter Jackson is a brilliant director of actors. He also gives a little hint of something we might see in the third Hobbit movie, and spills the beans about another movie he’d love to do with PJ…
