Doug Adams, author of the book “The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films“, announced early this morning via his blog that today, August 20, 2012, marks the beginning of the recording sessions for The Hobbit in London.
Fans of Howard Shore‘s scores for the Lord of the Rings films and Doug’s monumental companion book to them will also find much excitement in the news that Doug has also signed on to write another companion book titled “The Music of The Hobbit Films”.
Today the musical world of Middle-earth begins expanding once again. Today, you can no longer say that you know every note of Shore’s music for Tolkien’s world. In fact, you only know about half of it. (This is a ballpark figure; I have no idea how long the three Hobbit films will be!) Today the subject of The Music of the Hobbit Films exists not just in concept, but in reality. Today a new journey begins …
Read Doug’s entire story here. And hop in to our boards to speculate about the songs, recurring themes, and new themes that we might expect in the upcoming films.
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Seventeen years have passed since Peter Jackson approached Miramax about bringing one of his favorite JRR Tolkien tales The Hobbit to the big screen.
Speaking to the Dominion Post‘s Lenna Tailor Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens speculate that the delay, during which they went on to shoot three wildly successful movies based on Tolkien Lord of the Rings, might have been for the best.
Jackson: “I remember in 1995 I made the first call to [Miramax’s] Harvey Weinstein and said we were interested in doing The Hobbit. The idea was, if it was successful, we would do Lord of the Rings. But Harvey said the rights were in a very complicated state — however, Lord of the Rings was potentially available. It’s strange how that call 17 years ago was the beginning of this whole process.”
“It was fate that we did Lord of the Rings first because it has made for a better Hobbit,” adds writer-producer Philippa Boyens. “It would’ve been a very different film if we’d gone the other way around. Maybe fate was also waiting for Martin [Freeman] to play Bilbo at exactly the right time and age.”
[More]
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Dean Knowsley, one of the stand-in actors on The Hobbit production just tweeted that the production pick-ups Peter Jackson had scheduled has wrapped up.
“Wow, this it. The ‘Martini!” he wrote. Apparently a “martini” is a film-making expression used for the last lighting and camera setup for the last shot of a production.
Jackson said at Comic-Con 2012 that he had scheduled 10 days of pick-ups. His own cameo appearance was one of the sequences scheduled to be shot. Thanks to Ringer Tolktolk on our forums for the find.
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For JRR Tolkien, languages evolved at least in part in reaction to the history of their speakers. Looking at recent photos and screenshots of the cities of Dale and Esgaroth, I was struck by the thought that for Peter Jackson’s design team, Middle-earth history could exert a similar effect on architecture.
Curious how the architectural set design choices for the Hobbit might reflect the history of these two cities, I asked Barliman’s chat regular and archaeologist Jenniearcheo to provide a few professional insights on some of the set images that have found their way onto the internet.
This brief essay is the result. We hope you enjoy it.
Warning: SPOILERS.
Continue reading “Dale and Laketown: the tale of two cities”
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[Part 1 in a series from The Frodo Franchise Author Kristin Thompson]
Me and My Book
I’m a film historian by trade. I got my Ph.D. in film studies in 1977 and have written several textbooks and academic books on various topics in the field. In 2007, my book The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood, by Kristin Thompson, came out from the University of California press. As we all wait for the release of the first part of The Hobbit, I thought some of you might be interested in some of my experiences while researching the book. I had a lot of access to the filmmakers for interviews and was given facilities tours during the last part of the post-production on The Return of the King.
I first conceived the book in 2002, when it became obvious to me that Peter Jackson’s film (I call the three parts one film, as he does) was going to be very, very important historically for a wide variety of reasons. The technology (the techniques developed to animate Gollum, the selective digital color grading) would be revolutionary. The internet campaign was pioneering, as was the filmmaking team’s approach to cooperating with the video-game designers. It was a big franchise film—and a fantasy at that—and yet it won the respect of critics and Academy-Award voters as no such film ever had. (The Fellowship of the Ring had won “only” four Oscars, but I knew even then that The Return of the King would be awarded lots.) Somebody should write a book about it, I thought. But probably nobody would, not the way it should be done, with interviews with the people involved. Not while the film was still in production. I concluded that it was up to me. Was it possible, though, to get the kind of access I would need? I set out to find out.
In January of 2003, through a mutual friend, I was put in touch with producer Barrie Osborne. Fortunately, he was interested in having such a book written. Without him, my project would have been dead in the water. Continue reading “Researching THE FRODO FRANCHISE: Part 1, Off to Wellington without a Handkerchief”
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Peter Jackson and company swooped into Comic-Con and unleashed some footage for the ravenous fans there but now he has unleashed Vlog #8 from his Facebook page full of spoilers, Comic-Con footage, John Howe, lots of actors saying hi and a little nostalgia from the crew. If you can stand a view of stone giants, Beorn’s house, Andy Serkis jamming on a sax and an absurd amount of “Hobbit” stuff, it is a must watch. The film hasn’t been released yet and already producer Michael Pellerin and his crew of behind-the-scenes people are making us nostalgic for it! And, sure sounded like Jackson reads TheOneRing. Find it on his Facebook page or watch it below:
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