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The flight to Wellington is pretty uneventful, but there is activity at both the Auckland departure gate and the Wellington arrival lounge as huge 'Lord of the Rings' -themed advertising material for Telecom is being pasted up. Newspaper coverage seems to be ramping up by the day, to the point where you can't avoid 'Lord of the Rings' no matter how much you might want to!
I fall foul of the perennial "Can't check in until 2pm" problem on arrival at my hotel in Wellington, but am saved by a call from Brian Sibley suggesting lunch. As we're eating we spot another familiar face at the counter: Jude Fisher and her partner. Brian has managed to get a ticket for me for the opening of Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)'s Photographic Exhibition at the Massey University, in an interesting building that was the country's national museum before Te Papa was built.
		Dress for the Viggo exhibition is 'Business/Smart Casual' which means the tux is out as is the usual t-shirt/jeans combination, so a quick shopping trip is required. The ticket invite is named on the back and marked as non-transferrable and there are strict instructions about no photography and no autographs. I should have learnt from previous occasions that 90% of attendees will break the rules and get away with it, but I foolishly leave the camera behind anyway, safe in the sanctimonious glow of knowing that at least I understand why rules are made and need to be adhered to, even if the rest of the world doesn't! Before the exhibition, there is a chance to check in with New Line and get press accreditation. The staff are very friendly, but the form we have to sign before receiving accreditation is somewhat depressing. No reviews of the movie that we are seeing on November 30th are allowed to appear before December 8th (why AintItCool and The Directors Guild who've already published a long review are allowed to steamroller this agreement, nobody knows!). But worse, we are being asked to sign that anything we write will only appear for the organisation that we are using to gain accreditation - which means I can review the movie for the fan club magazine (who won't be interested) but not my weblogs. Fortunately the matter is soon sorted out the next day when New Line kindly agree that I can just fill out a new agreement with the organisation name of 'www.iansmith.co.uk'. Yay for New Line support! The goody bag is very nice, as is the t-shirt, the DVDs, the mouse mat and other various bumph included in the bag. No doubt they'll soon be for sale for extortionate amounts of money on Ebay :-( Accreditation is a somewhat fraught business, as everybody wants all the passes they can get. Each check-in counter has nine different colour passes, with each representing a different level of access, and attendees wonder which ones they've been granted. On registration your photograph has to be taken and sealed inside the badge so that nobody can cheat security. The whole procedure is very quick and very high-tech. The fan club magazine I write for earns me three badges labelled 'Press Screening', 'Press Conference' and 'Red Carpet Arrivals' (looks like I wasted money on a grandstand seat then - doh!). The accompanying schedule appears to imply I've got all the coverage I could want (other badges seem to be an 'Access all areas' one meant for New Line higher ups and various other ones for those manning the barriers, preparing the party room etc). I'm pretty happy, but it's not really clear what's happening for the after-screening party. Instructions tell us a bus will take us there after the screening has started, and that a restaurant area has been cordoned off for us next to the venue, but there's no indication as to whether we get admission to the party or are just there to photograph the celebrities arriving. The mayhem all starts at 1.30pm the day before the premiere, and makes me glad I didn't try and rush everything by arriving the night before as part of the Red Carpet tour. The press screening itself, which starts at 2pm, takes place before the Ringers party which in itself is going to be quite an event, since it's been mentioned in all the 'What's on' guides so that suddenly press and the public want to get access to an event that only (only?!) had 800 tickets anyway and was sold out days ago. Fortunately there is a 'New Zealand Now' government dinner being put on for the press and various luminaries for those unable, or not wanting, to attend the fan party. The premiere day itself is due to start with check-in at 8am, with breakfast and a session advertised as 'touch and feel with the props, prosthetics and weapons and technicians' (ooh! do I get to play touch and feel with a technician??!), and hosted at the Te Papa museum. For 'electronic media' (as opposed to print media) similar events are apparently taking place simultaneously down the road at one of the hotels. At 9.45am the first press conference takes place with Barrie Osborne (producer), Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Sean Astin (Sam), John Rhys-Davies (Gimli and voice of Treebeard), Billy Boyd (Pippin), Richard Taylor (WETA special effects), Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Mark Ordesky (Executive Producer). An hour later a second panel is due to kick in with David Wenham (Faramir), Bernard Hill (Theoden), Peter Jackson (Director, Writer, Producer), Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Andy Serkis (Gollum), Liv Tyler (Arwen), John Noble (Denethor), Phillipa Boyens (Writer), Mark Ordesky (Executive Producer) and Howard Shore (composer). Yikes - lots of people to take photographs of! The rest of the day is filled with the parade, a scheduled 'sound bite' session with the cast, and then red carpet coverage. It's going to be a busy, busy day. Having digested (sort of) the plans for the next few days it's time to get ready for the Viggo Photographic Exhibition benefit launch. It's a pleasant evening as my taxi rolls up, with blue skies and late afternoon sunshine. There's a bank of photographers lined along one side of the wide, stone stairway entrance and immediately opposite the main doors, on the other side of the road, there's a barrier with a group of young female fans already gathered. This is looking more like a media and celebrity event than I'd anticipated. The crowd seem mainly an 'art' crowd rather than a 'fan' one, at least in age, although there are obvious groups of young girls scattered here and there. 'Where do they get the money?', I hear one slightly exasperated punter behind me wonder. The truth is that NZ $100 (about £40) probably isn't that far out of reach for most teenagers these days. I find out later how incorrect my impression that this isn't the usual fan crowd is. Queueing outside I'm spotted by fan club board moderator Lith and her friend Overlithe, both of whom are back from a tour of Weta, and then Catherine (Arwen2) from TheOneRing.net. Her TORn colleagues, Quickbeam and Asfaloth, have gone off to an Ian McKellen talk/presentation at Premiere house. This is some sort of event to thank Ian for his work in promoting gay rights, and there's an amusing quote from him in the next day's papers where he talks about being a very poor role model because he stayed in the closet for 49 years. The first hour at the exhibition is spent drinking free wine and eating hors d'oevres in a largeish hall, and I hook up with Brian and Jude very early on. Suddenly I'm aware of a couple of familiar faces around me. There in front of me is Mark Ordesky. Just behind him is J.R.R. Tolkien's great grandson Royd Tolkien, grandson of Christopher Tolkien. A horn is blown and Liv Tyler (Arwen) is escorted through the groups blocking the small square stage area (probably less than six feet square and one foot high). To my left is producer, Barrie Osborne, behind me John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) and Bruce Hopkins (Gamling). Ian McKellen (Gandalf) has apparently popped in briefly, along with his webmaster Keith Stern, before his talk but I don't see them. I do spot writer Phillipa Boyens, but decline an offer to be introduced, because, well, this wasn't meant to be that sort of a function! To my right, Sean Astin (Sam) has arrived and I see the first obvious signs that this is as much a fan event as an art one, with a group of six or eight girls circled around him for most of the evening. Bernard Hill (Theoden) is just behind Sean and... well you get the idea! Amazingly, not only have most of the cast and crew turned out to support Viggo, but they have seemingly done so with no security to acknowledge the 'secret hand signals' the actors can usually call on to indicate to discretely placed staff that they need rescuing without appearing to be rude to fans. I may be wrong, but I sense that Sean would be making such signals if there was anyone around to pay heed to them! About an hour after the doors have opened Viggo arrives and walks through to the small stage, and a Maori group stand up to sing. Viggo is smartly dressed and groomed and is on stage with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh to his left (our right) and behind the small square podium are Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Billy Boyd (Pippin) and probably one or two others I've forgotten. Dom Monaghan and Andy Serkis are missing (they apparently haven't arrived in New Zealand yet) and there's no sign of Orlando Bloom, but otherwise it looks like everyone from the movies is here! When the Maori group have sung their opening verses, some introductions from university staff are made and then Peter Jackson gives a short, witty speech, by way of introduction. "Viggo, some of your photo's look blurred. I need to get you a tripod", he quips before saying "I need to keep this introduction short as I have to leave to get a film finished", before nervously adding "I'm joking! It was finished two days ago. No, that was a joke too" in case anyone thinks the movie wasn't delivered for printing some weeks ago (never underestimate the stupidity of press people that might be present!) Viggo Mortensen then sings - in Spanish. He has a surprisingly good voice (poetry, acting, art, photography - is there anything the man can't do?!). I haven't seen Viggo up close before, but he proves to be far more enigmatic than he appears in documentaries and interviews where he is often so laid back one wonders if he's been smoking funny cigarettes! There is a definite aura about him and he carries an air of humility that is either the finest acting I've seen in a long time, or quite genuine. I am starting to see why he, as opposed to his Aragorn persona - the two are entirely different - has so many female admirers. Viggo invites the other cast members behind him to join him in a Maori song and suddenly the 'no photography' rule appears to be seriously broken (not that I'm bitter or anything, you understand! ;-)). He and Elijah sing heartily with their arms around each other, while behind him Billy, Bernard and a few others bluff it, either having trouble following the words or just deciding they have lousy singing voices. Understandably, the rendition gets a huge round of applause. Eventually Viggo introduces the exhibition, and explains why Wellington is so special to him. His new self-published book is entitled "For Wellington" and is available for sale. As is his new self-published music CD "Pandemoniumfromamerica", which features Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan and Elijah Wood on selected tracks of an album that is primarily a collaboration project with Buckethead. This album and the new Howard Shore concert are the source of background music from my iPod over the next 24 hours and the album is, as expected from Viggo, eclectic and somewhat avant-garde, but more accessible than I'd expected it to be. Speeches over, the exhibition opens. More names are spotted wandering around the exhibition space. Alan Lee... Howard Shore... And all seem happy to sign autographs, which is suddenly turning this into more of a 'mix, mingle and get autographs with the stars' event than the opening of an exhibition, albeit without the rather obsessive girly shrieks of excitement that usually typifies such events. Elsewhere, there are mixed reactions to the various pieces, with some old favourites on display here alongside Viggo's newer works. I love the large modern, abstract color photo's in the main lobby, but am less enamoured with the out of focus, odd black and white work, but nobody could ever say Viggo's work was dull and it's fun to hear how different each person's "favourite" is with so many diverse views on different photographs. I suggest to Brian we get something to eat, and because Jude is going with Viggo and the rest of the gang to The Green Parrot (just round the corner from my hotel) Catherine and I suddenly get included in the party despite us both feeling we're abusing our relationship with the movie cast and crew somewhat. And so it is that we somehow end up in the restaurant on a table that includes Billy, Elijah, Barrie, Bernard, Viggo, Liv (who looks stunning, as ever!), Bruce and others whose names I've probably forgotten. Catherine, who's only just stepped off a plane from LA that morning, and two years ago never dreamt she'd be able to go to New Zealand, finds it all 'very surreal', and I guess it is, although personally I just feel awkward that we've intruded on a crowd we don't really know and who are too polite to say 'What are you guys doing here?'. I spend most of the two hours+ meal (service wasn't exactly fast!) talking to Brian and Catherine and getting to know Bruce Hopkins who I've spoken to on several occasions but not in any great depth. He is a lovely, open, humble, honest man and I have a really enjoyable evening chatting to him. He arranges to go surfing with Billy Boyd the next afternoon, and it's Billy who delivers my favourite lines of the evening when Brian asks him where Dom is. "Dom's not coming. He's dead." Billy says deadpan, before adding matter-of-factly "I killed him!" I'm often asked if the much-publicised friendships between the cast and crew members are genuine, or just another marketing story from a very efficient publicity machine. On tonight's evidence they're certainly not hype. There are hugs between friends every few minutes and when Andy Serkis arrives fresh from the airport the enthusiasm he and those around him have at seeing each other again is clearly genuine. I don't think I've seen quite so many guys hugging since I went to my last gay dinner party! What's most telling is the way that it doesn't matter who you are - the horse vet opposite me and the art design guys next to Catherine are greeted as warmly as the biggest celebrity 'name', and evidence suggests that there really are no ego problems amongst the cast members gathered here. When I ask Bruce Hopkins if, in his experience, what I'm witnessing is 'normal' for the movie industry he agrees it isn't, and that actors usually tend to stick together in their own little group. What makes these movies different, he says, is that those behind the movies, no matter what their position, were working 90 hour+ weeks and often for very little money. They never complained, and that sort of dedication builds a bond that is genuine, regardless of whether or not a film company decide to use it as part of it's marketing of the movies or not. It's been another great day so that, although I'm dreading the madness of 1st December (world premiere day) I really can't complain too much! Stay tuned for future reports (indicated by a photo appearing in the main Itinerary calendar) Back to Day 4 report Forward to Day 6 report
Don't forget you can check out reports of lots of other Lord of the Rings -themed events in the Web Logs section

Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk