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DISCLAIMER: This transcript is provided on an "as is" best efforts basis and is based on a MiniDisc recording made where speech was not always legible because of noise in the room. Any errors made in transcribing what was actually said are mine, and not those of the speakers quoted, and may include spelling mistakes, incorrect names and other minor typo's.
Stephen Bromburg, Communications Manager: Good morning everyone. It's good to see so many of you here this morning. . . . We have here today John Tucker, who's head of the Science Museum, James Rudoni who's the exhibition manager, Paul Brewer from Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum which created the exhibition, and we're actually delighted to have double-oscar winning, special effects guru Richard Taylor and beneath all those prosthetics, make-up and costumes I can tell you there's a chap called Lawrence Makaore who plays Lurtz. There will be time for questions at the end although I should stress that this is very much about the exhibition and this isn't the place, sadly, to find out all the secrets behind the third movie. Last thing I'd like to ask you to include our booking number on any pieces you run because we don't want people to travel long distances, turn up and not be able to get in. The reason we're saying is that we've sold over 14,000 tickets to this exhibition which is more than any other exhibition in the museum's history. I've been up to our call centre this morning and the phones aren't quite in melt-down but they're very nearly there! So if you could please include the number I'd be very grateful. Now I'll hand you over to Jon Tucker. Jon Tucker, Head of the Science Museum: Thanks Stephen. Thanks everyone for giving up your time to come in and see this fantastic exhibition. We're absolutely delighted to be hosting this here. As you heard from Stephen, the advance bookings are saying what our initial visitor research said would be the case - that this one's going to be really, really popular. So why here at the Science Museum? Where's the science and technology? This particular exhibition was especially designed and developed for science centres and science museums. So it's absolutely packed with insight into the various technologies in use in the film making industry. You may be aware the Science Museum is part of a wider group of museums called the National Museums of Science and Industry. Our sister museum in Bradford is of course the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. Here at the Science Museum in London we tend to focus more on the scientific aspects of film-making, but our group of museums is the natural home for anything to do with film photography, television and the science that underpins it. Some of the technology here really is ground-breaking. In The Lord of the Rings trilogy they have pushed the boundaries. Things like "Massive" - the futurised battle simulator, taking the production of battle scenes to new lengths and levels of complexity. Some of the techniques and the tools you'll see in the exhibition: how the scale was achieved, how the world was created, how this wonderful mix of computer-generated imagery and motion-tracked actors that lead to the definitive Gollum. So we're absolutely delighted to be hosting this here. We hope you enjoyed the look round the exhibition and I would just emphasise that point made by Stephen - do please let people know that for this one advance booking is going to be absolutely essential. We'd hate people to come on long journeys and be disappointed. I'm going to hand over to James Rudoni who's directed the installation of this exhibition and knows some awesome detail about it. James Rudoni, Exhibition Manager: Hello there. What I want to do is very briefly go through some of the key areas of the exhibition to highlight them so if you haven't seen them on your walkrounds you'll take note of them now.
		FX: starts laptop slide show on large screen behind panel One of the big issues that we had was how were we going to sort out the scaling. How do you make all these actors who are essentially all relatively the same size appear dramatically different on screen? There's a range of different techniques from scale doubles, big rigs, using traditional techniques like forced perspective - but even then push that to the boundaries and use forced perspective with a moving camera. Scale composition: within the exhibition itself there is an area where people can get reduced down to hobbit size and they can step in front of the camera and see what life's like being a little hobbit.
One of the other areas they used dramatically in film-making work were the models. The exhibition features a number of models, one being a "bigature" - these are enormous, great big, very very detailed models of certain venues or areas within the story line. We have Hobbiton Mill, which was used during a vision that Frodo has when he goes to see Galadriel. It took many months to build but is only seen on screen for a number of seconds. It's just the level of detail and effort that's gone into the film-making that's shown greatly here. The picture you see behind me is Boromir - again it's a model we have in the exhibition. It was used in filming and is an incredibly lifelike reconstruction of Sean Bean. I've walked past it several times at night and you kind of expect him to get up and start walking around - it is really incredible. Richard Taylor, Weta Workshop: Can I just add .. the coolest thing about the silicon dummies was when the other actors offered them cups of coffee! FX: audience laughter Laurence Makaore, 'Lurtz': I would walk past and they'd be like "Ssssssshhhh! Someone's sleeping". James Rudoni: One thing that was used extensively throughout the filming of the trilogy was Lurtz as you can see down the end here. Weta Workshop actually used over 10,000 facial appliances to create the orcs and the Uruk-Hai, the elven ears and hobbit feet. They also used over 2,000 full foam body suits as well. They had three foam ovens that worked 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year for three and a half years before they were first switched off for an afternoon. So probably more prosthetics used in this film than in any other, would you say? Richard Taylor: I believe so James Rudoni: As John mentioned earlier when he was talking about the "Massive" technology, the innovative software that was created by Weta Digital to handle these enormous armies of orcs and Uruk Hai fighting. You've probably seen in the second film at the Battle for Helm's Deep and it's just stunning. And how they did this was by creating individual agents - they gave each person a brain and they told them how to react in a certain way. Orcs and elves would react in a certain way. You create a number of these, you put them together and set them off. It's quite a remarkable feat and quite a breakthrough in film technology. It wasn't all new science and technology. They also used very traditional techniques to create some of the armour and weaponry. Weta Workshop built a forge and beat from plate steel some of the armour that you see on screen and in the exhibition as well. I should say that everything you do see in the exhibition is real and was used in filming. One thing I'd specifically like to talk about is Sauron's armour. You may have seen it already. It's one of my favourite pieces. It's absolutely stunning. The detail in it is absolutely incredible. I think just about every single piece of that armour has been etched in some way. You don't need to go to the level of detail that these guys have - you don't see that on camera. You only get to see that when you come to the exhibition. And that's it from me. I'm now going to hand over to Paul Brewer from Te Papa Exhibition Paul Brewer, Te Papa Tongawera: It's fantastic to be here. The idea of creating a world class museum exhibition about the making of Peter Jackson's ground-breaking movie trilogy was an opportunity that occurred to us at Te Papa well over four years ago, well before the first film was even completed. We felt it had all the best ingredients for a fantastic, great museum exhibition - a great museum experience. We thought a lot about the technology - which is unbelievable and ground-breaking. From a museum point of view and Te Papa's point of view The Lord of the Rings and the world that Peter created dealt with so many of those themes that made The Lord of the Rings, the book, so successful. The idea of good vs evil. Heroes. Darkness and Light. They're universally compelling themes and they touched something deep and mysterious in the human psyche and the movie trilogy, as have the novels, have played on some of those ancient traditions of myth and story telling. The movies have created a completely believable holistic fantasy if you like of the world Middle-earth. The exhibition is really about the making of that world.
		It's also about New Zealand I have to say. The films are a view of essential New Zealand-ness and I'm not just talking about the stunning unbelievable landscape which doesn't exist for its own sake - it's there because it's an important and essential part of telling the story. I've touched on the ground-breaking technology and the special effects. I mean, they're all part of the unique vision and showcase if you like for New Zealand expertise - creativity, innovation, teamwork and I think the ability to think outside the square - that's what we call "that Kiwi ingenuity" - that's the other element of New Zealand-ness. So when we decided we wanted to look at and explore making an exhibition like this. We got together with Stephen Hodge(? Mumbled recording) and the company Story Inc. in Wellington and we put together a concept. We then trotted across to Los Angeles and knocked on the door of New Line Cinema which again I think we had the process of over two years of knocking on doors and we kind of chased New Line Cinema in Los Angeles to New York and back again.
We had well over a year of telephone conversations, video conferences at all sorts of weird times of the day and the night and eventually I think mainly because we were so dogged and so persistent because we could see what this product could do we brought them down and they agreed to allow us to create this exhibition. The rest, as they say, is history. It broke all box office records in New Zealand. It had more visitors than any exhibition in any museum in New Zealand's history. Over 220,000 people visited at Te Papa. We literally had to close the doors on the (garbled because of crashing noise from audience member). We could have run for another year. [And now] here it is in this wonderful museum. Te Papa's had a long relationship with the Science Museum.. I say "long" - we're only five years old - but the Science Museum was one of the museums that we benchmarked when Te Papa was being formed. So it's fantastic to be here and to be able to bring this wonderful exhibition to this wonderful museum. After it's been here it goes to Singapore, to Boston and eventually to Sydney and after that… who knows? So thank you very much. FX: passes microphone to Richard Taylor Click here for second page of Press Conference Panel transcript
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