Posted on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 by David Chen
While I was in New Zealand visiting Weta last week (see part 1, part 2, and part 3 of my write-up for that visit), I found myself unable to resist the chance to take a Lord of the Rings tour. In particular, the Rover Rings tour in Wellington, New Zealand seemed like a solid operation, and was fairly well-reviewed online.
I’m pretty cynical about the pandering, opportunistic nature of such tours in general, and the price of this tour did nothing to assuage my fears ($95 for a half day, $175 for a full day, including lunch). But I was already all the way on the opposite side of the world and Peter Sciretta agreed to front part of the cost if I wrote it up, so I figured, “What the hell, why not?” I decided to take the plunge and fork over the $95 for the half day option.
Hit the jump to see photos and videos of the Rover Rings Lord of the Rings tour, as well as my general thoughts on whether it was worth my time and money.
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Last week, I was fortunate enough to visit Weta in New Zealand and receive a tour of their facilities as they were in the middle of making The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Unquestionably, the highlight of the day was an hour-long Q&A session featuring Jackson in-person and Steven Spielberg via video in LA.
Today, we present to you part of that conversation, in which Spielberg and Jackson extol the virtues of the Weta filmmaking process (read my original piece, for a brief description of the mocap warehouse that is being employed for this film). Tomorrow, we’ll have more of the conversation, in which the two directors discuss some of the direct logistical benefits of motion capture technology.
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On June 20th, I flew to San Francisco to visit Barsoom Studios, in an office building minutes sown the road from Pixar Animation Studios, to see the first footage from John Carter, a big screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic sci-fi novel A Princess of Mars.
In a screening room, Finding Nemo/Wall-E director Andrew Stanton gave us a powerpoint presentation explaining why and how he became involved in the project, and the unique methods they used to “shoot” the film (you can read a transcript of Andrew’s complete presentation and Q&A elsewhere on /Film). We screened a couple scenes from the movie, and the teaser trailer which will be attached to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II (expect to see it online on Thursday, July 14th).
After the jump you can read my brief thoughts, followed by a video blog I recorded with Frosty from Collider (who admits he knows nothing about the source material) and Eric Vespe (better known as Quint from Ain’t It Cool, who knows way way way more than I will ever know about the source material). So we have a good spread of opinions based on a wide range of expectations and knowledge of the source material.
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I’m a huge Muppets fanatic. Over the past five years, I’ve been on the set of many movies and interviewed many big-name directors, actors and writers. This is not a brag, this is set-up. In November of last year, I got a tip that the new Muppets movie was filming at Jim Henson Studios on La Brea in Hollywood. Within minutes, I found myself standing across the street, watching as The Muppets performed in front of the Henson lot (which was transformed into The Muppets Studios_. For me, standing across the street watching The Muppets in action was cooler than being in the great hall of Hogwarts. And lets be clear, I wasn’t even close to the action, I was all the way across the street, snapping photos like a tourist.
That night I got home and shot an e-mail to the nice people at Disney and begged and pleaded, if they invite me to anything this year, please let it be a invite to The Muppets set. For me, that would be better than The Avengers, John Carter or whatever other cool movies are on their slate. In January, an e-mail hit my inbox and clicking on it was like opening a Wonka Bar and finding a shinny golden ticket — I was going to go to the set of The Muppets. After the jump you can watch a video blog I recorded with Steve from Collider talking about our adventure on set, and what we learned about the movie. Enjoy!
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In early August 2010, I had the opportunity to travel to New Orleans to visit the set of the big screen adaptation of Green Lantern. After returning from the set, I recorded a video blog with Frosty from Collider — an in depth discussion about what we saw during the visit and our early impressions. Keep in mind, we didn’t see any completed computer effects rendered footage.
My big takeaway from the visit is that Warner Bros isn’t just making a superhero movie, but that they are making a big space opera. The scope is huge and very ambitious and I’m excited to see if they can pull it off, and if mainstream America are willing to accept the abundance of hard sci-fi elements. I can tell you, I’m excited (despite some of the early unfinished special effects shots).
Watch our set visit video blog embedded after the jump. And throughout the week we’ll be posting transcripts of some of our on set interviews.
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Many of you have likely heard the perplexing tale of Brian Wells, a pizza delivery man who had a bomb strapped to his chest and was instructed to rob a bank. (For those who are unfamiliar, Wired wrote a fascinating and thorough recap of the event.) Such a tragic story would not seem to lend itself to a comedy, and yet, that very premise is serving as the basis for this summer’s 30 Minutes or Less. Some may find the approach tasteless, but if the film’s red band trailer is any indication, Zomebieland director Ruben Fleischer and his knockout cast (which includes Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, Nick Swardson, Michael Peña, and Dilshad Vadsaria) may just pull it off. After the break, we have some new images, a video blog sharing what it was like on the film’s set, and an interview with the film’s director. Read More »
This past August, I had the opportunity to visit the Vancouver set of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is essentially a reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise. A lot has changed in the eight months since I visited the Apes set. As you know, the release dates have changed a few times, the title has morphed from Caesar, to “Caesar: Rise of the Apes” (which was the title they were using on set), to Rise of the Apes to the now even more-wordier title “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” After the jump you will find a video blog I recorded with Germain Lussier — who at the time was writing for Collider, but you now know him as one of the members of the /Film writing team. So even that has changed.
In our in-depth video blog, we talk about our experiences on the set of the film, including our tour of the sets from the movie, concept art demonstrations, interviews with the key cast and crew and more. Throughout the next week, I’ll also be posting transcripts of some of the interviews we conducted on set. After the jump you can also find a pretty lengthy conversation with producers Dylan Clark, Thomas Hammel, writer/producer Rick Jaffa and director Rupert Wyatt.
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If you love movies, you could sit and talk with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for hours. They’re such cool guys and just like us: Humongous movie fans who eat, sleep and breath the art of film. The only difference is that Pegg and Frost just so happen to make movies as well and their latest film, Paul, is yet another love letter to the movies. It follows two British nerds who travel to America for San Diego Comic Con and to visit various alien-themed landmarks. Along the way, they run into a crass, escaped actual alien named Paul and join him on a heartfelt journey filled with references to sci-fi films of the past.
Last week, I was given ten short minutes to speak to Pegg and Frost at one of the venues that not only influenced their film, but makes an appearance in it as well. About three hours outside of Las Vegas resides The Little A’Le’Inn, a tiny restaurant on the doorstep of Area 51 where Pegg and Frost stopped as they were doing research for the movie. There we spoke to Greg Mottola, the director of the film, as well as the co-stars and co-writers, who discussed the film, its references, Carl Weathers (!?) and got super geeky discussing internet spoilers, collectibles and even The Phantom Menace in 3D. Check out the video after the jump. Read More »
