The folks from Billy’s Loons Charities write: Scottish Youth Theatre is heading out to New York City to perform their new musical, Geordie. Please see the flyer for more details. Mark Irwin, the Marketing Manager of the Scottish Youth Theatre, sent BLC the following message regarding this new venture. “It would be lovely if some of the BBLoons where able to make it to the production, it would be especially nice to actually thank, in person, those people who have been so generous towards Scottish Youth Theatre.” [More]

Joe Letteri LOS ANGELES, March 8 /PRNewswire/ — Weta Digital’s Joe Letteri, who was a member of the Academy Award©-wining Weta Digital teams that created the visual effects for “King Kong,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” will serve as the visual effects supervisor on the upcoming Walden Media, Beacon Pictures and Revolution Studios co-production “The Water Horse.” Most recently Letteri, along with Weta Digital colleagues Brian Van’t Hul, Christian Rivers and Richard Taylor, won the Oscar© for Achievement in Visual Effects for the groundbreaking work on “King Kong” at the 78th Annual Academy Awards on March 5th. [More]

New Zealand’s Weta wizards compete for more Oscars in tomorrow’s 78th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. But four-time Oscar winner and Weta Workshop chief Richard Taylor, who flew to Los Angeles on Friday, says King Kong’s Naomi Watts also deserved a nomination for best actress. And he hopes that actors who play digital characters will one day be recognised in best actor categories. Watts played heroine Ann Darrow opposite the digitally-created gorilla played by actor Andy Serkis, who was Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings triology. Peter Jackson’s $US207 million ($NZ315.21 million) blockbuster of King Kong has five Oscar nominations for best achievement in makeup, art direction, achievement in sound editing, sound mixing and visual effects. [More]