Disclaimer: The views expressed in this web log are the personal opinions of Ian D Smith, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff or members of the Official Lord of the Rings fan club. Move the mouse over a picture for a description, or click on a picture to see a larger version DVD Viewing Party

With the busiest day yet on the agenda, and a late night the night before, most of us can be forgiven for wondering if we really needed to make the trip to the American Film Institute screening rooms to see the DVD presentation of the Lord of the Rings. Fortunately, I had two incentives - the whole shebang had been organised by two of my favourite people: Susan (Moochelas) and Jen (LadyOBloom) and it would be fun to see them both again, having spent too little time chatting to them at the Pub Moot the night before. I harp on a lot about those who shun the spotlight and instead of embarking on self-promotion just quietly work hard in the background for the benefit of all of us, expecting little or no reward, and Susan and Jen are two of the finest examples. Putting on a DVD viewing may seem a pretty straightforward task to the uninitiated, but wanting to do the thing properly, Susan and Jen had spent some time fighting all the battles that needed to be fought to make the viewing legitimate and a professional endeavour. I wonder how many fans realise that the license fee for any public screening of Lord of the Rings is $3500 and that this had to be renegotiated with New Line to make the DVD viewing party happen. This viewing party involved not only persistent negotiation with the AFI and New Line, but unexpected activities like designing a fan club letterhead so that all communications appeared professional. Needless to say the girls did us proud, persuading New Line to subsidise the event to a considerable extent, such that fans were offered a refund on the originally agreed "cost of entry" of around $11. The AFI rooms are in a building in a beautiful setting that is tucked away on one of Hollywood's main roads - it could almost be a private country mansion. As we pulled up into the grounds I told our driver, Pippin's Scarf, that I didn't care if this wasn't the right place - having blagged our way into the grounds we should just carry on and go enter the building in front of us as if we had a right to be there. On the door Susan was giving out pre-printed stickers with each attendee's name on - a set of two so that each viewer could identify themselves and stick one on the seat they wanted to reserve with their friends while chatting in the corridors. The viewing room slowly filled up (I was hemmed in and so didn't manage to get a photo of the room when it was pretty full, just the one opposite as it started to fill up). Eventually votes were taken on which extra's on the DVD we also wanted to see before the main feature started. Needless to say the extracts from the extended edition of the movie (due in November) and the 10 minute "The Two Towers" preview were the hot favourites, particularly from those fans who'd been so busy all week they hadn't got around to watching their own copies of the DVD. I sneaked to the back row with Pip and Silver, suspecting that I might nod off in the middle of the movie, with so much lack of sleep over the last few days. In the event I dozed off at the entrance to Moria, having spotted my companions either side were in "check eyelids for holes" mode either side of me. Alas, my surreptitious nap lasted all of 5 seconds as Pip quickly nudged me as a loud snore suddenly signalled to the room at large that I was starting to doze off. Unfortunately the lack of air conditioning did nothing to discourage the cases of narcolepsy that were springing up all around me (apparently Truss discovered a timer switch that was causing it to be turned off, but after the screening - oh, the joys of hiring a room on a Sunday with few staff around!) Watching the movie with other fans was a slightly surreal experience for me. Although more fun than watching it at a local cinema, I found myself totally bemused at the way people who'd already seen the movie many times, could laugh as if hearing a joke for the first time whenever a humourous line was delivered. Very strange and, to be frank, somewhat unnerving! I'd expected some tears at the end (women fans in particular get very emotional at the sad parts of the movie, notably Gandalf's fall and Boromir's death) but not the loud wailing of sorrow from a fan I didn't know that reminded me of the wailing I'd heard from women at an Indian funeral for a young man killed in his early 20's. Very strange and the laughter from most of us in the room at this strange response didn't really enhance the sentiment of sadness at Boromir's death. The screening itself was great - the DVD transfer certainly seems to be an excellent one, and the sound in the screening room was excellent, albeit in stereo rather than surround sound (at least from where I was sitting at the back). After the screening was over there was an extra treat in store. A set of four "character" posters from the movie for each attendee - obtained for us from New Line by the wonderful unsung here of Torn and many fan club gatherings, Catherine (Arwen2). Since nobody in the room had seen these particular posters before, this was seen by most fans as a really unexpected treat. With the viewing over, and an announcement that the picnic planned for the afternoon now needed cookies rather than main courses from those of us attending, we headed off to buy our contributions to the picnic and head on to The Hollywood Bowl grounds where the picnic was being held. Thankfully this was just a very short walk from our hotel, which meant there was a chance to ditch cars and enjoy the glorious weather - hot, but with enough of a breeze to make things pleasant rather than unbearable.

Bowl Moot Picnic
The walk to the picnic moot area was much shorter than anyone expected and we arrived to find a pretty area, with tables dotted around the grassy area at comfortable intervals and a central marquee'd area full of food. Clearly someone had spent a lot of time preparing what one fan called "a little piece of Rivendell". Before we entered the main area we checked in with a couple of Torn folks, one of whom was Catherine (Arwen2), who was handing out free advance copies of a new novel "The Fifth Sorceress" by Robert Newcomb - something for me to read on the plane! A big thanks to Silver who discovered that one of our group's copies was actually signed by the author and insisted on me having it. What a sweetie! There was food to satisfy the hungriest hobbit (although I think we may have overdone the cookie thing!). I settled down with my usual group of Silver, Pip, Val, Pixie and Jo and, being tired, most of us didn't socialise much, happy to just take in the general atmosphere and relax in the sunshine. There was some wonderful live "period" music played all afternoon by a group of musicians decked out in costume that really added to the afternoon's enjoyment. It was a very pleasant day and, according to all reports, a very successful event with the phrase "We must make our next pub moot an outdoor event like this" heard many times throughout the course of the afternoon. After everyone had time to finish eating and drinking a game was started for the children present. This seemed to involve blindfolding them and getting them to hit a strange object called a Pinata was tied by rope to a tree, the idea (I think) being to break the object sufficiently so that the candy inside all fell out. It was fun to watch as kids lost all sense of direction once the blindfold was on. Arguably the hottest "must have" item of the day was a little square booklet that Carol Cuttenden (Nestalavaniel) had put together. This featured wonderful "title"pages summarising each of the events that had taken place with some wonderfully cute sketches of characters from the movie drawn opposite each title page. I think Primula was the first of our party to obtain one and as soon as anyone saw the sketches they went green with envy with a "Where did you get that from?". I managed to track Carol down to take her picture since so many people were talking about her, and it was an unexpected bonus when she gave me my own copy of this wonderful little souvenir. Eventually a raffle was started with the organisers Josh (who kicked the whole thing off) and Hannah (who had foolishly taken on responsibility for organising something like 100 attendees into bringing the necessary plates, cutlery, appropriate food and drink for the picnic) performing the draw and handing out the prizes. All-in-all this was a great prelude to the main reason most of us were in Hollywood this weekend - the world premiere of a live performance of Howard Shore's two movement symphonic work of the music from the Lord of the Rings movie. Howard Shore Concert The Hollywood Bowl is an amazing venue set in an acoustically superb bowl surrounded by the Hollywood hills. Unfortunately the security policy of the venue is extremely suspect - compact cameras are allowed in but "real" ones are not. I hadn't realised that bootleg photo's of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra were in such high demand! Needless to say my camera equipment was confiscated, which is why there are no pictures of the actual concert itself in this report. The concert was split into two halves - the first featured performances of "The Ride of the Valkyrie", "Jupiter" from "The Planets" and four themes from John Wiliams' score for "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". The second half, which followed an intermission, featured Howard's 45 minute movements from Book One and Book Two of "Fellowship of the Ring" This was the second of two nights' performance of the concert, and conductor John Mauceri, made an excellent speaker as he introduced each piece, based around the theme of rings in mythology. Our TORn and fan club group were some way back but very noisy and enthusiastic whenever Howard Shore's name was mentioned and particularly when John started off with a greeting in Elvish. "I see we have some elves in the house tonight" he quipped. We were told that Howard had actually attended the previous night's concert but was now on a plane to London where he was due to start work on the score for "The Two Towers" on Monday morning. I had concerns that with such a large venue (seating 17,000 people) the concert might appear like just a public broadcast of the CD of the movie soundtrack. How wrong I was! The music that most fans know more intimately than any other piece of music sounded fresh and vibrant as new linking sections were added, extensions to existing pieces made (notably Lothlorien) and new tempo's and instruments introduced. It was genuinely spell-binding. There were one or two glitches - the choir really couldn't manage the Maori chants that signal the attack of the orcs in Moria, and the soprano hit one or two bum notes on the solo "Gandalf's Lament" but still managed to have all the ladies in our party reaching for huge wads of Kleenex. Many times during the performance I felt the hairs on my neck stand on end - it was that good! One can hardly wait for a full performance of the entire 2-3 hour symphony, planned to be premiered at this same venue when all three films have been released. Alas, all too soon the concert came to a close, and a sad, but happy, group of fans quietly made their way back to their hotels, grateful for the opportunity to have heard their much-loved score live and in a setting that no movie theatre could ever match. Music Performed Book One The Prophecy Concerning Hobbits The Shadow of the Past A Short Cut To Mushrooms The Old Forest A Knife In the Dark Book Two Many Meetings The Ring Goes South A Journey in the Dark The Brige of Khazad-Dum Lothlorien Gandalf's Lament Farewell to Lorien The Great River The Breaking of the Fellowship Click here for Web Log for August 11th - seven Ringers invade Universal Studios