• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Extended Blu-ray Details Revealed

    // Gradly // blog, Movies, News, Rants & Raves No Responses

    Amazon US now have Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Extended Edition trilogy on Blu-ray available to pre-order. The box set will set you back $83.99 (£51.44) and you can pre-order it here.

    Check out below the full listing of what you might find on the discs. You might want to book a couple of weeks of work when this does arrive as I think that’s how long it might take you to get through it all!

    Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

    • Over 30 minutes of footage incorporated into the theatrical release of the film
    • Commentary by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens
    • Commentary by the design team
    • Commentary by the production/post-production team
    • Commentary by 10 actors, including Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen
    • Easter egg: MTV Movie Award Spoof (The Council of Elrod)
    • Costa Botes Documentary: The Fellowship of the Ring: Behind the Scenes
    • The Appendices, Part 1: From Book to Vision (on DVD)
    • Peter Jackson introduction
    • J.R.R. Tolkein: Creator of Middle Earth
    • From Book to Script
    • Visualizing the Story
    • Designing and Building Middle Earth
    • Middle Earth atlas interactive
    • The Appendices, Part 2: From Vision to Reality (on DVD)
    • Elijah Wood introduction
    • Filming The Fellowship of the Ring
    • Visual effects
    • Post-production: Putting it all together
    • Digital Grading
    • Sound and music
    • The Road Goes Ever On…

    Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

    • Extended edition of the film, incorporating 43 minutes of footage incorporated into the film
    • Commentary track by writer-director Peter Jackson and writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens
    • Commentary track by the design team
    • Commentary track by the production/post-production team
    • Commentary track by 16 cast members, including Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Bernard Hill, and Miranda Otto
    • Easter Egg: MTV Movie Awards clip (Gollum accepting award)
    • Costas Botes documentary: The Two Towers–Behind the Scenes
    • The Appendices, Part 3: The Journey Continues
    • Peter Jackson introduction
    • J.R.R. Tolkein: Origin of Middle Earth
    • From Book to Script: Finding a Story
    • Designing and Building Middle-Earth
    • Gollum
    • Middle-Earth Atlas interactive
    • New Zealand as Middle Earth (map with video location)
    • The Appendices, Part 4: The Battle for Middle Earth
    • Elijah Wood introduction
    • Filming The Two Towers
    • Visual effects
    • Editorial: Refining the Story
    • Music and Sound
    • The Battle for Helm’s Deep is Over

    Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

    • Extended edition of the film, with 50 extra minutes incorporated into the film
    • Commentary track by writer-director Peter Jackson and writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens
    • Commentary track by the design team
    • Commentary track by the production/post-production team
    • Costas Botes documentary: The Return of the King: Behind the Scenes
    • The Appendices, Part 5: The War of the Ring
    • Peter Jackson Intro
    • J.R.R. Tolkien: The Legacy of Middle-earth
    • From Book to Script
    • Designing and Building Middle-earth
    • Home of the Horse Lords
    • Middle-earth Atlas: Tracing the Journeys of the Fellowship: interactive map
    • New Zealand as Middle-earth: interactive map with on-location footage
    • The Appendices, Part 6: The Passing of an Age
    • Elijah Wood/Sean Astin/Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan intro
    • Filming The Return of the King
    • Visual Effects
    • Post Production: Journey’s End
    • The Passing of an Age
    • Cameron Duncan

  • Loads of News from The Hobbit!

    // Gradly // blog, Movies, News 3 Responses

    Now that the seemingly endless saga of The Hobbit’s pre-production woes has finally resolved itself, we can get on with bringing you actual production news, which is a decidedly varied bag today.

    Firstly, we have the not wholly surprising news that (although not definitively confirmed) Ian McKellen seems set to return as Gandalf. His website (www.mckellen.com) details the following in the “2010′s” section:-

    THE HOBBIT’s, two films, start shooting in New Zealand in February 2011. Filming will take over a year. Casting in Los Angeles, New York City and London has started. The script too proceeds. The first draft is crammed with old and new friends, again on a quest in Middle Earth.

    If it’s on his website and in his plans, it should be safe to assume that he will commit to the films before too long. As soon as there is clear confirmation from McKellen or Jackson.

    Next up, Total Film have got on-set snaps of the building work on The Shire, which is taking shape nicely and looking much like we’d expect it to:

    The Shire

    Finally and more positively, Coming Soon report that Jackson has been singing the praises of the 3D rig he is planning to work with on the two prequels. RED Studios Hollywood have announced that the production will be using their (soon to be released) EPIC Digital Cameras. RED said:-

    The successor to RED’s industry changing RED ONE, the EPIC has 5K resolution, can shoot up to 120 frames per second and has a new HDRx™ mode for the highest dynamic range of any digital cinema camera ever made. Taking everything they had learned from building their first camera, RED designed the EPIC from scratch and have produced a smaller, lighter camera that is an order of magnitude more powerful.

    The Hobbit will be amongst the first productions in the world to use the EPIC and at least thirty cameras will be required by the 3-D production. The EPIC’S small size and relatively low weight, makes it perfect for 3-D – where two cameras have to be mounted on each 3D rig.

    Peter Jackson went on to gush effusively as follows:-

    “I have always liked the look of Red footage. I’m not a scientist or mathematician, but the image Red produces has a much more filmic feel than most of the other digital formats. I find the picture quality appealing and attractive, and with the Epic, Jim and his team have gone even further. It is a fantastic tool, the Epic not only has cutting edge technology, incredible resolution and visual quality, but it is also a very practical tool for film makers. Many competing digital systems require the cameras to be tethered to large cumbersome VTR machines. The Epic gives us back the ability to be totally cable free, even when working in stereo.”

    Wow. So he likes it then. A lot. Frankly, anything that helps these films look every bit as spectacular as they should is a great idea and it is surely beyond question that Jackson knows the best way to get the richest version of his vision up on the screen

  • Peter Jackson to Shoot THE HOBBIT in 3D Using RED EPIC Camera

    // Gradly // blog, Movies, News 3 Responses

    Hobbits on Red Epics

    Peter Jackson’s two film adaptation of The Hobbit will be shot in 3D using RED DIGITAL CINEMA’S soon to be released EPIC Digital Cameras.

    The successor to RED’s industry changing RED ONE, the EPIC has 5K resolution, can shoot up to 120 frames per second and has a new HDRx™™ mode for the highest dynamic range of any digital cinema camera ever made. Taking everything they had learned from building their first camera, RED designed the EPIC from scratch and have produced a smaller, lighter camera that is an order of magnitude more powerful.

    The Hobbit will be amongst the first productions in the world to use the EPIC and at least thirty cameras will be required by the 3-D production. The EPIC’S small size and relatively low weight, makes it perfect for 3-D – where two cameras have to be mounted on each 3D rig.

    Jackson has a long history with RED, dating back to when he directed the short film ‘Crossing the Line’ as a very early test of prototype RED ONE cameras.

    “I have always liked the look of Red footage.” he says, “I’m not a scientist or mathematician, but the image Red produces has a much more filmic feel than most of the other digital formats. I find the picture quality appealing and attractive, and with the Epic, Jim and his team have gone even further. It is a fantastic tool, the Epic not only has cutting edge technology, incredible resolution and visual quality, but it is also a very practical tool for film makers. Many competing digital systems require the cameras to be tethered to large cumbersome VTR machines. The Epic gives us back the ability to be totally cable free, even when working in stereo.”

    Jim Jannard the owner and founder of RED flew to New Zealand earlier this year with members of his team so that Jackson could test the EPIC and assess its suitability. “Everybody at RED is incredibly proud that Peter has chosen the Epic” says Jannard, “The Hobbit is a major production, and could have chosen any camera system that they wanted. The fact that they went with us is extremely gratifying.”

    The Hobbit will start shooting in New Zealand early next year.

    + Source: RED