Just found a great article by way of Joram. It’s titled “Hobbit wanted – but no little people need apply”. by: Mark Burman, for Guartian Unlimited Network
In it Mark talk with PJ himself and asks him several questions, firstly why does he think he can tackle Tolkien’s work where other’s have failed in the past?
“I’m a real believer in trying to push yourself,” (Jackson) says. “And if you’re a film-maker, I don’t think there’s anything more amazing to be involved with than The Lord of the Rings. It’s the holy grail of film-making. It’s a once in a lifetime experience, and if we do it and we can be proud, then we want to retire when it’s all over.”
PJ also talks about shooting all 3 films back to back. And how it has it’s advantages.
“Shooting three separate movies back to back has never been done before,” says Jackson. “But I think it’s unfair to say to an audience, ‘Come to The Fellowship of the Ring and, if it’s successful, we make part two’. That’s not what we’re doing. We are making the entire trilogy, one long film shoot and then we’ll cut them all together. I guess it’s a certain form of madness.”
And when asked about fan sites (who me?) PJ had this to say:
“I do read the websites. People post up opinions about the actors and the story and I sometimes sit there for hours and hours and read the comments. It must be very frustrating to feel your favorite book is going to be filmed and think, ‘How are they going to stuff it up this time?’ “
He also discusses what you folks have been telling me is a big fear of yours, ‘the shrinking thing’
“Well, we’ve thought about that a lot. We still have tests to do but the Hobbits are the principal characters. If you study Tolkien’s descriptions of them, they are really described as small people. Between three and a half to four foot tall and they’re not strange in any other way than these large, hairy feet.
“I know casting authentic little people is the way that some people have thought we’ll go but it just doesn’t fit what Tolkien wrote. So we are casting normal sized actors and using prosthetics, computer tricks and other less complicated trickery to reduce them in size. I certainly don’t want to use puppets or CGI(computer-generated imagery) characters because this is a story about real people.”
For the rest of the article: Click Here
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Got some different news from various sorces today:
Lord of the Rings On TVTo promote the new paperback version of Lord of the Rings, there is a commercial being aired!
I was watching the X-Files on FX last night and one
of the commercials was for the new paperback one
volume Lord of the Rings. It’s pretty unusual to have
a TV spot for a book thats been published for a long
time so I thought that it might be part of a campaign for the upcoming movies!
He Taught Darth Maul Everything He Knows
This come from Corona “…And we’ve got another scoop from the field for you today: “I was at an event called the Sword Spectacular Weekend, and one of the guests was supposed to be Bob Anderson..the swordmaster who has done swordwork for Star Wars, The Three Muskateers, The Princess Bride, and most recentlyThe Mask of Zorro. Anyway, he wasn’t able to attend,
because he was hired to ‘Work on a movie in New
Zealand’. Well, I did some asking around (I know the
event staff) and they confirmed through a head nod
(since they couldn’t tell me directly) when I asked if
he was working on The Lord of the Rings…”
I’m asking my spies if this Anderson rumor is true, but if any of you folks out there, who want to confirm this. email me
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Peter Jackson’s whereabouts of late could provide crew clues for The Lord Of The Rings. He returned to New Zealand last month after spending three weeks in Europe, where he is believed to have interviewed possible DP’s for his three-picture adaptation of the JRR Tolkien classic. Production is tipped to start on September 18. The only casting detail confirmed to date has been the recruitment of NZ armed forces as extras.
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The Wellington producer-director Peter Jackson is the new owner of The Film Unit, which is the only one-stop post-production facility in New Zealand. Based in Lower Hutt, across the harbor from Wellington, it offers 16mm and 35mm laboratory and sound facilities, including a state-of-the-art Dolby mixing suite. Peter Jackson told the Press Association: “Would I have bought the Unit if it wasn’t for Lord of the Rings (which is to start shooting in New Zealand this year for New Line Cinema)? “I probably would have thought seriously about it, because if I wasn’t doing Lord of the Rings I would have been doing some other films, and I’d still want to have the facilities in New Zealand.” The first of the three Lord of the Rings features is due to start shooting in September.
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The world’s best animators focus on Weta A top American software developer calls working on The Lord Of The Rings “the plum job on the whole of the planet” for computer graphics gurus. “It’s the absolute talk of animation news groups on the Internet,” says Mark Sylvester of Alias leading provider of open solutions for film & video. “There’s a cult following around The Lord Of The Rings, around computer animation, ” he told Onfilm after visiting Peter Jackson’s Weta animation & graphics factory in Wellington. “I think people feel they have no chance of working on Star Wars – that’s the dream – but they have a chance of working at Weta on The Lord Of The Rings, and The Lord Of The Rings will make the facility internationally famous.” Sylvester says Weta is challenging Alias involved in the new Star Wars trilogy, to “make sure we can deliver the level of realism they’ll require” for The Lord Of The Rings. “We’ve had to show them, and they’ve had to be able to prove to themselves, that they can do what they want to do with the software we have available today. “Quality is very important to them. They want to do this right – they don’t want to be known for having mucked up an amazing book. “It’s a tall order but I walked away with a sense of confidence that the amount of work I’m going to put into this personally É is going to be worth the energy.” Sylvester reckons the environment that Weta is providing computer animators could only be match by four other places in the world. “Guys who run animation production companies in the United States are at Weta for The Lord Of The Rings,” he points out. “Animators aren’t driven by the money, although it is good money, as they are by an environment that is technically challenging, and has interesting projects to work on and people savvy to their tools. “Weta is gearing up infrastructure-wise and talent-wise to realize a great vision.” Sylvester says when he re-read The Lord Of The Rings, “I asked myself, ‘How the heck are they going to do these various pieces?’ “I have to say they have not shared that with us. “They feel that’s going to detract from the film; that what’s important is the film – not how the film was made. “They really want to keep the movie magic.”
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Fine Line prez Mark Ordesky, who is supervising the production of Peter Jackson”s Lord of the Rings trilogy with New Line”s Mike DeLuca, took some time to talk up the project. While talking to columnists Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith, Ordesky explained that the film “will push the envelope of computer special effects to a new degree.” Ordesky also talked about the casting for the film and the commitment that will have to be made by the actors involved revealing, “With the exception of a few leads, the cast will be working a few weeks on, a few weeks off for what will be a long-term production.” Those long term plans mean the previously reported shooting schedule for the three films as back-to-back for a year”s time with “three times that long with pre- to post-production.” Ordesky also shoots down the rumors suggesting Sean Connery is involved. Ordesky reveals, “Actors who love the story have been phoning, wanting to be part of the film, but no one has been cast — we hope to start the process in May.” Still, there may be reason to doubt Ordesky”s word on casting with word from Warwick Davis (Willow) last weekend at the Star Wars Celebration that Timothy Spall has already been cast as Gimli.
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