Christmas brings to mind the timeless, poignant image of a mother cradling her newborn child.
At this rather apt time of year then, TORn’s music geeks are pleased to bring you an exclusive interview with Hilary Summers.
An alto hailing from Wales, UK, Hilary recorded “Gilraen’s Song” that plays over the scene where Aragorn kneels in reverence before his mother Gilraen’s memorial in Rivendell, and whose lyrics hark back to the words once spoken by Gilraen herself.
Little boy, little one, night is falling, come into my arms, let me hold you safe. But still you run through the twilight, lost in your play, slaying demons in the shadows. Little boy, little one, full of grace, full of joy, oh, my heart will break,
For I see it in your eyes… you are your father’s son, not your mother’s child.
Join us in this exclusive interview as we talk to Hilary about her experience recording the song for The Lord of the Rings.
In amongst all the excitement and celebration of the new Hobbit movie, tonight the very sad news has broken that Eileen Moran, an Executive Producer at Weta Digital, died in New Zealand on Monday this week. Moran worked extensively with Peter Jackson and the Weta team, including on The Lord of the Rings movies and The Hobbit movies. She missed the Hobbit premiere last week because she was in hospital. You can read more here. Everyone in the TORn community would like to extend deepest sympathies to her family, her loved ones, her friends and her colleagues.
A decade ago, Matamata was a sleepy country town in the middle of the North Island, well-placed for travellers in need of a comfort stop and a takeaway snack. Today, it is better known as Hobbiton and is one of the country’s star tourist destinations, attracting 1.9 million visitors over the last 10 years. It is poised for a fresh invasion starting this Christmas which seems certain to top that number over the next decade.
It all began in 1998 when movie director Peter Jackson took to the sky in a small plane in search sites to film his planned trilogy of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
His target was a piece of countryside untouched by concrete buildings, power poles and roads that he could transform into Hobbiton, the primitive village home of Tolkien’s small, hairy, Hobbit people.
A family farm outside Matamata, set about halfway between the provincial capital, Hamilton, and the tourist city of Rotorua, and complete with Tolkien’s so-called “party tree” and a lake, proved perfect. Continue reading “How a sleepy country town became Hobbiton”
Back in July I posted the first in this series of memoirs about my work on my book, “Researching THE FRODO FRANCHISE: Part I, Off to Wellington without a Handkerchief.” I’ve been all too long in following it up, but lots of travel, including attending the “Return of the Ring” event in England in August, has interfered. I’ve got at least a dozen of these entries planned, so despite the fact that so much attention is focused on The Hobbit, I’d better get going!
This entry begins my recollections about the places where The Return of the King was still being worked on when I showed up at the end of September, 2003. They are scattered mostly around the Miramar peninsula, which was and is sometimes referred to as “Wellywood.” I gradually visited all of them to interview filmmakers or to get tours to familiarize me with the facilities that Peter Jackson and his colleagues had built up. That process had happened during the 1990s, but it accelerated to a breathless pace as the infrastructure for accomplishing the three parts of The Lord of the Rings were built and expanded.
As part of their series on fandom, Vulture has profiled our one and only Tehanu. They talk to her about the founding of TORn, her famous banning from the sets, the resultant meeting between TORn and the movie makers, her views on The Hobbit films and what she’s doing now.
As we wrap up our “World Hobbit Day” festivities, we at TORn are pleased to bring you one final piece of our celebratory specials via an exclusive interview with Aivale Cole (nee Mabel Faletolu).
For fans of Howard Shore and the music of The Lord of the Rings films, Aivale (credited as Mabel Faletolu on the soundtrack of The Fellowship of the Ring) perhaps needs no introduction. For the rest, you probably recall that most heartrending of voices that engulfs the broken Fellowship as they emerge from the darkness of Moria and grieve over Gandalf’s fall into Khazad-dûm.
That piece was sung by none other than Aivale, a vocalist hailing from Wellington, New Zealand. Back in 2001, she recorded the solo piece with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Join us in this exclusive interview as we catch up with Aivale who, after more than a decade, takes us back to that “crazy but exciting” time when she worked with Howard Shore and Peter Jackson, and also shares a rather amusing anecdote involving Ian McKellen.
As part of their series on fandom, Vulture has profiled our one and only Tehanu. They talk to her about the founding of TORn, her famous banning from the sets, the resultant meeting between TORn and the movie makers, her views on The Hobbit films and what she’s doing now.