Weta

Hi there

Yesterday, I went to the latest talk at Te Papa Tongarewa (the Museum of New Zealand/) by Weta personnel.  I learnt a great deal about digital work.  Again, I was surprised how often digital doubles are used in The Hobbit movies, especially for close-ish shots.

 Luke, who appeared in lots of the movies in all different guises was made-up and dressed as an Orc whilst a video presentation on make-up was shown, and a talk given.  The audence had been told last week not to take photos, so this week I left my camera and my phone at home.  Naturally, this time we were told we could take photos!  I did think of photo-bombing all the photos being taken and then asking for copies to be sent me but I thought this would be taking my sitcom queen reputation a little too far. 

Today (Sunday, NZ time) my swimming friend J and I trotted down to Hataitai Beach and had a positively wonderful swim.  The water was calm and clear, the sky was blue, the weather warm, and we got carried away discussing world affairs.

 I explained that years and years ago, I went to a hand-writing expert.

I said to J:  "The woman asked me 'How do you doodle-?"

J broke in on my tale, sporting a big grin.    "I'm fine, thank you.   How do you do-odle?"

Don't give up your day job, J.....   Oh, wait, you're retired.  Maybe they will accept you for a stint at the Comedy Club after all.

Here's a pic of Hataitai Beach taken today.

hailstorms and swims

HI there

J and I managed 10 swims during September.  We trotted down to the beach on the 1st of October to find the sands all but inundated with people (well, there were a couple of families).  It was the Spring school holidays.  Half a dozen wet-suited swimmers were in the water and some toddlers were playing in the shallows.

J and I swam in our bathing suits, revealing bare shoulders and legs.  We tried to look sniffily down our noses at the wet suited ones but actually they went further out than we usually do, and swam with really powerful strokes and, so, I'll give those guys a point or two for professionalism.  The trouble with us is that we get carried away talking to each other during our swimming sessions and sometimes we stop swimming to expound on a theory, gesticulating wildly to prove a point.  Oh dear. 

Bright spot, however:  we did stay in longer than the wet-suited ones.

Oh, a couple of weeks ago, Wellington had hail.  I was surprised when I looked at the photo that I took from out of a relative's front doorway.  There appear to be fairy bubbles floating around.  Or did my cheap ratty camera actually capture the hailstones mid-flight?

I see that Te Papa Tongarewa (Museum of New Zealand) here in Wellington are celebrating 20 years of Weta.  Everty Saturday this month there will be talks by Weta personnel about the making of Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, and The Hobbit.

1st Swim for August! - off to Vegas! - Te Papa Tongarewa Museum

Hi there

Today I went to The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa to see their new exhibition "Colour and Light".  Impressionist paintings:  Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Degas, etc.  I loved that many of these artists, close up,  seemed to have gone very 'dotty' with their work.  But when you stand back, the scene comes in to perfect focus.  I was deliciously happy to discover an etching by my just-about fave artist, Tissot.  There are only two other Tissots in New Zealand.  I have several books on the guy, and I love his work.

Then I rushed to Hataitai Beach for a swim with J,  Yay, number 1 swim completed for August.

This will be my last message for three weeks.  Off to Los Angeles and Las Vegas.  I have tried to persuade my friend/ house-sitter to do a few blogs for me, but she refuses to take over, even when I offered to write her a couple of brilliant scripts!  Oh, these old people, you just can't teach technology to us-er-I-mean-them....

As usual, I am worried about several things when I arrive in the United States:

1  Looking like a country oaf when I keep both the knife and fork in my hands whilst eating.  Americans look so elegant, eating with just a fork.  They have been trained to place the knife down on the plate when they don't need it.  Darn us kiwis, with our British way of eating.

2  My accent.   I am a very-fast-talker-and-no-one-out-ofNew-Zealand-can-really-understand-me unless..... I ..... talk ..... very ..... sloooooow.

3  Tipping.  I feel so embarrassed attempting to do it.  I never know how much to give or exactly how to go about doing it.  We don't tip here unless we are in a really really really high end restaurant.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu.
Adieu, adieu, to you and you, and you.....

Andy Warhol exhibit at Te Papa Tongarewa - and our 10th swim!

Hi there

The Museum of New Zealand is called Te Papa Tongarewa (Our Place) and it is in Wellington.  I am a Friend of Te Papa and therefore privy to special exhibitions before the common peasants get in to see them.  And for free.    Oh, we privileged people are so rare on this earth, sigh .... 

There would have been well over a hundred exhibits, all to do with Warhol's friends, colleagues, celebrities and hangers-on.  Most of the exhibits came from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh  (I knew there was a Pawnshop on the Corner in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania (look it up, youngsters), but I didn't figure on an Andy Warhol museum.   The Pittsburgh museum  have obviously had to shut up shop while the exhibits are in Wellington because we've no doubt cleaned them out..... no, we haven't, I'm only joking  - I spoke to the Pittsburgh curator and he assured me they still had loads of paintings, prints, etc at home.



I must say that the Queen looked quite attractive in the print Warhol did of her.  It was interesting to see his pics of himself, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Sylvester Stallone, etc, and to read about Studio 54.  I was a wee bit surprised to see that more often than not Warhol took other artists' pictures and turned them into screen prints. He even took a pic of a cow off a milk cartoon and screen printed that.  When the world thought portraiture was dead, he revitalised it, but in a way that some critics definitely did not like.

10th Swim today for May!:

I was shopping in Kilbirnie today and banged in to my friend, J,  in a charity shop.  How fortunate.  We decided to go for our 10th swim for May at Hataitai Beach.   Both of us had our old ratty swim costumes in our car boots and we were a bit embarrassed.   Still, it was quite nice in the water which was very flat.  When we got out we slapped each other a High-Ten.  Later in the afternoon, J sent me the below pic to commemorate the occasion

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.