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.

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.)

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!

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!

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:

I’ve just returned from DELF at Cyberport where most of the Wellington Digital Media Industry had decamped for the last two days.

Not a lot on The Hobbit - but more rippling effects from LotR. In general it was interesting and informative, with a focus on ‘Innovate Locally – Collaborate Globally’ especially NZ&HK.

The most important item was that a memorandum of agreement was signed between Grow Wellington and Hong Kong’s Cyberport to foster collaboration between New Zealand and Hong Kong. There will be some articles in the New Zealand Media about this so look out for them in the next day or so.

[Note: The agreement was signed on March 23. So far I haven't seen any coverage in the NZ media, but I'll link any that appear.]

Matt Aitken keynoted and showed off Weta’s expertise and was the visual highlight of the day – he’s running a workshop tomorrow about more aspects of Weta’s work. There has evidently been a lot of internal discussion about Weta spinning off a Software firm to commercialise even more the technology Weta has developed… but they have stepped back from that… ( Except for Massive – I recall reading an Economist article recently about that.)

[I'll be blogging about that Economist article soon; it's quite amazing.]

Barrie Oborne discussed the highlights of his time since the LotR moved his centre of gravity to New Zealand and why he lives and works there now. He noted that he is happy to work wherever in the world there is great talent, but at the moment it is Wellington.

Park Road Post’s Aimee McCammon focussed on the collaboration that PPP has had with John Woo on his epic Red Cliff trilogy and how they did post production in Wellington for the first movie, but how they sent a team to Beijing to do Post there instead of Wellington.

Scott Houston was particularly interesting talking about how he has worked to repurpose the IT infrastructure built for LotR to create InterGrid a rendering service accessible in the internet cloud. The service is called Green Button and the website is http://www.greenbutton.co.nz

This is a direct development that would never have happened without the rendering requirements of the huge crowd scenes in Return of the King.

Dave Gibson (Gibson Group) & Steve La Hood (Story! Inc Limited) are competitors in their home market but collaborate on international projects. They work in developing not only features, Gibson’s Aftershock, but also interactive museum pieces – something that grew out of the touring of the LotR exhibition.

There were several Hong Kong speakers – of interest to me was Chow Keung a local producer who is developing Hong Kong and Chinese movies for the world market and who has been very successful in doing so. One of his directors. Jia Zhang-ke also spoke. They are looking at scaling up their movies (one presumes) which would benefit from this recent agreement.

I think you would have been fascinated by the way the Wellington industry has continued to grow and reshape the contours of the worldwide film industry – this was a nice snapshot of the state of play.

Lastly – there was little mention of the Hobbit movies – except as projects in the pipeline that they’re planning for. Aimee McCammon did note that post production on Lovely Bones is due to complete in a couple of weeks – presumably this will free up Peter Jackson and Park Road Post for his other projects. It will be interesting to see a new
non-epic PJ movie.

Thanks for that, David! I’m of course always happy to see more “rippling effects” from the trilogy. Very interesting to hear the The Lovely Bones is finishing up soon. I presume James Cameron’s Avatar is still occupying some of the time of Weta Digital and Park Road Post.

[Added March 28: No news reports yet, but the Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Ltd., a government agency that ran the DELF, issued a press release. On attendance at the Forum, it says "DELF 2009 attracted about 300 local and international attendees from all walks of industry including government officials, academics, creative artists, entrepreneurs, and ICT professionals, to meet at Hong Kong Cyberport and learn what will drive the next wave of the rapidly evolving and fast growing digital entertainment industries."]

[Added April 20: Thanks again to David Ivory, who has sent along a link to a more detailed press release from Cyberport.]

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.

Inside I was confronted with pretty much what I expected—company logos as far as the eye could see. Naturally I headed for the exhibits of those that had Lord of the Rings associations. Weta Workshop may be sharing a space with Dark Horse Comics, but its side of that space was pretty prominent. Banners hung overhead, and a Jane and the Dragon figure advertised the forthcoming DVD of the first series. (It has been released on DVD in other countries, but not in the U.S. so far.) I didn’t see anyone from the good old days of the research on my book, but Richard Taylor was due there to take part in a joint interview with John Howe, with questions from TheOneRing.net. So I drifted on toward the large Sideshow Collectibles display.

I’m sure most of you know that during the period when the trilogy was coming out, Sideshow and Weta Workshop teamed up as Sideshow-Weta to produce and distribute a large number of polystone collectible figures and objects. Eventually the two companies finished their series, with Weta going on to work on figures for King Kong and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, among others. Sideshow has continued to create new LOTR figures.

Three new ones were on display: a large Moria orc, the “Dark Counsel” diorama with Théoden and Gríma, and “The Duel of Light and Fire.” I hadn’t seen pictures of the latter, an elaborate vertical piece showing the Balrog falling head first and Gandalf clutching one of his horns and preparing to strike with Glamdring. The Balrog’s flaming whip snakes up, still coiled around the wizard’s ankle. That one is still pending final approval. The comments I overheard suggested that fans love it.

I also checked out the booth shared by Slave Boy Films and TheOneRing.net. There The Frodo Franchise was on display. It was the paperback edition, which I hadn’t seen yet. I bought my TORN T-shirt, wandered around a bit more and staggered back to my hotel exhausted. (I had gotten up at 4:30 am to catch my first flight and then spent the afternoon at the San Diego Museum of Man, looking at ancient Egyptian statuary and relief fragments from the site where I do volunteer work each year.)

Fortunately I got a good, solid eight hours of sleep in preparation for Thursday, when the con began in earnest. The first event on my calendar was the “Masters of the Web” panel, including Eric “Quint” Vespe, whom I had interviewed for my book. I thought I had arrived with plenty of time to allow for a crowd, at 9:40 for a 10:00 event, the first of the day. There were many people there already, though, and the walk to the back of the line was long enough to convince me that I had little hope of getting in. Appearances were deceiving, though, and I had no problems finding a seat. Nothing on LOTR, but it was interesting to hear how webmasters who had essentially begun as fans, as opposed to aspiring film reviewers, had ended up running powerful sites that had seized the attention of the film industry.

Early in the afternoon I had my first of three booking signings. John Howe’s autograph session overlapped with mine by half an hour, so once I was off duty, I hurried upstairs to the autograph area with my copy of his Fantasy Art Workshop. Because of the timing overlap, I was lucky enough to be last in line when the chain went up about fifteen minutes before the end of the signing. I had exchanged email messages a few times with John while working on The Frodo Franchise and was looking forward to meeting him at last.

When I eventually made my way to the table, I started to introduce myself. Instead, he recognized my name on my con badge and embraced me. He had read the book and loved it. It’s great when two people already know each other’s work and can start off talking as friends. I think that was the high point of my first three days here, and is unlikely to be topped. We had a chat. I didn’t interview John for The Frodo Franchise, since I started my research at the tail end of the film’s production, but if I ever get to do a book on the Hobbit films, I would definitely make up for that.

At 4:00, I was at the Weta booth to watch the interview with Richard and John, with questions from Larry “MrCere” Curtis. It was a crowded affair, with onlookers squeezed between the upright square display cases that line the perimeter of the exhibit. I couldn’t hear John’s responses well, since he spoke softly and very close to the microphone. I am assured, however, that the recording was excellent, and we are promised a transcript on TORN in the near future.

I took that evening off to relax after two packed days and to write the beginning of this entry.

First thing the next morning (Friday) was the TORN panel. After a seemingly endless shuttle-bus ride through morning rush-hour traffic, I met Larry in the lobby of his hotel. We went through the powerpoint presentation that he and our fellow panelist, Chris “Calisuri” Pirrotta and Cliff “Quickbeam” Broadway had put together and talked about things we might talk about after that.

By the time we got to the room where the panel was being held, the place was packed. There was still a line of forty or so people outside. Later I heard that one fan was so disappointed at not getting in that he or she had to be arrested. I expect “arrested” was a bit of an exaggeration and it was simply a matter of security guards having to step in. Still, it shows that passion for the films still runs high.

The panel itself was a treat for presenters and audience alike. Chris ran through part of the powerpoint program, which succinctly wrapped up the history of the project to date. Then the speculation about casting began. If it’s of any interest to the filmmakers, suggestions of James McAvoy and especially Martin Freeland for Bilbo met with applause, while Shia LeBeouf (!) was roundly booed. Doug Jones was a popular possibility for Thranduil, though the notion that Ralph Fiennes would be good for the role met with some startled but definitely intrigued oohs and aahs.

It’s sort of assumed that Bard has to be a handsome hunk. Clive Owen was a popular choice, but Gerard Butler and Hugh Jackman even more so. Lots of names were tossed around for the dwarves. I mentioned Mark Ruffalo, who I think would be a good choice for Thorin or any of the others. (Well, not Bombur.)

(For Larry’s account of the event, including figures on attendance and the news that New Line and Warner Bros. representatives were present, see here.)

That afternoon I went to the ponderously titled “Action Figure Insider: Behind the Plastic: The Golden Age of Marvel Toys/Toy Biz” panel. Toy Biz produced the mass-consumer action figures for LOTR, so I hoped to learn something about that. Toy Biz recently purchased the bankrupt Marvel, so there was a lot of nostalgia for the good old days. One panelist mentioned having been thrilled to be working on the LOTR series, which fits in with the pattern I had observed several times: licensees were often also fans.

We panelists had invitations to the Gentle Giant/Lucasfilm/Weta/Sideshow Collectible reception that evening. It was a modestly swanky affair (if there can be such a thing)—drinks and finger food served on a terrace of one of the big hotels. Guests wore everything from evening dress to T-shirts. The place gradually grew very crowded, and if my fellow panelists ever arrived, I couldn’t find them. I did get a chance to chat with John again and to greet Richard.

Today the only LOTR-related event was “Spotlight on John Howe.” John showed slides of a large selection of his paintings and drawings as he discussed his methods and inspiration, naturally refusing to answer any questions relating to The Hobbit film project. Just as naturally, he hopes to again participate in the production, and I think it would be safe to bet that he will.

Three days (plus the preview) down and one to go. There’s nothing LOTR on the Sunday schedule, though I’ll be doing another round of signings at 1:00 at booth 5424. I’m also hoping to attend the “Muggles, Wizards, and Fans in the World of Harry Potter” panel tomorrow, to get some insights into another hugely popular fandom. If anything Tolkien-related happens, I’ll report again. Otherwise, I’ll just be writing up a more general summary of Comic-Con on “Observations on Film Art and film art” after I get home.

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.

From that I began to ponder doing a little history of the airport’s participation in trilogy promotion using mainly LOTR images I have seen there during my three visits when I was researching The Frodo Franchise. I’ll bet quite a few of you have seen at least some of these as well and will feel a bit nostalgic

I think it was on my first arrival (September 28, 2003) that I walked from the plane to the terminal in corridors lined with advertisements for Telecom, the national telephone company. Note here the little picture of Barrie Osborne in the middle and the Telecom logo. Telecom helped out with LOTR by devising a satellite system to allow Peter Jackson to monitor units filming all over New Zealand, as well as the “Fatpipe,” a secure broadband connection that allowed the filmmakers to share files and converse via streaming video from as far apart as Wellington and London.

After a wonderful four weeks of interviews and tours, I departed on October 25. I just missed the erection of the head and arm of Gollum, reaching for the Ring, on the roof. It’s the same giant model that in 2002 had rested atop the Empire Theatre marquee during the local premiere of The Two Towners. It was created by Weta Workshop, of course.

The airport installation took place overnight, on November 9-10, with the idea that visitors arriving by air for the December 1 premiere of The Return of the King would see him directly after they arrived. What’s more, sets (mainly miniature), costumes, and props from the trilogy were also on display inside the airport, starting on November 14. Part of that display appears in the accompanying photo of Théoden’s throne (the only photo here not taken by me, since, alas, I had departed three weeks earlier).

By the way, only the month before I had encountered that chair, up close and personal. On one of my first days of research, Judy Alley, merchandising coordinator and archivist, gave me a tour of the giant prop-storage area behind the art department. Among many rough, ordinary-looking barrels and chairs and ropes (ordinary, that is, apart from the fact that all had been made in hobbit and regular sizes), there was the throne, glowing like the piece of fine, hand-crafted, solid-wood furniture it is. It’s just as gorgeous as it appears in the photos, and it looks better the closer you get.

For a list of what was on display, see the Wellington International Airport’s archive of press releases and scroll down to November 11, 2003. For some small photos of the exhibition, see Ian Smith’s website.

Well, I may have missed those decorations, but there were less spectacular reminders of the trilogy in the check-in hall of the airport as I departed. Air New Zealand was one of New Line’s brand partners, as I describe in Chapter 4 of the book, providing advertising simultaneously for itself and for the upcoming release of the third part.

Even though I missed Gollum on that trip, he—but not the exhibition—was still there during both my 2004 visits, in June/July and November/December. I’m told he withstood some pretty rough gales, despite the fact that he had originally been designed only for the Empire Theatre display. Part of this was due to the airport personnel’s installation, as described by the airport CEO in a press release:

Wellington Airport has spent more than 200 hours constructing a new foundation on which Gollum’s head, hands and, of course, The Ring, will be secured by 21 concrete plinths and more than 100 bolts. The preparations have been undertaken mainly after hours to coincide with airport operations.

He added, “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was made by a Wellington director, a Wellington company and is the pride of Wellingtonians. It is only fitting that our city, our airport and our people feel they are part of such an important international showcase.”

The airport did not put out a press release when Gollum was taken down, but two tourists who happened to arrive while he was still up and depart after he disappeared noted the fact on their blog on January 24, 2005. The removal had taken place at some point during the previous two weeks.

By the way, a cartoon view of Wellington gracing the 2004 Telecom phone book for the city included the airport and its rooftop Gollum.

A new bit of Rings-related art was created by Kiwi artist Maurice “The Toastman” Bennett in August, 2004. Made from thousands of pieces of toast done to varying degrees of darkness, it was hanging on a wall in the main departure hall of the airport when I left after my third and final research trip in early December, 2004. But of course this was a more general tribute to Peter for having contributed so much to Wellington.

I have a suspicion that history will repeat itself in a few years, when Hobbit fever hits, and one will see similar images and objects all over the airport and Wellington. I hope to see many of them!

In the meantime, I’m off to pack for Comic-Con!