I have to admit that I haven’t kept up with every new film-related piece of LOTR merchandise. There are quite a few of them, considering that it’s going on seven years since the last part of the trilogy was released.

Weta Workshop has been busy turning out swords, busts, models, and clothing. Now two new items are announced as premiering at Comic-Con: a model Bag End and a model Prancing Pony, as well as a necklace with the One Ring on a chain, housed in a wooden box. Check out the descriptions and images here.

The Giffoni Film Festival turns 40 this year. It’s the largest children’s film festival in the world, held in a small Italian town a bit inland from Salerno, on the Amalfi Coast. The festival offers new films, which compete for prizes and are judged by children from all over the world.

This year the festival will also present a marathon screening of all three parts of the LOTR trilogy. (No indication whether these are theatrical or extended versions.) The website promises “unseen videos and backstage action” along with the screening. It’s not mentioned on the website, but Variety has announced that Elijah Wood will be there in person to present the program. He was honored by the festival in 2006 and must have enjoyed the experience.

It’s a beautiful part of Italy, though no doubt packed with tourists at this time of year. At some point during his visit Elijah might see and even visit a real “Mount Doom,” Vesuvius itself, a short way to the northwest. (It looks terrific on Google Earth!)

(Vesuvius is hard to miss. It dominates the horizon in that region. Scroll down to the bottom of this entry on the other blog for a shot of it from Pompeii.)

Genevieve Valentine has posted a review of the “Behind the Music” panel that was held in the wake of the live performances of the Fellowship score at Radio City Music Hall. The presenters included David Salo, who talked about how he was hired to act as “Tolkien linguist” for the films. (Readers of The Frodo Franchise will be familiar with that process, which is described on pp. 95-96, including a quotation from a message from John Howe to David–who was one of my interviewees.)

There was also a documentary on Howard Shore’s creative process, made by Elizabeth Cotnoir, and a dialogue between Doug Adams and Shore himself. Doug’s book, The Music of The Lord of the Rings, seems to be approaching publication at a maddeningly slow pace. It’s in the layout stage, which is probably pretty complicated for a book like this one, which I imagine contains musical extracts and film frames. Check out his website for an update and for future news.

Thanks to David Ivory for sending me this link!

By now you probably all know that Howard Shore will be conducting his music for The Fellowship of the Ring, accompanying a screening of the film, at Radio City Music Hall on October 9 and 10. I wish I could be there, but I’m writing this from the other end of the continent, in Vancouver, where the Vancouver International Film Festival starts tomorrow. But I hope all the Ringers who are attending the Radio City event have a great time.

The Fellowship of the Ring isn’t the only film getting this treatment in October. Check out today’s Variety story, “A concerted effort for movie music.” I can’t say the Howard Shore’s concerts started this trend, but I’m sure the enormous success that he has had playing the LOTR music live in various venues has helped it grow. And if, as the article says, concert halls draw in new fans for live symphony concerts, all the better!

Early last week I wrote about an event that was coming up, the Digital Entertainment Leadership Forum, which took place in Hong Kong on March 24 and focused on the success of Wellington, New Zealand as a filmmaking center. Matt Aitken and Barrie Osborne were among the speakers, introduced by Mayor Kerrie Prendergast.

I was sorry not to be there for their talks, but I got a pleasant surprise yesterday when David Ivory, based in Hong Kong, emailed me with a description of the event. It’s fascinating and contains some scraps of news. David has kindly given me permission to share his impressions of what went on. I’ll let him speak for himself: more »

My first Comic-Con experience has been pretty exciting so far. I can’t say that generalization applied to standing in the Press and Professional line to get my badge—though it can’t actually have been more than about 25 minutes and was handled pretty efficiently. The line of people waiting to get their purchased four-day passes seemed to stretch to the horizon. Once I had my badge, I headed inside for the Wednesday night preview of the contents of the enormous exhibition hall. more »

Recently I had trouble inserting a photo into one of my blog entries. Given that adding illustrations to my blogs is about the height of my technological expertise, this worried me—especially with Comic-Con coming up. I hope to bring you many photos of LOTR- and Hobbit-related events there.

So I figured I should put up a test entry to make sure I can cope with photos. What photo to use, though? For some reason I thought of some pics I took of the big Gollum model that for all too short a time loomed above one of the wings of the Wellington airport. more »