Got plans this weekend? Some Loyal Ringers were kind enough to submit local information about the second-run theaters that are currently playing ROTK. We have information for:
Learn to speak Elvish, the only way you’ll ever have anything in common with Orlando Bloom or Liv Tyler.
BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND – It’s central England, not Middle-Earth, but one school is offering its students the chance to learn Elvish.
Youngsters at the Turves Green Boys’ Technology College in Birmingham are being offered weekly after-hours lessons in Sindarin, a form of Elvish invented by Lord of the Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien.
Educational co-ordinator Zainab Thorp hopes the classes help boost students’ self esteem. “The recent success of the Lord of the Rings films has increased the interest in learning Elvish,” Thorp says. “The children really enjoy it. It breaks the idea that education should be simply about getting a job.”
She says that Tolkien was an expert in ancient languages who developed two forms of Elvish. Sindarin was based on Welsh sounds and was more commonly used, while Quenya, which related to Finnish, was largely a ceremonial language.
“A couple of the boys are very into role-playing games. Knowing Sindarin is useful when giving orders to their Elvish armies,” Thorp says. “It’s also very useful if they want to go to university to study, as it involves looking at some of Tolkien’s old manuscripts. This develops some very complex skills.” Whatever works, right?
Before Sun and Moon two trees gave light to the Blessed Realm, but in a supreme act of evil the diabolus Morgoth destroys the trees and leaves the world in darkness. The symbolism could hardly be stronger. The devastation of Tolkiens childhood countryside haunts this tale and all his works of fiction.
Compare the Green havens of Lorien, the Shire and Doriath with the desolation of Anfauglith and Mordor. Nature is much more then just background or scenery in the tales of J.R.R. Tolkien. Not only do the trees have shepherds and entire woods go to war, Tolkien even embodies what he felt was the true spirit of natural science in Tom Bombadil.
What symbolic position do trees have in the numenorean and elvish cultures? What happens to nature in places like Morgul Vale and Isengard that fall under the dominion of the dark lords? How do the numenoreans perception of the value of nature shift as the shadow falls on Numenor? How does evil target nature and how does nature fight back in Middle Earth?
upcoming topics:
weekend 010504-020504: The Hobbit – Chapter 7
Times: Saturday Chat: 5:30pm ET (17:30) [also 11:30pm (23:30) CET and 9:30am Sunday (09:30) AET]
Sunday Chat: 7:00 pm (19:00) CET [also 1:00pm (13:00) ET and 5:00am (05:00) Monday morning AET]
ET = Eastern Time, USA’s East Coast CET = Central European Time, Central Europe AET = Australian East Coast
Do you have a possible topic for Hall of Fire? Drop us a line at halloffire@theonering.net
“ABARAT” AUTHOR CLIVE BARKER INTERVIEWED FOR DOCUMENTARY FEATURE, RINGERS: LORD OF THE FANS
April 19, 2004, LOS ANGELES, CA: Horror/fantasy scribe and filmmaker Clive Barker claims the title of ‘Ringer’ by discussing his appreciation for J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece “The Lord of the Rings” in the upcoming documentary feature, Ringers: Lord of the Fans. Mr. Barker granted an interview to Ringers. Mr. Barker speaks of the power and affirmations found within Tolkien’s mythological epic that encouraged him to create fantasy worlds of his own.
Clive Barker is the creator of the Hellraiser series and a string of best-selling books including “Weaveworld,” “Imajica,” and most recently the fantasy series for young adult readers, “Abarat.” Mr. Barker’s production company Seraphim Films has a deal with Walt Disney Pictures for a quartet of “Abarat” books to be produced as a film franchise. “Abarat” and it’s sequel, “Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War” (with a October 2004 release), center on a teenaged girl from rural Minnesota who is swept into another world of adventure and magic. The “Abarat” quartet is illustrated with Mr. Barker’s lush paintings. His play History of the Devil will be made into a mini-series for the Sci-Fi Channel, while his new drama titled The Demonologist has been picked up by NBC.
Ringers documentary filmmakers have secured interviews with several of the world’s foremost fantasy authors, including Terry Pratchett (the “Discworld” series), Peter S. Beagle (“The Last Unicorn”), and Terry Brooks (the “Sword of Shannara” series), in their efforts to document the remarkable influence of “The Lord of the Rings” across the landscape of popular culture over the past five decades. After 16 months of location shooting on three continents, and speaking with dozens of actors, filmmakers, rock musicians, authors, and academics, Ringers stands as the most comprehensive film document of the ongoing Tolkien phenomenon.
About the documentary:
Produced in association with TheOneRing.net; Ringers: Lord of the Fans is a feature-length documentary that reveals the ongoing phenomenon created by The Lord of the Rings. Very funny and often moving, Ringers shows the hidden power behind J.R.R. Tolkien’s books — and how after 50 years a single literary work continues to spark the minds and hearts of millions, across cultures and across time. Shot with groundbreaking new digital technology in 24P, Ringers includes interviews with fans, legendary rock musicians, professors, actors, authors, filmmakers, and even Klingons — with reverent irreverence, the film investigates Tolkien’s influence on Western popular culture. From the 60’s hippie movement to the Internet age; from the Rankin & Bass cartoons to Peter Jackson’s epic film trilogy; this documentary brings together extensive footage from across the globe. With units in Los Angeles, Atlanta, London, Oxford England, Bonn Germany, and Wellington New Zealand, Ringers reveals how the private amusement of a tweedy Oxford professor became a new mythology for the 21st Century.
Current Ringers Interviewees include:
Author/Filmmaker – Clive Barker, Writer/Director/Producer – Cameron Crowe, Actor – David Carradine, Comics Illustrator – Colleen Doran, Author – Terry Pratchett, Author – Peter S. Beagle, Author – Terry Brooks, Tolkien Scholar – Dr. Jane Chance, Chairperson of the Tolkien Society – Christine Crawshaw, Author – Colin Duriez, Filmmaker/Critic – Chris Gore, Screenwriter/Publisher – Forrest J. Ackerman, Actor – Daniel Logan, Actor – Bill Mumy, Author/Tolkien Scholar – Dr. Tom Shippey, Author/Broadcaster – Brian Sibley, Great-Grandson – Royd Tolkien, and hundreds of Tolkien fans!
Never let it be said that Sean Astin doesn’t go the extra mile for fans. Low on sleep from two days of driving for the Toyota Pro/Celeb race in Long Beach, he came to Denver’s Starfest just for the day, to do a couple of autograph sessions and an afternoon talk.
Here’s what I remember of the talk-quotes where I could manage them from recorded snippets and notes. I didn’t catch it all, I’m afraid.
He came out to wild applause, posed a little, and got some cheers and whistles when he (quite sexily!) took his jacket off. He talked about needing a caffeine hit because he’d just gotten up at 4am to fly in from Long Beach (and later mentioned he was flying back to LA the same day.) Said Denver fans were all very nice and welcoming. He wasn’t wearing shoes, and explained, as he said he told his wife on the phone that afternoon, that he just wanted some freedom, and he was a hobbit anyway! He briefly showed his tattoo, saying it was all over the place anyway, and mentioned his website, which was apparently familiar to a small but healthy contingent.
He first talked about his book about his LOTR filming experience (“There and Back again, an Actor’s Tale,” which is coming out in October), and how that got set up. He said he felt it necessary to write it all down, because people were always asking him about whether it was fun to film, and he said it was like asking someone “so, how were the 70’s for you?” He said he hopes maybe his book will find a place on people’s bookshelves along with all the other LOTR editions and companion volumes, along with Andy’s book. (He also mentioned-I don’t remember if it was an audience question or something previous he was referencing–someone asking him about what it was like to work with a CG character, and he said “I wouldn’t know. I worked with Andy.”)
He talked about the Oscars, and how people say he was robbed of a nom, but he said he always tells people he’s proudest of the ensemble SAG award (and rightly so!)
He talked about upcoming projects: Celebrity Poker on Bravo, and a mother’s day special on 20/20 (or was it Dateline? 😉 ) with his mom. Said the program was emotional, honest, and that he felt “stupefied that I was a part of American cultural life this way.”
He talked about his recent film projects-Slipstream, which he filmed in South Africa last year, and Smile, where he plays a teacher who encourages a student to work with disfigured children in China. He mentioned that he and his family were just in Shanghai last weekend, watching the last bits of filming for that project, and how thrilled he was that people recognized him even over there. He also talked about being disappointed on losing out on the directing job for Fantastic Four, but that he’s very interested in doing a comic book adaptation sometime, now that he’s had the epiphany of what makes them so great, and he said Marvel has assured him that he’ll get a chance to direct something for them soon. He also talked about his work with the Presidents council on service and civic participation, and about volunteerism, and how his current pet cause is literacy, and about how important it is to read to your children. He also said he recently met one of his idols, Jimmy Carter, and that he hoped he might be helping out with one of Carter’s Habitat for Humanity projects.
The first audience question was about the ideals that Sam represented-friendship, loyalty, etc. Some very nice quotes here about that:
“I just love the idea of friendship. Part of what I go into in the book is that now that I’m sort of this-as the actor who portrayed Sam who is arguably sort of the sort of quintessence of the ideal of friendship, now I’m sort of an ambassador for that. So it’s really just a matter of time until I screw up bad enough to not be worthy of that. (pauses) It might have just happened!”
“But no, I love that idea, and I liked sort of affecting it off-camera as well as living it on-camera in character. Just trying to be that friend to Elijah. (pauses) Um.. yeah.. I mean.. It’s not like he needed a mentor or protector he’s a pretty self-sufficient and forward-looking individual and um.. but I just liked the idea of doing it so I did it. Y’know, get him stuff and bring him stuff-at least for the first half of filming. Then he was like “can you bring that over here?”– “no!”
“There’s a lot of different Sams in the book. It’s almost hard to imagine sometimes that it’s the same character. The one who’s so instantly afraid, or bursts into tears, or quivers that he’s going to get turned into something unnatural by Gandalf, that it’s the same guy who picks up Frodo and says ‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.’ (applause) Is that the same character?”
“The ideas about the character that resonated the most with me were those heroic things. Despite the fact that I was getting ever more portly, I still in my heart and in my consciousness, I wanted to believe that I, Sean, was able to play a heroic part, so those were the qualities that I gravitated towards. To the extent that I’m able to manifest or resonate with those ideas in a way that feels authentic to myself and to the filmmaker and to an audience is my great benefit as a human being to be able to enjoy that space. So it was my determination to honor it and to try and not to disappoint.”
He got a question from someone about his experience of directing Angel, and what it was like to come into an already-established team like that. Sean explained how he got the job, and how there was definitely a sense of established history and protocol there, and how it felt to be the new guy on set telling everyone what to do.
Another fan presented him with a gold rabbit statue [Edit: The statue we gave him from the Misty Mountain Smial is the order of the Golden Coney. — Scott McKenzie, Misty Mt. Smial] (complete with backpack full of pots and pans), as a replacement for the Oscar he should’ve gotten. He was delighted, and decided he should give an Oscar speech:
“I’d like to thank the Misty Mountain Smile for acknowledging my work in this film. I really can’t tell you how many times I’ve imagined this.” (lots of laughs)
He told a cute story about how his mom put her Oscar and her statue of Bill and Sam close to each other, hoping the Oscar would bring luck.
He continued with his “Oscar speech”: “I’d like to thank my wife. They always thank their wife. I REALLY understand why they thank their wife. My wife is the most patient person in the history of the planet!”
He then talked about how, if he’d won at the Oscars, he’d have started his acceptance speech with the line “I’m happy to accept my party’s nomination…”
His next question was from someone who asked him what it was like meeting June Lockhart, who was one of his co-stars on the episode of Las Vegas he was on. He talked a little bit about his character on that show– “loveable, but an idiot”-and seemed like he’d had a lot of fun with it. He said he didn’t work with June much, but found her delightful, and mentioned that she rather enjoyed the risque scene she had (she was surrounded by male strippers) He said he always was amused that young people found things like that shocking, as if they’d forgotten where they came from! He said he enjoyed meeting June, and connecting with her on a generation-to-generation of actors level.
His last question was from a woman (with a very shy child who couldn’t quite get the courage to say hello to Sean) who asked about how Sean felt about Tolkien wanting to create a mythological history of England. After admitting (to some shock-apparently some people don’t watch the DVD extras!) that he hadn’t even heard of Tolkien before hearing about the film project (he said blame his college and his parents!) he talked about how he finds it fascinating that the mythology Tolkien created is being re-created in derivative forms, such as the movies, and in things like fan-created works (he mentioned that he collects fanart) and how technology is helping that process along.
He finished his talk by signing a big poster that all the celebs at the con had signed that was to be auctioned off. He decided he’d sign his name with several different pens, apparently how presidents sign bills, and made the fantasy complete by sitting down at the table on the stage to do it, and acting quite Presidential!
I’m sure I’ve missed a few things, so perhaps someone else will report in, but in general, I think it was a great talk. None of the questions were silly, and Sean’s responses were all very well-thought-out. It was nice to see him in a setting where he could go in-depth into his thoughts about something instead of having to come up with a soundbite. It’s a pity there wasn’t more time-there were a lot of people lined up to ask questions who didn’t make it-but overall, it was a great talk. I highly recommend seeing him do one of these live if you can, preferably when he’s just on his own and has plenty of time to ramble.
Ringer Spy Choice of Lúthien writes: Here’s a very detailed report of a fabulous presentation by Barrie Osborne. While it was all interesting, I think the character farewell montages information may be of particular interest to some.
I attended the Session with Barrie Osborne at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis and it was a fantastic night. Despite having been busy all day, Barrie was wonderful and extremely gracious. His talk focused on some of the major challenges of the project and how they were “solved”.
1) The challenge of bringing a 1200 page novel to the screen. Barrie mentioned that this was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing since there was so much detail there in the books already to guide the filmmakers. The curse was of course the length. He cited the “Council of Elrond” chapter as an example and also talked about how they had to make dramatic liberties.
Barrie also discussed the challenge of LOTR being a fantasy and how they wanted to connect with the audience and “make it real”. An important part of this was making the characters 3 dimensional. For example Gandalf was a wizard, but a wizard who smokes, likes to drink and loves life. Aragorn is aware of how his ancestors failed and fears he could never amount to anything. And for Boromir, important backstory was added to show how he was motivated by the love of his kingdom and his father. He makes a mistake and sacrifices his life to redeem himself.
Barrie also cited how important leadership was and that Viggo and Ian McKellan supplied this to the younger actors. Apparently when Viggo went back to LA for Christmas break, he got permission to take his sword back with him so he could practice! Viggo’s last minute casting was also brought up and Barrie said that Stuart was actually the first one to realize that he was too young to play Aragorn.
2) The challenge of scale. Different techniques were discussed such as forced perspective, motion capture and scale doubles. He talked about the scene in Bag End between Gandalf and Bilbo as one example, and mentioned that Gandalf‘s hat in that scene is CG!
3) The challenge of the long journey. It was a long journey both in terms of the story and of the shooting. Barrie talked about some of the techniques used to show the passage of time in the movies: music, set designs, costumes, digital coloring and even sound design. One scene discussed in particular was the opening of ROTK. Digital coloring had to be used to turn the lake from brown (it had been raining) to blue and to add leaves to the trees (since that scene was filmed in the fall.
4) The challenge of the epic battles. Discussion on this topic was centered around MASSIVE – how it was developed, how it works and how it was used. One thing I did not know was that the two different armies are each assigned a different pitch in the program. There were some very interesting clips shown detailing how a scene was composited using MASSIVE, the different stages in the process. The main scene used was the Rohirrim charging into the orc army outside Minas Tirith.
5) The challenge of CG creatures. Gollum was the main creature discussed. Clips similar to the previous ones were shown, detailed how Andy’s performance was turned into the Gollum we see. There were also some comparison shots of Andy & Gollum from ROTK. Barrie said that Fran and Andy were the heart and soul of Gollum.
6) The challenge of the infrastructure in NZ. There was very limited space at WETA, they had to dub almost all the sound and had to import most of the equipment. Barrie cited the expansion of WETA-at one point during ROTK production there were 2,500 computers being used but 1,000 more were needed and within two weeks! The sattelite system they ended up using in order to meet the challenges associated with filming at rural locations.
He summarized by saying these challenges were met by a clear vision, an understanding of the financial and technical resources, an early recognition of the unknown, open communication and collaboration, a willingness to adjust plans to fit reality and the courage to go on when things got dark and difficult.
Barrie saved the best for last. He said how each actor had a farewell clip made for them on their last day of shooting (the ones we’ve heard so much about) and then proceed to show us the clips for Legolas and Elrond! The clips were fantastic. Each one was a montage of character moments and some bloopers set to several different song clips.
For Legolas: I forget the first song but things really picked up when “Hungry Eyes” started. This of course highlighted many of Legolas‘ looks, carefully chosen to fit the lyrics. The final bit was to “Poison Arrow” (or something like that) and showcased his archery.
For Elrond: The only song I remember was “I will Surive”. Some footage from the prologue battle that didn’t make the cut was shown (some good stuff), a scene in Rivendell I didn’t recognize and clips from all three movies. The second half was titled “Agent Elrond“. A couple of bloopers from a scene where Hugo couldn’t get the dialogue right and kept swearing. Also when he threw back his hood in ROTK (to give Anduril to Aragorn), he was wearing the Agent Smith sunglasses. And from that same scene when Viggo drew the sword he clipped Hugo’s nose. Both of them were way too funny. Barrie wouldn’t show more, saying that they might be showing up on DVD in a few years!
During the Q & A part someone asked him about his most memorable experience. Barrie described 2: the camping out to get the sunset on film that we hear about on the TT EE.
The other one was after they had finished some filming near Nelson and had to go to Queenstown. Apparently PJ decided to drive (instead of flying) and so Andrew Lesnie decided to go with him. At that point Barrie figured he better go with both of them. They left late afternoon/early evening after filming and stopped somewhere for the night. The next morning it was discovered they were almost out of gas. PJ assured them it wasn’t a problem.they would pass lots of farms along the way where they could get a farmer to fill the car up. But as they drove there were no farms so they had to turn around to where they had been staying to the gas station. It was now 6am and the station didn’t open until 8am. PJ mentioned that the owner probably lived in the house behind the station, so why didn’t they go wake them up? As the producer, Barrie was given this task. He knocked on the door and when the owner answered, offered him 100 dollars to fill up the tank. Apparently John Rhys Davies was following behind them and when he stopped at the same gas station later heard a story about some “crazy people”.
Sean Bean and Orlando were also driving. They stopped on the way to do some antique shopping at the request of Orlando. It was raining extremely hard and they ran into a landslide so they had to turn around and go back. But then they ran into another landslide. They ended up staying and some random house for the night and then they had to convince Sean to fly out on a helicopter the next day since he was needed.
