Ringer Spy PT sends along more news regarding a possible Asian release date change. All this is still a speculative rumor, so who knows. Especially considering this bit of news from IMDB. But check out what PT has to say none the less:
I heard the Asian Rumour from a distributor. I rang him again to see if he could shed any more light on the subject. He said the Asian release is subject to some strict laws in an attempt to prohibit the pirate film industry. Apperently 20th Century Fox has alos issued statements that since the release of “Planet of the Apes” – several versions have appeared on the internet all with Japanese sub-titles, as a result the Japanese distributers for 20th Century Fox will not receive their movies until after the world wide release dates. So it sounds like LOTR is not the only film that will NOT go to Japan on time. He also said there are comprimises and contracts to settle the dispute. Apparently the problem is not the release date but rather cinemas allowing paying individuals to view the films in private before the actual date allowing them to film it and release it before the actual release… Plus no rules on what you can take into the cinema itself…
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From: Oleg
The Fox channel in the states is supposed to run a LOTR special over the Thanksgiving weekend, a making of type thing I believe. And when TBS, or TNT, I can’t remember, premieres Matrix, there will be a five minute montage of interstitials from the film. The cable channel will probably tease it on ads for Matrix (think, “you’ll love traveling to the future in the Matrix, but stay tuned until the very end and travel back to Middle Earth through scenes from New Line’s event of 2001, LOTR…”).
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Gorgoroth sends along this great report from SIGGRAPH, take a look at a few details about SFX!
I went to the SIGGRAPH Houdini Users Group Meeting on Sunday at the Westin Bonaventure.
When WETA took the stage, one of the Effects Animators gave the presentation who was a skinny fellow that had a British accent. Projected on a enormous screen, he began by showing a breakdown of the fireworks that Gandalf launches during Bilbo’s party.
The first sequences showed wireframes of the particle system erupting over Hobbiton and the “streams” of the fireworks explosion swooping down over a river like a wave toward the camera (if you recall from the 2nd teaser trailer of LOTR there was a shot of the fireworks exploding but not the streams that animated afterwards). The commentator explained how Peter Jackson wanted more of the “streams” that make the tentacles of the explosions.
Then he showed a halfscreen test of the explosion (basically only half of the entire screen was rendered since both sides are symmetrical) that looked wonderful but really nothing could have prepared you for the final render.
It was gorgeous! To me it looked so remiscent of a fairy tale. The intial explosion was white/orange/red and as the tentacles swooped toward the camera they were blue/purple. The greatest effect to these streams were the trail of “dust” they left behind. It was really magnificent. The attention to detail in the reflections as the streams coursed over the water looked perfect.
Then, we were treated to another particle effect that involved a “dragon” that was made out of particles. Apparently this effect was a continuation of the fireworks and was vastly more complicated. The commentator showed multiple R&D images of this effect from concept to tackling issues with UV coordinate systems of sprites. The idea was to have 3 points located on the thumbs and the tongue that emitted the rest of the dragon.
The final composite reminded me of those fireworks that sparkle and linger in the air for awhile. Bilbo and Frodo were in the foreground ducking as the dragon swept from the sky and vanished in a glowing ball of light. The particle systems that were flowing off the dragon moved like drapery as they sparkled and faded.
Truely magnificient all of it.
-Gorgoroth
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From: Lady Kenobi
Parabola (“Myth, Tradition and the Search for Meaning”) is a great magazine that I recently subscribed to, so I was very happy to see Tolkien once again featured within. The piece on ‘foolish Hobbits’ that was mentioned is excellent and gave me yet another way of viewing the Lord of the Rings story.
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A message thanks to RingerSpyOliver:
“….just thought I would let you know that Houghton Mifflin are sending LOTR brochures out to English book distributors which preview the latest and upcoming LOTR books (i.e. the essential guide due out in November) and the display stands which come out with them. It even shows pictures from the books – one that includes Gil-Galad and some old shots of the Fellowship and orcs. The brochure is beautifully presented and really a collector’s ‘must.’
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I’m not to sure about this story, but it seems cool enough to post, so there it is, perhaps some Microsoft employees want to open their Outlook(tm) and drop me of an email saying ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ on this story? Read on:
From: ohgirl
My brother just called. He had a conversation with a friend of his whose brother works for Microsoft. This friend’s brother says that Microsoft employees have a company-wide special access internet where they can download mp3s and movies and other things not available to the general public. You have to have a special Microsoft password to access these.
He claims that Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring was available on this service for about six hours recently, in the past couple of days.
When my brother told me this, I said it had to be something else, because I don’t think the movie is actually done yet, with final editing and cgi effects and all that. Maybe it was just the trailer, or a collection of all the trailers, or maybe even the new trailer which is coming out next month. Or maybe it was something put together by the documentary crew that was on set during the filmmaking. Or maybe it was the 26 minutes shown at Cannes, or the footage shown at the San Diego Con?
My brother called his friend back to get more information, and his friend insisted it was the movie, but added that his brother hadn’t been able to watch it because he couldn’t get to it (too much traffic?). He also said it was only on for about six hours.
So, I was wondering if anybody out there who works for Microsoft can tell me just exactly what it was that was available to Bill Gates’ employees only for a few hours the other day.
Hmmmmmmmm……
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