TheOneRing.net brings you an Exclusive first look at the inside of Barliman’s Inn in BREE!!! Take a look!!…
Continue ReadingTheOneRing.net brings you an Exclusive first look at the inside of Barliman’s Inn in BREE!!! Take a look!!
Xoanon,
Here is a never before seen image from The Prancing Pony/Barlimans scenes filmed in New Zealand. Enjoy.
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This is really a great pic, with the small body doubles, the lighting, aesthetics and the wood! I always pictured Barliman’s/Prancing Pony to be such a woody type inn!!! I love it! Tell me what you guys think!
From: Stuff.co.nz
FANTASTIC FORTRESS: A glimpse of one of the largest and most detailed sets from The Lord Of The Rings, the fortress city of Minas Tirith, nearing completion in the Dry Creek Quarry at the bottom of Haywards Hill in Wellington. The stunning set includea details right down to paving stones, trees and statues.
Ringer Spy Silmarien sends in some great pics from the ever popular Minas Tirith set. As well as a new set piece from Wellington? Anyone want to guess as to what it can be?
Ringer Spy WaiSpy sends in some more amazing shots from the Hayward Hills set, currently the location for Minas Tirith.
It turns out that TORN had the SFX conference in Wellington pretty well covered. Two more people wrote in with slightly different details from the talk given by Adam Valdez, the WETA SFX guy.
This report thanks to Jim Wellington:
“Hello interested parties,
3December was an interesting event in Wellington (of course!!). I was disappointed that WETA were unable to show any clips during their talk, but Animation Supervisor Adam Valdez was funny and compelling. There was also some guy standing behind Valdez who must have been some publicist or something (“John” I think – likely name!!) – everytime someone asked Valdez something tricky he turned to “John” and then turned back and said “Sorry I can’t answer that”. Valdez looked genuinely disappointed and sorry that he was unable to show us any models or clips, and apologised anytime he had to be secretive. He would not comment when asked by someone “how are you uilding the models – bones, then muscle, then skin or vice versa?”, which really bummed me since this was the question I wanted to know!!
Interesting details:
*** I have complete confidence in Valdez to deliver – he’s not a software nerd, he just wants the computer to do what he has in his head. He didn’t seem like the type that just wanted to show off the effects, and he said that he would prefer it if people didn’t say “wow that’s the best cgi character I’ve ever seen” but rather “what’s he going to do next?!?!”.
*** He said that the “fell beasts” were cool and that they were basically dragons with longer, more snake-like necks and bat-type wings.
*** He said that the effects were not going to be typical Hollywood, but would rather be quite unique, and that he truly believed they have raised the standard.
*** He said that he preferred to animate pose-to-pose and that listening to music while working is the best thing any animator can do.
*** When asked about the continuity issues between films (ie. sfx will get better over the next two years, will we notice the difference in the progress of the films?) – he said they were lucky that the films gradually got more and more sfx as they progressed, so they can save a lot of their detailed work till last I guess.
*** They will be using both FK (Forward Kinematics) and IK (Inverse Kinematics) when modelling, and must be able to transfer between the two methods quickly.
*** James Cunningham’s “Infection” short film stole the show – fortunately for all of us he is now
working on LOTR.
That’s all for now.
Wellington Jim
P.S. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to answer anything that was even remotely related to what they are developing out there, so I didn’t bother asking any questions sorry.”
Well, as it is, that’s plenty enough. Thanks!
And Anonymous of Wellington remembers some variations:
“(1) Animation supervisor Adam Valdez isn’t the kind of person that just wants to show everyone he can do cool effects – in fact, he said he’d prefer people to be so convinced that the character was real that they weren’t even saying “this is the best cgi I have ever seen”. This is reassuring after so many cgi characters and shots of them have been just thrown in for the hell of it in the past (read: Jarjar Binks in The Phantom Menace). I think it’s safe to say from the way he was talking that Gollum will be 1000 times better and more believable than that stupid Jarjar Binks. Thank God.
(2) He mentioned the “fell beasts” and said they were really cool – they are basically dragons with longer, more snake-like necks and bat-type wings.
(3) One person asked how they will manage the continuity in the films concerning the rapid eveolution of special effects. Valdez responded that they were lucky in that the films naturally lay out so that more special effects is needed in each successive movie. This means that there won’t be heaps of cgi in film 1, which means they have more time to work on finer details for 2 and especially 3 (esp. concerning Gollum).
(4) Valdez did seem genuinely sorry that he couldn’t answer certain questions and that he had no footage to show – he said that next year there would hopefully be some (and that at the 3December next year the first film will be only “a matter of weeks away”). The main reason they could not show any was because it was over a year before the first film is out, and it would be just too early for any public appearances of footage.
“Valdez also said that the Balrog was “a half apparition, half monster thing” and that the Ringwraiths (and Frodo when he has the Ring on) see things differently to us: “We see light and colour, and they (the Ringwraiths) see … oh, well, I shouldn’t go into that”. Damn, he was so close!!!!
Hope that adds to the last report!!”
It certainly did. Thanks guys!
There’s just been a conference in Wellington on movie SFX and of course one of the invited speakers was Adam Valdez, Animation Supervisor.
Helpful correspondent MN emailed us instantly it seems with this report:
He gave a talk based “around” Lord of the Rings. I mean “around” because he was unable to really give any details whatsoever on his work, and couldn’t show us any clips or footage, which was a little disappointing.
He gave one or two interesting snippets:
– He said that working on the project was ‘intimidating’ because of the worldwide love for the book
– The flavour of the animations would be very ‘unique’, unlike what would be seen in standard Hollywood studios
– One of the interesting visual treatments that falls under his unit is to portray the ‘wraith-world’ that Frodo enters when he puts on the Ring. He couldn’t be very specific but mentioned that it was full of ‘weird stuff’
– He went on to mention some of the CG creatures: giant octopus,(The Watcher in the Water? – Tehanu) digital doubles for Frodo, trolls, Balrog, Uruk-hai, Treebeard, Shelob, oliphaunt, and of course Gollum.
– He said that Gollum would be the greatest challenge of the movie for him.
– A lot of work had been done on Gollum, but ‘he’s not there yet’
– Their crowd work, using ‘Massive’, would raise the bar to new heights for crowd scenes.
– One of the most important things to take into consideration when animating is what music you’re listening to at the time.
Many thanks to MN for that.
So, Shelob and Treebeard are in (I’ve heard people complaining that they weren’t)and we have a hint about how they’ll show the Ring or its effects when Frodo has it on.
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