It’s no small feat to make the wizard Gandalf appear larger than his dwarf and hobbit friends. Over at Popular Mechanics, Eric Vespe explains how the filmmakers pulled off the illusion in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
In the past, director Peter Jackson had to shoot characters of different sizes at different times and piece the scenes together in postproduction. “There was no way to direct the whole scene at once, no opportunity to finesse performances,” says motion-control supervisor Alex Funke. With the new system, Jackson watched scenes from The Hobbit unfold in real time.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The Hobbit would be better subtitled ‘Great Expectations’ rather than ‘An Unexpected Journey’, given the spectacular triple-act it follows, and the accumulated anticipation in the near decade since the Oscar-sweeping The Return of the King. This presents a problem for judging the film, for we are none of us objective. Comparisons with the original trilogy are inevitable, and thus before we even look at the intrinsic merits of the latest addition to Jackson’s Middle-earth adaptations, we need to be aware of how much we take for granted in coming to this new trilogy, and thus how our critical faculties are skewed. Continue reading “Thomas Monteath critiques An Unexpected Journey”
greendragon with actor John Bell, who plays Bain in The Hobbit movies
On 12th December staffer greendragon was lucky enough to attend the red (well, actually it was green!) carpet in Leicester Square, London, for the Royal Film Performance of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Many of the film’s stars – and other celebs who were there to see the movie – stopped by to say hi, and were delighted to see TheOneRing.net (‘our special friends,’ as Peter Hambleton said) represented there. This is because YOU, our readers, are all so fabulous – everyone involved with the films knows that the best fans are the ones who visit TORn. 😉 So here, as a little festive mathom offered to you all from us, the staffers at TORn, is a video of some greetings (and some ‘woohoos’!) to you all, from the folks who work in Middle-earth.
After a little footage of the set up in Leicester Square to set the scene, you’ll see John Bell (Bain) and his parents, Graham McTavish (Dwalin), James Nesbitt (Bofur), William Kircher (Bifur) and his beautiful wife Nicole, artist Alan Lee, Stephen Hunter (Bombur), Peter Hambleton (Gloin), Jed Brophy (Nori), Adam Brown (Ori), and of course Dominic Monaghan (Merry) and Billy Boyd (Pippin)- who were there to see the movie and revisit old haunts! Enjoy! Wishing you all happy holidays!
Talking to Shawn Adler from movieline.com, Weta Digital visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri talks about the use of 3D HFR in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. He explains why it takes some getting used to, and why he feels it’s a big step forward for films, like the transition from black and white to color.
“If you grew up seeing films in black and white and suddenly start seeing films in color, some people are going to have the reaction ‘Wow, that’s great!’ and other people are going to have the reaction, ‘That’s not moviemaking! Films should be made in black and white! You’re losing the mystery of how to deal with tonality, you’re sacrificing that to deal with color!'” [Read more]
This morning Weta Workshop added more amazing collectibles to their growing line of prop replicas from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Fans of Gandalf, Radagast, Thorin, and Fili are going to want to snag these limited edition collectibles before they vanish. Gandalf’s staff is a great representation of the character himself – weathered and worn by the years of mileage as he protects Middle-earth, but burning inside with a core of purity, power, and beauty. You will also notice the double G-Rune signifying Gandalf the Grey.
On the other hand the staff of Radagast has been fashioned from a sapling he found in the Greenwood, capturing the nature loving character we saw in The Hobbit. The twiggy protrusions give his fellow flying friends a place to rest as he makes his way through Middle-earth.
Both staffs are limited to 1000 pieces world-wide and a cost of $179, but since they will not ship until 1st and 2nd quarters of 2013, you’ll have a chance to save up. Each staff comes with a black metal bracket for display. The blue ‘crystal’ (acrylic) in the head of Radagast’s staff comes out of the staff – just as it does in the film – to create a bit of extra special magic.
Forbes.com: My wife and I took most of our kids to the first showing of The Hobbit at our local theater Friday morning. All but one of us was already a fanatically patriotic citizen of the Shire long before this movie, and all of us enjoyed the film quite a bit. This will not be the case for every Tolkien fan: I suspect the purists will be upset by the ways in which the films deviate from the book.
I, however, am not a purist. The Hobbit is a nearly perfect book from a literary point of view. That is no surprise, given the fact that it comes from one of the greatest literary minds of the 20th Century. But, books and films are different types of story-telling vessels and Peter Jackson was right in adapting the story to the newer medium. And he did so as someone who truly loved the original, who respected his source material, and who as a general rule carved it with the grain and not against it in his attempt to shape it into the needs of a big budget film trilogy.
It’s no small feat to make the wizard Gandalf appear larger than his dwarf and hobbit friends. Over at Popular Mechanics, Eric Vespe explains how the filmmakers pulled off the illusion in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
