"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find
them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the
darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."
-
J.R.R.Tolkien
One
Ring. It is all about that one ring!! J. R. R.
Tolkien’s epic saga THE LORD OF THE
RINGS
Even J.R.R wouldn’t have believed it, if
someone had told him that his work, fifty years after its publication, will turn
into the biggest and most admired cinema mankind has ever made.
When Peter Jackson wanted to make it into a
movie, everyone was sceptical about its success. But we all know what happened
after the trilogy was released. It was released over 3 years, one movie on each
Christmas.
The three films
put together were nominated for 30 Academy Awards, of which they won a whopping
17! A record for any movie trilogy!!! On
its own, The Return of the King tied the previous record of 11 academy awards
and won in every category it was nominated in, an extremely rare feat! The movie shares the record for winning the
maximum number of academy awards, with Titanic and Ben Hur. The trilogy was a
great financial success, with the films collectively being the sixth
highest-grossing film series of all-time.
After 10 years,
Peter Jackson now returns, to make the book- The Hobbit (prequel of The Lord of
the Rings) into a movie. This time the book is going to be made into 2 films.
The first part will be released on December 2012 and the next on December 2013.
But there is something about The Hobbit that is going to be PHENOMENAL, even if
you haven’t seen a single LOTR movie….
One movie to change them all...
The first BIG
thing about The Hobbit is that, it is the first feature film to be shot at the frame rate of 48 frames per second.
All our movies
have been shot in 24 frames since the 1920s. We have lived for over 9 decades
with 24 fps, because back then it was the most affordable frame rate available. Did you know
that the human eye sees things at 60frames per second? That is the reason why,
no matter what blu-ray you use, movie clips always have that blur in scenes,
where there is some moving object on screen.
For the first
time, a movie is being shot using a camera which supports 48fps, the process requires both shooting and
projecting at 48fps. These days, most of the new digital projectors are capable
of projecting at 48 fps, with only the digital servers needing some firmware
upgrades.
So how does a
movie shot in 48frames per second look?
The movie you
see will have hugely enhanced clarity and smoothness. The difference in clarity
from a normal movie and The Hobbit will be the same as that of, a normal VCD
and HD 1080 medium.
And what more?
Once you get used to 48fps, you might even feel uncomfortable watching normal
movies! The difference between 48fps and 60fps speeds is almost impossible to
detect, but the increase in quality over 24 fps is collosal.
The Hobbit will
be shot by a camera called The EPIC, which is a successor to RED's industry
changing camera- Red One. It 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.
5k
resolution? The normal High definition
video that you get to see is 1080 pixels. However this is 5000 pixels! You can
see the difference in left side.
The Hobbit is
probably the first feature film in the world to use The EPIC and at least 48
cameras are used for 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. In order to capture shots in 3D, here two cameras are used at the
same time: One's the left eye, one's the right eye. One shoots through a
mirror, the other one bounces off a mirror. So that the 2 pictures are
perfectly overlaid. The shots from both the cameras are converged and are
telecasted live on the computer, so you can actually see the movie in 3D, as
and when it is shot.
So what does
48fps plus RED 3D mean?
It means for the first time you can watch a 3D
movie without having that headache or the uneasiness that you generally get
when you watch something in 3D. For the first time, you can watch 3D with the
same ease of a normal movie! And it is not just that.. Watching a 48fps movie
in 3D will basically make you feel that you are inside that world!!!
And there is another
first to The Hobbit.
For the first
time ever, each and every scene of a movie has been handrawn in 3D, to analyse
how it feels like before actually shooting it. So for the same, every scene is
hand drawn twice. One picture is drawn in blue colour and the other in Red.
Then both are mixed to see how that particular shot will look on a 3D screen.
Yes. It took them months to just finish the drawings. There is a sample of a 3D
drawing from The Hobbit on the right side.
There is a
downside to using this Epic Camera: it tends to eat up red colour. Hence if you shoot a normal human,
the face might end up looking bit yellowish. To rectify this, each and every
actor has applied extra make up by
adding more red tone to the skin (as u can see below), so that when they are ultimately
shown on the big screen, they will look normal.
Even for the
forests, they had to make everything
look ultra-bold, so that when the
picture comes on screen, it doesn’t look colour deprived.
So during the
editing, they had to make sure in each and every shot, the colours are
balanced, if not artificial colour was added.
Or in the other case, the colours were graded down to get the perfect
visual with the barest hint of colour in the film.
The problem of
using such advanced technology has another problem. Everything you shoot just
has to be real. For example, even for the
wigs that characters use, you just can’t use any wig, and you have to actually
use human hair.
Hence for The
hobbit, each and every wig on set is made using real human hair! Even the
fabric of their clothes had to be changed to make it look real on screen.
But it is
not just the technical advancements; this film has got much more to it. The
Hobbit is going to be the biggest (literally) film ever made. It has the
biggest logistical movement in cinematic history!
For
shooting a scene at a different location, they have to literally transport 700 members as crew! It is
a movie which has to be shot in different locations which is spread in
different countries. So to shoot the same, they have to fly along with 700
members each time not to mention the hundreds of equipment they have to
transport.
On road,
they always have 240 vehicles to transport the entire set from one place to
another. Also they have to transport numerous animals in a coordinated move and
it requires everyone to show up at the right place at the right time. Add in
those little real-life necessities like food, shelter, and bathrooms. It is
easy to imagine, anything could go wrong with such a huge film on making. But
the man behind all this is Peter Jackson or actually Sir Peter Robert Jackson (because he was knighted by Governor-General of New
Zealand in 2010)
So this December, you are going to witness the beginning of a new era in cinema.
Enter the world of Middle earth. Mark the
date.
14 December 2012-
THE HOBBIT-
AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY.
One movie to change them all...
