As fans get ready to buy advance tickets (or, in some countries, have already bought them!) to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, you may be wondering what format you’ll be seeing it in at midnight on December 14th. Will your local cinema be able to show it at 48 frames per second? Will you have an IMAX experience? What’s the advantage of all this new technology, anyway?
Thanks to Ringer SM for sending along this interesting article from the Directors Guild of America, where Peter Jackson talks about his decision to push forward the 48fps technology. He addresses the doubts folks had after seeing footage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas last summer; though he dismisses the criticisms, he does go on to say, ‘The whites were being clipped, and we weren’t getting the dips and the shadows, which were giving it a slightly electronic sort of video look … We’ve completely re-designed the way we convert the data from the camera into the image. The highlights and shadows roll off more, giving it a much more filmic look.”
Read the whole, fascinating article here. Thanks also to Ringer Gwaihir for alerting us to this page – a site where they’re trying to make a list of theatres which will be capable of showing The Hobbit at 48fps. If you discover that your local cinema WILL be showing at 48fps, perhaps you can let the folks making the list know? Otherwise, you might want to check the page from time to time to see if there’s any news about 48fps in your area.
We teased it last week, and now its time for action! The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tickets go on sale Nov 7th, 2012 and that means millions of fans from around the globe will be securing tickets to the movie event of the year. It also means you – yes, you! – have an amazing opportunity to lead the charge in your local community by becoming an official TheOneRing.net Line Party Leader! As a Line Party Leader you will work with your local theater to arrange for special festivities surrounding the first screening of The Hobbit. We at TheOneRing.net will do our best to help you manage your party with our online tools, exclusive promotions, exclusive swag, and of course tips and tricks from our team of Line Party veterans.
How do you get started? First you will need to make sure you are signed up for a TheOnRing.net Fellowship account (upper right corner of the page). When you’ve completed your registration process, visit our Line Party landing page and click the ‘start a line party’ button. The most important information at this point is getting the correct address for the theater. Everything else can be adjusted at a later time. Further details from our staff will be happening in the coming weeks! [Line Party Landing Page]
TORnadoes ask about it often in person at events, via email, on Twitter and Facebook: “Will there be line party events and organizations for The Hobbit movies?” The answer is a resounding YES! There will be some changes around TORn, any minute now, or at least in just a few hours after this post. Part of the purpose is to make things as great as possible, to get the site ready for The Hobbit onslaught but also to accommodate local gatherings around the world. Movie tickets should go on sale around November 7 and we hope to help events organize in a grass-roots fashion around the globe. Stay tuned and spread the word! Consider theater destinations, consider organizations in your community like book stores, movie clubs, people who love lines and consider lending a hand to a world wide effort to see “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” with like-minded friends. Thanks for your energy and enthusiasm and get ready!
Ringer Karen wanted to share the news that lucky Aussies who live in or near Perth can now purchase tickets to screenings of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with live music and chorus being presented by the Western Australian Symphony Orchestar (WASO) on June 21 and 22, 2013. From the WASO website: “Peter Jackson’s epic vision of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is supported by some of the greatest film music of all time. Howard Shore’s Academy Award®-winning score captures the film’s sweeping emotion, thrilling vistas and grand journeys through the power of a full symphony orchestra and massed voices.”
Visit the WASO website for more information and to purchase tickets. Read more…
It’s almost party time in Wellington, as they gear up for the world premeir of The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey on November 28. From the city of Wellington website: Wellington City Council will contribute $1.1 million to the premiere week activities and towards ensuring Wellington is again looking its best under the international spotlight. Celebrations and preparations for the World Premiere are already well underway, highlights include:
- A ‘countdown clock’ to be installed on the front of the Embassy Theatre. The clock will count down the minutes to the beginning of the premiere celebrations.
- Stunning artwork inspired by The Hobbit Trilogy to welcome visitors at Wellington International Airport and across the city.
- A Hobbit-inspired Artisan Festival in Waitangi Park showcasing the various craftspeople and talent involved in the making of The Hobbit Trilogy.
- Outdoor, free public screenings of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy leading up to the premiere night event.
Read more…
A few lucky people on our Hobbit discussion board who live in Norway reported today that, after standing in line in freezing cold temperatures for days, their efforts have been rewarded with tickets for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey! The movie opens in many theaters in Norway with a midnight showing at 12:12 a.m., Wednesday, December 12. Tickets are currently on sale for both 2-D and 3-D showings.
Perhaps more exciting for those of us who aren’t lucky enough to live in Norway, member Carne tells us that two separate theaters in Norway report a running time of 2 hours, 44 minutes. Another member, painjoker, corroborated that with the observation that some folks who had been invited to a showing of the rough-cut in the theater he was standing in line at were inside the theater approximately three hours. Mithrandir also reported they’re allowing about three hours and ten minutes between showings, so that would also corroborate a 2:44 running time. By definition, if it is a rough cut being shown now, the running time could still change slightly, but 2:44 seems to be the consensus at the moment.
Tickets to the movie will go on sale in the U.S. on November 7. Two hours an forty-four minutes of Hobbit goodness will be coming to a theater near all of us soon, but ‘patience’ is the word of the day for those of us who have to wait until the 7th of November for our tickets!
As fans get ready to buy advance tickets (or, in some countries, have already bought them!) to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, you may be wondering what format you’ll be seeing it in at midnight on December 14th. Will your local cinema be able to show it at 48 frames per second? Will you have an IMAX experience? What’s the advantage of all this new technology, anyway?