Our initial report on the German magazine “Stern” appeared just last week. They had a delicious article with some prominent images reproduced from earlier New Line promotional material (stuff we’ve already seen, kids). We are lucky to have a very clean translation from the German. Here it is in full:
One Ring to bring them all And in the darkness bind them In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie
Three lines, almost 50 years old, still magical in power. Whoever knows them, whoever reads them, disappears momentarily out of this world. Submerges in the memory of a distant, strange land, long before our time, in which little people with furry feet called Hobbits move out to conquer evil. Black riders, wizards, dwarfs, strange creatures, half-human half-tree—Middle-earth in all its intricacy, so authentic as if it were more than a fantasy world immortalized in one of the most successful books of the 20th century: The Lord of The Rings by the British linguistics professor J.R.R. Tolkien.
Every year since the 3-volume fantasy epic appeared in 1954-55, this world has existed exclusively in the minds of its readers. 50 million people had 50 million different conceptions of how Gandalf, Frodo, Gollum and all the other figures looked. Hollywood undertook a halfhearted attempt to film Lord of the Rings in 1978 but fans despised the result and with that, things calmed down.
Now, however, someone is again making an attempt to do the impossible. In an unprecedented undertaking the New Zealand director Peter Jackson (hereafter PJ) is filming the entire work of over 1200 pages, all three parts of the novel, at the same time. One after another they are to arrive in theaters at intervals of 12 months, respectively.
The first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, is due on 19 December in the USA and one day later in Germany. For the Tolkien family the only thing to do is to go into hiding. “I expect bother without end when the film comes out” groans John Tolkien, an 83 year-old retired, Catholic priest—and he is probably right.
Months before the premiere there is as much commotion about The Lord of The Rings as there was in the late 60’s when hippies discovered the ecologically inspired epic and pasted Gandalf for President stickers on their rusted VW’s (Gandalf, for the uninitiated, is a wise wizard protecting Middle-earth from the long arm of Evil).
No one has a greater interest in pushing the monumental fantasy into the stage lights than the film’s producer New Line Cinema, who until now financed films with predictable budgets but now is letting itself take a gigantic gamble. The original estimate of $180 million for all three films has, according to insiders, expanded to $270 million—a good 550 DM. However thoughtful the decision may be to film all 3 parts parallel, it is also very risky. “Whoever produces 3 films should rather watch out that the first one is good,” warns veteran producer William Goldman (The Untouchables). “If it is not good then nobody will care about the 2nd and 3rd parts any more.”
With such thoughts the producers have been struggling since day one. Even the choice of director was considerably risky. PJ is not a director for popcorn cinema. His biggest public success to date was the puberty drama Heavenly Creatures with Kate Winslet—by Hollywood standards intimate theater.
The Tolkien fans are eyeing the project with much more suspicion than the film world. For most, The Lord of The Rings is not simply a book but a passion. They are organized by the thousands in clubs, readings, and roundtable discussions on questions from the Tolkien universe. “Naturally we do not want the book secularized or made trivial,” says Mike Foster, American representative of the Oxford based Tolkien Society.
The bands of fans were especially watchful during the 15-month filming which ended 24 December 2000. At more than 100 film locations PJ’s crew, which consisted of 1700 workers, transformed the landscape of New Zealand into Tolkien’s Middle-earth, used 1000’s of gallons of paint, used 1000’s of cubic meters of wood and plastic, had fashioned by smiths 40 golden rings and 900 suits of armor and all the while Tolkien disciples looked over their shoulders, nervously prepared to announce to the world via internet, the slightest deviation from the original.
Among the few fans who were permitted on set was the German Stefan Servos. He runs Herr-der-ringe-film.de, the online news center for German Tolkien fans. Servos, a 25 year-old journalism student, received the opportunity from German Kino World Library to walk through the sets of Tolkien’s city of Minas Tirith, to shake hands with the 4 Hobbit actors and to talk shop with PJ, the director.
“PJ was genial,” beams Servos. “He was quite relaxed. There was no stress although it was just before the end of the filming.” When Servos’ report appears online Kino World will decide. The film company was fishing for fans as advisers when his web site became a hit (on an average of 300,000 hits a day!). “Nothing that I learned from Kino World is allowed on my web page,” says Servos. Nonetheless he could answer a few of the hotly discussed questions from his friends: Does the Balrog have wings? What does Gollum look like? Servos has also seen a 22 minute-long preview for cinema owners and marketing partners. But he will betray nothing. Only so much as to keep fans calm: “PJ has done it! He has captured the magic of Middle-earth.”
“It made the Kino World partner in Hollywood a little nervous at first that the Germany Company had a fan there,” says Servos. But it fits in with the marketing strategy that the producers have OK’d for their risky project. Instead of leaving fans to their spying New Line works closely together with them. “It is clear to them that everything we do raises attention to the film,” says Cliff Broadway, who writes for the fansite TheOneRing.net under the name Quickbeam.
First place for news is still the official web site: Lordoftherings.net. It is difficult for the fans to get any information now that the filming is done and the filmmakers are back inside the studio working on over 1200 special effects. A tasty tidbit which the studio put on the net last April—a preview mix of scenes not even 2 minutes long, was sucked up by hungry fans right on the first day: 1.7 million downloads, and at the end of the first week the number stood at 6.6 million. Star Wars father George Lucas could turn Yoda-green with envy.
The trailer to Episode I of the Star Wars saga—clearly inspired by Tolkien—brought 1.1 million downloads on its first day. But does that mean The Fellowship will win at the box office in December? “You know,” grumbled a jealous studio boss to the New York Times, “The 1.7 million people who downloaded the trailer on the first day, I think that is the entire public for the film.” But the fans see it otherwise. “These films will out perform Star Wars by far,” says Cliff Broadway. “We have waited so long for this! Three or four generations of readers adore this book.”
Just the book. Whatever Hollywood does with The Lord of the Rings, it can only make the subject more popular.
“I have the greatest hopes that the film will be a success and bestow on Tolkien a new generation of readers,” says Clay Harper, Tolkien project leader for US publisher Houghton Mifflin. “And as strange as it may sound, I envy these people. I would give anything if I could possibly read the book again for the first time.” Harper, 42 and a life-long Tolkien fan, admits that he was among the first who on 12 January slipped into the Cinema at noon to view with astonishment the new film Trailer [in front of Thirteen Days – Ed.] but he is also afraid that the images on the screen could supress his own. Then Gandalf would forever be Sir Ian McKellen and the Elven queen Arwen would look like Liv Tyler. Personal mental images would be replaced by the filmmaker’s.
“I feel like a person running around with two heads,” says Harper. “One head belongs to the 13 year-old in me who wants to be sitting in the cinema on the 19th of December and the other head belongs to the 42 year-old who would like to protect his fantasies.”
The February/March edition of New Zealand’s leading fashion and lifestyle magazine ‘Pavement’ contained one of the best interviews available with Karl Urban, soon to star as Eomer. Pavement magazine has kindly allowed me to quote from them; all unattributed quotes are the words of Melanie Cooper, who wrote the story for Pavement.
‘Rings’ fans have spent a lot of energy discussing the merits of the film trilogy’s casting and it must be slightly frustrating for TORN’s visitors to form a picture of the lesser-known actors who only have a local track-record. Although he’s about to be seen internationally in Harry Sinclair’s farmer fairytale ‘The Price of Milk,’ outside of NZ Karl Urban is a relatively unknown actor up until now. Those actors may be enjoying their last year of relative anonymity, knowing that once ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ comes out, they won’t be able to walk down any street in the world without being hailed.
Pavement’s interview with Urban coincides with the international release of two New Zealand films that Urban stars in, Harry Sinclair‘s “The Price of Milk” and Glenn Standring’s “The Irrefutable Truth about Demons.” However Urban has been well-known in NZ for the past ten years. He grew up around film, with a mother who worked in a Wellington production company during the first flare-up of the NZ film industry. He entered the profession seriously at 18 doing the almost-inevitable apprenticeship on Kiwi soap Shortland St. (“…not the place to pick up the finer points of acting..”), then Xena and Hercules,before moving on to more challenging roles. We quoted an earlier article where Urban said ‘I’m basically lazy,’ and indeed he only works when he wants to. But what makes him want to work is the desire to communicate, to tell a story, and he’s now in a position to turn down roles that don’t have the depth that he wants. For instance, he turned down a fat offer from Aaraon Spelling for one of his TV projects. Said Urban, “It might have been all right if the character had some devious motives or evil intent but it was just the ‘hunk’ role. And with those acting roles, what you see is what you get.” Urban’s agent Graham Dunster puts it this way: “He would just like to do good things. He’s very sure that he doesn’t want to do crap.”
Now in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose his work, he seems to keep a sense of who he is and what matters to him – his partner Natalie and newborn son Hunter, and having time to take the dog to the beach, to surf, to go camping, or fishing, or indulge a passion for music. Life’s not all play for Urban though. He loves learning and recently he’s been taking classes for his technique with Sandford Meisner, an American teacher. ” The technique gives you tools in case your instinct fails you. Acting for screen is a combination of two factors – the technical aspect and the instinctive aspect – and this technique was really helping me focus on being true to my instinct.” That may have come in really handy with “The Price of Milk” which was filmed in weekly bursts of three days each, with constant script revisions that meant the actors often saw their lines just before shooting started for the day. In fact the story itself was nowhere set in concrete, which must have been hard for Urban, who ‘likens discovering his characters’ traits to the work of a detective.’ At first Urban hated working in that way, but eventually concluded “When you’re acting, the most you can hope for is that you respond truthfully moment to moment. You need to cut the strings of preconception and by doing it with Harry you don’t have a chance to create the preconceptions that could make a performance stale.” All of which was great preparation for Urban’s role in The Lord of the Rings. Urban found Peter Jackson’s directorial style quite similar, even though the vast epic of the Rings could hardly be more different to Sinclair’s quirky home-grown fairytale-on-a-farm story. “Pete’s like Harry, in many ways” (they’re good friends in fact) -” I mean, the script’s all there but ultimately [Jackson’s] got the picture in his head. He’s hands-on and he plays fast and loose. If a scenes’s not quite right, he’ll change it. If the actor isn’t getting it right, he’ll come in and tell you to make one small change and that’ll be it. He’s got his eye on the detail.”
Jackson says of Urban “Karl has one of the best screen personas of any New Zealand actor. When we were casting for Eomer, we offered it to Karl. We didn’t really audition widely for the role. We thought he was the perfect fit.” We probably won’t see Urban as Eomer for a long time, but “The Price of Milk” has received critical acclaim at various festivals and was snapped up by distibutors. No sign that he’ll be wooed away to an international career as a result. He’s passionate about the local film industry, and hopes that it will continue to make films that celebrate our own identity – for there is a fear that the ‘Rings’ may point us in the direction of ‘a more product-oriented output’ – i.e. following the Hollywood model of making genre-specific films that are made with both eyes on the dollar. But Urban still values the fact that Jackson chose to stay in NZ too. “I really respect Peter for choosing to apply his craft in thiscountry,because doing that gives our film crews the chance to work at the peak of the film industry and it trains new talent. It creates more interest in our films and it clears the way for new projects.”
It may just be selfish of me to say this, but with any luck Karl Urban will be part of New Zealand culture for some time to come.
The full article in Pavement has some fine photos of Urban, and since they are also planning to run some interviews with other ‘Rings’ actors in upcoming issues, it may be worth getting your own copies, which are available by contacting pavement@pavement.co.nz
TOLKIEN SCHOLARS AND HOBBIT FANS CONVERGE Tolkien scholars and hobbit fans will gather at two conferences at The University of St. Thomas over April 27-29, 2001.
CONCERNING HOBBITS AND OTHER MATTERS: Tolkien Across the Disciplines, on
Thursday, April 27, will feature a number of formal presentations by scholars from around the country, under sponsorship of the St. Thomas English Department.
[If you’d like to see a full press release, including a listing of the dozen-plus presentations, and costs of meals, etc,, let me know and I’ll forwrad that to you–or visit the Concerning Hobbits web-page at http://www.stthomas.edu/engl/English/tolkien.htm
NOTE: There is a deadlline of March 15 for the advance $20 rate on this one-day conference.
BREE MOOT 5, over the following two days (4/28-29), will celebrate the works and worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien in more reader-oriented activities, including both individual and group presentations and informal interactions. The Bree Moot theme is “The Fellowship of Tolkien,” broadly interpreted to include approaches to fantasy literature inspired or modeled by Tolkien in his fabulously popular fantasy works, including The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings (now being filmed for a major film release next December by New Line Cinema) and in his scholarly works and teaching. The local Rivendell Group of The Mythopoeic Society is devoted to the example of Tolkien’s discussion group in the 30s and 40s, The Inklings (which also included noted writer/scholar/professor C.S. Lewis), which met regularly to discuss books and the great literary tradition as well as to workshop the members’ own works-in-progress.
Margaret Howes, Bree Moot guest of honor, exemplifies this approach: She published a “fan” article in the mid-60s Tolkien Journal, at the height of the Tolkien campus craze, and went on to derive inspiration from Tolkien in writing (and later performing) her “Tales Told by the Lonely Mountain,” some of which were published in The Tolkien Scrapbook. After helping found and participating in the Rivendell discussion group for many years, she last year published her first novel, The Wrong World, and this year is publishing Autumn World, a novel jointly written by five current and former members of the Rivendell Group.
Other program features at Bree Moot will include author/critic Ruth Berman presenting slides on dragon illustration, presentations by Canadian scholar-professor William Sargent (a.k.a. fantasy author “Antony Swithen”) on “Farming in the Shire” and “Geology of Middle-earth,” local musician David Emerson on the Tolkien-Donald Swann collaboration, “The Road Goes Ever On” song cycle, and on the Children’s Theatre Company dramatizations of The Hobbit and on the forthcoming New Line Cinema films.
Other activities include panel discussions, filk-singing, and some displays of fan publications and memorabilia. This is the second time that Bree Moot has come to Minnesota. Previously, Bree Moot 3 was held at the University of Minnesota in 1997.
For more information, contact (612)292-8887, 293 Selby Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102-1811 or d-lena@umn.edu. The Rivendell Group, which is co-sponsoring the conference, along with the Tolkien fan newsletter, Beyond Bree, is a chartered discussion group of The Mythopoeic Society and has also been a recognized student organization at the University for the past two decades, studying and discussing fantasy in the Tolkien tradition each month. Cost for this two day reader-oriented conference is $20 advance at least through March, probably more at the door.
THE TOLKIEN SEMINAR
Leading up to Minicon and Bree Moot 5/Concerning Hobbits will be a series of programs held around the Twin Cities approaching our themes on a smaller scale.
The first of these will be on April 7, at the Southdale Public Library, at 1:30 p.m. This will be a panel discussion featuring experts on and writers of children’s fantasy. Confirmed panelist as of this writing is Caroline Stevermer, author of _River Rats_ and several other novels, including her latest book, _When the King Comes Home_.
Bree Moot was started by readers of Beyond Bree, a monthly newsletter for Tolkien fans.
contact d-lena@umn.edu or visit www.tc.umn.edu/~d-lena/BreeMoot.html
David Lenander 293 Selby Ave. work: (612)626-3375 St. Paul, MN 55102-1811 home: (651)292-8887 fax: (612)626-2454 e-mail: d-lena@tc.umn.edu
Mythopoeic Society Rivendell Group web-page: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~d-lena/RIVENDELL.html
I’m jealous. Amy typed this up sent this in – thank you!
“J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 tale catapulted a short furry-footed homebody hobbit into a journey through the wonders and dangers of a mystical made-up land. With Tolkien’s text in mind, Bryce Bandstra, general foreman of the Chicago Park District conservatories, put pencil to paper and set out on an adventure.
Bandstra sent his fancy flying to mythical Middle-earth, piecing together plants and hardscapes for this year’s Hobbit Garden at the 2001 Chicago Flower and Garden Show. The 2,800-square-foot exhibit–a serendipitous prequel to the movie adaptation of Tolkien’s further Middle-earth novel, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” that is to be released in December–recreates homebody Baggins’ hobbit-hole and the surrounding Shire.
“Everyone knows ‘The Hobbit,'” says Bandstra. “It was an opportunity to do something entirely imaginary and to entertain more members of the family….” A horticultural tie-in to the upcoming film, the garden is a Middle-earth illusion blending from-the-book settings with details drawn from Bandstra’s imagination and Old English garden designs.
In Bandstra’s fairy-tale countryside, there is, of course, the hobbit-hole, complete with door, chimneys and windows, nestled into a verdant hillside. A man-made stream–standing in for Tolkien’s The Water–flows past a birch grove and a meadow composed of turf grass, primrose and dame’s rocket. A winding brick path leads to the hobbit’s door and his cottage gardens, spilling over with scented geraniums, rosemary, thyme, scented viburnums, foxgloves, bleeding hearts and forget-me-nots. Quotations from “The Hobbit,” written on signs throughout the display, guide those unfamiliar with Tolkien’s story down both the literary and the garden path.”
Chicago Tribune, Sunday March 4, 2001 Section 17- Chicago Flower andGarden Show Page 13
Walk on the Moon, A (1999) The Thin Red Line (1998) UK A Perfect Murder (1998) UK Albino Alligator (1996) Daylight (1996) UK The Portrait of a Lady (1996) The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995) The Prophecy (1995) American Yakuza (1994) Boiling Point (1993) Young Guns II (1990) Fresh Horses (1988) UK
Liv Tyler (Arwen)
Cookie’s Fortune (1999) Plunkett & Macleane (1999) UK Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) Armageddon (1998) UK U Turn (1997) UK Empire Records (1995)
Ian Holm (Bilbo)
eXistenZ (1999) Alice Through the Looking Glass (1999) (TV) The Sweet Hereafter (1997) UK Time Bandits (1981) UK Alien (1979) Shout at the Devil (1976) Juggernaut (1974) A Severed Head (1971) UK Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) The Fixer (1968) UK
Sean Bean (Boromir)
Black Beauty (1994) UK Stormy Monday (1988)
Elijah Wood (Frodo)
The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (2000) The Faculty (1998) UK Internal Affairs (1990) UK Avalon (1990) UK
Hugo Weaving (Elrond)
The Matrix (1999) UK Bedrooms & Hallways (1998) The Interview (1998) Babe (1995) UK
Miranda Otto (Eowyn)
The Jack Bull (1999) (TV) UK The Thin Red Line (1998) UK
David Wenham (Faramir)
Dark City (1998) UK
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) UK Pushing Tin (1999) Elizabeth (1998) UK Oscar and Lucinda (1997) Paradise Road (1997)
Ian McKellen (Gandalf)
X-Men (2000) Gods and Monsters (1998) Apt Pupil (1998) UK Jack and Sarah (1995) The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) UK Scandal (1989) UK Plenty (1985) UK Alfred the Great (1969) UK
Secret of the Andes (1998) UK The Great White Hype (1996) UK Bloodsport 3 (1996) The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1993) Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Framing (1992) (TV) The Seventh Coin (1992) Waxwork (1988) Perry Mason: The Case of the Murdered Madam (1987) (TV) Firewalker (1986) UK Victor/Victoria (1982)
Topsy-Turvy (1999) Among Giants (1998) UK The Tale of Sweety Barrett (1998) UK Career Girls (1997)
Bruce Spence (Mouth of Sauron)
Dark City (1998) UK Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) UK
Sean Astin (Sam)
Icebreaker (1999) Kimberly (1999) Bulworth (1998) UK Courage Under Fire (1996) UK Encino Man (1992) UK Where the Day Takes You (1992) UK Toy Soldiers (1991) UK The War of the Roses (1989) UK White Water Summer (1987)
Christopher Lee (Saruman)
Tale of the Mummy (1998) UK Death Train (1993) (TV) UK Treasure Island (1990) (TV) Mio min Mio (1987) UK The Last Unicorn (1982) Safari 3000 (1982) 1941 (1979) UK Bear Island (1979) UK Arabian Adventure (1979) Return from Witch Mountain (1978) UK The Three Musketeers (1973) UK The Creeping Flesh (1973) Nothing But the Night (1972) Hannie Caulder (1971) UK The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) UK Theatre of Death (1967) UK Psycho-Circus (1966) The City of the Dead (1960) The Mummy (1959) Dracula (1958) The Truth About Women (1958) The Crimson Pirate (1952) UK
Bernard Hill (Theoden)
The Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999) UK True Crime (1999) UK Mountains of the Moon (1990) UK
Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)
The Progeny(1999) UK Urban Legend (1998) UK Senseless (1998) UK Bride of Chucky (1998) UK Best Men (1997) Death Machine (1995) UK Color of Night (1994) Amos & Andrew (1993) Trauma (1993) Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein (1991) Hidden Agenda (1990) The Exorcist III (1990) Graveyard Shift (1990) Mississippi Burning (1988) Ragtime (1981) Wise Blood (1979) UK Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) UK
Hey, found this article in my newly delivered (April 2001, Josie and the PussyCats on the cover) Total Movie magazine. You remember, the evil minions who deceived us all into thinking the LOTR internet teaser would be on their premier edition DVD? 🙂 Well it’s actually a pretty good magazine, even if there is nothing new in this article. And the pics are not new either, despite how it sounds. -Pipe Smoke
LORD ALMIGHTY! 2001 is going to be the Year of the Ring, and what better way to kick things off than with the first official pics of Peter Jackson’s epic three-part Tolkien-fest?
Forget about those blurry, indistinct set pics you’ve seen online and wrap your eyes around these babies – the first official shots from the New Line Cinema’s upcoming live action adaption of J.R.R. Tolkien’s weighty fantasy classic The Lord of the Rings. Shortly before the holidays, after 15 months of extensive shooting in New Zealand, the last scene of director Peter Jackson’s cinematic trilogy was finally shot and a 2,000-person cast, crew and VIP wrap party was thrown in the capital city of Wellington. Now the production has another mountain to climb: assembling the footage into three films, with the first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, already booked for release this coming December 19. Can Jackson meet his deadline?
Work on the film’s special effects was already well underway while filming was occurring. Jackson’s FX company, WETA Limited, is producing all of the digital effects for the trilogy (currently estimated to be around 1,200 shots), ranging in complexity from creating two armies of more than 100,000 soldiers each battling one another to digitally altering the height of the actors portraying the diminutive Hobbits (played by Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian Holm, et al). Still, we do know that at least two Middle-Earth entities – the tree-like beings called Ents and the sinister and cunning Gollum – will be entirely computer generated. There’s also been lots of Internet speculation about what kind of effects surprises the WETA team has in store for the design of the films’ major villain, Sauron, but so far no images of this guy (or the horrific Balrog creature that menaces our heroes) have leaked out.
Still, the shift to post-production has caused some downsizing to occur. WETA Workshops, the movies’ weapon-making and miniatures department, scaled back its workforce as the production began to wind down, from more than 100 employees to fewer than 50. There was one big setback when Rings lost a key member of its team in January – when WETA Limited’s visual effects supervisor Mark Stetson left the production, rumors abounded that that Stetson and Jackson had major creative differences over the execution of the film’s effects. Stetson, Oscar-nominated for his work on The Fifth Element, was hired in mid-1999 and was expected to remain on until at least mid-2002. His replacement has yet to be announced. Actually, this was the second high-profile loss for the project: while still in the casting stage, actor Stuart Townsend was let go over creative differences with Jackson. Viggo Mortensen eventually replaced Townsend in the role of Aragorn.
Assisting Jackson as he makes his rough cut of Fellowship are three different film editors. Once assembled, Jackson will then find out if he needs to go back and shoot any additional footage. As completed effects are added to the ever-changing cut, composer Howard Shore (The Silence of the Lambs, Seven) will be working on scoring the first of the three films. Rings fans are already speculating that Celtic singer/songwriters like Enya or Loreena McKennitt might also be used in the film’s soundtrack, although it’s still too early to tell if this is really in the cards.
By the time you read this, you’ve probably already drooled over the first teaser trailer that New Line premiered with the release of Thirteen Days in January. A second trailer, this one centered on fellowship, is expected to be out sometime this summer. By that time, Jackson should be finishing up his work on the first picture and should be thinking: one down, two to go. -Patrick Sauriol
