I also realize now why Ian isn’t posting as often as he used to on his website. He’s on Facebook (a page also run by his webmaster, Keith Stern), adding material quite frequently. Check it out here and sign up as a fan if you’re so inclined.

I’m in the middle of a holiday. I’m not working at the moment and it means I can do lovely things. It’s a change for me because, for the first 50 years of my life, I just worked and worked and worked and I didn’t feel happy unless I knew what the next job was going to be. And then I hit 70 this year and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to have a little bit of downtime for myself.

Fair enough, thought I. After what must have been a tiring run of Waiting for Godot, first on the road and then in London, why not? Not taking on big new jobs, keeping time free for The Hobbit, no doubt. Yes, he went to Washington to accept the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre from the Shakespeare Theatre Company and gave one performance of his ever-evolving one-man show, this time entitled “A Knight in Harmon Hall.” But that’s not exactly a big task for one to undertake in the midst of a “holiday.”

Now, however, Variety reports that Ian has taken on a slightly larger task. He has signed to star in a mockumentary TV series called “The Academy.” Here’s what it involves:

McKellen would play his fictional brother, Murray McKellen, who heads a run-down drama school, the Clapham Academy of Creative Arts, that is hoping to secure new funding through a docu on the school.

McKellen has been closely involved in the development of the series, which will be written and directed by Peter Hinton and produced by Humphrey Barclay. U.K. shingle 2act Prods. is co-producer with DLT. Other cast members set include Brit TV vets Jonathan Hyde, Sylvester McCoy and Frances Barber.

In late October, Don Taffner Jr., the head of production company DLT Entertainment was in Los Angeles to pre-sell the program for US television. There are to be six half-hour episodes, and pre-production has already begun, though funding will have to come from sales for both the US and the UK.

Doesn’t sound like much of a holiday to me, though I suppose acting in a short TV series is less work than treading the boards eight times a week.

There’s one reference to a certain pair of upcoming films:  “Taffner acknowledges that network deals have to come together quickly or McKellen will be unavailable to do the series, as he’ll be committed to lensing ‘The Hobbit’ starting in March.”

That’s interesting, given the recent hints that principal photography on The Hobbit might start in April rather than the originally announced March. Still, maybe the start date just isn’t firm yet. Most likely Ian is keeping his time free from March forward, ready to don the wizard’s beard and pointy hat whenever the production gets underway. After all, as far as we know, the production is still awaiting the greenlight from New Line/Warner Bros.

I had known that Massive was getting wide use in film and television, but I was surprised to learn just how successful and widespread the applications have become:

The warmongering orcs depicted in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy are evil, unpleasant creatures that leave death and destruction in their wake. But if you find yourself in a burning building a few years from now, they might just save your life. That is because the technology used to make hordes of these menacing, computer-generated monsters move convincingly on screen turns out to be just what is needed to predict how crowds of humans move around inside buildings. Engineers and architects hope that they will be able to improve building safety by modelling how people behave in the event of a fire.

The simulation of the behaviour of crowds of people and swarms of animals (not just mythological ones) is also being applied to many other unusual situations, from designing better closed-circuit television (CCTV) security systems to managing the traffic of ships in harbours. The same technology has also been used to improve the understanding of archaeological ruins and to model entire ecosystems in order to design wildlife-management strategies.

As all fans know, Massive was invented by Steve Regelous to create realistic crowd scenes for the trilogy. The company is still based in Auckland, but the products are getting international use. One application is to protect people during fires:

Nate Wittasek, the leader of the Los Angeles Fire Engineering Group at Arup, an engineering firm, was one of many people impressed by the realism of the battle scenes. A former firefighter, he realised that the same technology might be just what he had been looking for to model how people behave during a blaze-something that is increasingly being incorporated into the design of large buildings. Using computational models of crowds, it is possible to set up various scenarios and evaluate how the occupants move through the building.

The trouble is that the software that is used to do this generally treats people like particles in a fluid, says Mr Wittasek. “It assumes people behave like water flowing through a pipe,” he says. “They move at constant flow rates, heading for the nearest exits. But that’s not realistic.” Human behaviour is in fact far more complex and often quite irrational. When fleeing a fire people will often try to retrace their steps and leave the building by the way they came in, rather than heading for the nearest exit-even if it is much closer.

Massive gives each figure a crude form of artificial intelligence, including goal-seeking behavior. Orcs may be trying to attack other or defend themselves, but a reprogramming of the same software can lead to other behavior. According to The Economist, “The result is Massive Insight, a software package that makes it possible to create agents and program their behaviour preferences using simple graphical tools.”

The program is still in the testing phase:

The software is still not quite ready for commercial use, but Mr Wittasek has been testing it using computer models of the newly redesigned Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and plans to do the same with the forthcoming Guggenheim museum in Abu Dhabi. So far this has just involved testing the software, says Mr Wittasek; the results have not been fed back to influence the buildings’ design. But it has demonstrated that the software does indeed work, and allows a range of different types of character to be modelled, from first-time visitors to the building (who are easily disoriented) to informed employees who can act as stewards and shepherd people to the exits. There is also a degree of random variation between characters of a particular type. “Their actions aren’t choreographed, so each time you run it you get different results,” says Mr Wittasek. This makes it possible to carry out timed evacuations and spot possible design problems that can hinder evacuation, he says. “It’s helping us to predict human behaviour, as opposed to predicting flow,” he says.

Other uses described in the article. The software has been applied to archaeological ruins, to simulate the behavior of people in buildings to find evidence concerning what they were used for. The program can also model animal behavior, leading to applications in conservation. It’s being used to model ship traffic in Hong Kong’s harbor to cut down on the 150 collisions a year that currently occur.

The Massive website has grown a great deal since the last time I visited it, and it’s quite fascinating to explore it. Take a look at the “Real World Simulation” page for more examples of how the technology is being used for a lot more than making movies. There’s also a neat page of news about the program. Increasingly, media schools have courses to teach aspiring filmmakers to use Massive, in case you’re interested in that possibility.

It’s one more example of how the trilogy’s impact has gone far beyond making a lot of money and delighting a lot of fans. If you hear someone dismissing LOTR as just a big Hollywood fantasy, you can point out that it may soon be helping save lives, prevent shipping accidents, conserve endangered species-and who knows what else, as Massive continues to innovate.

The excerpt is entirely about The Hobbit and LOTR films. He expresses his willingness to play Aragorn in The Hobbit, if the character does figure in the script. It’s not unthinkable, since Aragorn is living at Rivendell at the time the events of The Hobbit occur. Of course, when Tolkien wrote the novel, Aragorn hadn’t been invented yet, so there’s no mention of him. According to Appendix B of LOTR, Aragorn would have been ten years old when Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarves dropped by for a two week visit. Of course, that counts the 17 years between Bilbo’s farewell birthday and Frodo’s departure from Hobbiton. The film version of LOTR doesn’t have that 17-year gap. It’s not clear how long it takes for Gandalf to get to Minas Tirith, read the scroll, and get back to tell Frodo about the Ring. At any rate, assuming it’s less than a year, by the film’s chronology, Aragorn would be about 27 at the time when The Hobbit’s action takes place. Of course, that also assumes that Bilbo will be protrayed as 50 years old in the film, as he is in the book.

So, a young Aragorn could make at least a brief appearance. And with the new de-aging make-up and digital techniques that were used so effectively for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Viggo could be made to plausibly look 27.

Viggo doesn’t sound entirely enthusiastic about the idea, though: “I’m interested in principle, but I’d want to see it done in the right spirit of Tolkien.” Comparing the Hobbit project with LOTR, he adds, “I don’t know if it’ll be as big a circus in terms of several people writing changes at the last minute.”

Viggo also expresses his opinion about changes between The Fellowship of the Ring, which he sees as the most character-oriented of the trilogy’s three parts, and the other two, which he sees as more dominated by special effects. “You can’t argue with the films’ success, but had it been me, I would have focused less on the effects and more on the characterisations.”

He definitely approves of Guillermo as the choice to direct The Hobbit instead of Peter: “He’s strongminded, intelligent and probably just as stubborn.” Judging from GDT’s remarks in the interview I linked to the other day, Viggo may well be right!

Not everyone reads all the nominees in the categories beyond best picture, actors, director, animated feature, and maybe screenplay. But as a film historian, I scour the whole list. And apart from wanting to keep up, David and I also know a few people in the industry. Our friend James Shamus produced Milk, for example, and we were glad to see that he’ll have to put on his tux again.

I saw another familiar name, too, and one with a LOTR connection. Michael Semanick was one of the sound mixers nominated for all three parts of the trilogy, and he won for Return. He also won the following year for King Kong. Now he’s nominated for “Achievement in Sound Mixing” for not one but two films: WALL-E and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Two excellent films, obviously, and I recommend them both. I imagine the chances are good that Mike will be back in Wellington to mix The Hobbit, if he’s not otherwise occupied. (He has worked with GDT before, having been the supervising sound mixer on Hellboy.) Check out the very impressive list of films Mike has collaborated on here and his major awards and nominations here. There’s a complete list of this year’s Oscar nominations here.

Those who are familiar with every minute of the supplements on the extended-edition DVDs will remember Mike as one of the interviewees in the sections on the race to finish the soundtrack of Return: “The Soundscapes of Middle-earth” and “The End of All things.”

I’ve mentioned before that during my first research trip to Wellington in October, 2003, I had the privilege of sitting in on some of the sound mixing. Many of my interviews took place in the filmmaking facilities, Weta Workshop, Weta Digital, the Stone Street Studios, and what was then The Film Unit (now Park Road Post). On days when I had a couple of interviews scheduled, it was a treat during the gap between to nip into one of the mixing studios for an hour or two.

During those I got to know Mike a little. He was a friendly and good-humored guy, cracking little jokes during pauses in the work. Most of the mixing went smoothly, and real problems seldom arose. I remember an occasion, though, where one did.

Mike was mixing the dialogue for the scene after Pippin looks in the palantír. There Gandalf reveals that Sauron is planning to attack Minas Tirith and says that Théoden must come to the city’s aid if that happens. He was originally supposed to say: “Sauron fears this. He will not risk the peoples of Middle-earth uniting under one banner. He cannot! He will raze Minas Tirith to the ground before he sees a king return to the throne of Men.”

Unfortunately there was a strong disparity in the quality of the sound recording in different parts of this speech. Much of the dialogue in the trilogy had to be recorded separately from the filming and dubbed in, a process called “looping” or “ADR.” Clearly Ian McKellen had recorded the brief exclamation, “He cannot!” under very different circumstances than the rest of the speech. While most of it was clear and crisp, that exclamation was muffled. It sounded like he had recorded it at the bottom of a well.

Mike was running the scene over and over, sometimes with “He cannot!” included, sounding very jarring in its context, and sometimes with that bit eliminated. As he pointed out, there wasn’t anything he could do to make the words sound as though they fit in with the rest.

That might sound odd in this digital age. Just twiddle a few knobs and fix it up, right? Not so. While it’s possible to fix just about anything in the visual track by using digital special effects, the same isn’t true of sound. A Mack truck in the background of a shot or a telephone line in the sky can be “painted out.” It might cost a lot to fix a scene, but it can be done. Sound just isn’t that malleable.

When Trilogy Tuesday rolled around and I saw the completed Return for the first time, I still didn’t know what Mike had decided to do with that exclamation. Had he improved it as much as he could and left it in, or had he just dropped it? Not surprisingly, he had opted to leave it out. There’s just a little pause there. I expect it was just too late to get Ian to do yet more re-recording, and if he had done the line over, there would be no guarantee that the ambience of the studio where he did it (in London or wherever) would make the line fit into the speech smoothly. Luckily the two words were just a matter of emphasis rather than carrying any important narrative information. Their absence didn’t particularly hurt the scene. But watching Mike ponder what to do about that little problem is one of my many vivid memories of that exciting period.

Best of luck on February 22, Mike! I hope you add a third statuette to your collection.

Mike in the foreground at the mixing board, working on The Return of the King

Ordesky was a crucial figure in the dealings between Peter Jackson’s team and the executives at New Line. He helped Peter maintain a considerable degree of control over the trilogy and get the film made the way he wanted it. I had hoped that Ordesky would play the same role on The Hobbit and “Film 2.” I don’t know what this new company of his entails, so possibly he might still produce a free-lance basis. If not, it will be interesting to see whom New Line taps to act as producer.

[Added January 23: I see that this post has occasioned a discussion on the forums at TheOneRing.net. The comments there show that there is still a lot of affection felt for Mark, as well as gratitude for his part in bringing the LOTR trilogy to fruition. As for Amber Entertainment, I googled it and found a website under construction. Another company of the same name in Texas is not related, I assume.]

It’s a very nice interview, with Ian saying some things about his Shakespearean roles on film that I hadn’t noticed in other interviews. But if I may bring in a personal note relating to The Frodo Franchise, the kitchen table described by the interviewer is the very place where we sat when I interviewed Ian in early 2005 for my book. Ian sat opposite the window, not in front of it, and it was snowing, not sunny, so we were not flooded with light. He drank coffee, not peppermint tea. The deck is on that level (one flight up), and I caught a glimpse of the bronze Weta Gandalf statue installed there. A lovely memory, one of the many highlights during the research on the book.