Check out the ImagineCon 2000 image gallery for lots of fun pictures from today and the whole Convention! ImagineCon 2000 Gallery
Saturday at ImagineCon lived up to expectations.
The highlight of the day was presenting our exclusive look at the LOTR movies to a packed house of rabid Tolkien fans. The fan reaction to casting was amazing. On the applause meter, Brad Dourif, Elijah Wood, Ian Mckellen and Christopher Lee had the largest response. The rest of the cast also received rounding approval. The location spy reports and images also were well recieved and applauded. Fans were truly blown away at the accuracy and beauty of the Shire.
With the location and cast information behind us, we got to the meat and potatoes of the presentation with an exclusive look at the interent preview (frame by frame) and some other really cool stuff you could ONLY see at this Con.
The most common phrase of the day was: “Finally they are doing this right!”
Two bigtime Ringer fans, TheBursar (of Barlimans fame) and Sean showed up to help out with our fan table and the presentation. In return for their great work and kindness we gave them our brand new “Top 10 Ways you Know your a Tolkien Fan” shirt. Sean really took a liking to our neighbors EmarthnGuarth. Thanks Guys!
Brandon and Marie at EmarthnGuarth set up their padded weapon live action role-playing outside the convention center and we proceeded to have some really lively skirmishes. Particularly of note was Calisuri’s loss to Marie and TheOneRing.net’s loss to the TideWater Dragon Staff. However, Marie does this stuff for a living, and both TideWater Dragon staff have black belts in Kendo. So the fact that we won one round of the best of three was rather impressive!
(Special note to Marie from Calisuri: Sorry, I just finalized the contract with both sites today. Thats what you get for leaving early!:P)
We also had the privilege to meet special effects guru Terrence Masson formerly of ILM (Indutrial Light and Magic) fame and author of CG101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference. He had some great insight into the visual effects industry and had a quote that I will never hear again in my lifetime: “I just left ILM…for the second time.” Terrence is now working as the Director of Development at Ronin Entertainment.
We also had some great fun with Blasm’s Jar Jar Binks mask. When Darth Vader and a bunch of Storm Troopers showed up near our fan table, Calisuri put the mask on and gave them quite a stir. Well, actually, they seemed a little too ‘serious’ to react to Calisuri’s immature antics! Jar Jar also showed his fighting skill against the EmarthnGuarth folks.
We were lucky enough to catch up to Ed Kramer, Chairman of DragonCon. He seemed excited about what TheOneRing.net will add to DragonCon 2000 this summer (June 28-July 2). He also got an special look at the exclusive content from our presentation. Keep your eyes open for some really amazing stuff at DragonCon this year! We can’t say what specifically, but it sure sounds great!
Saturday night was spent hopping around Con parties. Our official ImagineCon party guide was Kevin. He created a very unique beverage for all to enjoy and was looking to find a name for it. After a few hours, we offered “Nazgul Breath” as an option. Turns out, that is the name he picked! Maybe we can pester Kevin to give us the secret recipe and post it in the fan recipes section.
Besides the DoubleTree messing up ImagineCon’s party floor we had two good hours of fun until the hotel staff came by and closed things down. The majority of attendees then flooded the Quality Inn, who were more then happy to accomadate the party floor.
We had ample time to talk with Jeff Cioletti, director of Millenium’s End: The Fandom Menace, and founder of Far Away Discourse Productions. We had some great discussions on Star Wars mania and fandom in general. Calisuri also purchased a cassette of “Fandom Menace.” (Great movie)
Sunday at ImagineCon was slow since most vendors and booths were packing up for the long trips home. We did manage to show some more fans the LOTR trailer and even sold a few TORn t-shirts!
A special thanks to some friendly faces we met at ImagineCon 2000: Kevin, Dehvyn, Rogue, Hector, Bill the Fox, TheBursar, Sean, The Grahams, Marie and Brandon, Nathan (Sheecky), and anyone else that we never got your name!
We want want to take this opportunity to thank Jon Prescott and the ImagineCon staff for serving up such a great Sci-fi/Fantasy/Horror conference and inviting us to be part of the fun. Hopefully we’ll be invited back next year when the fevor for the movies is overwhelming!
We have just concluded our first full day of ImagineCon in Virginia Beach, VA. We had another great day meeting many diverse fans of Tolkien. Again we educated those that did not know of the movies, and were astounded at the knowledge that some of the attendees carried with them.
We had new neighbors at our table, EmarthnGuarth. EmarthnGuarth run a padded weapons live action roleplaying game in the Virginia Beach area. The footage they had from one of their recent events was quite interesting and entertaining. In the pictures below we have an image of one of their past events, as well as, the staff from Tidewater Dragon magazine beating themselves silly. Tidewater Dragon is a quite well done zine local to the Hampton Roads area.
Calisuri and I intended to present a panel entitled “How to create a fan based website”, but alas we had some stiff competition for the attendee’s attention. Instead we sat with two long time readers of TheOneRing.net, discussing the films and Tolkien in general. We would like to say “Hi” to Chris and Ross Graham and thank them for taking the time to hunt us down.
Later in the evening, Calisuri and Blasm attended the premiere of a documentary entitled “Millennium’s End: The Fandom Menace” while leaving me to tend our table. You can find out more information about what Calisuri and Blasm assure me was an excellent documentary at Far Away Discourse Productions.
The rest of the evening were spent preparing this report and practicing for tomorrows presentation on the movies. I wish all of you could show up tomorrow and watch Calisuri’s foray into public speaking, but I realize most of you will have to make do with a report of the fear in his eyes.
Once again the staff of ImagineCon were nothing but helpful and courteous. Thanks to them for having us be a part of this great convention. If you can, make sure you check this event out before its too late!
‘LOTR’ preview sees 6.6 million downloads in first week by Dennis Sellers, dsellers@maccentral.com April 20, 2000, 7:00 am ET
New Line Cinema’s “The Lord of the Rings” preview footage has had a record-breaking one-week total of over 6.6 million downloads since it became available on April 7. However, not all QuickTime fans are happy with the trailer/footage.
The trailer loads in a proprietary box with no means of saving it to your hard drive. Immediately following this discovery, some Mac fans mobilized into action on the QuickTime message boards and newsgroups, sharing methods of ferreting out the movie so they could save it and view it whenever they wished. (MacCentral isn’t advocating this, just reporting that it happened so don’t flame me.)
Available exclusively in Apple’s QuickTime format, the delivery of the preview was handled by the FreeFlow SM Streaming service of Akamai Technologies. During the preview’s first week of availability, Akamai’s global network served 8.45 terabytes of data. At the peak, Akamai’s network supported 450MB of data per second.
“Without Akamai’s over 2,700 servers, we would not have been able to satisfy the overwhelming demand to see this behind-the-scenes footage of The Lord of the Rings,” said Joe Nimziki, president of New Line Marketing, in a press release. “We are grateful that Akamai marshaled the technical resources necessary to help us pull off this record-breaking marketing coup.”
To view the Lord of the Rings movie preview, you’ll need QuickTime 4.0. If you have it, just cruise on over to http://www.apple.com/trailers or http://www.lordoftherings.net.
Akamai’s FreeFlow Streaming service, delivered from the Akamai EdgeAdvantage platform, exceeds user expectations by delivering high-quality and reliable streaming media content including live events, continuous broadcasts and on-demand media, according to Dan Fraisl, vice president and general manager of streaming, Akamai. Akamai’s EdgeAdvantage technology delivers content by intelligently routing requests across its distributed global network to the optimal server for each site visitor, he adds. EdgeAdvantage evaluates real-time Internet conditions, thus eliminating problems caused by server overloads and network bottlenecks, says Fraisl.
New Line anticipates releasing the first installment of the trilogy of movies for “The Lord of the Rings” during the Christmas holiday season of 2001. So you’ve got plenty of time to read J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy before the film opens.
This evening at 6PM EDT marked the begining of ImagineCon. Calisuri, Blasm, and myself spent the day making our final preparations for our ‘fan table’ at the front of the Pavillion Convention Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Having arrived late last night, due to a variety of transportation mishaps, we got a late start.
ImagineCon is a Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror convention hosting a wide variety of featured speakers and guests. You can find out more about ImagineCon at their website. ImageineCon will last until Sunday Apr 23rd, we hope if it is possible that you stop by and say “Hello”.
Starting at 6PM we started showing the Internet Preview to fans of all sorts. Many surprisingly did not realize that LOTR was being made into a set of films, but we educated them. The interest in the project, us, and Tolkien in general warmed our hearts and increased our panic over the presentations we have to make over the following two days. Many wonderful people stopped by to chat for a while including Shecky, Bill the Fox,Rosemary’s Baby, and Dehvyn.
Mike TeaVee (Paris Themmen in real life) of Willy Wonka fame stopped by our table to have an exclusive preview of Saturday’s presentation. It turns out he will be signing autographs then.
Hopefully in the morning the rest of our stuff will arrive courtesy of FedEx and we can truely spread the word about the films. We will be checking back in the following two nights to give you further reports from ImagineCon. You can take a peak at the action in the following photo’s.
WELLINGTON, N.Z. — Whether the legions of Ring fans around the world are ready or not, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is being turned into a series of three movies.
While New Zealand director Peter Jackson stages Orc battles and Hobbit miracles in the shadows of New Zealand’s imposing mountains, the movie’s L.A. production company finds itself jousting with the public’s desire to know more about the project.
On one side is a film company, New Line Cinema, wanting to protect its $260-million investment by keeping its work under cover until it is ready to be seen — while still getting as much publicity as it can, of course.
On the other side is a community of Tolkien fans, organized mostly through the Internet, and world media dying to know more about the movies. Many fans are serving as self-appointed watchdogs to ensure the epic story isn’t corrupted. Both groups simply want to be voyeurs to the film-making.
Last weekend, after keeping its gates tightly closed to outsiders since shooting began late last year, New Line (a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.) released on the Internet a two-minute preview and inside look at the making of the film.
According to New Line and Apple Computer, the preview was downloaded nearly 1.7 million times during its first 24 hours on the Internet. This, New Line trumpeted in a news release, shattered the record of one million hits registered by an online trailer for Star Wars’ The Phantom Menace last year.
“This staggering launch shows how important the online community is to our marketing efforts moving forward,” said Gordon Paddison, a New Line marketing executive.
But not all interaction with the “online community” has been so cosy for the film’s makers. Auckland resident Erica Challis, who helps run a Web site about the Rings movies, was in January served with a trespass notice banning her from the film set. Producer Barrie Osborne said at the time that she was banned because she suggested on her site that she would try to snoop for film details on set.
“It makes them look ridiculous,” Challis told a Wellington newspaper after receiving the notice. “It’s like using a sledgehammer to squash a fly.”
Soon after, amateur New Zealand actor Eddie McCarthy said he was blacklisted by Wellington acting agencies after publishing a light-hearted account of his time as an extra on the Rings set.
McCarthy said he received a letter from the producers advising him that he had breached a clause in his contract that prohibited him from talking to the media about the film.
Throughout the shooting in New Zealand, Rings publicist Claire Raskind has received about 100 international media requests every month for access to the heavily-guarded sets and the stars of the film. Nearly all of them are thanked for their interest and turned away.
If all this seems a bit heavy-handed, with New Line resembling the dark lord of Mordor, fans should remember that movie-makers have always exerted careful control and promotional spin over their product. In the case of the Lord of the Rings, the pressure on the producers is enormous.
The novel, nearly a half-century old, has sold 50 million copies and has been read by people in 25 languages. It is a quintessential tale of good versus evil, an old-fashioned story told with simple elegance and an exquisitely intricate plot. Fans don’t read the 1000 or so pages of the Rings just once — they read it once a year.
But the cult-like devotion of many Tolkien fans manifests itself in some strange ways, mainly on the Internet. Examples abound of what director Peter Jackson has called an “underlying current of paranoia and fear.”
There are entire societies dedicated to speaking the languages invented by the author. There is a petition, with nearly 9000 signatures, beseeching the producers of the film trilogy to keep the book’s “integrity” intact.
“We believe wholesale alterations … are completely unnecessary, would violate the integrity of Tolkien’s work, and alienate many of his fans,” the purists warn. “If these kind of changes are in fact planned, we appeal to you, as creators of this project, to stop and consider your obligation to do what is right in service of Professor Tolkien’s legacy. Many, many people have come to love this story as it is, and will be strong supporters of these films, provided they tell the story as we know and love it.”
There are an estimated 400 Web sites devoted to the movies alone, and probably hundreds more devoted to Tolkien’s work. Many of the movie sites thrive on rumours about budget, cast and storyline, and every bit of real news about the production is seized on and spread with lightning speed. Illicit photos are snapped at sets and smuggles onto the Net. The most notable was of two actors dressed as Nazgul, the dreaded Black Riders of Sauron, puffing on cigarettes during a smoke break.
All the while, fans drool over the prospect of having Hollywood put a face on a story that has existed for so many years in their imagination. “I love it,” gushed a fan after watching the Internet preview. “I don’t care if [the movie] deviates from the book. I’ve been waiting some 20 years to get a peep at the images I just saw, I’m already popping the popcorn.”
Eighteen months of shooting is due to finish at the end of this year. The first of the three movies, The Fellowship of the Ring, should be out by December 2001.
Second, in the “Winner/Loser of the Week” feature, the Winner of the Week is The Lord of the Rings. “In its first day on the Internet, the trailer for New Line’s fantasy flick was reportedly downloaded more times then the preview of The Phantom Menace.”
People Magazine’s April 24th edition also jumps in with a review of 28 Days. Here Viggo gets a very brief mention as a fellow patient.
The April issue of Movieline magazine lists 400 Hollywood factoids, a few of which concern our intrepid cast members.
# 176: “Until the age of 10, Liv Tyler (Arwen) believed that her biological father was rock star Todd Rundgren, not rock star Steven Tyler, her actual father.”
# 256: “Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) claims to be distantly related to LOUIS BLÉRIOT (1872-1936), the first aviator to have crossed the English Channel.”
# 176: “Until the age of 10, Liv Tyler (
# 219: “
# 256: “