Hello. Welcome to the first of our blogs on the making of The Hobbit.
It's amazing to be back here again. This is Bag-end...
...exactly as it was in The Lord of the Rings...
...and it was actually built in our B stage here in Wellington...
...which is exactly the same stage as it was built 1 2 years ago.
We've been shooting for a few days now...
...and I just wanted to take this opportunity...
...to give you a little look at the lead-up to filming...
...and some of the preproduction that led up to the first day of our shoot.
I look forward to keeping you up-to-date as we go through the next...
...two or three years.
See you soon.
Oh, you're in 3D. Looking good.
See you.
And this pulls beautifully.
-This looks great when it's drawn. -Yeah. So it actually works?
And he can also go fighting with the remnants...
...sort of hanging onto his body and be impaling people.
MAN: We wanted to create a very non-human shape.
JACKSON: We do need to do a little blog.
You might want to say hi to the fans of The Hobbit.
Hi to the fans.
-See you. JACKSON: Yeah.
Shy artists.
Oh, dear, oh, dear.
So we're, uh, going up to Wardrobe...
...and we're having a look at a couple of Dwarf, uh, wardrobe and makeup fittings...
...which is always exciting.
Not that we'll show you much in this particular blog...
...because we'll save that for the future...
...but at least you'll get to see a little bit of our Wardrobe Department.
A lot of very busy people working on a lot of costumes.
A lot of interesting textures and detail and leather and embossing...
...and it's all pretty cool up here.
It's like a sort of a big wizard's workshop.
-Hello. -Hello.
JACKSON: Oh, my God. Hello.
JACKSON: You can use it like a mace.
You can just swing and knock it and cut the throat...
...and whack away at the stuff.
MAN: Lynn was saying there's a nice bit where he just goes, drr!
-And take out about ten Orcs. -Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, this is a familiar set. It's Elrond's chambers.
And it's an exact copy of the one that we had in The Fellowship of the Ring.
In fact, just over here on the balcony is where the Council of Elrond took place...
...where the fellowship was formed and Frodo volunteered to take the ring to Mordor.
But also in The Hobbit, there's gonna be a lot of new bits of Rivendell...
...that we haven't seen before.
Some really cool bits of Rivendell, actually...
...that we'll keep as a little surprise for the time being.
Now, there's an old friend upstairs. Let's just have a quick look.
Here we are. l'm sure you'll recognize the statue where Narsil...
...the broken sword, sits.
And, of course, in the time of The Hobbit, the sword is gonna be here.
And it is strange walking around here...
...because it was, you know, 1 0 or 1 1 years ago.
And I'm used to looking at a set like this on film, you know...
...and now we're walking back into it again.
It's almost like you've stepped inside a movie. lt's a very weird experience.
When we have a door blocked off....
This is where we're gonna be shooting.
At the very beginning of our shoot, it's the Goblin tunnels...
...below the Misty Mountains.
It's a very iconic scene in The Hobbit...
...where Bilbo has an encounter with....
Well, you know who it's with, don't you, if you've read The Hobbit?
No need to spoil it for anybody that hasn't.
But, uh, this is like a little network of caves.
Look, there's a whole other little set of passageways down here.
It's very, um, claustrophobic.
But one of the things we've done in order to be able to shoot the shots is to make sure...
...that all the different walls of the cave can be removed...
...so that our big, bulky cameras can actually shoot the angles that we need.
Oh, my God. Look at this thing here.
That looks like a foot or an arm.
Oh. I don't know.
That looks rather creepy, doesn't it? Ugh.
Okay.
JACKSON: So how many chairs do we need?
For instance, should we...?
I reckon Bombur sits at the end.
And then there's a slight grapple. And then when you pop down, it's like:
-And then it's like.... -That's it. Sorry, hate to interrupt.
-Now l know it's sort of safe. l can interrupt. -Yeah.
This is blocking.
This is not really rehearsing, but we're kind of....
The actors are walking through, and we're talking about what to do with the scene.
It's actually fun, because it means when we come to shoot this, we've got a plan.
It'd be good if you come forward, and then you realize there's something on your foot.
And perhaps you try to get rid of it at first, you know? And then you kind of....
This will be fun.
This will be more fun when everybody's in makeup...
...and costumes and dying of the heat.
And sort of on the corner of the table we've got Kili.
-Awesome. JACKSON: Next to Kili, Fili.
-And then Dori. WOMAN: Dori.
Dori and then Nori.
Oh, my God. Ori, Dori, Nori.
-Bifur, Bombur.... Gloin, Oin.... -Heh, heh, heh.
Nori, Dori, Nori. This is a nightmare.
We'll have Gandalf here and Thorin.
So I thought it would be good to give you this whole doorway to play, and be kind of....
The fire will be blazing as well.
MAN: Oh, is it? Oh, I see.
Well, my prediction is it's all going to go incredibly well on the day.
Don't you agree?
Um....
The tricky thing is...
...that there are 1 3 Dwarves on this set.
The good news is you're not in a fat suit.
No, no, no.
I am in a nose and false eyebrows, a wig, a mustache and a beard...
...but you're right. No fat suit.
MAN: You're way ahead.
Yeah. You're a winner. You're a winner every step of the way.
And we can stick a fan up your robe just to sort of give you a bit of air-conditioning.
-Promises, promises. -Ha, ha, ha.
Well, that's gonna work. With a little bit of finessing, that's gonna work.
MAN: Morning. -Morning.
MAN: Morning. -Morning. How are you?
MAN: Morning.
So I'm officially the first person in the makeup chair on The Hobbit.
Officially. Ha, ha, ha.
That's amazing. That's amazing.
ARMlTAGE:
My name is Richard. I'm from London, England.
I would like to give thanks on behalf of everyone here as visitors...
...for this ceremony, for this celebration, for the blessing of the sound stage...
...and for the welcome that you offer to us.
We're all deeply honored to be here.
And to everyone that has waited so long for this day...
...to begin this extraordinary journey, filming The Hobbit...
...I would like to wish them good luck, good health and good harmony.
Um, Martin would like to say something.
Thank you. My name's Martin Freeman. I'm in the cast as well.
Uh, he stole everything l was about to say in Maori.
As Richard said, this has been a long time coming today.
It's been even longer than we thought it was gonna be.
So I hope at the end of this journey we are all as close with each other...
...as, at the moment, we have the potential to be.
So thank you very much.
Eh, hello, everybody. l'm Andy Serkis.
I am standing up just to say on behalf of the returning crew and cast...
...who have gathered here to go on the journey.
And we're just very, very grateful to your incredible hospitality...
...and to have the opportunity to share the passion...
...for telling such an amazing, amazing story...
...in such an amazing country with such beautiful people. Thank you.
You know, for a long time l thought that going back to the amazing experience...
...of Lord of the Rings wouldn't be a good idea.
Um, but really, you know, now l've come completely around...
...because films are stressful and they're hard to make...
...but, ultimately, what makes them fun is the people that you work with.
And the fact that, you know, we're gonna be working with a lot of the old gang...
...with a lot of friends...
...and obviously making some new friends, is really the point of being here.
So I'm extremely thrilled.
If somebody came up to me today and said that we could carry on preproduction...
...for another six weeks, l'd say, "No, no.
Hell, no. Let's just start shooting."
WOMAN: And roll sound.
And action.
NARRATOR: In a hole in the ground...
...there lived a Hobbit.
JACKSON: Sky darkens.
And flames.
And cut.
That's great.
Good.
That's fabbo. Fabbo, fabbo, fabbo.
Thank you very, very much.
Yay!
That's the one.
Well, thank you very much, everybody, for a great first block.
And have a great break. Everyone's having a break.
And we will see you back here soon enough.
Ladies and gentlemen of the second unit, that is a wrap on block one.
We're just gonna get, uh, one more pickup in Bag-end.
-Hello. JACKSON: Yep. Come in.
-And so-- Hi, Pete. How you doing? -Hey, Andy. Come in.
Just wanted to do one more pickup in here, if that was all right.
What's this? Oh, this is the video blog pickup.
-Yeah. -That's right. They're going into block one.
Anyway, um, we just wanted to say hi to everybody...
...because we haven't done one of these video blogs...
...since the beginning of the shoot.
-God, it feels like a lifetime. -I know.
Ha, ha. Because you-- The first week of shooting we did with Andy as Gollum.
Well, if it loses, precious, then we eats it! Ha!
You weren't a second-unit director in those days. You were an actor.
-You were an old-fashioned-- -Now l've crossed over to the dark side.
-You've now gone to the dark side. SERKlS: l'm wiped, I'm actually--
I'm absolutely wiped.
-That's all yours. -Is it?
-Okay. -Just give us a good battle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
-I don't know how you do it. It's.... -Ha, ha.
You're getting tired. l always tell people I get exhausted...
...at the end of the first couple of days and stay exhausted till it finishes.
Yeah, we have 250 days of shooting on these two hobbit movies...
...and I think it's a much better way to divide that up into three blocks...
...and then have some time to edit what you've done...
...look at it, hand visual-effects shots over to the CGI guys.
You can really focus on the script revisions.
It's a much smarter way to shoot these big films.
SERKlS: Yeah, on something of this scale too.
I mean, when we were given our T-shirts, we said:
"Fifty-four days down, 200 to go."
I have to admit, l don't know how great it was. "Please wear these on set tomorrow."
It wasn't exactly a morale-boosting moment, was it?
Everywhere you turn, on the people's backs was "200 days to go."
It was like, "Oh, God." I felt tired before lunch, you know?
WOMAN: The good news is that it's over. The first day back is Monday...
...the fifth of September.
So thank you, guys. It's been a pleasure having you with us.
MAN: Where are you guys off to during the break?
My wife and I, my lovely wife, Aileen, we've got a holiday...
...in the South lsland of New Zealand.
And my lovely, gorgeous wife, Nicole, and I are just gonna work on the house.
I'm leaving shortly after talking to you...
...for London, which is a long journey, uh...
...by plane.
And once there, l immediately go into production of a play l'm going to do...
...by Eduardo De Filippo.
I'm going to America, to Pebble Beach...
...in a week to play some golf.
Work on my tan so l can freak the makeup people out when I come back.
I'm having a break.
Ha, ha. l'm having four weeks off.
-Sleeping in. My favorite hobby. -To Australia to see our daughter.
-I'm gonna run a marathon. -I'm gonna attempt...
...to write and record a psychedelic, sledge-rock album.
Hitting the fabric shops in central London.
-I go home to Thailand tomorrow. -To Barcelona.
-To meet, talk to fans from Spain. -Bali for 1 1 days.
-London and Paris to see friends. -Manhattan Beach. It's closest to the airport.
I haven't been home for the last three years back in Belgium...
...so my mom is cracking the whip.
And then I'm going Vegas and spend all my hard-earned cash.
Do some more swimming and lots of golf. Pssh!
Probably getting a little bit drunk. A little bit on a holiday.
I'm looking forward to getting on the drink...
...where l'm not gonna get a bad reputation because they already know what l'm like.
And now l'm going back to Ireland to see my family and see some of my mates...
...in Belfast for a quiet little weekend.
I hope no one phones me for about three weeks at least.
Come back refreshed and ready to rock on the next lot.
MAN: What are you doing on break? -Well, I'm going back home...
...to maybe have a little bit of time off...
...to go home and live with the family.
And then, really, before you know it, I'll be back.
It's weird, because you get to this point...
...when you're at the end of a block of shooting...
...and it almost feels like you're going on vacation, but it's not...
...because on Monday morning, I'm in the cutting room, editing...
...and I've got to have meetings with Alan and John and Dan about designing stuff...
...for the second block and with Richard Taylor about all the things he has to build.
So in some respects, I'm back into preproduction again.
But also l'm in postproduction because l'm editing.
Plus we're in production because we're shooting these movies.
It's like being in preproduction, production, and postproduction.
It kind of gets a bit screwy.
But before l get to do any of that, l've got to jump on a plane tomorrow morning...
...and go location scouting down in the South lsland.
-Take some good pictures. Ha, ha. -I will. I'll take some good pictures.
Since we're gonna be doing location shooting during our next block of shooting...
...it's really time to have to nail everything down.
On the recce, there'll be.... It's usually about 1 7 of us that go.
We get around in five helicopters usually.
It's quite a spectacle when we turn up.
Peter, Caro, Zane, Brigitte, Andrew, Dan Hennah...
...Simon Bright, the art director...
...Steve lngram, John Howe, Alan Lee, Eric Saindon.
We have Tony Keddy, the grip, Reg Garside, the gaffer...
...and myself, location scout Dave Comer joins us...
...and Peter's assistant, Sebastian. The ever-faithful Sebastian is there.
Here on the mountains l put my hand out, and a cup of tea slides into it.
That's what we like.
There's even a Starbucks up here in the Southern Alps.
Slippery, hard to walk and juggle a cup of tea at the same time on this sort of--
Right. No mean feat.
JACKSON: I never come prepared for these things.
I always somehow imagine it's gonna be dry and warm and nice.
At least it's not raining.
We'll be not just scouting, which is essentially searching for locations.
We're now returning to the locations that we liked...
...and we're gonna start to talk about the logistics.
You don't think by the time you've helicoptered everybody in and you've got to helicopter out.
You're not actually here early morning or late afternoon.
-No, right. You're here middle of the day. -It's all broad daytime.
-Unless you camp out here. -Well, that-- Yeah.
CONNON: On set, we are allowing approximately half a rugby field...
...for the essential equipment trucks...
...and then our crew parking and also unit-based parking...
...which is where all our makeup and costume facilities are.
If you make a path along the edge of the swamp....
In essence, we need to create space for two rugby fields of equipment.
JACKSON: lt's weird on locations because you're standing in the middle of a mountain...
...or a valley or some beautiful place...
...and you're having to figure out, "Where are we gonna put the crew tents?
Where are people gonna get changed? Where are the Port-A-Loos gonna go?"
Because all that stuff has to be where you're not gonna point the camera.
You can have Gandalf and the Dwarves all running up over this brow here...
...and scurrying, hiding behind these rocks.
Just as they get there, you crane up....
The last thing you want to find out in six months' time...
...is you're standing on this beautiful mountain and saying, "This is exactly the shot I want"...
...and you find you've got 20 Port-A-Loos right in front of the camera.
That's not what you want to do. So you've got to figure all that stuff out.
We've got to keep looking. Sooner rather than later, isn't it?
Yup.
We'll be flying-- I don't know, maybe 30 locations probably.
CONNON: We're shooting locations around the Mackenzie country...
...around wilder landscapes, below Mount Cook.
And we will also be shooting around Dunedin way.
More beautiful stone, rock, you know, wild country.
And that's quite exciting because it's an area of Middle-earth we haven't visited before.
That big rock could be part of a house, couldn't it?
We're scouting presently for the ancient Mirkwood.
And the Anduin grasslands...
...is south of Queenstown.
MAN 1 : lt's pretty incredible. MAN 2: Anyone shooting that?
CONNON: We're still trying to work out...
...how we're going to shoot Lonely Mountain, Misty Mountain pass.
Lonely Mountain should be by itself. If you can look over in that direction there.
CONNON: There's still a few rivers that we're scouting for.
You know, I think we're getting pretty close to photographing every decent river...
...in New Zealand now.
It would be quite funny to have 1 3 barrels all in the middle of this thing.
Yeah, with a guy shouting, "Come on. Get on with it.
Come on. Move ahead. Go faster."
Is it a floater? lt's quite heavy.
CONNON: We're gonna go to some reasonably remote places.
Sometimes places that, you know, very, very few people have seen.
JACKSON: There's plenty of New Zealand that we haven't seen yet.
I think people think it's such a small country...
...and Lord ofthe Rings, we saw so much of it that we must have seen everything.
But believe me, we haven't.
There's a huge amount of wonderful locations still to come.
-What a pretty spot, isn't it? -That's a great spot.
Well, we'll say goodbye for now...
...and hopefully you've enjoyed this update.
And there may well be another one coming during the break sometime.
So keep your eye out for that.
Hello and welcome to our next video blog.
I thought it would be good to carry on talking to Andy Serkis...
...about some of the fun and games we had during our first block of shooting.
Andy.
Andy? Where is he?
Andy?
What is this place? This isn't Wellington.
Where am l?
Isn't this where James Bond crashed his Aston Martin in 1 964?
And isn't this where Red Grant trained to be an assassin...
...at the beginning of From Russia with Love?
You know what? I think we should run the blog anyway.
So, what we did is we asked cast and crew to tell us a few of their favorite memories...
...from the first three or four months of shooting.
So please enjoy that, and I'll go figure out where l am.
MAN: What are things that stand out for you the most from the first block?
For me, my favorite stuff we've done so far has been Gollum's cave.
GOLLUM: What was that, precious? Shh.
The way that Pete did that scene, it felt like l was watching a play.
It was sort of like you could sit back and watch these amazing guys do their thing.
Him and Martin together were fantastic. It was really cool.
Time's up.
SERKlS: Trying to get back into the head of Gollum.
Don't know if I ever told you, it felt like an impersonation...
-...of a character that I played. -Ha, ha.
-Yes. -It was weird.
Because it was like having to re-own it again.
No!
-It was cool. -Nice way of starting.
I felt sorry for Martin because he was suddenly thrust into having to find...
...the character of Bilbo and have to deal with you for a whole week...
...going at him the whole time. It must have been intimidating.
Bless us and splash us.
That's a meaty mouthful.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's gonna be a good movie. Check it out.
After two years of, "My God, are we ever going to shoot this film?"...
...we had 1 3 Dwarves and a Hobbit. Might have had a wizard as well.
Suddenly, it's real.
-Seeing the sets were, like, amazing. -True.
Coming to Bag-end and walking through. This was our first day, wasn't it?
-It was. -First day on the job. That was amazing.
MAN: Can you name them? -Name the Dwarves?
Ori, Dori, Nori. Bifur, Bof--
Bifur, Bombur, Bofur, Ori, Nori, Oin, Gloin--
Can't even remember who they are.
-You have Fili and Kili. McKELLEN: There's Thorin and there's Gloin...
...and there's Oin and Dwalin and Balin.
And there's Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur...
...and then there are the three, Dori, Nori, and Ori. I think that's it, isn't it?
MAN: Jesus, l can't remember.
I think so.
Thirteen Dwarves is one of the reasons why l dreaded The Hobbit...
...and why l really didn't think I was gonna make it for such a long time.
The irony is it's turned out to be one of the joys of the film.
MAN: Oh, my God.
McKELLEN: What a challenge. I mean, 1 3 heroes. Or 14 with Bilbo.
They all have to be differentiated in a way that isn't necessary in the book...
...but if you keep seeing them, you want to know who they are specifically.
What their attitude is and why they're on this journey.
We need to move now!
Come on!
Some of the best memories were, um, getting the Dwarves ready.
Everybody has helped these actors kind of find their way through...
...lots of rubber and lots of hair. Heh.
JED: Walking through Weta and getting to see our designs and going, "Actually, God...
...I look amazing. The most amazing of anyone."
-That was probably the best day, wasn't it? -Mm-hm. Yeah.
-When you all said Jed is amazing. -We did. Yeah.
NESBlTT: Some looked bad before they got into prosthetics.
In fact, for some, a prosthetic is making them look better...
...to tell you the truth, which says something. Mark Hadlow, for example, springs to mind.
I have this lovely bit down here, and then this mustache that comes up here.
I look stunning. l should be in centerfold.
One of the things that early on we discovered was that Mark Hadlow...
...uh, likes to dress up in costumes.
Um, mainly sort of military-type things.
And the really weird thing about his sailor outfits...
...is that, um, below the waist, nothing.
-Bag-end, you know-- -He's a nice bloke, though.
-A little bit to come. A little bit to come. -Little bit to come.
MAN: One of them doesn't wear a beard.
Yeah, well, we are all very, very jealous of that.
NESBlTT: Actually, he is-- Aidan Turner. He's the sexy Dwarf.
I don't even think he's even got a beard, actually.
Mainly because he's not old enough to grow one.
He's the hot one, I suppose, if you like that kind of thing.
But if you like knitted cardigans and knitted mittens...
-...then l'm your fellow. -Ha, ha.
HUNTER: lf there was a boy band in Middle-earth...
...he'd be the leader or the Robbie Williams of the Dwarf world.
-Whereas you'd be...? -A roadie.
I think Bombur would be a roadie.
HAMBLETON: I think when people see the beards...
...beards are gonna come back in big time.
Give us a kiss.
We've all learned, uh, a bit of the Dwarf language, Khuzdul.
So we all have a selection of words to fall back on, um, curses and battle cries.
We speak Dwarvish to each other most of the time when we're on set.
Okay. Here it goes. Ahem.
And Peter can guess what it is, and then I'll tell people.
Peter?
-Uh.... -It means "mighty Dwarf."
SERKlS: We had done Trollshaw. -You got to do all the fun stuff in Trollshaw.
Yeah, we did.
I had to shoot dialogue and things. He got to do all the good fighting-troll stuff.
Great thing about the Dwarves is that even though there's this comic element...
...to some of the characters, not all of them, but some of them...
...when they fight, they really fight.
We started with three months of intense training. We did stunt fighting.
We did horse riding. We did the gym four times a week.
-We did Dwarf movement intensely. -Yes.
They were trying to get us a point where they could actually kill us...
...and bring us back from the dead, kill us, bring us back.
All the CPR and stuff like that because that's what it'll be like on set.
-They did it by breaking us down. HAMBLETON: Yeah.
They did it by essentially reducing us to the absolute amoeba stage...
...and then building us up again as Dwarves.
We've come through it as better Dwarves, I feel.
-I do too. -I mean...
...I know that William's discovered his inner Dwarf.
-I have. We all have actually. -It's a frightening thing.
But, um, it's just the job that had to be done.
If I could say key moments, uh, in block one...
...arriving in Rivendell and meeting Elrond and dining at his table.
It feels like you're stepping into Middle-earth.
There are some who would not deem it wise.
What do you mean?
You are not the only guardian to stand watch over Middle-earth.
I remember it now, but, whoo, later on.... Whoo.
I loved working with Hugo and Cate. Back in Rivendell again.
-That was fantastic. -Hello, hello. Welcome, welcome.
I still can't quite get over being on set with lan as Gandalf and Cate Blanchett...
...with Galadriel, and Hugo as Elrond.
You just feel like you've stepped back into a movie again.
Kind of weird.
-Is this a new one? This is different. -Yeah, a different one.
High points really I think was...
...getting Cate Blanchett with a long train.
WOMAN 1 : Beautiful. WOMAN 2: Cate, that's beautiful.
MAN: Yeah, that is.
WOMAN 1 : They're all gonna want one. -Just don't ask me to walk in it.
One thing I like is that we're getting a little bit of the music into the movie. The songs.
Tolkien wrote quite a few songs for The Hobbit.
NESBlTT: I got to sing a song.
MAN: You want to hum a few bars for us now?
Oh, it's a classic song.
You know, it's after, sort of, Cole Porter and Gershwin, that type of thing.
There's an inn, there's an inn There's a merry old inn beneath an old gray hill
He squeaked and sawed And quickened the tune
While the landlord shook the man in the moon
''It's after 3," he said
I think it would be great if Dwalin just yelled the whole thing.
You smell like a tipsy cat.
Whether l'll be singing at the Oscars is a different matter...
...but hopefully some people might sing it in the shower.
Excuse me.
I think this is a Peter Jackson question.
Which Dwarf would you like to invite to dinner?
Well, you know, I wouldn't invite any of them, except myself.
I'm afraid that their table manners aren't the best.
You get your fist, and you do that.
They would not want Bifur over for dinner.
He would be, like, the bottom of the line.
Ori because he'd be very polite.
Excuse me.
It would be me, obviously, because l cook.
Stephen Hunter does well with bad table manners.
He just eats so-- Have you seen the size of him? l mean, oh, good Lord. He's enormous.
I've tried to talk to him about cutting down his cholesterol...
...and his butter intake.
I don't think you'd invite Nori because he'd steal all the silverware.
You'd never have Graham McTavish...
...because he would sit and glare at you and show his forearms.
NESBlTT: Dwalin is a real warrior.
When he parties, he goes completely mad, like so many Scottish people.
Here you go.
Ha, ha. Well, the words "kettle," "black," "calling," "pot" come to mind.
I don't think you'd invite any Dwarf to dinner, actually.
I wouldn't have them all together though. Not 1 3. Maybe a couple at a time. Ha, ha.
JACKSON: Special person to meet here. John Rhys-Davies.
ALL: Yay! JACKSON: lt was fun.
On one of the days we were in Bag-end with the Dwarves that John Rhys-Davies...
-...came to visit. -Oh, yeah?
And it was great to introduce him not only to Gloin...
...who's his father in the story...
...but also to all the other Dwarves.
-Daddy! -Hello, my boy.
Just like coming home to family.
JACKSON: l predicted what John would say, and he pretty much said it word-for-word.
I could just imagine him saying, "Oh, you poor bastards."
Ha, ha. And that's pretty much what he went on to say.
RHYS-DAVIES: You poor buggers.
When he gets you running up a hill in full armor, you'll enjoy that.
Gosh, you are going to be spectacular...
...and you'll be chased by women all around the world.
But only if you're in costume and makeup.
Okay. All right.
We've been here since January the 1 3th.
So, what is that? Five months. We haven't even scratched the surface.
-Who are you doubling, Pete? -I'm doubling Stanley Kubrick.
One of the biggest moments was when we all put our gear on...
...and we all stood together...
...sort of looking around at each other into the characters' faces.
To stand in a circle and look at the guys that were going on the quest...
...I got a real tingle up my spine.
Lovely. Thank you. That's terrific. I think we can check the gate on that.
Thank you very much. Thank you, guys.
Thanks, guys. Thanks very much, that's terrific.
WOMAN: Thank you, thank you.
JED: Bittersweet moment, but it's time to leave.
Then driving off.
I'm waiting for somebody. Sorry.
-It could have been even-- -I know.
-Just go. -Really?
Yeah. Just go.
You've had enough. Go.
-Are you wrapped? -No, I'm not wrapped.
-They're keeping the good people. -Okay. Go again. We'll go now.
Okay, we'll go now.
It's a bittersweet moment, but it's time to leave.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that.
I don't know whether there will be any more, because l have to find New Zealand.
Which l've lost. I think it's over here.
Who is that odd little fellow?
JACKSON: Action.
Cut. Lovely.
Hi, welcome to our new blog.
This time we thought we'd talk a little bit about 3D.
-Get a good look at your opening shot. -Yeah. Okay, there he goes.
Just come in a little closer. Just watch your back.
Hi, I'm Angus.
Welcome to the world of 3D.
JACKSON: Shooting The Hobbit in 3D is a dream come true.
I mean, if l had the ability to shoot Lord of the Rings in 3D...
...I certainly would have done it.
What l actually did on The Lord of the Rings is I had a 3D camera taking 3D photographs.
Hopefully one day, maybe even on 3D Blu-ray...
...we might be able to actually show you some of the 3D photos from 1 0 or 12 years ago.
It's 3D and I've got reading glasses. It's all good.
But now the reality is that it's not that difficult to shoot in 3D.
I love it when a film draws you in and you become part of the experience.
And 3D helps immerse you in the film.
The essence of our camera system...
-...is a camera called the Red Epic. -It's this that enables us to shoot 3D.
But, of course, to shoot 3D, you actually need two cameras.
DALEY: The problem that we have in the cinema world...
...is that the lenses that we use are so large...
...that we cannot get an interocular similar to a human's...
...which is the separation between your eyes.
For us to get the two cameras as close together as possible, they have to shoot into a mirror.
JACKSON: We use a mirror system...
...which is a rig that's designed by a company called 3ality.
ANGUS: One's left eye, one's the right eye.
One shoots through a mirror, the other one bounces off a mirror.
And so the two images are perfectly overlaid.
With using two eyes, we can move the cameras apart...
...and also, more importantly, is find a convergence point.
For example, see around someone's face...
-...just like you're looking at a friend. -The convergence point is the screen plane.
3D forms two places, positive space, inside the box...
...what you see behind the person who's standing on the screen...
...and negative space, which is what you feel comes out into the audience...
...an arm, a bullet or whatever you want.
And the whole idea with these rigs is you can change the interocular...
...and the convergence as we're shooting.
Come on!
Move, move.
We can see that separation on a 2D screen with a left- and a right-eye overlay.
So we can do this live throughout a shot, changing our 3D effect the whole way through.
WOMAN 1 : And roll sound. WOMAN 2: Rolling.
We're watching the movie in 3D as we make it.
Wow, that looks so good.
-You almost feel like you're in it. WOMAN: Action.
A lot of people have an image of 3D being big and cumbersome, and that's true...
...but we've got a lot of different rigs that we've built for different purposes.
It's actually easier in this weird 3D world...
...to have different camera systems for different uses.
So this is a camera that we built to go on a crane...
...that can move around, and that never comes off the crane.
This is the TS5 in a handheld mode.
It's our main workhorse camera. It's light, it's small...
...so it allows Peter to get into very tight, narrow corridors and caves...
...as he would with a 2D camera.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Mobile camera work has always been very important for the films that I've made.
And the last thing l wanted to do when we went into 3D...
...was to restrict or change the shooting style.
-So with the camera doing that as well... JACKSON: Yeah.
...you don't need me to do much of it.
JACKSON: lt was important for The Hobbit that we feel like the same filmmakers...
...have gone back into Middle-earth to tell a new story.
We're shooting at the same speed as you'd shoot 2D.
Dollies, cranes, Steadicam.
We put it on the shoulder and shoot handheld, the same as we would always shoot a movie.
JACKSON: Once you've got three or four cameras for main unit...
...you need three or four for second unit...
...which is eight cameras, which is really 1 6 cameras.
This is the world of The Hobbit Camera Department.
DALEY: We have 48 Red Epic cameras, and they're on 17 3D rigs.
This one's called Walter, which was my grandfather.
This one's Ronald, my uncle. Emily was Fran's grandmother.
Perkins was actually Fran's dog.
Witchy Poo. Frank.
Bill is my dad.
Fergus is the name of one of our pugs.
Tricky Woo, that's the name of our Pekingese.
Stan is another one of our pugs.
There's cameras called John and Paul, George and Ringo...
...who are not relations of mine.
Are we having fun?
ALL: Yay!
We're not shooting film, we shoot digitally. We shoot onto these cards...
...which slide in the side of the camera.
And each one of these is 128-gig.
On top of that, you're shooting at 5K resolution.
A very sharp, clear image.
I need, like, a chart.
You know, like, 5K is there, 4K is about there...
...and then your 1 080 home TV is down here, so that gives you sort of an idea...
...of the amount of information that we're actually capturing on these.
-Let's do another one of those. WOMAN: Forty-eight frames, yes.
We're shooting The Hobbit at a higher frame rate, at 48 frames per second...
...which is twice the normal 24 frames.
DALEY: The human eye sees 60 frames a second.
So 48 frames is more of a natural progression...
...toward giving the viewer what they would actually see in the real world.
The people who have seen scenes of The Hobbit at 48 frames a second often say...
...that it's like the back of the cinema has had a hole cut out of it where the screen is...
...and you're actually looking into the real world.
Once you add stereo and it gives you that extra ability to control depth...
...you can devise ways in which, um, it can become part of the storytelling of a film.
For instance, in Mirkwood, we really play on the fact...
...that it's a forest that's kind of hallucinogenic, almost.
It draws you in.
It makes you part of it, and you may never get out.
What we want is just "stay where you are," and then....
Stay back.
Stay where you are.
KELLY: Mirkwood is big and it's full of vines and sinister-looking trees, l suppose you'd say.
It has a lot of things hanging down and a lot of things coming from all sorts of angles.
And it helps us with the 3D to be able to push into that and try and get the audience...
...to feel that they're trying to move into the forest with the cameras...
...and give it that dark and "look over your shoulder' feeling.
HENNAH: Color-wise with the Red camera...
...it tends to eat color a little, so we add more color.
If you look at the ungraded footage, the trees look incredibly psychedelic.
They look like they were painted in 1967.
HENNAH: We wouldn't normally be quite as bold as this.
Even in Mirkwood, which is an enchanted forest, so it's like we oversaturate.
Look.
In the movie, they won't look anything like that, they'll be graded down...
...and you'll just get the barest hint of color in the finished film.
They're coming back.
Move!
3D, 48 frames is pretty unforgiving...
...and we have to change our whole way to go about coloring these things.
Because we found out in early tests that if there wasn't enough red in these pieces...
...they would punch up yellow and react differently...
...than normal skin with blood running through it.
So here's an example. This is Graham McTavish as Dwalin...
...and, um, we've had to add a lot of red tones to his makeup.
So if you notice, if you stick your hand up next to your face...
...how incredibly pale this man is right now.
I've barely seen daylight for the last six months, that's why.
So we have to add the blood in the piece to make him look like a normal flesh tone.
It looks freaky now, but on film it's gonna read beautifully.
Fingers crossed.
KING: With the 3D, HD stuff...
...it is amazing how, when people's hair moves around on the wigs, it has to be the real thing.
It has to be real hair.
And you find, because of the number of frames per second you're using and so forth...
...if you've got real hair moving around, it just looks real.
I've never worked on a film that's 48 frames per second and uses the cameras that we're using.
It's challenging to look for fabrics that work.
I know full well that a fabric that we bought ages ago for a dressing gown for Bilbo...
...would probably make people feel sick if they saw it on camera.
It's got spots on it, with a little spot inside it.
And it would just be like someone throwing stones at your face, I think.
So I've avoided that fabric like the plague.
It's in very poor taste.
Others are just a joy to behold and the camera picks it up...
...and the audience can see every last detail, so in that sense it's really exciting.
This film is really breaking new grounds in many ways...
...as far as the technology of the filming goes...
...but John and I are still working in our time-honored methods of pencil and charcoal...
...composing pictures in 2D.
We thought we'd try and come up with some way of actually incorporating a 3D aspect...
...into the way that we were producing the concept art...
...that might communicate more clearly to Peter and to the other technicians.
So what we're doing is two drawings, one is in red, one is in blue...
...and the 3D glasses have a red lens and a blue lens, one for each eye.
Don't go too heavy on that.
It's probably the first serious cinema production where the actual concept art...
...has been done in 3D.
Rather than sharing just the same office, we're actually sharing...
-...basically the same vision. Yes. -Vision, yeah.
HOWE: There's been a bit of a tendency for me to take on the blue.
And obviously, you know, sitting on the right-hand side of the picture...
...it's easier to actually get your head around the left side.
It doesn't make sense when you try and explain it like that.
It's a huge help for Peter because we're actually proposing the full depth.
It means Peter has to wear glasses when he looks at our art, but....
My God, coming at you. Look at that, whoa.
If you happen to have a pair of glasses like these at home...
...you should be able to see the artwork in 3D.
You look great. Very three-dimensional.
-You've definitely improved. -I know.
I hope you've found this blog interesting. I know it's a little frustrating...
...because just about everything we've been talking about...
...you can't actually see at the moment.
You can't see the 3D, you can't see the 48 frames, you can't see the 5K...
...but you will.
December, 201 2, you'll get a chance to see what we've been talking about.
Anyway, I've gotta get back to set.
It looks like they're almost ready for me down there.
We're actually shooting today, as you can see, in a pine forest.
But it's not really a pine forest.
It's a polystyrene and plaster pine forest.
But very shortly, we're gonna be leaving the studio...
...and moving onto locations for a few months.
So the next time we see you will be from a location somewhere in New Zealand.
Catch up with you soon.
Dwarves in boats, eh? Everybody thinks they're a sailor.
So welcome to our new blog...
...which is about the logistics of location shooting.
We've been traveling pretty much the length and breadth of New Zealand...
...shooting locations for The Hobbit. It's been great to get outside.
It's been great to get that texture of Middle-earth into the movie...
...after many, many weeks of shooting in the studio.
We've established our characters, we've established our story.
Charge!
And it was finally time to get on the road and establish the landscapes of Middle-earth.
YORKE: So we're currently moving about 500 crew for Main Unit to Hamilton.
And then about 200 to Second Unit crew to various parts of the country.
We call it the biggest logistical move in cinematic history.
Just because of the size of the fleet. Close to 140 vehicles.
As you can see, we're moving around a huge circus.
I think everyone is secretly scared, but quietly excited.
The main reason for going on location...
...is to capture the scenic beauty of New Zealand.
Peter's often said...
...one of the things that won the fans over so much in The Lord of the Rings series...
...was the unbelievable vistas and scenics, because they were so magnificent.
People are really excited about getting outside and taking this on the road.
These are our changes from Main Unit crew. This is how big we actually are.
We're probably over 500.
JACKSON: Everybody has to be in the right vehicle at the right time.
They have to travel to the right place, have to have rooms to sleep in.
I can't begin to imagine the logistics involved with shifting the crew...
...the cast, the equipment we have on The Hobbit. lt's mind-blowing.
You have to take everything with you to produce the films.
JACKSON: We're having to provide our own electricity, areas to cook food.
Areas for people to sit down and eat. You've gotta provide water.
The bathrooms and the toilets people need. You have to have weather cover.
Heat when it's cold and you've gotta provide cooling when it's hot.
The daunting aspect of that is that it's got to get into trucks.
It's gotta be on wheels and be ready to roll.
We're about to try and cram all of this...
...and all of that, all of this, some of that...
...most of this, all these trucks, most of these people....
But not that scissor lift up there, that stays.
They're gonna go into some of these trucks.
These guys here are gonna go into these trucks too.
Nice work.
No cell phone laws here, man.
One of our biggest challenges on the production...
...is actually shooting all the locations in one hit.
For both Main Unit and Second Unit.
You can certainly start there.
YORKE: We're away for about seven and a half weeks.
If the weather holds up.
So we're basically praying...
...that every spot we go to in the country is sunny and beautiful.
The first location is Matamata, up in old Hobbiton.
Returning back to the first spot from Lord of the Rings.
Fantastic job and we're out of here at 4:00 in the morning.
-As you can see, we're totally under control. -Yeah. Ha, ha.
WOMAN: Why aren't you helping? -I've gotta carry this.
We're going to the remotest locations of New Zealand.
And if there's one thing grips can't live without, it's their latte. Soy.
That's right.
We're getting ready to go away. We haven't packed anything.
And tomorrow's our last day.
We have 30-odd Hobbits doing a big scene against green screen for Hobbiton.
This is my Louie Hobbit and my Sonny Hobbit.
So we need the largest team on because we've also got to try and pack.
They're gonna say, "Did you pack it? I need it.
Where's that wig? We've got to put it on his head now."
And we'll all be here till midnight trying to load up the buses...
...because they leave at 4:00 in the morning.
Be sure to pack Scotch, tequila....
-Wine and beer. -And a heap of plants.
-Three razor blades. -Sixty kilos of--
-Toilet paper. -A few artificial trees.
-Socks. -And some Jägermeister.
Last day in Wellington, so everything needs to move.
We've got a stock truck coming in to take our 49 mixed-age sheep, 1 5 chickens...
...nine goats, five 3-year-old steers, four pheasants, two Muscovy ducks.
And we've also got Michael Jackson, the walking chicken, on the lead.
HARRIS: We're just gonna take you through, get your contracts done.
We've got lunch packed for you to take on the road.
So just follow me.
-Oh, the keys are in it? HARRIS: The keys are in it.
We've got GPS units installed in the trucks...
...so we can watch what's happening as they move up the country.
If you don't arrive, we can't shoot.
The last truck should be out of here in half an hour.
And then Hobbiton. Crikey.
Just remember the reason you're on this plane is because you're so valuable to the production.
CONNON: Our Main Unit had over a hundred units on wheels...
...that were traveling to the first location.
That was quite a feat in itself, just having that amount of drivers on the road.
It's all about arrows. It's all about maps and directions.
We get in, and it's about an eight-hour turnaround...
...from when the first truck turns up to when the unit base is functional for filming.
They've gotta get these trucks level for working in.
Gotta get them all powered up and they've gotta get them all functioning so quickly.
Prosthetics, Makeup, Costume, Catering.
It's not just a case of a small crew going into very out-of-the-way places.
We're literally occupying the space of a football field.
I think it's actually two football fields.
GORDON: We've moved 7000 cubic meters of dirt...
...to accommodate everything that goes with making a film of this size.
It's very much a mini city.
SPECHT: To everyone's amazement, you know, they went home on Friday night in Wellington...
...turn up to work here on Monday morning, and everything's here and working.
-It's okay. MAN: Ha, ha.
Rough day at the once today, Mom.
So after 1 1 0 days in the studio, we finally make it out into the sunshine.
But l'll tell you what, Hobbiton is looking fantastic.
The Art Department and the Greens Department have been working on it for nearly two years.
The grasses have grown, the flowers are out.
And the plastic ones have even bloomed.
It's weird when you come back to a place...
...that you literally thought you would never see again.
This is a great spot.
Standing there with Elijah dressed up as Frodo, ha, ha....
It was the nearest thing l'm ever going to come to a time machine.
This is actually the first time I'm stepping foot down into Hobbiton.
I'll never forget that feeling of coming to Hobbiton for the first time.
So much time spent in this universe, you know, with these characters.
And I keep referencing the fact that I turned 1 9 when l came to Hobbiton for the first time. Heh.
Eleven years ago. l'm 30 now.
I don't know, there's so many feelings of nostalgia and history.
HENNAH: We'd been searching pretty much the whole country...
...for this rolling green countryside.
We were scouting around and found this place called Buckland Road.
And sure enough, when we flew over it...
...we found the round tree, the hill, the lake.
It was all meant to be.
Of course, then it was a matter of talking to the owners of the land.
Getting their permission to shoot here and build here.
It was a Sunday afternoon during a rugby game...
...that he came and knocked on my father's door.
And he said that they wanted to make a movie. My father actually said, "Lord of the what?"
And I think l kicked him under the table quietly. But, uh, that's how it all started.
So this time around, they built it for real.
So before, all of these Hobbit holes were built using polystyrene.
When the filming was finished, they tore it all down.
Even though it's been available for tours and, you know, for people to look at...
...we didn't have any of the Hobbit holes here.
Doing The Hobbit now, it gave us the ability to rebuild Hobbiton out of permanent materials.
Materials that aren't gonna deteriorate.
And we can carry on showing people what's involved in making a movie, behind the scenes.
It's all.... I mean that's actual rock, stone.
It's pretty amazing.
JACKSON: Hobbiton's gonna stay exactly as it is today.
There's real wood, there's real stone, real bricks...
...and it's going to be here, hopefully, for decades to come.
Yeah. lt's a great gift to the people of Matamata.
And as minister of tourism, I'm all in favor of it, so well done.
Some prime real estate.
Hobbits.
-Hello. MAN: Hello.
-Hello. -Are you guys having a good day?
Yes, good.
-Hey. -How are those feet treating you?
-Yeah, heh, they're okay. -Are they?
JACKSON: When you're at Hobbiton, you forget that you're on a film set.
Seeing it like this living model village is just extraordinary.
And you just totally believe this place exists. And that's because it does.
MAN: Cut.
Maybe I've smoked a little bit too much of this, um, now.
It's an authentic village.
It's a hundred percent, 360-degree, look wherever you like, little Hobbit village.
You can imagine just being a Hobbit in this environment.
Get up and have a cup of tea on the doorstep and listen to the birds and the frogs.
And the children running around. Or go to the market, buy a big bottle of beer.
-And drink it. -And loving it.
JACKSON: You're not really designing a film set.
You're trying to put yourself in the mindset of a Hobbit.
And figuring out, well, where would you like your house to be?
VINCENT: There are 44 personalized Hobbit holes...
...and each has different details, depending on their location.
That's kind of amazing. The doors actually open.
Hello? Hello? No.
Nobody home at the moment. They must be at the market.
Welcome to the set of The Hobbit.
MAN: So how did you get involved in this?
My four daughters auditioned, and they all missed out and l got in.
So I wasn't a popular father at that point. Ha, ha.
-You guys are up for stealing, aren't you? -Yeah.
We're big, bad Hobbits.
MAN: Check this out. Oh, yeah.
I like to get a nice comb-over.
Is this going to be in the movie?
JACKSON: Cut, that's fantastic. We've got that.
So we just finished our first week on location.
But, you know, I just wish l could move into one of these Hobbit holes.
I mean, this would be an absolutely idyllic place to live. lt really would.
This is the sort of place that I would very happily retire to.
In fact, uh, l might think about it tonight or the next day.
It'd be good, retiring here. That would be quite nice.
-Thank you. Bye-bye. MAN: The end.
I hope you enjoyed the first part of our location blog.
The second part will be really very early in the new year.
And, in the meantime, we've just shot the last shot for The Hobbit in 201 1 .
So it only remains to do one last thing, which is to wish you all a Merry Christmas.
ALL: Merry Christmas!
JACKSON: Champagne.
Very good.
Welcome to the first blog of 201 2.
MAN: Push!
JACKSON: We're shooting part two of The Hobbit today.
I'm here in Lake-town, but l can't show you anything.
I can't show you the amazing set that's over there...
...and the incredible thing that's over there because you're not allowed to see that till 201 3.
But what we can show you are the continuation of our location adventures.
So if you remember from our last exciting episode, we were in Hobbiton...
...so let's pick it up from where we left off and travel around the rest of New Zealand.
So we've just finished our first week on location.
So it's goodbye to Hobbiton and, uh, hello to our next spot.
Here is the weather in Piopio today.
It has, of course, been raining.
Welcome to Denize Bluffs. We brought the weather with us, which is great.
We don't have umbrellas in the movie.
No, see, the colors clash.
What's weird is you're on the sets in the studio...
...and they look so real.
You come out on location, this almost looks fake.
Because you think, "This can't exist." It's just weird.
-Not real, it's a trick. -It's a trick.
-Mind games. -It's done with mirrors.
It's a very nice environment. Some nice stuff up in there.
Just gonna be a bit lumpy getting stuff around and building stuff on rocks...
...and bits and pieces, but it'll be nice. Good location.
I'm just worried about the dinosaurs.
So here we are at the Turoa ski field on the flanks of Mount Ruapehu.
This is the second oldest national park in the world.
Very ancient vegetation. Magnificent colors, magnificent textures, but very fragile.
And we've gone to exceptional lengths...
...to actually make sure the impact on the site is minimized.
So it's about scaffolding, it's about elevated boardwalks...
...to keep people off the vegetation.
We built the world's biggest ramp to get down to the thing.
Everybody walked out to the edge this morning and looked at it, and jaws dropped, and went:
"Wow, okay. Heh. So that's how we get onto set today."
This is my favorite location. lt's beautiful.
There's a mountain, there's a waterfall.
There's a beautiful view across a valley there.
It's one of those sort of archetypal Kiwi places that you think:
"God, New Zealand has such amazing landscapes."
Jesus, it's a bit sad when the grips are going faster than l am...
...and they're carrying heavy metal.
Yeah.
Andy Serkis jumped in the icy cold stream...
...to chase the fish as Gollum about, uh, 1 2 years ago.
Just over there.
So welcome to the first day on location with Second Unit.
I've spent quite a lot of the last few weeks in a chopper...
...because a lot of our stuff was aerial coverage.
We'd take off and choose our line and choose the way we were gonna shoot it...
...and how we were gonna reveal the landscapes.
We're using the space cam on all the aerial stuff.
This particular rig is set up for 3D.
There's a chopper behind me, isn't there?
The bonuses of being on Second Unit is that we do a lot of locations...
...that are too tricky or time consuming for Main Unit to go to...
...so a lot of our locations were helicopter-only access.
So we got very, very good at loading in and out of choppers.
JACKSON: So you've got literally two units that are now crisscrossing the country...
...both the North and South Islands.
About halfway through our location shoot, First and Second Units met up...
...and it happened to be exactly halfway through the entire shoot, day 127.
And we commemorated that with a hoodie, a halfway hoodie.
But it's 1 27 days, and, uh, it's two films.
Now, l've got a 1 33-day Lord of the Rings jumper...
-...which was for three films. JACKSON: Yes.
So 1 33 days for three films and 1 27 days for two films.
-Yes, easily explained. -How?
Well, we're all 1 0 years older...
-...so we're going a little slower. -That's true.
One of the challenges was showing P.J. what we'd been up to.
So every day I would then do a kind of an edit of the takes that we'd done...
...put them together and make some selects, then that would be sent off to Pete.
We are a long way from most of the infrastructure that we know and love.
So we've had to rely on satellite technology to do all of our connectivity.
These are the dishes we're setting up to provide lnternet for the crew.
We're providing wireless and lnternet. We've also got a separate setup...
...that's up at the director's tent that's beaming in footage from Second Unit...
...that takes the feed that's coming in from the cameras...
...compresses it, sends it over the Internet all the way down to Peter's tent.
So far we've probably used about six kilometers of cable on the job.
I'm not sure where it's all gone, but we, uh, keep on ordering more of it.
Strath Taieri, Central Otago...
...this is a location where you can literally shoot 360 degrees every direction.
Had some incredible skies.
What we'd call "Close encounters of the Third Kind skies."
And where our skies are a little boring, because we've shot over three days...
...we'll probably replace them with these cool skies.
I'd love to do that. Get some real mood into it.
One of the days of shooting on this location was actually up on the hill...
...something called the Rock and Pillar Range.
If you just look over there...
...it's pretty much that distant ridgeline between those two rocks.
That's what they call the Rock and Pillars...
...where we had to have 1 0 helicopters ferrying crew, cast, and equipment up the mountain.
This is Adam Brown's first helicopter ride.
-Oh, my God. -Are you so excited?
-I'm well excited. -You should be.
-And in. Oh, he's in, he's in. -Aah! Christ, it's on video.
MAN: And action.
Whoo-hoo. Amazing.
JACKSON: So we're packing up at the end of our location shooting here at Strath Taieri...
...and going to Queenstown.
Here we are, beautiful Queenstown.
We're, uh, just at the base outside the Earnslaw Burn...
...which is the most spectacular shooting location l think we've been to yet.
We're shortly gonna do a rendition of "The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music."
Starting with Mark Abbot, he's over there. He's getting into his Maria position, there he is.
It's snow.
Bare feet was a bad choice.
We've been to Paradise before.
That's where we shot a few scenes of The Fellowship of the Rings mainly...
...back in 1 999.
Lothlorien Forest. Boromir's death.
MAN: Cut!
The great thing about this job...
...you get to see beautiful, beautiful places like this.
So you don't have to feel sorry for actors leaving home for seven and a half weeks.
We're very, very well looked after.
The catering on this movie has been sensational.
The numbers we were doing on location were between 300 and 400...
...until we got to Twizel, then we were doing 570, 580...
...because we had quite a few extras there as well.
We cook 1 00, at least, kilos of meat every day.
One of the guys worked out that we've been through a ton of oranges already.
It's formal Friday today, so we're dressed in suits.
It's one of the only ways for the crew to know what day of the week it is.
Every morning we crank out about 200, 300 coffees.
We're heading off to the hills to look after a crew of about 1 00 people...
...who have all been choppered up into the mountains.
It being in the mountains, there's snow around, so it's cold...
...so obviously, in formal dress sometimes it's not practical...
...so as you can see here, Andrew has gone from a three-piece to a four-piece...
...with the addition of a nice, cozy puffer jacket.
Because you can't always look good, sometimes you have to be sensible.
Sometimes you take for granted...
...the scenery in the country where you live, so to come out on the road is really amazing.
Good morning.
-Thank you. -You're welcome.
I can't believe how nice it is.
-We're the luckiest short people in the world. -The luckiest people in the world.
I think it comes into people, not even height restricting.
New Zealand looking at its spectacular best...
...and, uh, a lot of very happy actors cavorting around in front of it.
JACKSON: Braemar Station was pretty difficult working conditions for the cast and the crew...
...because the tussock and the ground's very uneven.
This is matagouri, a New Zealand native kind of thorn bush...
...which is everywhere that you ever wanna walk.
McKELLEN: You can't just parade through the tussocks...
...and the rocks and pebbles without looking.
You suddenly realize that being out of doors in Middle-earth can be a difficult business...
...particularly when there's a pack of Orcs or Wargs.
-Dances with Wargs. -Heavenly Wargs.
"The Boy Who Cried Warg."
-Aliens versus Wargs. -I was a Teenage Warg.
McTAVlSH: Enormous amount of running.
Scene 88, I think, is actually going to be a third film.
It'll be coming out between the first and the second.
JACKSON: lt's actually, for the most part, easier working inside a studio...
...but, of course, the studio doesn't have the incredible vistas...
...and that's what we were there for.
Eight kilometers from Mount Cook, surrounded by the guys behind me.
Unbelievable.
This is the Pelorus Bridge over the Pelorus River...
...where we are shooting today.
I think my favorite day on set, unquestionably, was floating down the Pelorus River in barrels.
Finally gonna, um, put our Dwarves in the barrels.
That actually looks like fun, I'd do it myself...
...if l wasn't busy doing other things.
MAN: Oh, my God.
Today we're, uh, swinging over the river. We got some Dwarves coming down in barrels.
JACKSON: Keep going, everybody. That's good.
Yeah.
HUNTER: That was way cool.
And if they ever make that a ride at any of these Warner Bros. movie worlds...
...lifetime pass, please.
JACKSON: While we were at Pelorus...
...our location shooting came to a pretty dramatic end...
...because the police arrived and said they were about to issue a severe-weather warning.
MAN 1 : Okay, we need to shoot please. It's raining. We need to get going.
MAN 2: B marker.
JACKSON: And l've never seen a crew pack up their gear so quickly.
The very next day, everywhere where we were standing...
...where our equipment was, our cameras, our actors, the director...
...was under flood water. It was incredibly dramatic.
The rise in the river level was like 20, 30 feet.
-And that's location. MAN 1 : Yes.
MAN 2: Done.
JACKSON: So that's the end of our location shooting...
...and we are about to go into our last 1 00 days...
...what we're calling block three.
And, uh, look forward to talking to you again very, very soon.
Hi. So welcome to our new blog.
We have taken you away with us on location.
But we thought that today you might enjoy having a little look into our studio.
Stone Street.
The public obviously aren't allowed in here while we're shooting.
Morning.
But we thought it would be great to give you all a private little tour...
...around the world of The hobbit here at Stone Street in Miramar, New Zealand.
Used to be an old paint factory.
We got hold of it just before we started The Lord of The Rings.
We built one sound studio for Lord of the Rings.
We built another one on King Kong.
And we built a couple more here for The Hobbit.
And it's actually a great place to make movies right now.
Hi. This is Block 4, the Production Office. Come on in.
This is the office. And our boss, Brigitte Yorke.
-We must get a plane for Howard Shore. CONNOLLY: I'm working hard on this folder.
Have you got some filing skills?
-It's top secret. You can't see. -I'm learning how to open it and close it.
TAKACS: Emma processing contracts in the mother freighter of Three Foot Seven.
Kate Mulligan will find you whatever crazy thing you need.
And this is Rach. She coordinates and distributes all our script revisions.
I've just got some urgent script revisions to go out to all cast immediately.
I'm gonna hand these ones over to Mike. He'll take them over to Jimmy Nesbitt for us.
MIKE: Jimmy, some pages. -Yeah.
Don't look at me directly in the eyes. Oh, hello.
Thorin. Bard. Gandalf.
Nothing for me. Come in.
You can see the world that we inhabit here for the last 25 years.
Decorated the trailer with things that remind me of home.
Villages and the seaside in Northern lreland, where l'm from.
My horse, Riverside Theatre.
That's Martin and l. He plays, um...one of the characters in it.
And, uh, there's the main character, me, Bofur.
Hello, everybody.
Um, my name is Luke Evans and l play Bard.
And I'm gonna take you on a little trip around Trailer Park.
We have 21 trailers where we've been living for the last seven and a half years.
-This is Aidan, Kili. -Look at this.
-My neighbor. -Who are these guys?
I don't know. I'm just trying to show them around.
-Stephen. HUNTER: How are you?
It's a long time we spend here sometimes...
...when they're setting up scenes. It takes a long time, so....
It's like flatting, isn't it?
-Basically. What's "flatting"? -Yeah.
Dean-o!
They keep all the young, good-looking lads at one end.
The ugly buggers don't want to mix with us.
That was rubbish! Where's the green frog?
Good morning.
And welcome to Stone Street. I'm just off to my prosthetics.
-Morning all. WOMAN: Good morning.
Okay, so this is my spot currently, with the lovely Rachelle.
And now we're about to start the process.
Come and see me again in a couple of hours, when l'll look radically different.
Two hours later, here we are.
-Hey, Peter, we are traveling in five. HAMBLETON: Okay.
Hey, guys, come with me. I'll take you to the ADs' Portacom, home for a lot of us.
Down in the, uh, ADs' Portacom, we've got 1 1 ADs who work on Main Unit.
We come up with a bit of a plan, and then we run it from here.
-Action. -So on with the show.
Locations Department decided to put some beautiful pictures up...
...of sunny New Zealand. Here in Wellington we get sunny days.
But they are few and far between. We get a lot of rain.
I've got a wet ass.
DARLING: But we also get hail. Lots of hail. -Aah!
Come on in to Block 3. There's some busy little bees down there.
Hey, guys. How you doing? Welcome to The Hobbit Stunt Department. l just died.
Okay, so this is the intensity we like to bring on set every day.
Hopefully, you enjoy it. Come on, guys, let's go!
Going on set, come on. Let's go!
Welcome to the Hair and Makeup Department. Here we are on Day 5953 of shooting.
And we're now actually trying to repair the wigs...
...that have been doing the barrel sequence for the past three days.
As you can see, this wig's a lovely, lovely natural blond color.
Whereas the other wigs that we've now got here, which have been bleached.
And so now l have to try and turn these wigs back into this wig.
So that's my job for the rest of the day, to get all the wigs ready for Monday.
MASKREY: We're in the Costume Workshop.
We've got racks here for all our Dwarves.
Because we have to do constant repeats for their stunt doubles, their photo doubles.
Then we've got our flesh factory...
...where three people have been making the Dwarf fat-suit components.
Oh, yeah.
So this is A Stage.
This is the stage that we built, um, in time for Lord ofthe Rings.
It was our biggest stage then, so we did things like Elrond's chamber at Rivendell...
...where the Council of Elrond took place.
B Stage has, amazingly enough, been used for a lot of shooting.
There was a lot of Lord ofthe Rings. Bag-end was built here in B Stage.
You can hardly call it a studio, really. It's just an old tin shed.
Kind of feels a bit like I'm driving the tram at Universal Studios, ha, ha, l guess.
Over here we do have our biggest sound stage, which is called K Stage.
K being named after King Kong.
We've had some pretty big set pieces in here recently.
Mirkwood Forest and some of the Trollshaw Forest scenes.
Here we have F and G. These are our two newest stages.
Been built specifically for The Hobbit.
They've pretty much got the latest technology inside them.
And rather large extraction units for all those fires and flames and smoke.
JACKSON: At the very end of the studios is the Art Department.
The home of Dan Hennah, Alan Lee and John Howe.
Good morning. Welcome to the Art Department.
Come on in. l think the production designer is in. G'day, Dan.
-Hello, dear boy. All good? TlPPLER: Fantastic.
HENNAH: We've got six weeks and two days of principal photography left.
We're shooting the sluices at the moment, which is filmed on sets.
-We're very busy. -Over here is our set decorator, Ra Vincent.
Hi. Come with me. I've got something very cool to show you.
This is my favorite place.
It brings into play all of the ideas from all the individual contributors in the Art Department.
And they get to share all their ideas in here.
And this is where the first spark of inspiration begins.
And in this office is Alan Lee and John Howe.
I'm Alan.
And I'm John. Good afternoon.
LEE: We basically sit here all day long doing drawings.
HOWE: Three years of it. A couple of thousand drawings each.
And amazingly enough, we're still having fun.
We see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we thought for a second...
...ooh, it might be a train.
But it turns out it's a dragon.
Come through this way to the model makers. Our calligrapher, Daniel Reeve.
And this way to the model makers.
So we have many models we have to make.
We've done approximately 1 1 5 sets to date...
...and each one of those sets, we try to make a model...
...to show Peter before we begin construction.
That kind of thing's nice.
We've got this model we showed Peter this morning.
There's a few adjustments we have to make for it.
And then we'll be straight into construction of this.
We shoot this in one week's time.
Welcome. We're here on F Stage. Come on in. That's where Main Unit's shooting today.
We're doing a scene here for Film 1 . It's a scene in the Troll cave.
So follow me. We'll come here.
Zane, our lovely producer.
Less information....
Ian and Richard leaving.
And now follow me. We'll go on set, but, um, quietly. They're rehearsing there.
I'm Corrin, the boom-swinger. This is Tony, the sound recordist.
These are some of the newer stages.
Had sound-proofing, which makes it fantastic for us...
...being as there's an airport just over the hill that way.
ANTS: This is the first production that's been in here.
One of the biggest things is there's head room now.
Guys can walk these walkways without bumping their head.
I'm a roof-dweller. Handy if you don't have fear of heights.
Very embarrassing if you drop something. Costs you two dozen beer.
WOMAN 1 : All right, shooting. WOMAN 2: Shooting.
But now we're just gonna, shh, walk away. They're gonna shoot.
WOMAN 1 : Three, two, one, action!
Hi, my name's Dion. I'm head of Technology on The Hobbit.
Just gonna show you through my office and my space...
...known as the Tin Shed. Come on in.
We look after the technology. Rigs, cameras.
This rig here is a surface rig for shooting on water.
Going in the next couple of days to shoot a very exciting sequence with the Dwarves.
She's all wireless and all made here in Wellington over the last couple of weeks.
G'day. You've seen some pretty good technology back there in the Tin Shed.
Come have a look out here, because this is pretty basic technology.
This is where we built a humongous green screen.
This is called the Back Lot.
Now, the Back Lot is where we shoot all sorts of the outdoor scenes.
They could be battle scenes. They can be wet sets.
And, obviously, being a green screen...
...the backgrounds can be changed later on in postproduction.
Have a look down here.
Well, now you can see we're on top of the green screen.
This rig up here is a rig designed by Tony Keddy, the key grip.
This rig holds huge shade cloth to block the sun off when we're filming here.
We don't want the sun going in and out of the cloud all day.
Crikey. What's going on down here?
This is Nine Square.
It's pretty complicated.
Get the ball, hit it to the next player, get it out of your square quickly.
Anything on the line is always contentious.
It's all about attitude. Do not give in. Do not make eye contact.
-Make your call with pride. -You'll lie your way through.
-It's always the umpire's call. -The ref is always right!
Guys, please. l'm trying to do some--
CROWD: Aw.
This is where we store the lead weapons. You can see a multitude of boxes.
Each box is one lead characters weapons. This is Gloin's box of beauties.
And they belonged to Gimli in The Lord of the Rings.
-And Gloin, his father, for The Hobbit. WOMAN: Action.
FlLl: Gloin!
They are, in fact, the same axe. They've just been made in two different sizes.
I think we've now reached about four scales for every weapon we make.
Probably about time that you went down to see who made all these weapons.
Weta Workshop. Very easy, around the corner.
Out the front drive. Make sure you take a right.
Go past the Thai place, then turn left. Go all the way down the end of the road.
Don't stop. You'll get to the end. The road's 90-degree turn.
You need to turn or you'll hit Weta Workshop.
Hey, you guys. Come on in.
It's, uh, pretty crazy at the moment. Come on down here.
All cast weapons end up in cleanup.
This young chap, Alec, is madly trying to get the axes finished.
Bow strings. Weapons lined up for the day's painting.
So Kelly's just putting the aging pass on quite a decent croquet hammer.
Another painting area. This is Models. The Milling Department.
Injection molding out of this gun. Spraying. Trimming. Sanding.
Ha, ha. Engineering. Bending. Cutting. Dying. Sculpting. Mold making.
Flesh. Baking. Foam fillings.
And then for every one of the lead actors that has a full prosthetic.
And, of course, with Bifur, his ax.
We also make scale doubles of these.
Welcome to the Scaley Portacom. Hi, I'm Callie.
-I'm Sophie. -I'm Brendan.
And this is Bifur, the hopeless romantic.
CALLIE: We're scale doubles, so we spend a lot of time being short.
SOPHIE: Yeah. BRENDAN: We're paid to be short.
They wanted us for our bodies.
Have you seen the behind-the-scenes team yet?
-I know where they are. Follow me. CALLIE: See you later.
ALL: Bye!
JACKSON: A long time ago, actually, before there was....
What are you doing?
I've been filming the blog. It's like a pet project.
-Filming the blog? -Yeah.
That's very good, but shouldn't you be killing Orcs or something?
-Shouldn't you be directing a movie? -Yeah.
Right, so here we are at the end of the blog.
Hope you've enjoyed this tour around our little world down here in Miramar, New Zealand.
I hope you particularly enjoyed the camerawork.
-I thought it was terrific. -Wonderful.
In fact, I think we should take that wig off and get you behind the camera.
-I'll take over the role. Don't worry. -Ha, ha.
-Can l do now? -You want to be Legolas?
-Yes, we should get Kiran in as Legolas. -Yes.
Kiran as Legolas. This is a-- lt's a done deal.
Hey, so we're gonna come back with another blog...
...when we wrap in a few weeks' time, or shortly after we wrap.
So look forward to, um, our final blog of our shooting period coming up soon.
The bitter end. Ha, ha.
-The happy end. -The happy end.
JACKSON: So welcome to our latest blog.
We're driving to Comic-Con with butterflies in my stomach.
Presenting footage for the first time is always a slightly intimidating and scary thing.
Plus, I've gotta face a day of interviews.
But, um, another 1 0 hours and it'll all be behind us.
Hey. Whoo!
So hopefully we'll, uh, find Ian and Richard in here somewhere.
The Hobbit certainly is more funny. One interview down.
When I call you guys up on-stage--
-Are we coming out one at a time? -Yes.
I saw on The One Ring this morning...
...that people have been camping out since Wednesday to get into Hall H.
Those are the sorts of people that I like hanging out with.
I'm gonna be going on soon.
And I've been recruited to do some blog filming with my iPhone.
Because this camera isn't allowed on-stage.
But nobody is gonna stop me shooting with my iPhone.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Peter Jackson.
Let's bring up a few of our friends that we have here.
Philippa Boyens.
Andy Serkis.
Richard Armitage.
Martin Freeman.
Sir Ian McKellen.
We also have a surprise guest, Elijah Wood.
I love you guys. I came all the way from Brazil just because of you.
MAN: Thank you.
I spent all my money on this trip, but it was worth it.
JACKSON: These are the people that we're making the film for.
And I'm really happy that it was received in such a great way.
I'd like you to do something for the people that couldn't be here.
Could you just say, "Hi, from Comic-Con."
One, two, three.
CROWD: Hi from Comic-Con!
JACKSON: There you go.
Fantastic. No need for take two, that was bloody good.
And so now, we would like to show you a little bit of what we showed the audience in Hall H.
-That's great. -Cut. Cool.
Welcome to the last five days of our shoot.
It's a bittersweet kind of moment.
It feels like l'm still at the foot of the mountain.
It's difficult to do a wrap out on our last bit of shooting...
...because so much of what we've been doing recently...
...has been Film 2, which is obviously secret.
But, um, we'll show you little bits and pieces. Little snippets.
And there'll be a lot more of what we've been doing that we'll save up for future blogs.
Hey, Comic-Con fans. How are you? This is Dori, coming live from the set of The Hobbit.
Stay classy, San Diego.
Hi, Comic-Con. John Callen here. I play Oin in The Hobbit.
Hi, this is Dwalin saying a big hi to all of you in Comic-Con.
Greetings from the very heart of Middle-earth.
A really amazing moment for me, l guess, was the first time we stepped onto Bag-end.
It's become so embedded in your psyche from what you've seen before.
We're all ready to go...
...and Ian came on for the first time.
And you look at him and you go, "My God, that's Gandalf."
I look back with fondness, we got to know each other on Bag-end.
-We really got to know each other as Dwarves. ALL: Ha-ha-ha.
Hi, Comic-Con. It's Adam Brown here, aka Ori from The Hobbit set.
One of the most exciting things, I think, for me...
...was working on these sets that are kind of a part of our history.
And there was I working on Rivendell with some incredible actors.
Just watching Cate Blanchett act, it was very moving.
We had shivers down our spines.
It was absolutely astonishing.
It's been a privilege being back in Middle-earth.
I hope you're having a good time. My name is Lee Pace.
I play the Elven King, Thranduil.
Some of the work that l really loved was with Terry Notary...
...who designs movement for the different races.
And the way the Elves move is very different than the way the Dwarves move, obviously.
It was really fun to get into that character and really move in a way that is not human.
Yeah.
Sylvester, who played Radagast, is the loveliest man.
I need people.
I think that Sylvester is gonna be one of the delights of these movies.
The real McCoy.
I remember going out to Trentham...
...and wandering through 1 00 meters of forest they built...
...and seeing Rhosgobel, which is Radagast's house.
Radagast's character was a lovely spirited wizard...
...and his house really reflected his character beautifully.
Dale was beautiful. It was like being in another country.
HOPE: lt was very Moroccan, Turkish... SERKlS: Moroccan.
-...Italian. SERKlS: ltalian. Yes.
Dale was one of the larger sets.
JACKSON: lt rivaled some of the bigger sets we've ever built...
...which would have been Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep, I guess, in the old days.
The city of Dale is such a huge set.
You're able to just wander around...
...as if you were in some abandoned city you've always wanted to visit.
The most fun l've had on set would probably be the Goblins.
Goblin-town, their sets just seemed to be really sharp and really angular...
...and lots of flames and lots of bones.
We were introduced to the Great Goblin.
Barry Humphries is something of an iconic legend in this part of the world.
And, uh, l've seen two or three of his Dame Edna stage shows.
And Barry and the Goblin King just seemed to be a natural fit.
Have you seen the pile of intestines?
No, but l'll go and check them out.
I don't know if anyone's home, but we'll soon see.
I found Beorn's house absolutely mesmerizing.
It's one of my favorite parts of the book. And the creation, the carving that they did...
...inside that beautiful barn, and everything was so oversized.
I wanna write the theme tune, sing the theme tune.
JACKSON: We built it to the scale of the Dwarves so it was huge.
It made all of us feel small.
I used to be able to stand on that set and look at the crew setting up the camera...
...and they looked like tiny little people. It was kind of incredible.
Morning, everyone. Happy last day. Morning.
What we're doing for this shot is we're gonna set--
We're gonna get Orlando up on here.
Somebody stuck something to my back? What is it?
Second unit, I think we're a bit of the rock 'n' roll unit. We have fun.
Greg's shorts, l think. They have to be on.
Just loop it, bro. Just loop it. No problem.
-I'm disturbed. -It's like an 8-year-old schoolboy.
What do you mean, it's like an 8-year-old schoolboy?
He's a rock star.
JACKSON: He has got energy to burn.
And that infectious enthusiasm and his absolute dedication...
...made a huge difference to the second unit.
And crank it up.
And in three, two, one, action.
And cut.
That is a wrap for the second unit.
Second unit.
Mixture of emotions.
It's good to finish, but sad.
Quite frankly, l can't imagine this occurring anywhere else on the planet...
...so thank you from the bottom of my heart.
One of the memories that really sticks in my head the most...
...is walking in through the gates of Stone Street at 4:45 in the morning when it's dark...
...and there's no one else here and the stars are still out.
And then slowly the studio comes to life and the sun comes up.
I saw a lot of those days.
You're getting up at 5:30 for a year and a half.
-At least 1 2 hours a day. -Morning.
You literally just wake up every morning and go shoot a movie.
And it seems to last a lifetime.
This is the kind of movie, changes everybody's lives.
What we do is kind of driven by adrenaline...
-...so we keep going until we collapse. -Ha, ha.
We've got ready about 20 people a day and that's about 5000 prosthetic makeups.
It's not gonna work. lt's not in line. Ow!
We're busy, but sometimes we get bored being busy.
In the last 18 months, we've gone through 20 liters of glue.
About 450 miles of yak hair.
Hence there are now a lot of cold yaks in the Himalayas somewhere.
I've never worked on such a hairy movie.
Even I'm sporting a beard. Never had a beard before.
So it's obviously rubbing off somewhere along the line.
The amount of lead characters with costumes.
For some reason, they all wanna wear costumes. They all want pants. They all want shoes...
...made for an enormous amount of costumes.
All of these clothes to nearly the back of the truck is Bilbo.
Smaug's lair, we use so much gold paint, used everything in Australasia.
We had to get it from Germany. Wunderbar.
22,817,520 feet...
...if we were shooting 35 mil like this, and I'm really glad we're not.
I'm sure that l've done over 2500 drawings. I kept my pencil stubs.
You're literally doing the drawing one day and then walking on the sets a few days later.
We shoot a set, take it out and replace it for the very next day's shoot.
JACKSON: They put up the most incredible sets.
You walk in the night before, it's not finished and you think:
"My God, how are we ever gonna be in here tomorrow filming?"
You walk in 8:00 the next morning and it's ready to go.
To me that's probably one of the most gratifying things on this whole picture.
That all these people force through impossible odds and create these beautiful things.
-Wow, look at that. MAN: Yes.
I'll miss the camaraderie of the folks that we've built up, and the cast and crew.
You know, we've spent an awful long time together.
There's, like, sort of 12 or 1 3 of us who have been in a mini army.
Well, I mean, they're all people I would love to work with again. Fantastic cast.
You bastard.
I'm surrounded by these mates. I'm surrounded by my comrades.
I'm surrounded by these great actors.
Please, not every time. Get off. God, they're so-- I mean....
You get so close that you're, um, able to freely abuse them on a daily basis...
...and they don't seem to mind.
FREEMAN: And that's the poster.
There are a very high quality of human beings involved.
Soon, we won't be together as a gang.
Which is gonna be sad. We'll miss each other terribly.
You're getting to come to work with a group of people that you love working with...
...that you love hanging out with. It's a real family.
What's this in our laundry?
Look at that. Oh! Ha-ha-ha!
My undies.
Red-handed.
What happens on The Hobbit stays on The Hobbit. Ha, ha.
JACKSON: Finishing up on Mirkwood today, eh?
It's the old, you know, finish with a bang.
Look out.
MAN 1 : l'm gonna miss you. MAN 2: l'm gonna miss you, man.
Ow. Ow!
Okay, and action.
GANDALF: l need a horse. MAN 1 : Why? Where are you going?
GANDALF: In search of answers.
All right, and cut.
Well, unless anybody has anything else they wanna shoot...
...I think we should call it a day. Thank you.
Well, obviously, l just want to say thank you to everybody.
An incredible cast. An incredible crew.
Seems like a lifetime ago that I had to do this speech at the beginning of the shoot.
Oh, God, that was a long time ago.
You know, as a director, it can be kind of a lonely job.
Um, you know, at times you feel like you're by yourself trying to solve problems.
But then everybody steps in...
...and suddenly I realize I've got this incredible support...
...and all of you guys have got my back and you're behind me.
And for that l'm incredibly grateful. Thank you.
MAN: Yeah, l think there's bubbles right next door.
JACKSON: lt's been a terrific atmosphere shooting this movie.
And I hope the blogs have, in some way, given you all a chance to share in that...
...and to experience it for yourselves.
And we'll be continuing in postproduction.
The energy, the environment, everything's gonna be very, very different...
...but it's still got an equal amount of challenges.
So look forward to seeing you during postproduction.
It's just lemonade. Honestly.
Come on, show some love. Put your arm around the person next to you.
Show me.
Welcome to the theater at Park Road Post.
This is our postproduction facility in Wellington.
And this is where we're spending a huge amount of time at the moment...
...just working on getting The Hobbit finished.
It's due to be completed literally two days before the premiere.
Hopefully. Ha, ha.
So we'll give you a look at where we're at with postproduction.
You're gonna see a lot of sleep-deprived people in this blog.
Everyone's working around the clock to get the film finished.
So everything begins at Editorial.
BEST: So here's the Bunker, Editorial.
I am Dan Best. I'm the first assistant editor on The Hobbit.
So next door to us is the Cutting Room.
Jabez and Peter are in there, busy cutting film two at the moment.
JACKSON: We were shooting this with 1 50 people on the set.
And then here we are sitting here and it just comes down to Jabez and l. Two of us.
The last two men standing, uh, get to edit the movie.
So it's quite a relaxing and enjoyable process.
And while you're putting that together, I'm gonna make another cup of tea.
When Jabez has something very simple to do that doesn't need me around...
...I get the cups, go make a cup of tea and come back and it's all done.
Very good.
Hey, welcome to Previs. Come on in. Christian's just down this way.
We're the front-end creative team that Pete uses to design a lot of his shots.
We are animating the camera and the characters around...
...to form what's kind of like 3D storyboards, almost at a video-game level.
RlVERS: Typically, you do previs before you shoot.
Obviously, they finished principal photography and we're still previs'ing a few shots.
We've just got a shot turned over from Peter.
This is what we get from Editorial sometimes.
Basically we get a blank card that says something like, "CG wide shot.
Goblins slowly move torture machines towards the Great Goblin's platform."
We gotta turn this stuff around pretty quickly.
It's Christian over here at Previs.
We just got a shot turned over that, we need some torture machines. Cheers.
Usually they're pretty quick. Here we go.
We have from Weta Workshop some torture machine designs.
We need to get these modeled pretty quick, guys.
-It'll only be a minute or two. -Yeah, a minute.
-Jerry, what are you doing? -I'm making a 3D extravaganza.
It wouldn't be a good shot if you didn't have sound effects, so: Aah!
-The models coming through yet? MAN: Yeah, here it is.
-Jerry, can we get textures on that? -Sure, no problem. Already on it.
-Already on it? RlVERS: Almost done.
So the thing is we've gotta turn this stuff around pretty quickly...
...because, you know, the film delivers in, like, eight weeks.
What do you do, Eric?
Uh, I just stare at code all day.
So you got your torture machines. How's the shot going?
Yeah, sorry it took so long, but l think this is gonna work.
Very cool. No, it looks good. We should send it to Pete and see what he says.
It'll be a really cool moment. That's good, yes.
Just got PJ notes. We're off to, um, talk to a few supervisors...
...about what we have to do now on a few extra shots.
This is the original building we had on Rings.
For hobbit, now we've expanded to eight different buildings.
-This used to be an insane asylum. -Yes. Used to be an insane asylum.
Still, days like this, it feels like it even so.
We're at the six-and-a-half week mark.
Um, not much time left to finish this one.
We're at Wexford Road now.
This is the original production office for Lord of the Rings.
But now it's the home of all the animators for Hobbit.
Troll sequence, definitely one of the biggest challenges.
They're speaking, which is something new for Trolls.
Are there any more of you little fellas hiding where you shouldn't?
No.
-In Rings, they're always only grunting. -Yeah.
CLYTON: Peter shot it live-action on the mocap stage.
Are there any more of you little fellas hiding where you shouldn't?
Pete liked the action...
...but wanted to go a little bit bigger on what the stunt guys were doing.
So maybe we do a custom mocap shoot with those bits?
MAN: Action.
That felt good. l'm happy with that. Okay, should we move on?
We've advanced the art of motion capture quite substantially on The Hobbit...
...uh, including the detail of motion-capturing individual hairs of Dwarfs' beards.
Come on in. Welcome to the Department of lnternal Beard-Hairs.
We're gonna tell you about what we do.
Kev, can we get you to paint, please?
-Having beards on set is dangerous. -Incredibly. We've lost a lot of good beards.
Right, so we've created a virtual beard in the computer and what this allows us to do--
-Whoa, layman's terms, please. -Sorry. Sorry.
We have a beard in the computer.
Motivation here: it's dark, it's stormy. You're in the mountains.
Action. Wind. Rain. Lightning bolts.
And cut.
So this looks great. Can we go ahead and propagate this?
Right. So what I can do is just by pushing this one button here....
And voila, you can see that the beard has now been propagated throughout the film.
It's the power of beard-capture technology.
-Nice work, guys. -Good job, everybody.
I don't think there's anybody working harder at the moment, probably...
...than the Weta digital artists who have got several hundred CGl shots to do...
...in the last few weeks of postproduction.
We have a lot of shots to deliver each week.
In fact, the most shots Weta has really ever delivered.
-Good luck. Let's break the record. -Have a great week.
It's Saturday at Wexford Road.
The first thing we have to do each morning is release the animators.
So should we do that? Are we ready?
-Are they there? MAN: Wake up!
-It's time! MAN: Wakey, wakey!
Come on, sleep is for the weak! Sleep is for the weak!
CLYTON: Don't get dressed.
If people don't have to leave, we're happy for them to stay.
We have people that give massages here.
We actually do laundry for people.
-They get three meals. -Scrambled eggs. Yum.
Conceptual artists eat when they can.
A concept artist's work is never done...
LEE: ...especially on a big effects movie like this.
We're still conceptualizing after having been here for three years.
HOWE: As long as there's still a shot that has an empty spot...
...whether it's green or whether it needs something in front, you just keep at it.
And we're painfully conscious that behind us are considerable teams of people...
...awaiting for artwork to do the 3D and the texturing...
...and the lighting and the animation.
The big house where we're going now is where we've put in the Goblin team.
That's the Goblin Mobile right there, Chris White's vehicle.
MAN: lt's exactly the same car my grandmother has.
SHERWOOD: It was apparently a reform school.
People tell me they see ghosts in here.
There's claw marks in the basement.
So come in if you dare.
So what Peter was looking for was to create this whole world underground.
So we're creating this Goblin-town with all these different structures...
...and light and walkways and fires, and so this is some of the work in progress.
A lot of what we're doing on this guy is beauty lighting.
Because we've gotta really highlight all of his warts and all that good stuff.
He's quite hideous, but he has to look beautiful at the same time.
JACKSON: Here at Park Road Post Production, down the corridor...
...we've got Andrew Lesnie, our DP, doing the color timing of the film.
Hi. And welcome to the Dl.
Um, yesterday, we made chicken laksa and today we're going to cook up pad thai.
Dl is short for "digital intermediate."
This is part of a process which is called the color grading.
It is like Photoshop for motion pictures.
This is the exterior of Bag-end.
We filmed this shot in Matamata.
We didn't have the most ideal weather on the day...
...but the landscape is still very beautiful.
So we actually are just working the original material on this one.
Essentially, what we do is we start with the plate...
...and then we're building up basically a layered grade...
...and the result is what you see there.
We also have these dueling lasers so that we can do this.
-This bit of grass right there, yeah. -This bit?
Distinct from this bit over here. Ha, ha.
We've got these lights up for the blog...
...but traditionally we work in a much darker environment.
And, um, we actually work in an environment that's, in fact, even darker than this...
...but mimics a cinema.
Hi. You're at Park Road Post.
And, uh, this is where we're doing the sound for The Hobbit.
Uh, let's go and have a look.
Gollum, gollum.
We start the day with a dance. That's the first thing we do in Sound.
And we hand along. Chris, take the floor.
-We do the fader dance. WHITEHEAD: Fader dance, yeah.
You can see Dave's cut 1 6 layers of sounds for this Goblin.
And he's done such a cool job that....
See what else l can do to it, which is fun and challenging.
I think a lot of people don't understand about how a film gets made.
How many people it takes to piece a soundtrack together. We have dialogue.
Elves.
FARMER: We have music.
And in sound effects alone, we break into several categories.
Standard sound effects: Swords, body falls, doors, things like that.
We have ambiances, which is like some wind.
We have some crowd sounds, things like that.
Run!
What we're doing today is we put out a friends and family and other departments call...
...to come down and be panicked villagers for Dale for when it gets desolated by Smaug.
That's how we rock it in Sound Post here.
Right. And here Matt's cutting the crowds...
...and all that sort of stuff. Grr!
We're on our way.
Feels like a scene from The Shining down this hallway.
I really wish l had a tricycle.
Foley.
They got the best-sounding door.
Foley's a specific part of the soundtrack which relates to humans.
Anything associated with what they touch and how they move is recorded by these guys.
Get to bash stuff, break stuff.
Drag it, stretch it, bend it.
What makes a great foley track...
...is often the interpretation of the sound rather than the sound itself.
Goblin claws.
It's just banjo picks.
Makes it very awkward when you go to the toilet.
Welcome to Abbey Road Studio One.
This is the place where we make all these fabulous soundtracks, including The Hobbit.
And that's what we're doing today. We're back in the studio for a record day.
Full orchestra today.
ELLlOTT: There'll be 93 people in their various sections.
This is Howard's conductor's podium.
So this is where he stands and directs the orchestra from.
Abbey Road is legendary with its microphone collection.
So here's one that John Lennon sang into when he was a recording artist at the studio.
I've never had a shot with one here.
Can you get that?
ELLlOTT: The musicians receive the music for the first time.
They don't rehearse it or anything like that.
They just turn up, the sheet music is in front of them and they play.
This is rather important to make sure these get onto the podium.
Here's the control room.
It's an adrenaline rush to be looking out at the orchestra...
...that we're kind of in control of this fabulous sound.
You're right. We're happy with that. Let's take a break.
Theater 2. This is the final mix room. This is where it all comes together.
MAN: Well.
Look who it is.
BOYES: We all arrived with tons and tons of sounds.
Then in the final mix we have to figure out what sound makes sense, what sound doesn't.
You could put a horse vocal on the shot to let us know we're there.
BOYES: But at the end of the day, hopefully we've got clarity and we are telling the story.
And I have to say it's really fun.
We got another three weeks and then.... Um, and another couple films.
So the journey's long from over. It's just really starting.
GOLLUM: Yes, yes.
So that's what's happening at the moment.
The premiere is very, very close.
But fortunately, people are staying calm.
They're staying incredibly disciplined. Focusing on their work.
We are blessed to have such a sane, sensible team.
So there we have it.
Gives you a taste of where we are, but we will catch up with you very, very soon.
And invite you to come along and have a look at our experience at the premieres.
-All right, cool. -Good morning.
JACKSON: Welcome to our new blog. It's been a very busy final few days.
On Sunday we showed Peter the last shot of the movie.
Our last delivery shot and the last shot of the movie.
-That's the one. Heh, heh, heh. -Okay.
-There's always a last shot. -Fantastic.
JACKSON: We kind of finished the movie Sunday morning.
-That'll do it. JACKSON: And just a few hours later...
...a room full ofjournalists showed up to see it.
You'd say that it was dripping wet.
It was digitally dripping wet.
Funny, the day the press started watching...
...to know we're still working.
JACKSON: So should we have lunch and then you guys can.... Right?
-Congratulations. WOMAN 1 : Yeah, thank you.
MAN: Yeah. WOMAN 2: Good job.
JACKSON: More work on the Dolby Atmos mix. That finished yesterday morning.
BILBO: Everything all right? Gandalf, where are you going?
BOWLlNG: So we're here at the Embassy Theatre.
Had a complete retrofit for Dolby Atmos.
So there are 36 total surround speakers in here.
There are 28 around the audience, and then there are eight overhead surrounds.
We can now uniquely place sounds either around the audience, and even above.
But we can also have this really smooth 360-degree movement of sound.
Well, that's good. l think that solves it.
MAN 1 : That's much better, yeah. MAN 2: Much better.
Welcome to our temporary once set up for the organization...
...of The Hobbit world premiere.
There's probably about 1500 people, I think.
In here and at the council, Art Department, all getting ready frantically...
...to have everything in place for the big day.
There's lots of fun things about working in Middle-earth.
One of the coolest is actually getting to the few weeks before the premiere.
Because you get to build things like this.
We're doing another Gollum. This is for our local airport.
It will be suspended on the roof, welcoming all of the guests that come along to Wellington.
It's been a frantic night, but we're done.
As in tradition there will be something adorned to the top of the Embassy...
...especially for the premiere.
So our idea right from the beginning was to make a large-scale version of Gandalf...
...making his mark on the green door at Bag-end...
...which really was the start of the journey.
This element here is the background to the stage.
So on the day, we'll install this in such a way that it creates a forced-perspective element.
So looking through a camera lens, Gandalf will be the same height as me.
-I'm so excited! -Aah!
The city has definitely got hobbit fever.
And it just really adds to the whole atmosphere of the premiere, and we can't wait.
There was just The Hobbit everywhere.
Massive banners, flags all down the streets.
Just a fantastic place. We got to go to The Hobbit market. Wonderful.
What we've got going on here is we've set up a market in Waitangi Park.
This is where all the prop makers...
...fabrics people who made stuff for The Hobbit...
...everyone's gonna display what their night job actually is.
We're almost on the eve of the premiere, and very exciting time, of course, for everybody.
It's great catching up with all these guys.
Isn't it great? lt's like the boys are all back together again.
Bad, bad, naughty, boarding school.
-Beatings. -Your buttocks are so firm.
HUNTER: It's great to be back in town.
Now, there is an energy, there's a buzz, something's happening.
It was a great night last night. The only problem was the emcee...
-...was just a little bit.... -He was a bit rubbish.
KIRCHER: Who was the emcee? HAMBLETON: Some guy called Jed Brody.
BROPHY: We have some very special guests with us here this evening.
Mr. Peter Jackson and Mr. Elijah Wood.
Hello.
Again, thanks very much for all your support. A huge amount.
WOMAN: Thank you! CROWD: Thank you!
It was run by the fans for the fans, really. And they got dressed up to the nines.
Just coming up to the airport now.
Looking forward to seeing ourselves on an airplane. Doesn't happen every day.
NESBlTT: They're giving us one of these planes each.
Yeah, l've got one. lt's about that big.
No, Richard and Martin are getting live-scale ones.
Whoo!
NESBlTT: We're all also very excited to see the remaining Dwarves who are coming.
MAN: Yeah. NESBlTT: Disembarking from the plane.
We haven't seen them for a long time. Dean O'Gorman...
...Graham, Aidan Turner. You know, it's very exciting.
This morning a giant plane from Air New Zealand landed at Wellington.
We had all the talent out there for that. I think they're excited to be back.
It was quite fun to see them all at the airport...
...together as one big group. So, yeah, it's a reunion of the family.
They came back and we've just been doing what's called a press junket.
That's where they do interviews, one-on-ones with the talent.
It's interview after interview after interview with different networks and stations.
So it was a long day for them.
Cinemax.
Hi. Wow.
Hello, all precious persons.
-It's just another day at the office. -Okay.
It is 5 p.m. on the 27th of November.
We are hours away from starting the road closures on Courtenay Place.
And we're just getting ready for a long night of installation...
...of red carpet, barriers, big-screen TVs...
...signage, placards, banners, flags.
You name it, it's all gotta go in overnight, ready for the morning.
So once again, it's obviously a big red carpet down Courtenay Place.
We've had a few movie premieres before this.
One that brings back all the memories is in 2003...
...when we did The Return of the Ring for the Lord of The Rings trilogy.
We got a Guinness World Record for the longest red carpet at a film premiere, at 422 meters.
So my aim is to try and break it again.
So the guests will be going several times around a block...
...just for the hell of it, just so l can get my Guinness World Record for this movie as well.
We wanna see a huge turnout, which is gonna be amazing.
Wellingtonians, residents, the film industry and filmmakers.
But also people coming in from all around the country, and in fact, all around the world.
We come from, um, Germany.
We are from Melbourne, Australia.
I arrived down here about 9:30. I plan to sleep here on the concrete.
We have our Fellowship cloaks to keep us impervious from weather.
JACKSON: Here we are. The day of the premiere.
We were driving in here at about 9:00 in the morning...
...and there were so many people on the red carpet.
And this is, you know, eight hours ahead of time.
And a lot of those people had been camping there overnight.
It's pretty humbling really, to think that....
On one level l think we're making a movie. We're making a piece of entertainment.
But on the other hand, there is this show of support for what we're doing.
And we're very, very grateful for that.
Hello. Yeah.
Hello. Hello.
Oh, um.... l think we've been steered in the wrong direction.
Well, this is the smallest press conference l've ever attended.
There's a couple big sequences that you might want to, you know....
Look, l did that when Barry's goiter was flopping around.
Perhaps that is one of the most horrifying images.
But, um, heh, heh....
TAKACS: Hey. Coming to you from the premiere event team office.
The conference has finished.
We're four hours away from the red carpet.
You shall not....
TAKACS: One of the things that's been awesome is that in the buildup...
...we've had the Lord of The Rings trilogy playing right out of our balcony. lt's been great.
We have brought out elements. There's gonna be segments of sets, props along the carpet.
Every now and again along the way, the actors will have photo opportunities...
...with some of the set dressing...
...some of the typical hobbit-ish environment...
...on the way to the cinema, which is another 300 meters up the road.
WlLSON: We'll have some extras dressed up as Hobbits.
Lots of ears, and wigs, and costumes, and hairy feet.
Hello.
No problems with the crowd.
MAN: Have you had any streakers? -Oh. Not yet.
-Not yet. l'll be looking out for that. -Ha, ha, ha.
Well, it's here, it's time. I believe it's almost 4:30.
Neil Finn's on the stage. VIP cars are about to arrive.
So basically the red carpet is beginning. The media pits are full...
...barriers are full of the crowd.
I can probably from here, must see about 1 0,000 Gandalf hats on everyone's heads.
We're waiting for the big man to arrive, and the rest of the talent. lt's nearly time.
ANNOUNCER & CROWD: Three, two, one!
This is for Peter, Fran and Philippa. Thank you.
Far over the misty mountains rise
Leave us standing
Hello. Hello.
Hey, everybody, how are you? You all right?
That was before
We see once more
Is our kingdom
JACKSON: How long have you guys been standing here?
Forever.
-I hope you've got sunscreen on. -We do. A little bit.
JACKSON: A little bit.
-I like your ears. -Thank you very much for coming.
It is insane.
There's fans left and right, and everywhere you can look. And it's amazing. So much support.
-I love it. MAN: Can I ask where your shoes came from?
JACKSON: From the floor in the hallway, just underneath where the raincoats hang.
I hope l'm still in it.
MAN: Here it comes.
Who's that?
I couldn't be more overjoyed for Wellington.
Perfect weather, amazing people, amazing culture.
It's nice to be back, isn't it?
Yes.
I have to stop signing things.
Well, you can sign it if you want.
I'm gonna sign you as well in a minute.
That's representing.
We've done it.
-Couldn't have done it without you. -Couldn't have without you.
There's a guy running down here right now with a USB stick to stick it in the projector.
Last-minute changes.
We're walking really slow on the carpet to try and buy him some time.
JACKSON: Okay, should we bring up some of our actors?
CROWD: Yeah!
JACKSON: l just want to thank you very much for coming.
Honestly, it means such a lot to all of us here.
The last thing l have to do is there's one member of our cast...
...a very distinguished member who couldn't be here tonight.
But he did want to send a greeting to everybody.
So, uh, let me welcome Sir lan McKellen.
McKELLEN: Hello, this is lan mcKellen in London.
Look, is this 3D?
Is this 48 frames per second?
Anyway, my love to everybody. Peter...
...Fran, Philippa, all the cast.
And my favorite Dwarf.
You know who you are.
And the crew.
I'll see you soon. Lots of love. Bye-bye.
JACKSON: That was an amazing experience. God, my adrenaline is still running.
Mind the step. Mind the step.
JACKSON: The first time l've seen the film with an audience. I'm really looking forward...
...to seeing how they respond.
Katie has been my companion on the red carpet.
Thank heavens I had somebody to share it with.
This is the little girl that was a tiny Hobbit baby...
-...in The Fellowshig of the Ring. KATlE: Ha, ha.
JACKSON: ln fact, you were listening to the story of The Hobbit.
So there l was, at the mercy of three monstrous Trolls.
So we're gonna say goodbye now.
And have a fantastic holiday, a wonderful Christmas, everyone.
And thanks for your support throughout the making of the first hobbit movie...
...The Unexpected Journey. And you know what?
We'll be back with our first blog for the second hobbit movie.
There's so much work ahead of us. But we will be back in the new year.
And we will share the experiences of the second movie...
...all the way through next year.
-So I look forward to talking to you again. -Bye.
-Ha, ha, ha.
Yeah! Thank you so much.
Thank you!
Michael, can you just leave for a second?
WOMAN: Good morning. -Oh, my God.
It's too early for this.
I'm just gonna turn the camera around.
-Come on. -Oh.
Will you stop filming?
It's a matter of running around trying to not miss things just as they happen.
What are you filming now, wind?
No profiles.
I said, no profiles.
Are you filming? I'm gonna delete this.
Let's just say once this footage is in the system, is in the system.
What are you doing?
I'm running away to join the Orcs.
My line for today will be, "l'll take on the dragon."
WOMAN: Do you actually have the line? -No. No, l don't have a line.
-Say "see you later" to all The Hobbit crew. -Bye!