Everyone’s anxious for the Hobbit film to go into full-scale production. We haven’t heard officially that the script has been accepted, the budget calculated, and the project greenlit. Yet clearly there’s a sense that these things will be announced soon.

There’s another sort of anxiety felt by fans who want, many of them quite desperately, to go to New Zealand in the hopes of getting a job as an extra or as some sort of lowly employee during the production—anything that could help them be part of this vastly exciting endeavor. Some don’t necessarily think they could get such jobs, but they want to be able to get close enough to watch the filming.

I can tell that’s what’s going on because a lot of the pageloads on this blog—probably thousands since I posted them—are of the two entries I’ve written on these subjects: “Working on the Hobbit: Harsh realities for non-Kiwis” and “Getting near the Hobbit filming: More harsh realities.” Some Google searches that have brought people here over the past few days: “hobbit movie job,” “the hobbit film extras,” “the hobbit movie casting director,” “hobbit casting extras,” “extras for the hobbit,” and all possible combinations of such words. (Don’t worry, I can’t see visitors’ identities, just what links or searches they come from.)

In the first of those two entries, I talk about the practical obstacles to getting a job, most importantly the necessity for a work permit and the law requiring that jobs be awarded to New Zealanders unless none can be found to fill them. In the second, I talk about the security measures and logistics that prevent “spies” from getting close enough to catch more than a distant glimpse of filming on location.

I’d urge anyone who’s thinking about quitting a job or school or whatever to go to New Zealand with such goals to read those posts. Do more investigation before you make any decisions or set your hopes too high on this. Check on New Zealand’s immigration and labor laws. Look at other fan sites for further discussion of the obstacles. Keep in mind there are probably tens of thousands of people with the same dream and the same hope that they will be the one who somehow defies the enormous odds and becomes the exception. It’s not that I enjoy throwing cold water on people’s daydreams. But highly unrealistic goals can lead to heartache if pushed too hard, and a little cold water early on might help prevent that.