Tehanu here from the Grey Havens,
Sorry, this one is a bit ‘in-house’ for New Zealanders…or people who have been here!
I consulted with Rutherford the calculating cat, (the one who is learning to type,) and he drew a Venn diagram to show the intersection of the sets of people who surf the Net, are interested in Lord of the Rings, are interested in photography, live in or have been to NZ, and have been hiking in Fiordland or the Southern Alps. Rutherford reckons it is a pretty tiny subset, but it does exist.
So if you’re out there and you have photos of parts of New Zealand that look like you’ve always imagined Middle Earth to look, why not send them to us and have your work posted up for a bit of web fame? We’d love to be able to put up some big pictures of the area round Queenstown, Wanaka, all that lovely Central Otago stuff. Y’know, the borders of Rohan? Also for those of you that have been down to Milford and Te Anau, how about some pics of that dark mysterious forest they have down there? And Rivendell, can anyone imagine where that might be?
If anyone has a photo of Moria Gate, north of Karamea (it really exists! I’ve seen it on maps!) we’d love to see that too, just out of curiosity. Those mapmakers were Tolkien fiends too, it seems.
We’ll put your name on your pics to give you the credit for them it you want, of course.
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Tehanus contacts seem to be everywhere these days, just heard PJ raised the bounty another 10 000$
Talked to a friend of a friend (here we go) who gave yet another friend a lift to work through the security courdon. Saw Bilbo’s hole being built out of polystyrene.
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To say Okoroire, with its hot springs, motel, shop and golf course, is a long way from Hollywood is one of the bigger understatements you could make. But courtesy of the army, the tiny Waikato settlement is now a step closer to the silver screen. An undisclosed farm property is the site of the set for director Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings”. The film’s makers are increasingly coy about letting the public know where the development work is being carried out.
The hive of excavation is buried in a farm valley not visible from any road. The farm’s owner has been sworn to secrecy.Work has been going on for nearly a month, but Okoroire locals are looking forward to the actual filming, which will be a boon for the hospitality industry.
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This is a great scoop picked up by none other than Tehanu herself. She tells me that she went to dinner with some friends and other people she didn’t know, the topic turned to Lord Of The Rings and after weeding out the useless people at the table, (Hey! Those are buddies of mine! 🙂 -Tehanu) Tehanu found a lady with tons of great news:
I hurled myself into that conversation, and got talking to a woman, she knows tons of actors and film people, some in Wellington. We raved on and ignored everyone else for hours. SO:
1.The rumour about Sean Connery being involved is still going strong among actor circles here, she at least believes there is a strong possibility that it’s true. Gandalf?
2.VOICES: She’s heard that the Hobbits will have something like a Yorkshire country dialect; the Dwarves will be more cockney, the Men will be American (OUCH!) and the elves slightly Irish (NOT comic-leprechaun Irish, just a faint lilt.) The wizards will be very BBC English. I reckon this is worth putting in as a speculation on the website.
3.Now I’m pretty sure Fiordland is a location, will send pics soon. My friend said “White Island.” It’s as active as hell, steaming fumaroles everywhere, and it’s far enough offshore that it would be difficult for sightseers to get to. Great Mordor location.
4.We decided that we both wanted to drive down to Matamata and Hinuera to look for Hobbiton. We will do this later this month. Aerial views. That seems like a completely wild suggestion, I don’t know here well enough to know if she really means it. But we will at least drive down!!!
5.She knows somebody who was auditioning for Gimli.
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MATAMATA – A secret start has been made on the mega-budget film Lord of the Rings in the central Waikato.
The New Zealand Herald has discovered that soldiers, earth-movers and builders have been working for two weeks amid the rolling hills and trees of a private farm between Matamata and Karapiro.
All involved have been sworn to secrecy about the $260 million trilogy, and movie staff yesterday pleaded that the site be kept secret.
A spokeswoman for the film firm Three Foot Six, Sian Clement, said she was worried that movie zealots would flock to the farm if they found out about the work. “You just have to look on the Internet to see the fanatic interest.”
The start of a movie set can now be seen from nearby hills. Tracks, graders, heavy machinery, Army vehicles and tents stretch up to 1km into farm paddocks.
The farm’s owner, Ian Alexander, said he had been involved since October. “They just arrived out of the blue,” he said. “There’s been a bit of activity, a bit of action, but they’ve only just started doing things for real.” Mr Alexander said the set was being built on a few hectares in the corner of one of his three blocks, but he refused to give more detail. “It’s all being kept very quiet,” he said. “I’m just a common old cocky with a few bloody sheep running around.”
The movie trilogy is based on a series of fantasy books by JRR Tolkien. They will be shot by Wellington film-maker Peter Jackson with 15,000 actors, and a bigger budget than any other movie project in the Southern Hemisphere.
It is understood that the set will include a mock-up of the village Hobbiton, central to the story. Sets will also be built at other sites. A worker for Okoroire Excavators said he visited the farm more than a week ago, but had been asked to say nothing about it. “I’m not even sure who we’re working for,” he said. Army and Defence Ministry staff were more secretive than a bevy of bashful hobbits. They passed all calls to a press officer, Wing Commander John Seward, who did not return the calls. The Minister of Defence, Max Bradford, earlier said that soldiers would work for two or three days as extras, and would be paid normal movie rates by producers. Fourteen soldiers staying at the Okoroire Hot Springs Hotel have been visiting the movie set for more than a week, and are expected to stay up to three weeks longer. A staff member at the hotel said: “It’s very hush-hush. I don’t know what the hell they’re doing, and as long as they pay their bills I don’t care.”
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