Simon wrote, “Interested to read MattForce’s comments on the picture. If anyone looks in the ‘photograph guide to the Two Towers’ book, they will see these pictures at the end with text that reads something like, ‘After Faramir decides to let them go, he shows Frodo and Sam a secret way out of the city’
On the other hand, Jolyon writes to argue with this:
“When I saw these pictures on TORN, the first question that leaped to mind was: “Why are Frodo and Sam alone?”
“They were brought to Osgiliath as captives of Faramir and his men and left with Gollum, so this didn’t make sense.
“Then I started thinking, where else do Frodo and Sam walk alone through a tunnel? The answer of course is “on their way to Shelob’s Lair”, when Gollum deserts them.
“There were orc-built passageways intended to avoid her lair, but these were intersected by all of her tunnels. The book describes the passage that Frodo and Sam initially enter as high and wide, with smooth walls and an even floor, suggesting a tunnel fashioned by orcs (“as orc-like a place as ever there could be”). This would seem to describe what we see in the photo’s quite well.
“The only problem with this is that in the pictures that we know show Shelobs Lair, the walls are very definitely cavern-like. Very rough and irregular. But this might only be the condition of the walls in that part of the tunnels that Shelob has made her home.
“Why these pictures would appear in a book about The Towers is a bit of a mystery, although it could be explained if there was some question during production over how far Frodo and Sam would get toward Shelob before the end of the second film. Perhaps it was being considered at one point to have the film leave them in the tunnels, with the final decision coming too late to alter the content of the book prior to publication.”
Costumes created by fans of TORn received five major awards at BayCon 21, the San Francisco Bay Area Science Fiction and Fantasy Conference, held in San Jose California between May 23-26 2003.
Over thirty individuals and team entries competed for prizes in the Novice and Professional classes. Entrants were judged on technical costume making, and on over-all presentation in front of an audience. According to Trystan Bass of the Greater Bay Area Costuming Guild, one of the event’s sponsors, the quality of this year’s costume entries were the best in over ten years.
Best of Show was won by the One Ring Circus, a group of ten who portrayed members of the Fellowship and performed a hilarious skit to the tune of “The Pitch (Spectacular Spectacular)” from the motion picture Moulin Rouge, as if Peter Jackson was “pitching “Lord of the Rings” to New Line. Spectacular is the only word for their costumes, too. Members of the troupe included Carolyn Staehle (Frodo), Leah Jakusovsky (Sam), Kelly Bolton (Merry), Cathleen Trowbridge (Pippin), Mitch Steinberger (Aragorn), Aimee Steinberger (Arwen), Kelly Lima (Eowyn), Gordelia Willis (Legolas), A.J. Wu (Ringwraith) and Gimli (Judi Grivich). (See http://oneringcircus.stitchinbabes.com/orcindex.html for lyrics and more photos).
Best Fantasy Novice was a tie between two entries. Philip Gust as Theoden, who performed the famous “Arise, riders of Theoden!” speech. In a separate entry, Kathe Gust as Eowyn dramatized the moment when Eowyn first resolves to go into battle. (See http://celefinniel.webhop.net for more photos and costume descriptions).
Best Workmanship, Professional Class went to Judi Givich as Gimli for her stunningly accurate recreation of John Rhys Davies’ dwarf costume and makeup. The costume was complete with hand-made chain mail, leather work, shoes, helmet, beard, wig, and facial prosthetics.
Best Workmanship, Novice Class went to Philip Gust as Theoden. The costume, created by Kathe Gust, was a near-perfect replica of Bernard Hill’s costume, with hand sewn gold trims on the green wool cloak and brown velvet surcoat, a hand embroidered horse patterns on the neck and front of the leather-laced black under tunic, brooch, boots, sword, and belt.
The Greater Bay Area Costuming Guild’s Rising Star Award was given to Kathe Gust as Eowyn for her recreation of Miranda Otto’s court dress of greenvelvet, with brocade underskirt and lined front skirt panel and sleeves, hand sewn gold yoke trim, boots, jeweled belt and necklace.
Also competing were Jeanette Peters as Arwen, and Sam Peters as Gaffer Gamgee, with prosthetic hobbit feet and a long pipe.
Silviane Mann-Willrich as a Elven Maiden won a special “hall costuming award” presented to costumed participants for notable costumes spotted by special judges while walking around BayCon.
THE WORLD PREMIERE OF THE FIRST STAGE MUSICAL ADAPTATION OF JRR TOLKIEN’S CLASSIC TRILOGY “THE LORD OF THE RINGS” TO OPEN IN LONDON IN SPRING 2005
“THE LORD OF THE RINGS” PRODUCED BY KEVIN WALLACE AND SAUL ZAENTZ TO BE DIRECTED BY MATTHEW WARCHUS
“THE LORD OF THE RINGS”, the first major stage musical adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s classic trilogy, will receive its World Premiere when it opens in London in Spring 2005. This coincides with the 50th anniversary of the publication of the complete trilogy, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King”.
The £8 million production has book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna and music by Stephen Keeling and Bernd Stromberger. McKenna & Keeling were the team responsible for the critically acclaimed West End musical “Maddie”.
Award-winning Matthew Warchus will direct. His recent credits include the London musicals “Tell Me On A Sunday” and “Our House”, and the Yasmina Reza plays “Life x 3”, “The Unexpected Man” and “Art”. Award-winning Rob Howell will design. His recent West End credits include “Our House”, “Simply Heavenly”, “The Graduate”, “The Caretaker” and “Sophie’s Choice” at The Royal Opera House.
“THE LORD OF THE RINGS” will be produced by Kevin Wallace and Saul Zaentz. Kevin Wallace was in-house producer at The Really Useful Theatre Company from 1997-2001 when it produced the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals “Whistle Down the Wind”, The Beautiful Game”, “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Sunset Boulevard”. In 2001 he received an International EMMY Award as executive producer of the film version of “Jesus Christ Superstar”. His other London productions include the critically acclaimed “Gagarin Way” and “Eden”. The legendary Saul Zaentz, whose film productions include the award-winning “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “Amadeus”, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and “The English Patient”, was this year awarded the BAFTA ‘Academy Fellowship’.
raptor writes: The TTT score seems to be highly appreciated, it was played several times during the Cannes festival awards. Here’s a presumed complete list (I only managed to watch three quarters of it)of the fragments played:
Helm’s Deep Forth Eorlingas (twice,one time for Sting’s entry to announce the winner) King Of The Golden Hall Breath Of Life (announcing the best director award) Samwise The Brave (announcing the best actress award).
Smokering went to Waikato University for a lecture by LOTR Te Papa Exhibit maker Steve la Hood. Here is her report:
Steve la Hood is a third-generation New Zealander, also Lebanese. He worked ten years with TVNZ, before becoming a freelance producer and documentary maker. He’s also an Executive Member of the Screen Director’s Guild. Among his other accomplishments are the Jade Boulder Trail: Exhibition Concept, Content and Design for Te Papa, and another te papa exhibit ‘Stories of the Sea’ themed attraction.
Steve—sorry, Mr la Hood—began by telling us that some of us probably thought the whole LOTR Te Papa thing was just big moneymaking venture… that LOTR was such a success you couldn’t go wrong, etc. He then asked us how many of us had read LOTR—seen LOTR—been to the exhibish. About seventy per cent of us had read and seen it, and only slightly less for the exhibition! He then showed us a short film promoting the exhibition, with quotes from Richard Taylor, and shots of the armour, props etc. with Steve narrating. The exhibit is 670 square metres and is going to Sydney, Britain and Singapore, among other places, on a tour. (Lucky thing).
Much of the content of the exhibish is about imaginary cultures. Steve asked us to imagine several real cultures now…. A vast, bureaucratic American government who all have ‘email addresses with capital letters’. An English family trust—the Tolkien Estate, all upset about how popular the film is. New Zealand museum-frequenters who think the very idea of a LOTR exhibit is crass. A frenzied tribal horde desperate to prove they can do it—the film professionals of NZ. This tribe is led by chieftains, named Richard Taylor, Grant Major, Ngila Dickson etc. These chieftains are ruled by Peter Jackson. Barrie Osborne is the visiting potentate who is really calling all the shots. Or so Steve described them!
When Steve first mentioned the idea of a LOTR exhibit, back in the early days, Fran Walsh just burst out laughing. Later Ngila showed him the costumes, and he was impressed with the quality after spending 30 years on film sets. So he sent Richard and PJ a 12-page begging letter, asking if he could make a museum exhibit. Richard developed the idea, as he does, until it was basically a LOTR theme park with all the film tricks! Then a Lady Someone approached Steve separately with the same idea—a LOTR exhibit—and Steve decided very tactfully to agree.
Then followed a six-month email-phone relationship which resulted in Te Papa being interested in the exhibit. They decided to focus on the answers to the question, “Why could JRRT’s story seem so familiar to first-time readers?”
They came up with four answers:
-The characters
-The story
-The themes
-The world of LOTR
Then Steve talked a bit about how Tolkien’s world was based partly on Norse and Celtic myth; ancient Irish legends, various pictures of one-eyed gods, powerful rings, swords re-forged for kings, beasties with split personalities, and so on. Steve obviously didn’t believe Tolkien’s protestations about how LOTR is not an allegory—he mocked the ides that orcs were not Nazis, the Ring not a nuclear weapon, etc., etc. I noticed a few people gritting their teeth here! Anyway, the exhibition decided to follow three major strands—Tolkien and his influences, the story of LOTR, and the filmmaker’s vision. This original exhibit would have been 1200 metres squared, and much more geeky than the one they ended up with! Plans included a walk-through ‘ghost-train’ Moria, complete with orcs and a ‘real’ Balrog; a recreation of Tolkien’s study; a 3-D interactive map of Middle-Earth; a ride-on fell beast; and a room in Lorien with dialogue by Cate Blanchett projected onto glass so she seemed real—I’m a bit hazy on how that one worked, but you get the idea—and the visitors could look into the Mirror and see images with themselves somehow added to the picture! VERY cool. There would have been 3 identical exhibits—one in Te Papa and two in Asia.
Sadly, it was not to be. In January 2000 a delegation flew to LA to show the New Line people what they wanted. They loved it, agreed and began work on a contract, when the Tolkien Estate stepped in. Now, as we all know the Tolkien Estate was a bit iffy about the whole LOTR films idea to begin with, and since for various legal reasons they couldn’t get at the film, they decided to have a bash at the exhib. (According to Steve, this is not, me!). So, ALL the references to the Professor had to go. The entire exhibit would have to be reconstructed without the T-word. Of course, this removed a lot of the depth and intellectual-ness they could have had in the exhibit, but Steve said they weren’t too disappointed because, after all, with Viggo and Liv around a dusty old dead professor could get in the way a bit anyway. (Cue small noises from the back of Smokering’s throat).
Then they (‘they’ being Story Inc.) got together with the filmmakers. Mark Ordesky subbed for the very busy PJ (wonder what he could have been doing to while away the time?)—then, as lawyers do, the lawyers joined in and slowed the whole thing down to a crawl. Then there was another fall-through due to some major sponsor, an automobile company, being sold…
Months later, Te Papa came back with the idea of a much smaller exhibit that could be moved to museums around the world. One or two immersives, a few interactives, lots of props—you know. One of the key elements, however, was a display of the costumes on silicon masks of the actors. Sadly this couldn’t be done, so they moved on to Concept 4.
This concept was a more traditional museumy display with items in glass cases and so on. They came up with the lighting ideas and so on, and walked New Line through it. Once again everything was hunky-dory, but the exhibit now had to open months early, so it could coincide with the release of TTT (as opposed to February 2003, the date for which they’d hoped). It took lots of help, but they did manage, and the final exhibit opened 4 months later for the night of the TTT premier.
Steve then went on to tell us nothing I didn’t know about how great Tolkien’s imaginary cultures are, and how well PJ achieved them on film. The inscription on Arwen’s sword (which I can’t remember—check the Fan Club Mag) is an example of this—it was written for Idril, Arwen’s ancestor, but the word in Elvish for ‘noble lady’ was ‘arwen’, and it was thus both a pun and foreshadowing. Of course, most people wouldn’t pick this up (really, really long shot of sword with subtitles? Glamorous), and it was a created backstory—not from the books. As far as Tolkien tells us, Idril could have used teaspoons as defensive weapons. So, this is just one indication of PJ’s grandeur, vision, talent, creativity, et cetera, et cetera, hand me an apple…
Anyway. Then things got a bit more interesting. Steve described Richard taylor as a ‘religious visionary’! Richard took Steve on a tour of the workshops and showed him stuff like Theoden’s armour (engraved with the king’s seal even on the INSIDE), and Sauron’s (acid etching all over it)…
Steve says PJ’s single vision being realized is not due to force, but in keeping craftsmen from other films, and by letting the collective imagination FIND the vision. I thought this was pretty hot stuff. Anyway.
When the Story Inc guys came to collect the props for the exhibit, their premise was to treat each prop as a precious artifact. They were to imagine these things had been dug up 100 feet under the streets of Hamilton, and they were the only ones of their kind, and they only had one shot at preserving them. Laudable, but when they turned up to Weta clad in white coats and gloves, Barrie Osborne roared with laughter! The ‘artifacts’ they were carefully labeling for replacement cost, uniqueness, fragility and so on and tenderly swathing in cotton wool, had a week before been thrown round fields, dragged in the dirt, lost in rivers, sweated in and breathed on!
Another principle of the exhibition was that there was to be no self-promotion in the video clips. The people were THERE, they didn’t need to drag them in; and they were going to see ROTK anyway; plus, they’d heard it all before. (As one of the people who did go to the exhibit, I appreciated this! Although people would say ‘We made six thousand of this..’ or whatever, they refrained from adding the usual ‘which goes to show what grandeur and scope we are achieving here in terms of scale, operators are standing by, Burger King is on the right’ which makes news clips about LOTR so annoying). There was ambient sound, dim light, and an eerie, shrine-like quality pervading the room.
On April 21, after a many-times-extended four-month run, the exhibit closed. After ROTK comes out the exhibit will be brought up to date for the third film. The final exhibit they ended up with was Plan H—about one-eighth the size of the original plan. Steve readily admitted that given the chance, he would do it over again differently. But, he added, he was ‘pretty happy’ with the result!
After that there were some questions, during which we all gossiped about the Tolkien family and failed to say anything illuminating at all. So we went home! Thanks very much, you’ve been a wonderful audience.
* Smokering bows and exits humbly backwards, knocking a pot plant onto the floor to expose the half-buried chicken legs Maisie just couldn’t face after that big lot of soup *
Last night I was able to attend a banquet held here in Auckland for 180 Japanese LOTR fans who had come to New Zealand to do a Nippon Travel/ Red Carpet tour of the locations. Now, who do you think would be the target market in Japan for a tour like that? I bet you guessed wrong. Nippon Travel advertised in a few magazines and websites that are read mostly by young Japanese women, and the response was overwhelming.
So, last night I turned up at their dinner along with friends including Ringers Kimi and Mr. Kimi, and saw scores of young Japanese women sitting around tables.
We Kiwis all went up on the stage and introduced ourselves – when I said I was Tehanu from TheOneRing.net there was a murmur of recognition. I felt quite humbled by that, knowing that these fans still visited TORN despite the fact that English isn’t their first language. It’s harder work reading in another language, and most of us are too lazy to do it, but not these fans!
Now, I’d thought that these would be people who just wanted to do a tour of NZ because it was fashionable, and maybe some of them would have seen the film. Not so! Many of them were wearing green polarfleece hobbit cloaks, and many more had the leaf brooch, or a Ring replica on a chain, or even Arwen’s pendant.
Each of us Kiwis was asked to describe when we first read the books, then our favourite scene and character from the movies. There was another murmur of appreciation when we described our favourite scenes. These people knew their movies. I must add, we had a wonderfully expressive interpreter working with us.
We stepped down and things got bizarre for me, as a few dozen people wanted their photos taken with me and a few of them also had things for me to autograph. My friend Declan was looking at me like I’d grown feathers. ‘You’re a star, I had no idea!’
Ahah, but there were REAL stars due to arrive. After the meal, two of the character actors turned up – Hama [John Leigh] and Grishnakh [Stehen Ure]. Stephen was a great raconteur and he and John made a great double act together. Actors are great at this kind of thing anyway – they act out their stories, and most of the time the Japanese were laughing before the interpreter had translated them. Stephen said some funny things like the costume made him look so good that when he first saw himself in it, he figured they could have filmed him reading the telephone book and it would have looked pretty interesting. Also, PJ was so focussed on the film – it didn’t matter where or when you ran into him, getting a coffee or whatever, you’d never get into an idle conversation about the rugby or something, it was always straight into the film. And one day, when Stephen was filmed chasing Merry and Pippin through Fangorn, it was really really hot under all that makeup and prosthetics, and Stephen just had to stop. PJ asked why, and he complained that he was just too hot and tired, he had to rest. PJ said, ‘What do you mean, I saw the rushes for yesterday and you were leaping and doing two-footed flying kicks and everything!’ Stephen explained that that was his stunt double. Long pause, then PJ said, ‘Well, just do it anyway!’
He also had a funny story about his first scene with Christopher Lee, who he met for the very first time already in makeup, seated in his throne looking about ten feet tall. Stephen had to do a scene where he whipped some Uruks in front of Lee. First take, it was ‘cut!’ immediately. Stephen had whipped Lee (who was standing behind him) in the face on his windup stroke. Next few takes were cut as Lee kept stepping back out of the shot, and PJ kept trying to herd him back into it, with Lee finding excuses why the role demanded that he stay away from Grishnakh. ‘But it’s a close shot!’ PJ argued. The final shot never made it into the movie, since Stephen was so paranoid by this time that he could only do a really wimpy gesture with the whip.
What else….Liv Tyler hated sword practice, they said, and would complain she’d hurt her hand and give up after 5 minutes. “She wasn’t Xena.”
Anyway, that was all fun, and the fans had some perceptive questions. Then Craig Parker (Haldir) came in as the guest of honour.
Well, forget any preconceptions about the Japanese being all buttoned up and afraid to show emotion. The girls screamed, they leapt out of their seats and danced for joy, one of them near us was actually crying with excitement. It was so cute!! Craig was terrific – natural, funny, respectful of his audience. First he just had to STAND there for about five minutes while hundreds of flashes went off in his face. Every time he moved at all, the cameras would go crazy. It was extraordinary!
But some of the questions for him were very good, later, and he answered them seriously or jokingly or sometimes both. Things about why the Elves came to Helm’s Deep – that PJ wanted to kill an elf, [that is, an immortal being] to show the waste and carnage, that in that dying moment Haldir, who could have lived forever, died thinking that evil would win and Middle-earth was lost. There’s a scene filmed between him and Elrond and Galadriel that was cut, but he couldn’t tell us much about it except that it once existed. He mimed the familiar elf walk with the inevitable pratfalls the actors experienced – because elves walking gracefully never look down, and the NZ bush is full of tree-roots. Somebody asked him if PJ insisted on what underwear the Elves should wear as part of their costume! That was a left field question. [Blame Liv Tyler for announcing to the world that she didn’t wear any!] He just laughed and said Calvin Kleins, of course.
One girl asked why Haldir was the only Elf not to wear a helmet, and Craig answered with a laugh ‘Because my hair was so pretty!’ He went on to say he was glad, because the nosepieces on the Elvish helmets tended to dig into people’s noses [especially if they were hit, I suppose!] so you could always tell during the lunchbreaks who the Elves were because of the bloody lines and bruises across their noses.
Another asked why he Haldir reacted the way he did at Helm’s Deep when Aragorn hugged him. Craig said partly because Elves were not very huggy people [at least, I think that’s what he said] and also because ‘you have to remember, Aragorn hasn’t changed his clothes in the entire film. Pheww!’
Anyway, it was a great if bizarre evening. Later in the year the same company will advertise a South Island tour, which Red Carpet will also guide around NZ.
Oh, and if any of you Japanese fans from last night are reading this and you have photos of the Stone St. Studios you want to send us [we know you saw some of the sets through the gate there!]……just remember to send them to spymaster@theonering.net and we’ll post them up.
raptor writes: The TTT score seems to be highly appreciated, it was played several times during the Cannes festival awards. Here’s a presumed complete list (I only managed to watch three quarters of it)of the fragments played: