From: Kotukunui
Television New Zealand’s One Network News ran an item today about the search for horse riders for LOTR. A trials day was held at Rangoira (South Island, a few km’s North of Christchurch) under the supervision of chief horse wrangler Steve Olds. (That’s him standing on foot in the middle of the cavalry charge in the middle pic).
The riders were being trained in riding “like you are going to war” and keeping in formation.
The item said that the riders would be required for filming in September. Will the lucky few be Rohirrim on the ride of the Host of Rohan to lift the siege of Gondor? Time will tell.
All video capture attachments are from the “One Network News” broadcast.
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Bigger and Brighter! A great scoop has come across our lap today thanks to NZ SPY, she/he/it/they have sent me the original images from the ‘Woman’s Day’ article, these are first time, never-before-seen exclusive pics! Enjoy!
Click on each image to enlarge
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Ringer Spy Ian checks in with the latest filming going on at Tongariro National Park. check out the cool pics and some commentary!
Problem: Iwikau Village – great view, no street lights.
Apparently always game to cart around more equipment, PJ’s crew strung out long ropelights along the pathways up to ski lodges on the slopes around Iwikau Village used for accomodation.
Extremely pretty, really. They even used them to light the path up to one of the Mordor film scenes while they were packing up. When they were finished putting everything else away for the evening they simply coiled up the ropelights, and were making good progress when the ropelights were turned off. (After that it was little hard to tell what was happening out in the darkness.) Mead’s Wall is at the right of the first very dark picture, behind the floodlight.
Mead’s Wall, by the way, is a reasonable sized cliff very handy to the Mordor filming location that could very easily be used to film scenes such as (for example) where Frodo and Samwise climb down a cliff then Samwise pulls the rope down on top of himself.
But I keep mentioning Mordor filming. Hmmm.
When I first arrived at Mt Ruapehu filming of a huge battle scene was in progress on the side of the road. No photos of that were allowed, but on a later date I returned to get an overview of the location.
On the filming day I had very graciously been allowed to climb the slope behind the filming to get a fantastic view of hundreds of Orc, Elf, and Human extras rushing into battle and having huge amounts of fun, against the biggest bluescreen I’ve ever seen. It ran along the road edge, as indicated in this photo. It may even have been longer than I’ve shown here.
Mordor filming, Mt Ruapehu-style. The huge banks of orange lights were apparently not to counter the strong blue sky, but to give the filming an evil colour (such as beneath a thick smoke layer in Mordor).
One very strange thing was the character a little to the right of the white screen. I believe it was a woman in costume, picking up a large flat object. The strange part was that she looked like she had a tail – I thought it didn’t quite seem to move like a scabbard would. Looks like Hobbit folk in the foreground.
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Well, much to my surprise Ringer Spy Ciggy has once again come to me to show you folks some of the latest and greatest from the LOTR camp down in NZ, here’s the latest from Ciggy, and his short order cook/dog training pal, JVC:
Xoanon,
I hope the contract out on your life has been terminated, here are more pics to whet your appetite, the first shows what ‘forced perspective’ looks like, that is really Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen on that wagon, they can make Elijah look smaller because he’s sitting further back from the camera than Ian McKellen. Since the camera can only see in 2 dimensions, it looks as it Elijah is Hobbit sized, very keen.
Next is the first ever close-up shot of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, he looks the part very well, and from what I see and hear, is really getting ‘into’ the role, and ‘IS’ Aragorn.
More coming soon,
JVC
Click on the images to enlarge in our Scrapbook
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Super Ringer Spy Xtem checks in with a brief report about some filming going on near the wellington Airport:
One of the units has been filming in the “Kiwi Warehouses” right next to the Wellington airport for the last couple of nights. This has been possible due to the fact that the filming only seems to be carried out during the night, when flights in and out of the capital do not occur very regularly (there is a close-down period, due to the proximity to residential complexes). One part of the wooden walls which borders the road has been taken down. This is to ensure good satelite communication, as the roughly 4 foot dish sits slightly hiding behind the wall, but with the main part jutting out of the gap. They’ve had to block this off with a simple construction of a few traffic cones and “Danger” tape, wrapped around the ‘doorway’ in a vague square.
On a good night, walking along the pavement will warrant sightseers with the sight of one of the make-up trucks, complete with manequins, which obviously are use for the placement of wigs and masks. Inside the Warehouses all I could see were the tops of numerous tents, mostly navy blue in color with some white, all in a row. Shooting the Bag End party perhaps?
More info as it comes in.
Xtem out.
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Bruce Spence, Sauron?
Acording to E! Online Bruce Spence has been cast as ‘The Black Lieutenant’, is this perhaps Sauron? Hmmm, very interesting.
Spence has appeared in many films and television series including ‘Dark City’ and ‘Mad Max’ II and III.
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