04 Sunday Nov 2012
Posted in Film, New Zealand
The Hobbit countdown is on… it’s 24 days to go until the world premiere in New Zealand. While you wait and prepare to travel to Middle Earth, watch this latest video, courtesy of Air New Zealand. Although I always watch air safety videos/demonstrations (it’s like a personal ritual when I fly), for most people this will probably be the only safety video they’ll watch beginning to end…
So, what’s your favourite part?
P.S. Adore the accents!
P.P.S. I’ll take an elf steward any time!
05 Sunday Aug 2012
Posted in Anime / Animated Film, Film, Indie, Japanese, Korean
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Sunday, Sunday. I have made it to New Delhi by now, where it is hot (to the point of melting, but I don’t mind) with occasional bouts of monsoon rain (nothing too heavy yet although I’m hoping for more, not because of the heat, but because I rather like the monsoon). I am not actually on holiday, but I came due to my ever-present need not to stay just in one place as I get too restless (after-effect of being a TCK). I’m rather lucky that I have places I can go to relatively easily – my Dad is based for work here.
Not being in London does mean missing out on just about all August events, but I packed a pile of DVDs and hope I’ll get through at least some of them and also catch up on some of my review backlog. I say “hope” because I also brought a whole lot of other work for my PhD project, other academic research and editorial work and assignments for one of my freelance jobs. Yeah, not really a holiday. Well, at least I get to eat mangoes every day. 
On to trailers: it’s a mixed batch this week – some which I can’t wait to see, others that I’m not quite sure about.
08 Sunday Jul 2012
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“Verregneter Sommer” is a good way of describing today. It’s mid-July, but it has been a semi-chilly, on again, off again rainy day, which really makes it seem not like summer at all. “Verregneter Sommer” actually is a bit hard to translate, “rainy summer” doesn’t really do it justice because “verregnet” means more something like “overly rainy” or “rainy again and again”. The Duden in fact makes it “durch zu lange andauernden Regen verdorben werden” (“to be ruined by rain that continuous for too long”, my translation), which veers a little too much towards the negative in my opinion. But, before this ends up being a pure vocabulary lesson, let’s also make it a literary one.
06 Wednesday Jun 2012
Posted in Film, New Zealand
On the set of The Hobbit: Peter Jackson and Martin Freeman (as Bilbo)
Over the weekend I went to visit a friend in Birmingham and somehow, in between φαβα (fava), Μελιτζανοσαλατα (Melitzanosalata) and Ratatouille (the Pixar movie, not the dish in this case) we ended up on the topic of The Hobbit, browsing the official blog and watching one of the production videos. This morning another one of those vlogs popped up (via the Guardian), giving us a tour around the studios where a lot of the filming has been taking place.
21 Wednesday Dec 2011
Posted in Film, New Zealand
Normally I would be including this as part of the Trailer Weekly series, but this is a trailer that can’t wait until Saturday: the first teaser trailer for The Hobbit! Continue reading »
09 Wednesday Nov 2011
Posted in Film, New Zealand
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Look at the image below with 3-D glasses.
3-D Concept Sketch for The Hobbit
Peter Jackson recently released Production Video #4 on the official The Hobbit Blog. It includes details on the technical aspects of filming in 3-D – and I love that Jackson names his cameras after real people (and animals too!). But the most interesting part of the video is the section on the 3-D drawings done by The Hobbit’s conceptual artists Alan Lee and John Howe.
