Ringer Spy David C did an AMAZING job by sending me this amazing scans from our good pals at SFX Magazine, thanks alot!!
Category: Old Spy Reports
From: Androg
Just got the latest Kathmandu newsletter, and they have another bit about Lord of the Rings:
Melissa works at the Wellington beased production company 3foot6 and had the inside view of the production of Lord of the Rings — here is her account of the events:
“Finally, Tolkien’s best seller Lord of the Rings will be realised on film and at the helm New Zealand’s Peter Jackson. Principal photography began on October 11 1999 and wrapped up on December 22 2000, with another 2 years of work to come in Post Production. All three movies were shot concurrently, a movie making first requiring world class organisation and the commitment of thousands of talented crew.
Using over 100 locations around New Zealand, the crew experienced extremes in weather conditions. Standing around for hours in snow, hail, rain, storms, walking through rivers, fords, streams, trekking through snow, mud and shingle as well as being beaten by relentless sunshine. On some days looking around you might have thought that the crew was working for Kathmandu. Be it gloves, hats, jackets, weatherproof pants, thermals, boots, Kathmandu had a presence within the production from beginning to end.
We were embraced by numerous communities who opened their doors, shops, cafes and bars to sometimes hundreds of cast and crew. People were always friendly, helpful and supportive providing comfortable service and surroundings for tired and hungry crew.
One of my favourite locations was the Ruapehu region in April. Suffering from several shortened ski seasons, this community were more than ready for the huge influx of people. Having never spent any tim ein this area out of ski season I was struck by the beauty of the volcanic plateau. It was a treat to spend weekends hiking on many of the beautiful tracks in the area.
We had some of our largest days in this area. I remember the caterers feeding 1000 people for lunch in the area usually designated for beginner skiers, Happy Valley.
It was with great sadness that thousands of cast and crew said goodbye on the 22nd of December at a wrap party for two and a half thousand people.
The next day the star-studded cast packed up and left the place they had called home for nearly one and a half years. Hundreds of crew dispersed around New Zealand (and abroad) for much needed rest and relaxation.
Most importantly for the thousands of people dying to see the completed movie, “The Lord of the Rings” The Fellowship of the Ring will be in theatres on the 26th of December, 2001. For those who can’t wait, visit the official movie website www.lordoftherings.net.”
Since the surprising news of Mark Stetson being “let go” everybody was wondering who will be brought in his place. Well, now we have the answer:
The new visual effects supervisor for Lord of the Rings is Jim Rygiel.
His film credits go back into the 80s, and he can surely be considered among the pioneers of computer graphics for films. He worked first as a technical director/digital effects supervisor on a film called “The Last Starfighter” in 1984, the very first movie to feature extensive computer generated space ships, over 230 shots and 20 minutes of on-screen computer generated effects. The company where Mr. Rygiel started went on to produce visual effects shots from “2010”, film on which Mark Stetson also worked.
In the following years, Jim Rygiel worked as digital effects supervisor on movies such as “Ghost”, “Alien 3” and “Batman Returns”. This last movie was made while he was employed at Boss Film Studios, where he also worked later on as visual effects supervisor on “Outbreak” and “Starship Troopers”.
Other notable movies were “Species” in 1995 as visual effects co-supervisor and “Star Trek: Insurrection” as visual effects supervisor (for Blue Sky/VIFX). His last project before “Lord of The Rings” was “102 Dalmatians” for Walt Disney Pictures at Secret Lab, where he and his team had to tackle the problem of creating a believable fully synthetic puppy from the bones up (literally).
More info coming soon.
Thanks to TORN Staffer Amyd from our SFX Section for hleping us out with this story!
Lots of great news came in. Or news, whether great or not is up to your point of view.
Firstly, I can’t thank Hunter enough for telling us about his recent interview with LOTR scriptwriter Philippa Boyens. He wrote to say:
“Just thought you’d like to know regarding these Sauron speculations that there is an interview in my latest editiuon of Creative Screenwiting (Vol.8 No.2) with Philoppa Boyens who states therein that she has written two scenes in which Sauron appears.
I quote from page 6 “Speaking of Sauron, Boyens says the Dark Wizard manifests in three ways only: the Eye, the Dark Tower, and the ring which he created. “He never assumes phsical appearance in the books except when the ring is cut from his finger. As screenwriters, we totally agree Sauron is far more fascinating as a force of evil than as an actual presence. What they can do now with digital imagery is amazing. The couple of moments when Sauron presents himself are incredible.””
The rest of the interview, albeit aimed at fellow screenwriters, is also extremely interesting.”
Meanwhile, back to the question of Sauron or Morgoth either wearing spikes or carrying a hammer, Micahael Martinez over at Xenite was able to give us a link to the only known picture of Sauron by Tolkien. It’s very impressionistic, and though it definitely seems to have a kind of spiked crown, there’s no indication of armour. You can see the picture here Compare it to John Howe’s picture of Morgoth that we featured yesterday and you can see that the spiked crown/helm was a theme that both artists felt comfortable with.
Now, as to our spy report from the set, there’s been an update to that. There may have been only eight Ringwraiths present. Sylvesterpasemester continued his story today:
“First of all I must say that I‚m not sure whether there was nine or eight wraiths around this Sauron guy. My friend that was with me on the set says that there were eight of them and not nine as I told you in the previous report.
When me and my friend arrived to the set five minutes late a friendly guy leads us to some sort of a dressing area. It‚s us and about 75 guys getting our armour done. You could really feel strange vibes around us. The armour and weapons(wantttsssssssssss it)was really beautiful. There was three types of outfits. One group with armour looking like a mixture between a Roman legionaries and a good old fashion knight, just like I have pictured a gondorian warrior. Another group got armour that made them look like samurais, they also got some strange swords. The third group looked very much like the Rohan warriors we‚ve seen pictures of. Some of the soldiers got makeup to make them look injured. I was not one of them.
Something very interesting regarding the “samurais” was that they had prosthetic pointy ears. Whether those were elves or knights from Dol Amroth I don’t know.
The set was very nice! A pretty big field and this mega bluescreen. The field was covered with dead people and orcs. We were lined up and then a giant steps in. He’s huge and has spiky armour and dark helmet, he looks very scary After him follows 8 or 9 mystic figures in a strange armour. Our assignment was to run in terror from this guy.
We did two times while two cameras was filming us. Then they did some closeup shoting with “Sauron” and 20 of the extras. Unfortunely I was not one of the lucky 20 extras. Then it started raining and we went home, I´m not sure if Sauron was an actor but he did not get the armour done in the same place as us”
Hmm, that gives us all something to think about. Thanks, Sylvesterpasemester!
Ringer Spy Ghost of Deagol sends in this article from a Danish newspaper which has a few more details on LOTR at Cannes!
On my way to work this morning, I missed the train, so I decided to grab a copy of the “BT” news paper to kill the time waiting for the next. Not a bad choice! There was a small article about LOTR and the Cannes Film Festival.
I didn’t have time to scan it (and you wouldn’t be able to understand it anyway :), so I’ve translated it here:
Lord of the Rings at the Cannes Film Festival
The yearly film festival in Cannes is always quite a circus. But this year it gets an extra edge. – Or 3, and a medieval touch into the bargain.
“The Lord of the Rings” has announced its arrival to the South French Riviera and will without doubt outshine any other event at the film festival. Thus, the company behind the movie has rented an entire castle outside Cannes and is planning to bring in pieces from the set in order to make the surroundings of the happening as perfect as possible.
Win a trip
The content is also being treated. 12 of the trilogy’s main cast – among them Dane Viggo Mortensen, who plays Aragorn, and film-babe Liv Tyler, ditto Cate Blanchet, and the experienced gentlemen Ian Holm (Bilbo), Christopher Lee (Saruman), and Ian McKellen (Gandalf) – arrive in company with director Peter Jackson in Cannes to promote the three movies.
One can only speculate about how much of the trilogy that will be shown. According to the official Lord of the Rings movie Web site – that offers the chance to win a trip to Cannes for the unique event – it will only be a secret “appetizer”, that will surely raise the hype to new heights.
Already, the whole project is one of the most talked about on the Web’s entertainment sites, where even the smallest of rumors is discussed in various chat rooms.
From the beginning, “Lord of the Rings” has been covered in a cloak of secrecy. The movie set in New Zealand, where all three movies have been shot, was completely closed to the public. And now the a bit of the excitement will be revealed in Cannes in two months.
The first movie of the trilogy opens December 19th.
Good fun opening the email this morning! Thanks to all of you who wrote in. Some of you pointed out that since there were NINE wringraiths surrounding Sauron, and there’s only eight of them left by the end of LOTR, the scene that was reported to us is more likely to be from LOTR’s pre-history – like The Battle of the Last Alliance. Joe wrotein to say that in Tolkien’s own pictures of Sauron, he drew him with the spiked armour as described in the scene. On the other hand, Stevanos tells us “It looks like PJ (or whoever designed the costume) has based it on the description of Morgroth when he and Fingolfin duel it out in The Silmarillion. Morgroth’s hammer was called Grond, the very weapon the Battering Ram at the Siege of Minas Tirith was named after: “The Hammer of the Underworld”.
Jason told us about the John Howe painting that shows this spiked armour on Melkor. You can see it in Rolozo Tolkien, here
Thing is, who influenced who? Did Howe base his picture of Melkor on Tolkien’s picture of Sauron? Did the designers for the film base their vision of Sauron on either of those? John Howe and Alan Lee are the conceptual artists for the film, after all.