The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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February 3 : 2010

Cinematographers’ guild interviews Peter Jackson

I’m still trying to catch up with everything that accumulated during my recent month in Europe. One thing I ran across was an interesting interview with Peter Jackson in ICG, the magazine of the International Cinematographers Guild. It’s in the December, 2009 print issue or online here.

Interviews by professionals in the film industry tend to be a bit more substantive than those by entertainment journalists–not surprisingly. But don’t be put off by the thought that this one is full of technical terms that you won’t understand. It’s pretty straightforward stuff.

It’s mostly on The Lovely Bones, but there are a number of topics touched on that reveal Peter’s ideas about adaptation and cinematography in general. I recommend it.

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

    US flagbuy at best price

    Canadian flagbuy at best price

    UK flagbuy at best price

    Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
    hardcover 978-0-520-24774-1
    421 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 12 color illustrations; 36 b/w illustrations; 1 map; 1 table

    “Once in a lifetime.”
    The phrase comes up over and over from the people who worked on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. The film’s 17 Oscars, record-setting earnings, huge fan base, and hundreds of ancillary products attest to its importance and to the fact that Rings is far more than a film. Its makers seized a crucial moment in Hollywood—the special effects digital revolution plus the rise of “infotainment” and the Internet—to satisfy the trilogy’s fans while fostering a huge new international audience. The resulting franchise of franchises has earned billions of dollars to date with no end in sight.

    Kristin Thompson interviewed 76 people to examine the movie’s scripting and design and the new technologies deployed to produce the films, video games, and DVDs. She demonstrates the impact Rings had on the companies that made it, on the fantasy genre, on New Zealand, and on independent cinema. In fast-paced, compulsively readable prose, she affirms Jackson’s Rings as one the most important films ever made.

    The Frodo Franchise

    cover of Penguin Books’ (NZ) edition of The Frodo Franchise, published September 2007. The tiny subtitle reads: “How ‘The Lord of the Rings’ became a Hollywood blockbuster and put New Zealand on the map.”