4-15-01

Tolkien's songs and the Shore score Tehanu @ 9:05 pm EST Lots of news about the music came in since last night. Firstly, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is due to start recording Shore's score tomorrow, spending the next two weeks on it, according to a contact in Wellington. Secondly, Radio NZ's Sunday programme 'Artsweek' is going to interview the Irish band that is doing the music for Tolkien's songs in the movies. I think they mean a local NZ band that does Irish/Celtic music. I will try and find out more, but in any case we'll know next Sunday NZ time. Thirdly, the Wellington composers' group 'Plan Nine' are the people who did the score for Peter Jackson's spoof documentary 'Forgotten Silver.' My information was that they were helping composer Howard Shore in some way, or dealing with some other aspect of the music in the film. "I have always found the Forgotten Silver score to be very emotional and haunting," said our informer, Julie. Thanks for that, Julie!

More on Lutrz and The Opening Scenes of FOTR Xoanon @ 7:30 pm EST The ultra cool UK magazine 'SFX' has gained some info regarding some changes PJ has made to 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. While not following the book 100% (which I have always maintained is impossible) PJ uses text from 'The Silmarillion' to gain some inspiration. Read on: SFX has gainerd access to some top information regarding Peter Jackson's adaptation of LOTR. One of our scoopers has discovered a little more about the story, specifically regarding two changes to the tale. These are rumors, so we cannot guarantee their accuracy. Both are additions to the tale, rather than omissions or character revisons. The first is Second Age prologue, which opens the film. Presumably Peter Jackon didn't think the birthday party had enough punch. It details the final battle of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, where Isildur and Elendil truiumph over Sauron, and Isuldur cuts the Dark Lord's finger from his body, taking the ring for himself. During these events, which are detailed in The Silmarillion, Sauron will be seen wearing armour described months back on the net and is supposed to be spikey steel with a tattered cloak and a ram's skull atop the helmet. The second change to the story involved an Orc character named Lurtz. He was introduced to give the Uruk-Hai, Saruman's magically altered Orc servants, a bit more drive. The Uruk-Hai first appear in a scene where they are shown emerging from pods guarded by normal orcs. Standing there, covered in slime, they are asked by Saruman "Who do you serve?" The Uruk-Hai do not answer, prompting a flurry of blows from the other orcs. Thus giaded, they attack and slay their tormentors, Asked again by Saruman "Who do you serve?" they relpy "The White Hand," (Saruman's badge). Later, it is this orc and his men who shoot Boromir Down.

Howard Shore and the LOTR score Tehanu @ 2:44 am EST The soundtrack is still being recorded in the next few weeks by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra - those rumours come from a few directions including the players, who know they have the time blocked out in their schedules for that gig. No more details than that have reached me. More intriguing, somebody told me that there is a group of composers in Wellington called 'Plan 9' - mostly members of the group Six Volts - who is in some way involved with Shore and the score. My contact said that sometimes large film scores use a number of collaborators to fill out the details once the main themes and orchestration are set up by the 'name' composer. Not every Hollywood composer does this, and some do more than others. We didn't have any information on how Shore works, but we had some speculation that the Plan 9 composers are involved with setting Tolkien's songs to music.

A background gabble of voices... Tehanu @ 2:39 am EST A secret Ringer wrote in to say that his university in Wellington was visited by the Rings. Techies were spotted in and around the School for European Languages. They were looking for Geman and Russian speakers. Students were recorded as they spoke whatever came into their head in those languages. For that they were given no script, but then they were asked to read "some sort of gobbledegook" into the microphones. Our spy guesses that they were looking for people to make background noise - after all, they are recording the soundtrack around now, and the background to that might well require some sort of conversation in gutteral accents. Perhaps the Rohirrim or the Orcs? That would have to be a frustrating job....you get a LOTR script and it's in an unknown language!

4-12-01

Cast Watch: McKellen and Wood plus others in NZ Xoanon @ 12:47 am EST TheOneRing.net can confirm rumors that Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Elijah Wood (Frodo) plus other cast members are back in New Zealand doing some ADR (Automatic Dialog Replacement) work and some pick up photography for various scenes throughout the films. More on ADR or 'Looping' ADR stand for "Automated" or "Automatic" Dialog Replacement. Dialog that cannot be salvaged from production tracks must be re-recorded in a process called looping or ADR. Looping originally involved recording an actor who spoke lines in sync to "loops" of the image which were played over and over along with matching lengths of recording tape. ADR, though faster, is still painstaking work. An actor watches the image repeatedly while listening to the original production track on headphones as a guide. The actor then re-performs each line to match the wording and lip movements. Actors vary in their ability to achieve sync and to recapture the emotional tone of their performance. Marion Brando likes to loop because he doesn't like to freeze a performance until he knows its final context. (People have said that one reason he mumbles is to make the production sound unusable so that he can make adjustments in looping.) ADR is usually considered a necessary evil but there are moments when looping can be used not just for technical reasons but to add new character or interpretation to a shot. Just by altering a few key words or phrases an actor can change the emotional bent on a scene.

4-11-01

Great Hi-Rez Pics Xoanon @ 5:54 pm EST Ringer Spy C-Ris sends along some great high rez, high quality images from LOTR. Nothing that we haven't seen before, but you get a good chance to look for some nifty details.

4-09-01

Frodo and the Ring Xoanon @ 5:36 pm EST Ringer Spy PFox sends in a new pic of Elijah Wood (Frodo) and The One Ring.

4-08-01

Peter Jackson: 'Never Again...' Xoanon @ 1:36 pm EST From: Mushroom Not one but two LOTR features on HBO Asia. While the first one featured the FOTR trailer with hints on what a huge task it was to make an epic trilogy. It mentioned how LOTR was voted book of the century. Plus, it had a short interview with Peter Jackson. The second was HBO's "behind the scenes" look on the trilogy which showed mostly interviews of PJ. Nothing new, He talked again about how he'll never do three movies at once ever again. Also how they're confident the official website will get better month on month. They also used scenes from the original online teaser instead of the official FOTR trailer.

4-07-01

Creative Screenwriting Interview with Philippa Boyens Calisuri @ 11:07 am EST Thanks to Ringer fan LC for sending in this follow-up to our March 16th Report on Creative Screenwriting Magazine (Vol.8 No.2): The interview is wonderful, but does contain spoilers. So be warned!

4-03-01

Last new pic, I promise Xoanon @ 11:39 am EST Of course, that's not what you folks want to hear! But this is the last of the new pics we posted yesterday. Check it out!