Weta is today hugely excited to bring to the world Weta Legs, a digitigrades leg extension for performers, costumers and anyone who’s ever wanted to walk like an animal. Since they were displayed a year ago on the Internet for the first time, there has been tremendous interest from performers across the world.
Weta Legs are a unique, low profile, professional grade, reverse leg stilt for creature and costume performances in movies, television, theatre, circus, street performances and other creative contexts. Something previously reserved for commercial film and television projects, they are the first of their kind available commercially to the public. More..
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In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Peter Jackson, Executive Producer of the upcoming Hobbit films says of the films’ behind-the-scenes footage that “We’ve been filming DVD material for about a year. Guillermo has been doing location scouts and design work, with the DVD people following him around, so we’ve shot 20 or 30 hours of DVD material so far and we’re still a few months away from the first day of shooting.”
Asked about converting the LOTR films to 3D, he says, “You can do [2D to 3D] conversions well if you take time. If you do it quickly, fast and cheap, it’s not going to turn out well. If we were going to convert LOTR, I’d want to do it properly, which would be a very long, time-consuming, and expensive process.”
Lastly, his opinion on the not-so-positive fan reaction to the recently released Theatrical BluRay version seems to jibe with the majority of the fans. “I agree with the fans”, he says. “I was heavily involved in the DVD process when the films were being released through New Line, but now that Warner Brothers has taken control over the releasing of the films, they just tell me what they’re doing and don’t involve me in the process. [With New Line,] the one thing we never did with the fans was make them feel cheated. Back in the original release, we always put extra material in, extra documentaries — a lot of added value. I so totally understand why the fans would be upset; I don’t disagree with them.”
Read the entire interview over at The Wall Street Journal.
Thanks to Patty on our message boards for alerting us to this interview.
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Kate from HarperCollins writes: I wanted to get in touch with you about www.tolkien.co.uk as it has undergone a recent transformation, with a new look and new products available which I thought would be of interest to TheOneRing’s community.
Relaunching this week, the book store from Tolkien’s official publisher HarperCollins features 14 new products which are exclusive to the site. One of which is a limited edition print (100 only) of the poem ‘Oliphaunt’ from The Lord of the Rings and has been produced using tradition letterpressing techniques. Continue reading “HarperCollins’ tolkien.co.uk Relaunches”
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Roheryn writes: The Professor’s grandson Simon Tolkien will be interviewed in the second hour of NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show” today. Check local public radio listings. An archived audio file of this program will be available after the program airs. More..
Pre-Order ‘The Inheritance (Hardcover)’ by Simon Tolkien on Amazon.com
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Todd Gilchrist writes: Yesterday in conjunction with the release of Warner Brothers’ new Blu-rays, Hollywood News published an exclusive interview with Richard Taylor, one of the good folks at effects house Weta who was responsible for helping bring the Lord of the Rings film to the screen. While Taylor provided as much information as he could, he confessed outright that he actually had nothing to do with the high-definition upgrade, and further, hadn’t even seen the discs yet. Subsequently, however, we spoke with one of the DVD/BD project’s actual participants, longtime Peter Jackson collaborator Michael Pellerin, who provided some real insights into the process of bringing the films to Blu-ray for the first time.
In addition to his work with Jackson on documenting The Lord of the Rings films, the producer and director has worked on countless featurettes and bonus materials for other films as well, including Tron and Fantasia for Disney. But Pellerin offered some surprising revelations about the new Blu-rays, including some specific and unexpected improvements that most audiences wouldn’t even know needed to be made. Additionally, he hinted at the reservoir of content that has yet to be released, but seems destined to appear on some sort of massive Lord of the Rings boxed set hopefully in the not-too-distant future – although much like the fate of The Hobbit, those specifics have yet to be fully ironed out. More..
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Writing a book is a complex process. Creating movies based on books is even more complicated, especially when the source material has been around for decades and has a legion following. The filmmakers must be able satisfy longtime, diehard fans while still attracting newcomers. Furthermore, the filmmakers must also know how and when to stray from the books in order to adapt to a visual medium. With the book The Lord of the Films, author J.W. Braun takes on the ultimate difficulty of writing a book about films that are based on books. Yet the book, acting as a companion guide to the films, reads fluidly, is never confusing and is engaging to the end. (Read Working Author’s review here.) Braun was kind enough to entertain a few a questions and share his experiences as a writer. More..
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