More Hobbit premiere

Hi there

At a specified time yesterday when the audience were invited to count down, the Air New Zealand 'hobbit' plane flew overhead.  It has paintings of the Hobbit cast, designs, settings, etc, on it.  I was lucky enough to be walking around Miramar the other day and it went overhead as it left the runway, gaining height, and  so  I had a great view.  Not such a great view as it flew over at the premiere, naturally, because it was so high in the sky.   Actually, I can't understand why I'm even attaching a plane photo.  It reminds me of those photos we've all taken where we think we've got a shot of a beautiful island that's not that far away, and when the photo turns out, all you can see is a tiny dot way, way, way in the background.

Arriving in Wellington from England, the plane  had picked up Hobbit actors in both London and America to bring them here.  Personally, I think the designs on the original LOTR plane were more stand-y out-y.   Some flight attendants from Air New Zealand walked the red carpet.  Several of the women had added Hobbit tiaras to their uniforms (like in the Air New Zealand tv commercial).  The women were all beautiful, but the men, OMG, they were... gorgeous;  I wanted to vault the railing and ravish every one of them.

We edge-of-the-red-carpet-sitters-and-standers kept looking at the countdown clock on the top of the Embassy theatre to see how long it would be before the happenings started.  Here's a pic of the end- result clock.

"The Hobbit" World Premiere in Wellington, New Zealand

Okay, yes, I've now learnt that premier has an 'e' on the end of it so, henceforth, I will try to remember to type the word 'premiere!

I got down to Courtenay Place about 9.45 a.m.  Most of the front rows were taken but I managed to find a front row possie just around the corner from the red carpet and opposite the stage which was all done up to resemble a hobbit burrow in the side of a hill, and had two hobbit doors.  The band playing a couple of times during the wait was Neil Finn's who is singing the 'mountain morn' song on the soundtrack of "The Hobbit".  He's one of NZ's favourite top evergreen singers.  Check out his pedigree.

It was very very very hot.  There were over 100,000 of us squashed together.  There were lots of people dressed up, mainly as hobbits.  They looked so good.  Thousands upon thousands of tourists who had come expressly for the premiere.  Red Carpet Tours had a group there and they seemed to be really enjoying themselves.

 I sat on the ground, then stood up, then on the ground, then stood up... and it continued like this until 3 pm.    After the first few hours  a maintenance crew came out with ladders, tools and posters.  They immediately transformed the traffic lights in front of me into a giant Gandalf monolith , thereby blocking half my view.  I managed to squeeze sideways a couple of feet away from the monolith. After another couple of hours, a very very big camera on a crane took up residence in front of me in my new position,  blocking a lot of the stage.  Then some security guys stood in front of the one bit of stage that I could now see.   From 3 pm until 7.30 I stood up, and please remember I had a sore foot!

I hardly saw a celebrity on the red carpet because right beside me on the corner was a group of PETA animal rights campaigners complaining about mistreatment of animals on the movie set (this is complete rot because the SPCA was on the set all the time and they said the animals were treated very well) and they waved placards. They did not reveal themselves until the last second.  Naturally the stars scooted away from these people, so no star really came near where I was standing.  After a while, a group of security people stood directly in front of the PETA people holding up their own (Hobbit) placards trying to block off the PETA ones, but not before the press had had a field day taking pictures of the PETA folk.

I did spot James Cameron, director of "Avatar" for a brief moment.  He's a NZ citizen now and lives in the Wairarapa, somewhere near Peter Jackson's estate.  All the 'dwarfs', too, were there, but honestly, there were so many of them that I got all muddled up with who was who.

At 6 pm, the speeches began and I managed to get some photos (well about 50 actually and here's just a few of them) but by now the sun was lowering and it was shining in the wrong direction. Oh dear. I truly don't believe I'll go to any more premieres. It's just not worth it anymore, what with the long wait, the heat, and having waited 8 hours I only got to see folk on the stage for a short time and by then I was almost on the verge of collapsing (hey, old person here, remember?).

 Elijah Wood  (See a PETA placard being held a-high over to the left?)

 James Nesbitt

 Peter Jackson emerging out of hobbit burrow onto the stage.

 Peter Jackson with MGM and Warners reps.  Thank you reps for finally letting us make "The Hobbit" in New Zealand.  But you almost gave us all nationwide heart attacks for a week or so!

 Peter Jackson with Hugo Weaving

 Peter Jackson greets our Prime Minister, John Key.

 James Nesbitt and Martin Freeman.

 Cate Blanchett emerging from hobbit burrow.  She showed a leg first!

 Sylvester McCoy and Barry Humphreys.

 Andy Serkis

Richard Armitage (Thorin) in centre

 

 

 

Weta Collectables

Today I went down to the Weta Cave.  It's the Weta Workshop shop/mini museum/small theatre that shows a great film on the growth of Weta.  Surprise, from today they'd opened a new section that takes you skirting around the inside of Weta Workshop for $20.  We saw loads of props, costumes, sculptures,  weapons, models used in the movies like "District 9", Narnia Chronicles, LOTR, "King Kong", "Meet the Feebles", etc.  We saw the armoury, and there were also two sculpters working on Weta collectable sculptures.  We were told by the guides that they didn't know how long the display would be open for, maybe just this week or a little bit longer.  It looks pretty permanent to me.

Here is a photo of the two guides (notice the LOTR sword) in front of the newly painted outside wall of Weta (the design wasnt there a few days ago).  Guides are rotating a bit this week.  The woman works in Costuming, the guy in Armoury.

I bought a new t-shirt advertising the world premier of The Hobbit.  Here is front view (hobbit burrow) and back view stating premier date, etc.

Also, too,  there was a pin (that I heard about on the grapevine) advertising the premier, but you had to ask for it.  Apparently it's a collectable.   I wouldn't be surprised if they passed some of these out to the crowd by the red carpet on Wednesday.

The Hobbit is getting closer

The World Premier of "The Hobbit - An unexpected journey" is on Wednesday in Wellington.  Along with, hopefully, thousands upon thousands of people, I'll go to the city and try and see something.  I loved the atmosphere surrounding the three LOTR premiers.  For one of them, I decided to get a bleacher seat but waiting-in-a-bleacher turned out to be a bit boring.  I loved it when I was with the 'ordinary' people down on the street.  However, one good thing about the bleacher seats:  the seat-ees ran from their seats down to the front railing and the stars - knowing what high-rollers bleacher seat-ees are - trundled over and signed autographs.  I didn't have a digital camera during LOTR premiers.

I also went to the "King Kong" NZ premier.  Here are some pictures I took of Peter Jackson and also a pic of  Andy S (Gollum) 

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About 19 months ago, I went to "The Hobbiton" set in Matamata.  I thought it had been closed off for public tours because the very day I passed through Matamata, was the day Peter Jackson was supposed to start filming there.  But, wonder-of-wonders for me, but so sad for Jackson, the set was open because Jackson had been taken to hospital a few days before. 

I saw the set in it's pristine magnitude.  Sunflowers and pumpkins growing in the gardnes, roses around the doors, swans on the lake.  One would swear it was a true village.  It must have spread out for km upon km.    It was so hard to believe there weren't hobbits living behind the doors in the houses.  I stood under the 'party tree', knocked on Bilbo's door, wandered along the flagstone path leading down the hill from said house, swung on Rosie and Sam's gate, and almost tripped over a grass-hidden chimney.    Even the fences were growing fungus (a mixture of yoghurt and something-else for realism). I took a great photo looking down a sort of grassy rock-sided alley, and showing a hill topped with Bilbo/Frodo's house in the far distance.  This exact shot was in one of the end stories of "Return of the King" as the hobbits return home,  and it is also in the trailer for "The Hobbit".  In all, I took about 80 photos.  I may be allowed to show them after the premier.

Hobbit Artisan Fair, Wellington.,

Today, I thought I'd go down town to Waitangi Park.  For the next week there is a Hobbit Artisan Market there, with Weta Workshop showing off things.  There's the guy who 'loomed' the cloaks the hobbits and Gandalf wore in LOTR,  there's LOTR jewellery, sculptures, Weta t-shirts, the armourer from the film selling knives.   There was a maypole, and a throwing-horseshoes game.  Also a huge screen that showed all the video log entries for Peter Jackson as he has worked on The Hobbit, as well as the Air New Zealand middle earth tv commercial that I absolutely positively adore.  Families were eating their sandwiches in front of the screen.  It was a lovely picnic day for people. 

The screen and the market will stay in the park until the 'The Hobbit" world premier.  The big screen will show the red carpet arrivals and speeches.  Waitangi Park is only a block away from where the premier will be.  I can't really see people preferring to watch it on screen when they only have to wander around the corner to see the real thing.  But, then again, they'll probably see more on the screen.  Our main tv channels will also be showing the red carpet from 3 pm or 4 pm right through for several hours.

 

I took the bus to the market.  It didn't open  until noon, so I wandered around Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand.  My sore foot was okay until I got off the bus on my return home to hobble the block back to my house.  The rest of the day, it was truly sore, darn it.  My foot just has to be better for my trip to Ohope Beach/Whakatane.  Cross fingers.

five swims at Hataitai Beach

Bingo!  J and I have  done it.  'Five, five, five swims for the month of November. 

The other day as I got into the water, there was a woman sunbathing on the deck, the first  sunbather we'd seen since last summer.  I'd earlier spoken to another woman who had told me that the sunbather had been in the water for about a minute.  As I exited the water, the sunbather said to me, "That was quick".  I was floored!  I mumbled something about, "I don't think 21 minutes is all that quick" and scuttled away. I can only put it down to the fact that the sunbather had been so engrossed in her book that she hadn't realised that I'd been in the water for so long in the November cold Wellington seas. 

When we first started swimming over the winter a few years back, we were no more than a couple of minutes in the water.  Non-swimmers just don't realise how bad Wellington winter waters are, what with our cold and windy climate.    Especially when one is just in a bathing suit and not a wetsuit.

Sigh.

Come December, it's all systems go, swimming-wise for  J and me.  Our 'rule book' says we can go anytime without letting the other know.  Summer-summer-summer, la-de-dee-dah!!!

R and her dog Pinot were at the beach yesterday.  A sure sign that summer is coming.  It's so nice to meet our summer friends once more.

Mt Tongariro Eruption

Oh, goodness, Mt Tongariro erupted an hour ago. See www.stuff.co.nz.   Or www.tvnz.co.nz.   They've been talking about Mt Ruapehu (Mt Doom, where filming was done for LOTR) maybe erupting over the next few weeks and as a sort of afterthought, the scientists have mentioned Tongariro.  Mts Ruapehu, Ngarahoe, and Tongariro are all side by side on the edge of The Desert Road in New Zealand.   It doesn't seem an overly bad eruption as of this moment.  Scientists also said that there seems to be some sort of activity on White Island also.  White Island is a good four hours drive away from Tongariro and is off the coast of Ohope Beach.

Guess where I'm driving to very soon?:  Yes,  (1) Ohope Beach!   Oh, and  (2) The Desert Road!