The Dominion Post is reporting that there may finally be movement on the long-mooted Middle-earth film museum in Wellington.
Wellington’s long-heralded film museum finally looks set for a waterfront home.
The idea was first suggested in 2001, as Lord of the Rings fever established Wellington on the international movie-making map.
Talks between the city council and Rings kingpins Sir Peter Jackson and Sir Richard Taylor about a museum are understood to have been taking place for years, but crucial questions have always included where it would be sited. Continue reading “Wellington may finally get its Middle-earth film museum”
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The World Hobbit Project is a collaborative survey examining what ‘fantasy’ means to people in different parts of the world, and how they used it to add to their lives.
Following up on previous research conducted on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films over 10 years ago, this project involves 146 researchers from 45 different countries around the world. Continue reading “World Hobbit Project survey hits 30,000 responses”
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WETA Digital director and senior visual fx supervisor Joe Letteri conducted an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit a little earlier. Letteri has, of course, worked on a slew of films such as Lord of the Rings, Avatar, The Hobbit, King Kong, and Planet of the Apes.
Here’s just a few of his answers. Click the link at the bottom to see the complete thread.
Q: How is Peter Jackson in person?
Peter’s great in person. He’s really collaborative, really open to ideas. And he’s got a LOT of energy. And I think one of the things that motivates Peter, which I think applies to everyone at Weta, is that you don’t give up on the film until you have put every ounce of effort you possibly can into it, to try to make it as best as possible before it goes out the door.
Q: What’s your favorite pre-cgi movie? Have there been any movies that you thought, “Wow, I wish we thought of that?”
There’s 2 that really stand out, pre-CGI – they would have to be 2001 and STAR WARS. Because 2001 was just visually stunning, with its portrayal of space and how you could use FX to take you INTO space, and STAR WARS just applied that with a whole idea of an action movie sequence that just really opened up a whole world of storytelling.
Q: How was your experience working on the hobbit:battle of the five armies movie?
The experience working on those films was great, because we got to really spend another 3 years in Middle Earth, which is a fantastically open environment for us. We had the ability to not only walk through this fantastic landscape of Middle Earth, but help to create large parts of it, and as the series went on, we got to create more and more interesting characters. So it was great in the first film, to be able to bring Gollum back again, because he’s a favorite character of mine. It was great to be able to create Smaug, because he’s such a fantastic character. And, in the end, we created about 130 different characters for those 3 films.
Q: You mentioned that gollum from lotr and hobbit is your favourite character; how did the idea come about to use an actor for the portrayal of gollum rather than use cgi? And what did you think of Andy Serkis as gollum? I thought he was amazing, really brought the character to life!
Well, Gollum is a CGI character. What happened is that Andy was brought in, to record Gollum’s voice. But Andy, being an actor himself, worked with Peter to come up with this idea of having him perform in front of the camera with the other actors.
And that brought a whole new level of drama to the performance, because that meant that the actors could work with Andy as if Gollum were really there with them.
And so we then recorded Andy’s performance, and used that as a guide for creating the Gollum character, on top of the performance he gave on the set.
Now, when we did RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, we made a technical breakthrough where we could use the performance capture at the same time that Andy was performing onset.
And so that really allowed us then to do Gollum the same way for Hobbit, which was fantastic because it really kept Andy’s performance in the moment. And then we were able to take that one step further with DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, because then we were able to take all the recording gear to a remote location. So it’s given us the ability to work with actors to create these characters anywhere in the world.
And obviously, a huge fan of Andy. He’s a fantastic actor, and we’ve been fortunate to work with him all these years.
[Read More]
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A new UK survey of 2,000 people examining people’s concepts of romance and love in some of their favourite cult television series and films has revealed some interesting statistics when it comes to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Continue reading “Aragorn and Arwen run romantic rings around Tauriel and Kili”
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Do you remember the first shot of every Middle-earth film?
Sure you do.
It’s also interesting to note the similarities of every opening – further reinforcing the connections between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Continue reading “The Middle-earth prologues”
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Many of you will have seen the video Peter Jackson posted to his Facebook page back in December, as a thank you to and celebration of the fans. What you may not know is that TORn staffer Maura appeared in the video! Here are her thoughts on this epic journey of fandom:
We have all made top ten lists of our favorite Lord of the Rings moments. At the 2014 Comic-Con International a group of fans were given the opportunity to share their memories and hopes for the final installment on camera, including yours truly. The end result was a heart-warming video posted on Peter Jackson’s Facebook page on December 3rd, that has been viewed over a million times.
Despite my donning of the “I *heart* hot dwarves” tee shirt (had to represent for TORn) one of my favorite moments was the appearance of the Prince of Mirkwood in The Desolation of Smaug. I’m not going to lie; it’s a relief that they didn’t use my uncomfortably long gush about the beauty that is Legolas. That’s the kind of embarrassment that can come back to haunt you at, say, company holiday parties or family gatherings. Does anyone else experience this – the “Legolas Effect”? Once I start, I simply cannot stop.
It can’t be a coincidence that many of us believe the movies’ most enduring legacy is the friendships that have resulted. It was a point I myself had made during my interview. That’s why a site like TheOneRing.net is so important. It has been a haven for like-minded people to assemble, discuss, debate and celebrate our common admiration for an author and his books, as well as a filmmaker and his films. So as the campaign for The One Last Party draws to a close, won’t you consider making that pledge, leaving the comfort of your armchair and books, and joining us for one final adventure?
These bonds of fellowship we’ve forged over the years are strong and should be honored by hoisting a glass. Oh, and if you want to have a serious conversation about the silver blue intensity of Legolas’s eyes in the Hobbit films versus the Lord of the Rings films, I’ll be at the bar.
One Last Party fundraiser!
Our One Last Party fundraiser on Indiegogo is almost 90% funded and we’re pretty stoked!
If you’d like to join us as a Party of Special Magnificence in Hollywood in February — a toast to all SIX Middle-earth movies, then now is the time to throw in your support! Even if you can’t make it to Hollywood (or if you’ve already contributed), you can help out by retweeting or sharing our fundraiser across social media to get the word out.
Visit our campaign page to see how you can help — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!
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