fc6084This week in the roll out we’ve seen of new collectibles tied to The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug we get something that allows you to bring parts of the film home early. These collectibles brought to you from Film Cells Ltd. capture little pieces of film placed in some pretty cool looking frames and some even allow you to bring more than one shot home. As of now you have ten different selections for film, two with six book marks and 4 different film frames. The coolest option is the film frame with 10 different scenes from what appears to be the first trailer. This is the option I went with and I got some pretty cool scenes capturing Legolas, Thranduil, Balin, Thorin/Dwarves all covered in spiderweb, Mirkwood, Azog, and I even got one with Smaug in it. I also ordered a bookmark and got a cool shot of Thorin covered in Spiderweb. I also asked the folks if there were more options coming as we get closer to the film and we will be getting more options.

ThorinPuppet I love Kermit the Frog to bits, but I think he’s got some competition! Thorin Puppetshield is the work of illustrator, crafter and artist Rosemary Travale, and it’s quite, quite brilliant. Thanks to Ringer MJSpice for the heads-up!

Over the summer I decided I wanted to attempt to make a muppet-style puppet. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to try and when I was joking with a friend that Richard Armitage’s Thorin Oakenshield would make a good muppet, things just sort of came together. In between working on my stop motion thesis film at school this year, I’ve put in some time here and there to finish this!

Continue reading “Say hello to Thorin Puppetshield!”

Director Peter Jackson in the gallery of the Wellington Town Hall during the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's recording sessions for 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug'. Photo / Hagen Hopkins.
Director Peter Jackson in the gallery of the Wellington Town Hall during the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s recording sessions for ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’. Photo / Hagen Hopkins.
Russell Baille from The New Zealand Herald gets the low-down on the recording process at Wellington Town Hall last month. He was present last month as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra laboured mightily with orchestrator Conrad Pope, Peter Jackson and senior audio engineer Peter Cobbin to bring composer Howard Shore’s musical vision to life.

My favourite quote from Conrad Pope:

“It always pays to have great performers. Whenever you are in front of an orchestra you are in front of almost 2000 years of musical experience if you think about it. So you are taking that expressiveness and you are unleashing that. If you have a digital thing it is only one person. That is why it’s so remarkable to have that kind of power in this orchestra here.”

Continue reading “Peter Jackson talks about the musical score for The Desolation of Smaug”