THE HOBBIT Production Diary 1

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. It's actually built in our B stage here in Wellington, which is exactly the same stage as it was built 12 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 pre-production that led up to the first day of our shoot. And 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 ya. And this pulls beautifully. This looks great when it's drawn. Oh, so it actually works. And he can also go fighting with the remnants sort of hanging onto his body and be impaling people. We wanted to create a very non-human shape. We do need to do a little blog. You might want to say hi to the fans of The Hobbit. Yeah. Shy artists. My dear, my dear. So we're going up to wardrobe and we're having a look at a couple of dwarf wardrobe and make-up 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 in 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. Oh, my God. Hello. Very good. You can use them like a mace. Oh, yeah. You can just swing, knocking, and then cut the throat and whack it. Glenn was saying there's a nice bit where you just go... and take out about ten orcs. 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 going to be a lot of new bits of Rivendell that we haven't seen before, some really cool bits of Rivendell, actually, that will keep us a little surprised for the time being. Now, there's an old friend upstairs. Let's just have a quick look. Here we are. I'm sure you'll recognise the statue where Narsil the Broken Sword sits. And, of course, in the time of the Hobbit, the sword is going to be here. And it is strange walking around here because it was ten or eleven years ago, and I'm used to looking at a set like this on film, and now we're walking back into it again. It's almost like you've stepped inside a movie. It's a very weird experience. This is where we're going to 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 this is like a little network of caves. Look, there's a whole other little set of passageways down here. It's very 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? Ooh. OK. So how many chairs do we need, for instance? I reckon Bomba sits at the end. And then there's a slight grapple, and then when you pop down, it's like... And then it's secure. Now I know it's sort of safe. This is blocking. This is not really rehearsing, but 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 realise there's something on your foot and perhaps you try to get rid of it first, you know, and then you kind of... This will be fun. This will be more fun when everybody's in make-up and costumes and dying of the heat. Sort of on the corner of the table, we've got Killy. Awesome. Next to Killy, Philly. And then Dory. Dory. And then Nori. Oh, my God. Ori, Dory, Nori, Biffa, Bomba, Biffa, Bomba, Gloy, Noyne, Dory, Dory, Nori. This is a nightmare. We'll have Gandalf here in Florence. 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. You won't be ashamed. 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? The tricky thing is that there are 13 dwarves in 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 moustache and a beard, but you're right, no fat suit. 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, probably. Well, that's going to work with a little bit of finessing. That's going to kind of work. Morning. How are you? Morning. So I'm officially the first person in the makeup chair on The Hobbit. Officially. That's amazing. My name's 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 soundstage and for the welcome that you offer to us. We're all deeply honoured 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. And Martin would like to say a few words. Thank you, Richard. My name's Martin Freeman. I'm in the cast as well. He stole everything I was about to say and now he did. As Richard said, this has been a long time coming today. It's been even longer than we thought it would 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. Hello, everybody. I'm Andy Serkis. I am standing up there 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 I thought that going back to the amazing experience of Lord of the Rings wouldn't be a good idea. But really, you know, now I'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 going to 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 pre-production for another six weeks, I'd say no, no. Hell no, let's just start shooting. And roll sound. And action. In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.