Exclusive: Queenstown is still in the picture for the $360million mega-movie Lord of the Rings, Writes Philip Chandler.
Shooting on the Peter Jackson trilogy will resume in the Southern Lakes either late winter or early spring.
The producers have also asked at least one local hotel to quote on 30 rooms for two weeks next month.
“They need to do some stuff and they’ve got rooms on hold in various different places in the South Island,” publicist Claire Raskind told Mountain Scene yesterday (Wednesday).
But nothing has been confirmed, she said.
Over 200 Lord of the Rings crew — including all the major stars — filmed around Queenstown for about six weeks at the end of last year.
Top secret sets were located at Closeburn, Glenorchy, Arthurs Point, Te Anau, Tarras and alongside the Kawarau River — until wiped out by The Flood Of’ 99.
Assistant publicist Melissa Booth says though dates haven’t scheduled, she believes Rings will return to Queenstown around August/September.
Ms Booth: “They’re definately going into the bottom areas of the South Island. Most of the Production will be travelling down there.”
Rings super-snoop Erica Challis of Auckland believes Southern winter conditions will suit the Misty Mountain scene — in which the main characters traverse a snowy mountain range, only to be driven back by snowstorms.
At present Rings is back in Wellington aftera huge shoot at Ruapehu.
Following a break in July, there’ll be “another Wellington stint before we go down south,” says Ms Booth.
I will try my best to describe what I saw although nothing I could ever say would come close to what it felt like to walk beneth that archway and into middle Earth!
You have probably all asked “what is it that I see from this roadside perch of mine or in the many pictures posted on the net?”
Well the answer actually is surprisingly little.
The parts of the castle you can see from the road make up only a small amount of the entire Hornburg which has been built in Quarter scale at the back of the quary.
This full reconstruction of the fortress is just large enough to stick your head through the archway and the tower stands well above your head, the bridge up to the gates is large enough to walk under. the detailing is exquisite – it sits complete with miniature bags of rice, arrows and swords and even the groves which you can see in the full sized version have been downsized and recreated perfectly!
After seeing the Hornburg in full it was easier to understand what the rest of the set pieces were. The biggest one is the front archway, and walking through it is like walking into another world- albeit a slightly less stable one!
The entire castle is made of foam, the only exception being that the floor is concrete in some places. That is not to say that it looks fake though-even up close the walls cannot be distinguished from real rock.
And it is all complete with lichen and grass in the cracks and there are even stains on the floor where blood was spilled during battle. Adding to the realness are the sacks of rice and potatoes stacked against the walls, along with plenty of axes and wood- there was even a piece of real rotting meat, which stunk terribly and did not really add much to the general awe inspiring feel of the place.
To the right of this the hallway extends a few metres before it opens out into the hillside and to the left a long ramp about three horses wide descends from the second arch further up the hill, along the inner wall there are steps for the human actors and braziers to light the way.
The amount of work is incredible- you can almost begin to understand where all the money goes to when you see the detail, and to think that it was all hand carved!
Continuing on, the piece up the back which you can not see much of accept a row of small arches makes up the second level of the Hornburg and there is much more to it than you would think.
At ground level, the top of the front wall rises out of the ground about three metres and forms the rampart behind which there is a bit of space for running back and forth and hauling up various people such as Aragorn from the armies below. Behind that is a short wall which seperates it from the area in front of the Big Hall (as they call it on set-original eh?) The hall is open at the front and a row of huge arches forms the front of it. Leading up to the arches are steps about three horses wide and on either side of these steps are statues of big Rohan warriors with axes in various states of disrepair.
The Big Hall goes back a fair way and is complete with columns, old tables and woven baskets full of every concievable thing you could need during a seige. I.e crockery, rags, weapons and more potatoes.
At the back of the Hall is a large medieval looking door, which looks far to big and impressive to be just another ordinary back door.
Above all of this interesting stuff and solely in full view of the road is a very boring row of window-type arches – which I am sure you have all seen and wondered about and which, I am afraid, come to nothing.
The set piece that sits up on the left side of the hill is the left hand view of the second level, I did not see this bit because it was getting dark and it was a long way to walk.
That is not all the info I have to pass on to you though, more recently I went back to watch the filming they had just resumed and met some nice people who kindly put to rest some rumours and created a whole lot of new ones to take there place.
1 Helms Deep will not be destroyed for at lest five months. In that time they will be building (supposedly) part of Minus Tirith and will do some more filming once that is done.
2 If you havn’t already heard(and I’ll warn you this is a pretty big script change) Arwen is to blow the horn at the Hornburg during the seige, and apparently everyone is totally surprised at how good an actress she is- the only problem being that they have had to cut a few scenes because her accent was not to good.
3 Another pointless rumour has emerged that the production over spent big-time in the fist five months of filming, losing over $300 million in that time- thats nearly $40 million more than the original budget of the whole trillogy!
Maybe the fact that they spent $30,000 on a 1 hour visit by the New Line executives just so they could see a bunch of Uruks do the Haka had something to do with it!
And last but not least, if you want to see Gandalf and 16 other horsemen charging down a hill waving there swords and shouting you should head over to Helms Deep before friday 12 of May, they are doing it all in full view of the road!
That is all for now, if I find anything else out you will be sure to hear it!
Keen hiker and photographer Mighty Orc Hunter sent this in after spending so much time on Ruapehu that the security guards started to think he was part of the furniture:
“I’ve just spent several wonderful days trying not to get in the way of Guess Who and Co as they filmed around Mt Ruapehu. Got some great goss, and I’ll hopefully have time later in the week to capture some video pictures of my Orc hunting adventures.
At the end of Easter the film folk were snowed out of Happy Valley (next to Iwikau Village at an altitude of 1630 metres) with snow even falling down at the Chateau Tongariro (aka Grand Chateau [ugh!]) in Whakapapa Village (at 1140 metres). The low stuff melted pretty quickly, but with Happy Valley unusable they relocated the filming about a kilometre down the road to where there _wasn’t_ any snow, but where they couldn’t possibly escape the fans and bemused onlookers – they were filming RIGHT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD below Iwikau Village. And so the timing of the start of my expedition couldn’t have been better. Hey, I even spoke with some bored “Gondorians” (who were actually from the NZ Army) while they were waiting for their turn to rush into battle. The filming of 300 extras was against the biggest blue screen I have EVER seen or even imagined. Wow.
What I found particularly funny is that all the Men and Elves so enjoyed beating the tar out of the Orcs (and vice versa) that an air horn had to be used instead of yelling CUT just to get them to stop fighting. And sometimes they wouldn’t stop even then. However I think one particular Elf should have stayed dead after tripping over an Orc then being stabbed by it, and not gotten up and started fighting again. (It wasn’t long before the horn was blown, after all.)
Random Quotes:
“PJ is a pretty focussed guy” – Roadie answering a question from an inquisitive kid.
“Yeah, we’re actually a unit.” – Roadie upon realising he’s being filmed.
“So they bought the company.” – Unsubstantiated rumour. Apparently the amount they would have had to pay for marquee hire meant they just bought the whole darn marquee company. (Which is where they got the marquee that partially collapsed after all the snow fell on it… then had to darn the marquee. 🙂
“Isn’t this the same fabric that the Orc banners were made of in yesterday’s shoot?” – Mighty Orc Hunter doing a ground sweep the day after the roadside shoot.
“I’m just about to enter Tirau. Where did you say that castle wa… Oh WOW!” – Mighty Orc Hunter talking on cellphone (with handsfree headset) while driving into Tirau (North Island, NZ), then spotting non-LotR-related castle. (I’ve seen that one too – what IS it? – Tehanu)
Ringer Spy Mixed-Doubles sends in news on what, where and with who the production was filming yesterday!
I’ve come across some news that will perk your day, I know what they were filming yesterday and the day before in NZ.
The scenes that were shot took place at the Rangipo Desert, at Tongariro National Park.
They were filming the Black Gates of Mordor scenes. All very intense and foreboading, I saw Aragorn stirring his army against tonns of Orcs.
I saw alot of cast members there, including:
Dominic Monaghan (Merry) Billy Boyd (Pippin) Ian McKellen (Gandalf) Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) Orlando Bloom (Legolas) Karl Urban (Eomer)
I also saw many body doubles for most if not all the main characters. There were also extras, about 150 of them, some dressed as Rohan Soliders, some as Gondorian Soldiers. There were also many many Orcs there.
TheOneRing.net learned from sources the actor who will play Eomer in LOTR! Here he is!
Karl Urban
TheOneRing.net learned of this info from sources close to the production that Kiwi actor Karl Urban will play Eomer, prince of Rohan and nephew of Theoden. Karl’s name has been mentioned and seen, he will be on set, and in fact, he was on set today!
Karl Urban is originally from Wellington, New Zealand, but lives in Auckland at this time. He’s unmarried with no children, his birthday is 7 June 1972.
His first acting role was when he was 8 — he had a line on a television show. He didn’t act again until after high school. As he was preparing to attend Victoria University, he was offered a role in the NZ drama (soap opera) Shortland Street. After filming the show (an evening soap opera), he attended the university for one year, then left to pursue his acting career. He landed a number of roles in the theater in Wellington.
He moved to Auckland where a number of guest roles in NZ television followed. One of his first roles was that of a heroin addict in the drama Shark in the Park. He was in a movie as well, entitled Once in Chunuck Bair. Other television roles followed, including a guest starring role in the series White Fang.
Karl is, and has almost always been, very active. He worked on his aunt and uncle’s farm for many years doing odd jobs. He’s a proficient horseback rider, which served him well when he filmed a show called Riding High, a children’s show about horses. In addition, Karl also enjoys surfing and indoor rock climbing. In fact, he sometimes goes rock climbing with Gabrielle herself, Renee O’Conner.
Dominic Monaghan (Merry)
Billy Boyd (Pippin)
Ian McKellen (Gandalf)
Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)
Orlando Bloom (Legolas)
Hugo Weaving (Elrond) looks pretty scary, or terrible is a better word, not terrible bad but terribly frightening.