Website Den of Geek! has just posted a lengthy interview with John Gilbert, who edited The Fellowship of the Ring. (Jamie Selkirk was the supervising editor for the entire trilogy, but each film had its own editor.) Gilbert has edited many other films, most recently Blitz, a British action film, the upcoming release of which was the occasion for the interview.

But Gilbert talks a lot about FOTR and working with Peter Jackson. He got the FOTR job because he had previously edited The Frighteners. Up to that point PJ had edited on film, and Gilbert was brought in to use the digital editing system Avid on the film. Needless to say, by LOTR, Peter’s team was doing most technical jobs, including editing, using digital technology. Gilbert was slotted to edit King Kong back in the mid-1990s, but when that project fell through (temporarily), he was put on FOTR.

One highlight of the interview:

There was a lot of pressure. There was pressure on him from New Line and the people with the money, just because it was so much bigger than what he’d done before. But he’s very adept at keeping everyone in check and keeping in control of things. And I think we cut a sequence together in the Moria Mines early on and finished it as a piece of film, and it went off to Cannes about halfway through the process. The press and everyone fell in love with it, and everyone backed off after that and let him go for it, because it spoke for itself.

I discuss the preview footage shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 in Chapter 1 of my book. I hadn’t been aware, however, of how very important that moment was in convincing New Line to give Peter more creative leeway after that point.

Gilbert stayed on in New Zealand to edit Roger Donaldson’s The World’s Fastest Indian (a charming film that didn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserved), and he has some interesting things to say about the impact of LOTR on the Kiwi film industry.

All in all, a very interesting interview, well worth reading.

I had pre-ordered Doug Adams’ The Music of The Lord of the Rings on Amazon. The estimated date of arrival they originally gave me was October 7. (A bit frustrating, since I’ll be at the Vancouver International Film Festival September 30 to October 11.) I just got notified, however, that the book shipped today and is now estimated to arrive this coming Tuesday (second-day delivery). The Amazon page still lists the book is on pre-order, but presumably if you order now, you’ll get it soon. (So I should be able to put the music from the CD on my iTouch and take it along! I suspect the book will be a bit heavy to carry along, but I shall try to make time to read it as soon as I get back.)

[Sep. 21.  The UPS truck just delivered my copy, right on time. Definitely too heavy to carry to read on a plane, but that’s due to the heavy, coated paper used to optimize the reproduction of the illustrations. A very handsome book.]

I see that The Music of The Lord of the Rings, by Doug Adams, is available for pre-orders on Amazon. (It comes out in the U.S. on October 5.) The book will include a CD, “The Rareties Archive.” Today Doug posted a list of the tracks on his blog, along with a brief account of how he chose these pieces of music out of the many possibilities.