In this One News report Richard Taylor, Pietro Marson and Rod Sheeny (Weta Workshop Animatronics) talk about how Weta Workshop is using 3D printers to make weapons and props for The Hobbit and the Lord of The Rings trilogy.
Animatronics engineer, Rod Sheehy, says that the printing technology is an advantage because it keeps costs down with the items made in-house, saving a lot of time and Taylor says that they’ve used the tech to make helmets, sword hilts and axes. Thanks to Ringer Marc for the heads-up!
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In an interview with Entertainment Weekly the film director of the Batman trilogy Christopher Nolan, reveals how The Lord of the Rings trilogy helped him to wrap up the epic series with ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. He stated how difficult film trilogies tend to be, saying:
“There are very few very great third films, I think in some cases dissatisfaction with third films comes from the sheer exhaustion of the people making it”. He then went on to tell how Peter Jackson’s work on The Lord of the Rings acted as inspiration for his own crew “I will cop to this: ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy was in the back of our minds the entire time we were making these.”
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After receiving multiple requests, we are finally making our Comic-Con 2012 ‘OBEY’ shirts available for online purchase. The popularity of this shirt was a surprise to us all! After selling out last Thursday, we begged our shirt producer to rush another 100+ shirts to arrive at Comic-Con by Saturday afternoon. Those sold out just as quickly by Sunday and ultimately left a lot of con-goers empty-handed. So we are happy to offer them to our entire online audience for a limited time. The shirt comes in three colors: Black, Blue and Red. We are also now offering Women’s V-Neck options. Shirts are $20US with flat rate shipping of $5 US and $15 International. In case you were wondering, proceeds from our shirt sales go directly to site expenses and our events. TheOneRing.net is not for profit with a 100% volunteer staff. We regularly donate any excess monies to international literacy charities. Please help support TheOneRing.net and our efforts by snagging yourself a cool shirt! (And yes, our other shirts should be online shortly!) [Place your Order]
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Jared Connon is the supervising location manager for The Hobbit, and worked on The Lord Of The Rings.
The eagle-eyed film locations expert has worked in the film industry since he was 19, knows New Zealand like the back of his hand and is considered one of the best in the business. Connon has seen more remote parts of New Zealand than most fellow kiwis. He’s also very dedicated to the Māori ethos of kaitiakitanga — treading lightly on the land, treating it with respect and leaving it unspoiled for future generations.
In this feature, Connon speaks about location scouting, the logistical challenge of organising filming permissions and what makes a good location scout.
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Given the awe-inspiring miniatures and “bigatures” used for The Lord of the Rings, many of TORn’s members have been questioning (some with a pang of longing!) the decision to do away with miniature photography for The Hobbit, speculating the use of 3D may have had something to do with it.
Whilst poring over the numerous press interviews and Q&As conducted with Peter Jackson over the course of this weekend, we found the answer via Collider.com in PJ’s response to the question of what the biggest advances in technology have been since The Lord of the Rings. He says:
The technology that advanced the most, in the last 10 or 12 years, is really the fact that we did a lot of miniature shooting on The Lord of the Rings. All the big architectural structures of Middle Earth were really miniatures, some of them quite large. But, you’re limited to what you can do with a miniature because you literally have to have a big camera that has to sweep past it, so you can’t get too close to it and the detail doesn’t hold up too well, if you do.
This time around, there are no miniatures. It’s all done with CGI. Everything that we need to build, from a miniature point of view, we build as a CG miniature. I can now swoop in, over rooftops and through doorways. I can do things that I never could have dreamt of doing with the miniatures. For me, that’s actually one of the most profound differences.
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We are having a great time live blogging from #Hobbitcon (Comic-Con)! If you haven’t been following along, staffers are tweeting, posting pics, sharing thoughts and occasionally streaming LIVE video from all areas of the big show – making it seem like you are right there with us in San Diego! We toured booths from WETA, LEGO, Sideshow, Bridge Direct, Gentle Giant and many more on the live stream, as well as hung out with Andy Serkis, Elijah Wood and Richard Taylor! Today should be even more historic as we cover the official Hobbit Panel at 2:30pm PT. Our team will report as much as we can via our LIVE coverage page, so join us there for the fun and frivolity! See you there! [LIVE from Comic-Con 2012] Please do take a moment to share that link with your friends and family.
(And, if you enjoy this type of coverage from us, please consider a small donation to help us handle the expenses. Even just a few dollars can go a long way!)
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