From stuff.co.nz: Brett Hodge, owner of Matamata Post and Rails, which has supplied the timber for The Hobbit duology since construction began in February, told the Waikato Times that Sir Peter Jackson’s company Three Foot Six was building the home of the Hobbits to last.
What they did last time was build a temporary set, but now it’s a permanent set.
It will begin a perpetual celebration around the party tree, on the set, where The Fellowship of the Ring began with Bilbo’s disappearance.
The Green Dragon, where the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield awaits Bilbo Baggins ahead of their quest, will include a real thatched roof and the nearby Bywater bridge, made from polystyrene blocks resembling stone for The Lord of the Rings, is being rebuilt in permanent stone.
Read more of the article over at stuff.co.nz that ends with quotes from none other than members from our very own message boards.
Parliament has passed the government’s new law to clarify the position of contractors within the film industry. MPs have voted 66 to 50 in favour of the law, which is part of the deal brokered with movie producer Warner Brothers earlier this week to keep production of The Hobbit in New Zealand. This was that the Employment Relations Act would be amended to make sure a worker engaged on an independent contract will not be able to go to court and claim employee rights and conditions.
Labour fought the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill to the last clause, arguing it isn’t necessary and the government is “sticking it to the unions”. During the debate, Labour’s David Parker accused the government of playing a “political game”. “I don’t even think Warner Brothers demanded this. There wasn’t a problem to be fixed, there have been no problems in the film industry for the last five years,” he said. Labour and the Greens are accusing the government of capitulating to a foreign company, abusing parliamentary process and making a mockery of democracy. But ministers say Warner Bros would have pulled out of New Zealand without the commitment to change the law. Read More…
From 3news.co.nz: Watch extended footage of a helicopter flight over the new sets in Sir Peter Jackson’s upcoming The Hobbit films. Just last night it was announced that the films, prequels to the wildly successful Lord of the Rings trilogy, would in fact be shot in New Zealand. That was put into jeopardy after the film was placed on a boycott list by an Australian-led actors group. The footage in this video, taken today, shows that work is still being conducted on one of the sets of the film near Matamata.
SYDNEY – Furious debate rages at this moment in New Zealand’s parliament on legislation sought by Warner Bros. to amend the country’s labor laws and make unionization of the local film industry more difficult. Meanwhile, key union leaders reported receiving death threats. Police have begun an investigation, according to a local press report.
The government has the necessary votes for the law revision and passage is expected later today. A Labour member of parliament decried today as a “day of shame.” The Labour and Green opposition have hammered on the loss of sovereignty implied by negotiating legislation with a foreign corporation, then ramming it through under an urgency procedure. The ruling National Party has emphasized the financial benefit of retaining the “Hobbit” production in country. More..
Announcing the Cruise to Middle-earth: The Sequel, Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Fellowship of the Ring.
TheOneRing.net staffer Garfeimao (aka Cathy) is planning our next Cruise to Middle-earth! Here’s all the details:
New Zealand will always be Middle-earth here at TORn. With that in mind, I am proud to announce a second cruise to Middle-earth. This is your chance to see the enchanting Land of the Long White Cloud and Middle-earth in the same place. Red Carpet Tours will be customizing short day tours for us from several of the ports, as well as a longer, optional post-cruise tour of locations not reachable from the ship.
This cruise will sail on the Celebrity Century from Sydney, Australia on November 30, 2011 and finish in Auckland, New Zealand on December 12, 2011. The bulk of the cruise will be in New Zealand waters, with stops at ports near several Lord of the Rings filming locations. The advantage of a cruise is that it acts as a hotel, a restaurant and transportation so that you need unpack only once during the cruise. It will give everyone in the group time to bond over dinner, to meet up during ‘at sea’ days to watch the films, and to even have a costume party. Exact optional tours are still in development at the moment, so please do contact me for more details. Continue reading “Return to Middle-earth in 2011!”
Doug Adams, author of the recently released book “The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films”, has written up an article over at his site on why New Zealand matters for The Hobbit. Doug has worked closely with Howard Shore for the better part of a decade and he has had great insight into the production for the music of the Lord of the Rings movies. So besides enumerating the enormous difficulties the production would have faced were it to move off-shore, Doug writes this article through a “music-specific lens” and details the impact the move would have had on the music for The Hobbit movies.
Here’s a snippet from the article:
That impact would have been felt most painfully during the post-production. Post, as you all know, is where the lion’s share of the music is created. Yes, Shore has already begun his creative process, but nothing other that pre-recorded songs an diagetic music can be recorded and mixed until the film is shot, edited, and locked. Performers and rooms need to be booked for specific schedules … as do technicians, editors, producers, and so on and so forth. It’s a small army, and it needs time and care.
My greatest fear — viewed through a music-specific lens, that is — was that the production would be rearranged in such a manner that there would be very little time for the music to be created appropriately.
Happily, with New Zealand now set and a February kick-off locked, it looks like none of these concerns will materialize. With a December 2012 release for part one, Shore and company should, presumably, be able to earnestly start into the post-production in late summer of 2012 … essentially the same schedule that was in place for the LOTR pictures. And those came out pretty well, I think! 🙂
Read the entire article over at Doug’s site. Many thanks to message board member Magpie for pointing us to this article.
From stuff.co.nz: Brett Hodge, owner of Matamata Post and Rails, which has supplied the timber for The Hobbit duology since construction began in February, told the Waikato Times that Sir Peter Jackson’s company Three Foot Six was building the home of the Hobbits to last.
