Congratulations to all the winners of the Houghton Mifflin book contest! Twenty winners were selected randomly from all those who entered the contest and attended the book events held all over the globe. Each of the winners can expect a copy of the beautifully illustrated “The Lord Of The Rings” that retails for $80 in the U.S. In addition to the 20 random winners, Houghton MIfflin is also sending the eight line leaders who drummed up 20 or more people for a book release party a copy of the deluxe book. We want to send a big thanks out to Houghton Mifflin for making this event possible!

The winners are:

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Carole emailed us with the following information on an Auckland The Two Towers charity premiere which will support the Starship Foundation and Epilepsy New Zealand!

just wondered if you were aware that Peter Jackson has selected two charities to benefit from a special Gala Screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in Auckland on December 18th – Starship Foundation (raising funds for Starship, New Zealand’s National Children’s Hospital) and Epilepsy New Zealand.

” We are pleased to be offering Epilepsy NZ proceeds from a benefit screening of The Two Towers. This organisation is a great example of the way in which thousands of New Zealanders volunteer their time and energy to help and support their fellow Kiwis. It’s nice to be given this opportunity to acknowledge our own ‘quiet everyday heroes’ and to say “thankyou”.

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There’s one thing I really have to say before I start my report on day 2 of RingCon (which, for good order, was saturday) and that’s concerning the actors present. None of them had a lot of screentime in The Fellowship of the Ring, nor will get a lot in The Two Towers (Brad Dourif being the exception here), and someone like Cameron Rhodes had only been on set for 1 day to shoot his scene so naturally they didn’t have as much stories and insight on the project as some of the ‘bigger’ actors would have had. And before and after the cancellation of John Rhys-Davies (he had an accident as you might know) the people behind RingCon had a really hard time getting the big names to come to attend (eventually they all for some reason decided not to come, which was a shame), and so for those who were looking only at the guest list RingCon might have looked a bit ‘poor’. However what these guys didn’t have ‘story-wise’ or ‘fame-wise’ they more then made up with their never ceasing enthousiasm and ‘down to earth’-ness. Even though they were hailed as stars and for the fans were probably no less then an Orlando Bloom or a Billy Boyd they were also normal people like all of us; they would walk around the convention or stand in the lobby of the hotel talking to the fans and if they were on stage it was probably very overwhelming to see the attention they got. This, for me, made this convention such great fun. There was no ‘stardom’, no big heads there was just this fun and relaxed atmosphere of Tolkien-fans amongst each other.

Okay, on with day 2. Those of you who have attended conventions like these before will know that the saturdays are always the longest days, and that certainly was the case with RingCon (and not only because breakfast was only being served before 10am). Saturday featured the combined panel of Sarah McLeod and Cameron Rhodes, the panel with Craig Parker, autograph sessions with all the actors, an auction, a costume contest and to round it all off a panel with Brad Dourif!

After I did some more wandering around the convention center I ended up in the Games Workshop room where Craig Parker again was taking some time out to sign books, talk with the hordes of fans and get his picture taking, all the while with a huge smile on his face. Orlando Bloom would probably have been jealous because of all the attention Craig got…

After having a drink with some of the nice people from the official fanclub message boards we decided to check out the auction. Mark Ferguson yesterday told us he would auction two of the bodywarmers that were especially made for the cast and crew when they were half way through principal photography (I tried to talk Mark into trading them with me for a TheOneRing.net cap but I was too late). We arrived just in time to see them go for 2.000 euro each (a euro is worth about a dollar)! They auctioned some more things such as a topps card of Pippin signed by Billy Boyd, a copy of the One Ring worn by Sauron during the opening ceremony and various merchandise-items. All of the money they gathered went to a good cause (I believe it was SOS Childern-villages), and they got quite a lot!

After the auction we went back to the main convention room (Valinor) where it was time for a panel with Cameron Rhodes (Farmer Maggot) and Sarah McLeod (Rosie Cotton). It started of with a clip from the serie ‘Black Knight’ in which Cameron played a significant part. And because Sarah got lost somewhere in Bonn he began all alone. He told the crowd that originally there would be no farmer Maggot in the movies and that he got a phonecall about six months after filming asking if he wanted to play a Hobbit during some pickup shots. At first it would only be some exposure scenes but they told him he might get some lines and if he would he would get payed more. ‘After which’, he said, ‘I was hoping for a lot of lines, hahaha’. Then a few days before he was due to be on set he got sent a script with one line which was Farmer Maggots. He then explained that Farmer Maggots scene was important because it was the first moment of fear in the movie. After that Sarah McLeod appeared on stage and they continued to talk about what kind of movies they like, whether or not they were allowed to take any props from the set home.

A great moment was when they quipped the question if they also got tattoo’s after filming with: ‘yeah I got a huge maggot tattooed on my entire body’ and Sarah admitted she had a rose tattooed somewhere but she wasn’t going to say where. All of the questions about what is was like working with the other cast such as sir Ian McKellen and the four Hobbits were answered with only good words and Cameron Rhodes pulled of a nice John Rhys-Davies imitation to illustrate why he wouldn’t be able to play the part of Gimli.

Then the conversation went on about the internet and how they used it to prepare for their parts or just google for their own name and see what would come up. Cameron Rhodes he a nice story about how he read about FIGWIT on a message board somewhere and left a message saying FIGWIT was Brett McKenzie (sorry if I misspelled that) and Sarah McLeod was telling about how one site (and I think that was us) had her noted down as the lead singer of some band for quite a while, which of course wasn’t true.

She also told some more about the use of forced perspective in her scenes and what is was like seeing every single setpiece in three different sizes, and she told explained that the first scene she shot was the one of the extended dvd in which we see Merry and Pippin dancing and singing in the Green Dragon. And with that they concluded their panel, clearing the stage for..

Craig Parker! Craig Parker’s panel was also one of the amusing highlights of this weekend, and he was constantly interacting with the public and making jokes about Dwarves (Gimli’s words in Elvish in the extended cut probably weren’t translated because they would get rated xxxx according to Craig), how he looked like a Drag Queen, how hard it was to walk and act as an Elf and that, during, breaks he couldn’t go out and play because he was allowed to get dirty and that he had to stand on a box all the time because he wasn’t as tall as all of the other Elves in the movie (Craig is about 5’11’)

But he also said some interestingthings. He started of by introducing himself and telling he was in the first and the second film but unfortunately didn’t make it to the third because he got killed, something he wasn’t able to talk about a lot because ‘there might be New Line spies present’. He talked about how hard it was to learn Elvish and how PJ probably has backmail material for every castmember on his blooper-reel (which I would really like to see, any chance of putting it on a dvd sometime PJ?).

As it turns out Craig got called in a very early stage of production and he came to the studios with a few people to do the voices for the animatics which are on the dvd as well. This was a job Cameron Rhodes did though he came in when they were doing the voices for the three-script animatics and Craig also did the voices for the two-script version of The Lord of the Rings. After that he called casting director Liz Mullane and said he would be prepared to do anything on set, even sweeping floors and making coffee, and ended up getting the part of Haldir.

He talked for a good while about the rumors that there would be Elves at Helsm Deep, which he defended as a good change by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens because it gives the audience a better insight in the decay and death of the Elves, and also because ‘Elves fight cool’. After that he went on about the difficulties of all the make-up, how he had a constant rash of getting shaved twice a day and he had a nice story about how Lawrence Makoare (Lurtz) came in at 8pm one night to get his phrostetics glued on and he was still in his chair at noon the next day getting parts of his make-up attached. Another funny moment was when he answered the question how he prepared for his role with: ‘I moved to a forest and ate Lembas for a few months.’ All together this was a great panel, and Craig did a great job entertaining the fans, answering all their questions, accepting all their presents and generally having a good time.

After the panel all the actors gathered in a great conference room for the first autograph session, and looking at the line I think it kept them busy for quite a while (Cameron Rhodes commented he had never seen so many pictures of his own face before). I strolled around the hotel looking for the promised internet-facilities but they were nowhere to be found so I killed some time before it was time for the costume contest. Highlight of this contest was the moment when Mark Ferguson (Gil-Galad) acted out an alternative version of the Aragorn and Arwen scene with one of the participants which made him slightly biased when it came to judging everyone else that entered. In the end though the first prize went to two Orcs that had an amusing scene in which one of them burst out in the song of Gil-Galad, great stuff.

And then the stage was cleared again for Brad Dourif’s second panel. This time the convention room was a bit emptier for some reason, but a very good panel. Brad Dourif talked extensively about his parts in ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’, ‘Alien’ and ‘Chucky’ and he explained that he wa pretty much a whore when it came to acting: ‘if there is a camera, a paycheck, a few lines to say and no good reason NOT to be there I’m there!’

He talked for a while about The Two Towers which he found overwhelming and gorgeous and he mentioned that in The Two Towers the accent was more on the character-development. He was full of praise for Bernard Hill who in his opinion gave an ‘extraordinary’ performance and who ‘nailed’ a scene with his son (Theodred) which was probably the best acted scene in the entire second movie. It was at this point when Brad’s agent appeared on stage probably correcting him because he went on with ‘I’m sorry I’m not allowed to say any more about that.’

He continued to talk about how great is was to work with Ian McKellen (who corrected his accent quite a lot), and that on set the cast was pretty much divided into the ‘old’ actors and the ‘young’ ones, telling about how when the Hobbits were in their trailers there would suddenly be loud rap-music and Ian McKellen would turn up apologising for the behaviour of the Hobbits, a very enjoyable story. When he was asked if it was hard to film the scene we saw in the trailer of Wormtongue being thrown down the stairs of Edoras he replied: ‘There is no way in hell anyone is throwing me down any stairs’ and he explained a stuntman did that and that he couldn’t imagine someone doing that for fun. He also said that he had to run down a hill in his dress (that’s the way he called Grima’s costume) which frightened him more then enough.

One of the best parts of the panel was when he was describing what it was like to work on the exterior set of Edoras. He told the crowd that he would get up at 3:30am, spend two hours in a van being brought to the set over bumpy dirtroads but that when they arrived on the location of the set it was so beautiful ‘it couldn’t have looked more like Middl-earth’ with these gorgeous snowcapped mountains, scenic view of the plains. He also thought that what we’ll get to see of the Edoras-set on the big screen won’t even come close to what it was like working there and that he very impressed and considered himself ‘extremely lucky’ to be working on that set. You could really see the influence this set must have had on him and it was great hearing him talk about it so passionately.

And after that the panel ended and with that day 2 of RingCon came to an end (once again I say program-wise because they had this piano-bar in the hotel and there was a huge Middle-earth party with live music during which Master of Ceremonies Marc Lee and Cameron Rhodes seemed to have a great time, but I won’t bother you with those stories; you had to be there!) As always look for great pictures of the second day at Irascian’s report which can be read and seen here! And look for my report on day 3 of RingCon which will feature a great Cameron Rhodes-panel, more Craig Parker and Mark Ferguson madness and the closing ceremony sometime tonight!

cheers,

leo

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One of the most traumatic experiences in my life took place during the Cannes Filmfestival in 2001. We got invited to attend all the Lord of the Rings-goodness around, interviews with the cast in attendance, a truely awesome party on a great location and so and so forth. However; every invitation we saw said very clearly; no cameras allowed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people walking around with cameras on one night as I did during that party, and after that I vowed I’d never leave my camera at home again, because it is very frustrating to walk around all these stars and not being able to get your picture taken with them, as you might imagine.

Why am I telling you this in a report about RingCon 2002? Well, because I’m almost ashamed to admit that I forgot my camera. Stupid me, I’m sorry. In my defence I will say that I had to get up very early and only had about four hours of sleep. As a result I’m afraid I won’t have any pictures to go with my report, but if you want to see some awesome pictures jump over to Irascian’s website and check out his reports on RingCon which will future some great pictures from everyone who was there (and feel free to email him and ask for more pictures with Craig Parker on them, he won’t mind)!

Okay, let’s get down to business; day one of RingCon 2002 in Bonn Germany! The event was set to start at noon on friday with a pressconference for those who managed to get a presscard or a lecture on Tolkiens ‘smaller works’ by a German man who happened to know a lot about these books. Because I had managed to get a presscard, and because my German is a bit rusty I went for the pressconference. Alas for me the first bit of the pressconference was in German as well. This immediatly brings me to the point that for those non-native German speakers in attendance it was slighly annoying and sometimes confusing that the first language used on the convention seemed to be German, except for some of the lectures and all of the panel-discussions with the actors. I think the reason behind the choice as German for the first language (obviously) was that RingCon was organised by the German website Herr-der-Ringe-Film.de and the German Tolkiensociety, nevertheless I hope next year will be more English-orientated. But I’m rambling again, back to the pressconference.

After the part were the two people who started the idea behind RingCon got to say a few things they switched to English and introduced four actors who would be at RingCon all weekend: Cameron Rhodes (Farmer Maggot), Sarah McLeod (Rosie Cotton), Mark Ferguson (Gil-galad/Witch-King) and Craig Parker (Haldir)! They introduced themselves, told a bit about their parts and then it was time for the journalists present to ask a few questions…

*silence*

For some reason noone present seemed to have any questions. That’s odd.. Well, on the bright side; more time for me to ask questions. So I immediatly asked Craig Parker about his part in The Two Towers. He confirmed his presence (more about that later) but wasn’t allowed to say much more then that. They then were asked about how they got their parts, some nice stories there which I will all save for a few lines further down but all in all the there wasn’t much news to be found here. I taped the entire thing and I’ll have to dig up the tape and transcribe the most important parts but I’ll save that for a later report.

After that I decided to check out the rest of the conference until it was time for the first panel (with Mark Ferguson) later that day. I wandered around the Games Workshop room which futured some amazing ‘sets’ from Helms Deep, Mordor, Moria and more. The Games Workshop room was always busy with people playing the game (unfortunately I know nothing about it but it looked interesting!), there was a table set up where you could paint your own figures and they had the The Two Towers-trailer playing all the time. There’s something vaguely odd about hearing German voices in the trailer and it would not be the first time I would hear people complain about the dubbing of the movies in Germany.

Next up was the retailers room (Bree, all rooms had names from Tolkiens works) which, because of my lack of money, I skipped through very quickly. I can’t stand the sight of all these things I really want to have being spread out on a table, it makes my wallet itch. The center-area of the convention was filled with little stands of various kind such as the German distributor of the Decipher-cards which set up some tables on which you could play the game (much like in the Games Workshop-room it was always busy at these tables as well), Elbenwald.de had a stand, the guys who promoted the Universal Lord of the Rings computer game had a stand and there was much, much more. The first floor of the convention was mainly used for lectures although a few fantasy-movie projects had their own room to promote their movies and the German Tolkien society had a room there.

Shining in absence were the stands from New Line or perhaps the German distributor of the movies (I haven’t seen a single Extended DVD Box all weekend) and Decipher, who both for some reason decided this event was not big enough or not important enough to attend I guess.. Boy were they wrong!

Anyway, after all this wandering it was time for the first panel. First up was Mark Ferguson, who played the part of Gil-galad as well as some scenes from the Witch-King. After his introduction by Master of Ceremonies Marc B. ‘you aint getting your donuts’ Lee he walked on stage (which was beautifully decorated like it was Weathertop!) with a little handcamera filming the fans which was something he would do all throughout the convention (I wonder how many hours of tape he shot).

Now Mark is a great performer, he got along with the crowd really well, he was funny at times but was also very able to tell a good story which made his first panel one of the highlights of the day. During the hour he talked about the prologue and his scenes in it a while. How PJ fought to keep the prologue in and how he thought it was a pity the fans didn’t get to see much more of Gil-galad ‘slaughtering many Orcs very well’. He had a great anecdote about how they scenes Gil-galad’s death scene. Many of you who have read the Art of FOTR-book might have seen the picture of Sauron holding someone up with one hand, setting him on fire and hurling him across the plains of Mordor, well this was filmed exactly like that and Mark Ferguson had a lot of fun telling about how he passed out when they shot that for the first time on a Wellington car park and how sorry he was to see it didn’t make it into the movie (although probably not as sorry as the stunt guy who was set on fire and thrown across the car parc he joked in a panel on sunday).

He talked about the part of the Witch-King, which he got after the actor first casted for the part forgot to mention he was claustrophobic and therefore passed out two times when fitting on the heavy Witch-King armour. And he regretted not being there to shoot the Witch-King scenes on the Fell Beast or the ones with Mirando Otto (Eowyn). He told the crowd he was really looking forward to those, especially since Miranda used to date his brother and had sent him an email saying ‘really looking forward to killing you in LOTR’.

He also mentioned that working with Hugo Weaving (Elrond) was one of the highlights of his work on The Lord of the Rings, especially since the two went to Drama School together, and he joked about how the audience that saw the movie was fooled when they saw Elrond leading ‘his’ (read: Mark’s) army since technically Elrond was only Gil-galad’s personal assistant.

Of course there was much much more being discussed but these were the highlights for me, and the hour went by way too fast. After Mark the stage was cleared for Sarah McLeod (Rosie Cotton)! Now Sarah McLeod would have to be the most charming, sweet, nice person I have had the pleasure of meeting this weekend (of course with all of the other guests being male that wasn’t that hard). Forget about Liv Tyler or Cate Blanchet for a while, Sarah McLeod is it! For some reason though her panel discussion/q&a didn’t go as fluent as Mark Fergusons did, she got a lot of questions that got answered pretty quickly and not a lot of people were asking questions.

However she talked for a fair while about how she got the part after reading for the first time when she was 6 months pregnant and then not hearing anything for a long period of time before she was called and got the part of Rosie. Sarah had worked with PJ before on the documentary ‘Forgotten Silver’ and wanted to be in The Lord of the Rings as well. She also confirmed she had shot quite a few scenes for Return of the King although she couldn’t really say which scenes(I heard something about a marriage, though I could be wrong), or what would be in the movie because it’s too early for that.

A lot of questions were asked about the dance-scene during Bilbo’s Party and Sarah told that it took a week of rehearsing that scene, and that it was a very hard scene to perform on the un-even ground of the party-field while wearing Hobbit-feet! Also she mentioned that Sean Astin (Sam) was a bit of a stumbeling dancer (though thsat was probably acted) and that she had to take the lead. She then continued with telling about all the work she did with a dialect coach in order to get the accent down and that although it was a pity a lot of her lines in the film got cut she was glad she got more screentime in the extended cut, and that her favorite day on the set was the day that she and Sean Astin brought their daughters along to shoot scenes with.

After this panel it was time for a short break before the opening ceremony and we drifted of to the Games Workshop-room just in time to see Craig Parker being wiped of the board by a Games Workshop eployee (apparently he also won a game although I think they probably let him win) before we grabbed something to eat.

During one of the panel discussions Stefan Servos (webmaster from Herr-der-Ringe-Film.de and one of the organisers of RingCon) came up to me and told me the opening ceremony would be very good, but of course I had to see that for myself. Well, I think next time I might as well take his word for it because it indeed was extremely cool! They started playing the soundtrack from The Fellowship of the Ring and on stage eight Nazgul appeared, creeping about and threatening the audience with their swords and then just when you thought that was it Sauron appeared! And I don’t mean we got to see an burning eye on a screen somewhere, no, there was a guy in a huge Sauron-like armoured suit with a mace in his hand and all. It was very impressive! After that all of the guests were introduced (not just the actors but also the people who gave lectures on Tolkien-related topics throughout the weekend), there was the extremely nice Cameron Rhodes (who is a big fan of TheOneRing.net apparently!) who surprised the audience with his line from The Fellowship of the Ring: ‘There are no Bagginses around here..’, there was Mark Ferguson again with his camera, Sarah McLeod (I only know she smiled and then everything else kinda faded, hehehe) and no other then Brad Dourif (Grima Wormtongue) appeared on stage! He just flew in from whereever it was he was coming from and was heavily jetlagged and the crowd went wild when they saw him. And last but not least there was of course Craig Parker who throughout the convention gathered applause by speaking German..

After what must have been like ten minutes of cheering and applauding most of them left the stage and it was time for Brad Dourif’s panel discussion, which was one of the more interesting this weekend.

He started of by telling how he did three auditions for the part of Grima and that in the end he didn’t get it, which was a disappointment, but that he got a phonecall after three or four months with the information that the guy they originally casted for Grima for some reason didn’t want to do the part (which was something Brad couldn’t imagine) and if he was still interested. He then flew to New-Zealand, met with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and discussed the character with them. He talked about taking the tour through WETA Workshop, which he found overwhelming and one of the most impressive tours in his life, and was full of praise about his dagger (‘it’s the best dagger I’ve ever had’) and his costume and then it moved on to the questions and asnwer-session.

There was quite a lot of discussion about his accent and how he found it very hard to get it right, especially as he was working with all these British ‘Sir’s whereas he was from West-Virginia. And he talked about how hard it was to film all the scenes in the Orthanc chambers, which were mainly exposure-scenes.

Now because Brad Dourif has already seen the finished version of The Two Towers a lot of the stuff he said was very interesting. When asked the question what would happen to Saruman he replyed: ‘I don’t think he’s gonna die soon, but look for things to be different from the book.’ So I’ll leave you all to work that one out.. He also had some very good things to say about how he saw his character; he mentioned he thought Grima really wanted to belong somewhere, that he wanted to be loved and that Grima was an interesting character because he was the only human that ‘turned’. From all of that you could gather he had done a lot of thinking about his character and it all sounded really good and promising!

But of course there was more! He joked about having to wear a dress as a costume and he couldn’t figure out how women put these things on and he told the public it was great to have your own actionfigure and that he thought everyone should be able to have their own actionfigure. He mentioned being very impressed by Miranda Otto (and not just because she was drop-dead gorgeous) and that because Wickerman was one of his favorite movies of all time he was very honoured to work with Christopher Lee. He also had a great anecdote about Christopher Lee who, on set, impressed everyone by being able to throw a rusty nail in the bullseye of a dartboard.

And of course there was the story about his eyebrows getting shaved of for the part of Grima which his girlfriend especially hated and he told that everytime he had to go back to do more shooting or pickup-shots (about three or four times) they had to shave the eyebrows of again, a thing he and his girlfriend always forgot was going to happen..

All in all it was a very, very entertaining hour which really flew by. And with the end of Brad Dourif’s panel the first day of RingCon also came to an end as far as the program was concerned, look back here sometime monday-evening for my report on the second day of RingCon 2002 which will feature the joined panel of Cameron Rhodes and Sarah McLeod, Craig Parker’s hour of fun and games with the audience (oh and there were some serious things being said as well!) and more Brad Dourif!

Meanwhile be sure to check out all the awesome pictures from RingCon that will find their way to this site right here!

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Ringer Spy Arwenelf sends along these scans from Total Film Magazine, take a look!

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A.H.Black writes:

For those of us who are geeks on the subject of Lord of the Rings, the next month will be filled with anticipation. It will also be filled with TV specials, interviews, previews and commercials.

This is the “E” James Bond edition of Live from the red carpet. At about a half hour in, there is a holiday movie guide that includes the Two Towers, with some scenes we don’t often see. So far it doesn’t look like Live From the Red Carpet will be covering the Premier of Two Towers. [More]

AMC Access has been showing previews of the Two Towers this last weekend. There will probably be more. [More]

November 25th – Extra Talks Two Towers. The link will help you find when it airs in your area. [More]

November 25th – throughout the week ” E’s” holiday movie version of “Rank”. [More]

December 4th – Peter Jackson on “Today”

December 4th – This is the one on the WB. [More]

December 8th – Sir Ian McKellen will be on Inside the actors studio. [More]

December 9th – This the Page to Screen program on Lord of the Rings [More]

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