Michael brought home the DVD for “The Hobbit.” Of course I watched it. I’ve written of the Tolkien stories before in
these blogs
I first found The
Hobbit when I was in about the sixth or seventh grade, perhaps 1957. It may have been before that because I began
reading from the adult section as soon as I was allowed. I believe that was at the beginning of the
eight grade. I found The Hobbit in the children’s section of
the library. I can even remember exactly
where I was standing when I found it—in the front left hand corner of the
library. There was a shelf section of about
eight feet or so between the corner and the window. The hobbit was on the second or third shelf
in about the middle. I remember because I
went back there to pick up The Hobbit
again several times even after I graduated to the adult section. It was considered a “children’s book.”
The Trilogy of the
Rings did not become widely available in the US until later in the 1950’s and I
probably found it in 1959 or ‘60. I
devoured that as soon as I discovered it on the adult shelves.
When Peter Jackson presented his movie version of the
Trilogy I was excited to see it, even though many of the exciting portions had
to be cut in order to keep it from becoming a long running series instead of
three movies. In the end of 2012, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opened
and just a few days ago it came out on DVD.
Michael and Rachael surprised me
with it Friday evening. Saturday morning
(March 23) I watched The Hobbit: The
Unexpected Journey. It was ‘okay’
but only because I had read the book before.
If I hadn’t known the story I would have said the movie was great. This morning I watched the second disc. It was a compilation of ‘extras”—scenes of New Zealand,
video blogs about production, and copies of the trailers as well as previews of
the games the movie has spawned.
The blogs were what impressed me the most. They were made to give fans insights into the
production and shooting of the movie.
When I was director of the day care, my head teacher for quite
a few years was Linda Mitchell. I’m not
sure how she became involved in day care but she was an excellent early
childhood teacher without the degree in early childhood education. Her first love however was the theater and
movies. Her bachelor’s degree was in
Theater, I believe. She was involved the
local little theater group, interested in movies and sci fi conventions. We
spent a lot of time, in between the business of caring for children and the
needs of the day care, talking about the little theater. Linda was seldom involved in the on-stage
aspects of the productions, the acting, singing, dancing, etc. She was interested in the back stage
production.
These video blogs have brought memories of her back in
force. How she would have loved the
scope and wonder of the Rings and the Hobbit!
The intricacies involved in costuming especially would have drawn her
in. I was amazed to see the actors and
then the dwarves they became. Because
there were 13 of them and they were the ‘stars’ of the show, their costumes
involved foot after foot after foot of costumes for the myriad of scenes and
actions. Transforming them from men into
dwarves required several hours of make-up.
I enjoyed watching the process.
Linda would have loved the wigs and prosthetics and actual make-up to achieve
coloring that would film correctly!
The set requirements were extensive. Hobbiton was built of polystyrene for the Rings movies. For The
Hobbit it was built of real materials on site then left for tourists to
experience. The intricate planning and
construction was breath taking. And of
course, not everything could be filmed on site so there were acres it seemed of
sites constructed on the production lots—the goblin caves, Elrond’s house, the
interior of Bilbo’s hobbit-hole. And
they were all intricate to the last detail. It took my breath away. I could envision Linda involved in each and
every part of it, whichever allowed her talents for drawing, painting and
creating effects.
For the very first time I caught a glimpse of the reason for
her fascination with behind the scenes work for the theater and, by extension,
movies.
Linda Mitchell, you were loved and remembered fondly.
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