|
News:
Two Towers trailer released
Check it out
here It looks totally awesome and personally I can’t wait! 7/18/02
Fellowship DVD to be released August 2002
With extra footage and more.
First Two Towers photos released
The New York Post printed an article with the first photos from The Two Towers. See it here at The One Ring.net. 1/15/02
Conflicting reports on LOTR DVD
There are currently 2 stories circulating about the unscheduled release of the Fellowship of the Ring on DVD. The first states that the disc will contain 40 minutes of deleted scenes, while the second states many of those scenes will be incorporated into a 4-hour director’s cut version of the film. Either way, it sounds like we will get to see about 40 more minutes of the film...which is good news to me! 1/15/02
Peter Jackson, director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, talks to Millimeter Magazine
"Digital technology made this film project possible. We couldn't have done this trilogy 10 years ago. Technology brings a different reality, which this story requires. For the first film, we initially thought we'd end up with about 380 effects shots, and that's what we planned for. But we ended up with over 500 digital shots, and that's just the first film."
While he took pains to credit the production design and practical effects departments involved with the project, Jackson felt digital effects advancements deserved a pat on the back. Though digital accomplishments are often relegated to the "just another tool in the artist's palette" category these days, Jackson felt it necessary to point out the project needed digital effects in order to faithfully tell JRR Tolkien's legendary story on the big-screen. Thus, he's understandably proud of the complex digital pipeline, animation, and compositing work created at New Zealand's Weta Digital, located near where all three films were shot over a 15-month period.
Since the project was in pre-production for three years, Jackson also points out that many of the advances used in the first film weren't even possible when the project started.
"The Balrog creature, for instance, has flames escaping cracks in his skin," he explains. "When we started this project, we planned to film real flames and track them onto the digital creature, because, at the time, I was told that digital flames were not realistic. Within the last six months, when we are deep into it, I find out they can do CG flames, no problem. That's a pretty quick advance, and it directly helped us tell this story."
To read the full account of Jackson's comments, be sure to check out the "Fade to Black" column in the February issue of Millimeter.
--by Michael Goldman, Millimeter Magazine senior editor
Lord of the Rings takes top honors. It's very rare for a science fiction or fantasy movie actually wins favor with critics or awards shows. Most are relegated to "Best Special Effects" or "Best Makeup" categories. Lord of the Rings may be the film to break this tradition, however. It won the AFI (American Film Institute) award for Best Film of the Year on January 5, beating out more mainstream favorites A Beautiful Mind, Black Hawk Down, and others. It's also nominated for the Golden Globe and the Academy Award. 1/8/02
The Fellowship of the Rings is set to open worldwide December 19 and will have it's world premier in London on December 10. The International Fan Club has officially been opened with Elijah Wood (Frodo) as it's first member. The soundtrack includes 2 songs by Irish singer Enya - one of which she sings in the fictional language of Sindarin. The song backs a romantic scene between Live Tyler's elfe and Viggo Mortensen's human characters. A clip of the other song can be found at http://www.lordoftherings-soundtrack.com/ 10/23/01
Watch for a special sneak peak of the film during the September 24 season premiere of Angel on The WB. 9/14/01
|
