If you haven’t heard Howard Shore’s ‘Radagast The Brown’ yet, you’re missing out. I can only urge you to go and have a listen. Some people have described the leitmotif (I spelled it right this time) as Slavic in nature, or rustic. Others discern hints Hans Zimmer’s work on the TV series Sherlock. Here at TORn, a few of us have been listening to the track pretty closely, and deciphering what makes it tick. Continue reading “More thoughts on ‘Radagast The Brown’”
Category: Production
Well, this was indeed the “big secret” we kept quiet for such a long time. TheOneRing.net staffers Larry Curtis (MrCere) and your host Cliff Broadway (Quickbeam) have comedic appearances in the delightful Air New Zealand Safety Video that has taken the internet by storm in the past few days! With a whopping 7.5 million views since Oct. 31st, this video is filled to the brim with charming Hobbity goodness…. a sexy Dean O’Gorman (who plays Fili)…. Tolkien’s great-grandson…. and a Wizard in high tops! Join us on our live webcast today at 5:00pm PST to learn delightful details as the marketing efforts for THE HOBBIT continue apace. WE ALSO HAVE OUR LINE PARTIES GOING FULL TILT! Learn more by joining our Live Event page right here and be part of the chat: www.theonering.net/live or via Stickam at www.stickam.com/theoneringnet
Have you picked up your copy of The Hobbit Ultimate Edition from EMPIRE yet? You know, the issue that features multiple lenticular covers of Gandalf, Galadriel, Thorin, Bilbo and Gollum? It is on newsstands right now and will be a sure-fire collector items in years to come. On your way to the store, fire up your iOS device and snag the digital version as well – for FREE! To celebrate the release of EMPIRE magazine’s ultimate Hobbit issue on the U.S. iPad edition, they’re giving you the chance to download this incredible issue for FREE. Yup, you heard that correctly. 100% FREE. Act fast – offer is only available for 48 hours! [Download it!]
In my opinion, this is the single-coolest thing related to the Hobbit all year. It’s a preview of the track Radagast the Brown from the soundtrack of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Straight up: it’s fantastic.
The lietmotif is a lurching thing of strings and gearlike percussion that could almost be the work of rock auteurs Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and some of Ellis’s work with The Dirty Three. Throughout the piece, this lietmotif repeats several times, one of the variations adding a piercing choir. Gripping stuff, and really puts me in mind of Radagast working in his digs in Rhosgobel. It’s an unbelievable improvement on the bland canned music that was underneath the second trailer (which incidentally was not the work of Shore). Since, as we all know, writing about music is like dancing about architecture, I’ll just stop at this point and say: go listen to it yourself.
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Theaters, at least some of them, where fans can experience The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 48 frames per second (instead of the decades old 24 fps of traditional film) have been announced for Regal Cinemas. The announcement also says that all 48 fps screenings will be in 3D. It is not known if that pertains only to the Regal Cinemas or if that will be universally true. (Editor’s note: I hope not!) Many states are not listed but Regal is not the only theater chain that is updating its projection equipment to show director Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films as they were shot, in 3D at 48 fps. But, when tickets go on sale November 7, Regal, at least for now, has given consumers the best information about how The Hobbit will be displayed, a win for cinema fans.
The post announcing the high frame rate 3D screenings explains (sort of) to potential consumers the reason behind the new technology and Jackson’s efforts to shoot the films in a new way. It is careful to point out that viewers will be able to watch the film in the 24 fps, stating viewers can see it in 2D, 3D, IMAX, IMAX 3D and “HFR 3D,” the term it uses for 48 fps screenings. (Most everybody else calls it 48 fps, but perhaps that will be confusing when James Cameron shoots at 60 fps so it is branding a term to cover both.) To read the entire explanation from Regal and to see its cinema listing, click here on a page they title “The Hobbit 48.” (Yes, Regal we are available for branding consultation!) We will post more theater and chain information as it becomes available and more on the technology behind these films in the weeks leading up to its opening. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be released in the U.S. December 14 with slight variety for markets around the world. Dolby Atmos, a revolutionary new sound system for theaters is also a possibility for The Hobbit but no details of participating locations are available.
Back in July I posted the first in this series of memoirs about my work on my book, “Researching THE FRODO FRANCHISE: Part I, Off to Wellington without a Handkerchief.” I’ve been all too long in following it up, but lots of travel, including attending the “Return of the Ring” event in England in August, has interfered. I’ve got at least a dozen of these entries planned, so despite the fact that so much attention is focused on The Hobbit, I’d better get going!
This entry begins my recollections about the places where The Return of the King was still being worked on when I showed up at the end of September, 2003. They are scattered mostly around the Miramar peninsula, which was and is sometimes referred to as “Wellywood.” I gradually visited all of them to interview filmmakers or to get tours to familiarize me with the facilities that Peter Jackson and his colleagues had built up. That process had happened during the 1990s, but it accelerated to a breathless pace as the infrastructure for accomplishing the three parts of The Lord of the Rings were built and expanded.
Those facilities have grown even further as King Kong, Avatar, and now The Hobbit have been made. This is the story of how I discovered them in 2003 and 2004. Continue reading “Researching THE FRODO FRANCHISE: Part 2, Arriving in Wellywood”