Visual Effects of The Battle of the Five Armies

Weta Digital has posted to their YouTube channel the below video that provides a bit of a peek in how they did some of amazing VFX sequences in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Behinds the Scenes of the Visual Effects for Five Armies Battle

Below is a new video that looks into the how some of the special effects were done for the Battle of the Five Armies sequence and Smaug the Dragon. Sadly the movie didn't get a Best Visual Effects Oscar nomination it deserved with the slot going to the less deserving Interstellar.

Two New Clips and B-Roll for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Three more videos for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. The first is the Council confronting Sauron while the second is Thranduil starting his attack on Erebor. The last video is B-roll of behind the scenes moments as they filmed the final movie.

Behind the Scenes Clip from The Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition

The main reasons you really should consider getting The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition isn't the extra 25 minutes of scenes but really the best behind the scenes documentary ever made for movies that is collectively called "The Appendices". No other movie does it as well. Below is a clip from the section called "Barrels Out of Bond: The Elven Sluice" that hints at both the very low tech approach (foot powered locomotion) and the high tech (whole lot of CGI) that was part of making the barrel escape sequence. The extended edition will be released on November 4th. To pre-order from Amazon: Blu-Ray + Digital HD | DVD | Blu-ray 3D Amazon Exclusive Set

Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug Motion Capture B-Roll

Below is a brief video that shows Benedict Cumberbatch performing as Smaug the Dragon from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. While I can see how his line readings, facial expressions and head movements were translated to the final performance of the pure CGI character, I have to admit I can't figure out why his body as a whole is also sporting the same motion capture dots and how they where used. I guess the upcoming release of the Extended Edition may clear that up.

Behind the Scenes of the Creation of Laketown

Weta Digital has posted a new behind the scenes video for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The video covers the creation of Lakedown from concept to its pure CGI creation. The home video release of the movie is next Tuesday.

VFX of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Below is another video that gets into the visual effects of the The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. It acts as an overview of not only creating Smaug the dragon but also all the effects that were used such as in the barrel escape.

Behind the Scenes of the Barrel Escape

Below is a video posted by Wired that gets into the complexity of what seems relatively simply on screen but really is extremely complicated behind the scenes, in this case the barrel escape sequence in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Behind the Scenes: Bringing Smaug to Life

Below an interesting short behind the scenes video that gets into some of the details on how they used the motion capture performance of Benedict Cumberbatch to create the digital Smaug the Dragon with his 1 million unique scales and 2x jumbo jet size.

Behind the Scenes for the Sound Effects of The Desolation of Smaug

Last week The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug received two Oscar nominations for sound in the categories of Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. In the video below the crew discusses how how they created the audio track, the challenges, and how the film influences their decisions.

The Hobbit Concept Art

Andrew Baker, one of the concept artists for The Hobbit trilogy, has posted some of his creature concepts on his blog. These include a look at Smaug, Bolg, Beorn and more. Click here to view them all.

The Hobbit Production Video #14 - The Music

In time for Christmas, Peter Jackson has posted the 14th production video for The Hobbit trilogy and last for this year. The remainder will start sometime in the new year with the focus being on filming The Hobbit: There and Back Again. In the video below, it focuses entirely on creating the beautiful soundtrack for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug as composed by Howard Shore.

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New Poster, 3D Featurette for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Just cause The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is out doesn't mean the posters stop. The latest features the massive Dwarf treasure as Smaug does his Scrooge McDuck impression. In addition below is a brief behind the scenes featurette with the cast and Peter Jackson as they discuss the 3D quality of the film.

The Hobbit Production Video #13

The latest production video for The Hobbit Trilogy has been posted. This edition focuses mostly on post-production for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. That includes CGI, sound effects, editing, and using combining a virtual world with filming so that Jackson can "film" a scene in an empty room that mimics his camera movements for the actual home of Smaug. He then teased the next production video that looks into recording the score for the movie.
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Denny's Joins with Desolation of Smaug for New Menu, Look at Beorn's Home

Much like last year, Denny has joined with The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to create a Hobbit inspired menu in time for the Holidays. Just as important for fans is exclusive content that looks at the making of the movie starting with a look at Beorn's house which is built to the scale of a near giant compared to the much smaller hobbit and dwarves. The video and press release on the new menu is below.


Press release:

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Sneak Peek, Fan Event Video and New Poster

Today was a good day for The Hobbit fans. Warner Bros held a "fan event" (1st video below) for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug that let people at four theaters ask questions to the cast and crew. Those that participated included Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom, Andy Serkis, Peter Jackson, Luke Evans, and others. During the event a sneak peak was shown (2nd video) as was production video #12 (3rd video below). Last but not least a new poster is out that shows off all the new cast members.

Highlights from the fan event:
- The 10 weeks of pickups over the summer included filming the Battle of Five Armies and footage for Desolation of Smaug.
- Evangeline Lilly said Tinkerbell influences how she played Tauriel as "she's tiny and she's cute but she is fierce. You do not wanna get on the wrong side of Tink." She figured since her character is young by elf standards, she tried to avoid copying Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett.
- Even though Legolas is 60 years younger than age in Lord of the Rings, for an elf those 60 years are a "blink of an eye" so had no influence on how played character.
- Luke Evans explained that while it appears he is holding his bow incorrectly, it is actually correct for that type of bow due to the longer arrows.
- Said the last day of the shoot was emotional due to goodbyes to cast and crew and more but "underneath it all is a sense of relief" as moves on to post production on "putting the second movie together" which he was looking forward too.
- Never released a blooper reel for Lord of the Rings but open to the idea. Main problem is a bunch of 35mm film to go through to find them and the quality of the images will likely be similar to VHS

Peter Jackson Live Blogging Final Day Shooting The Hobbit

Peter Jackson has started to live blog the final day of filming for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: There and Back Again. The live blog started at about 3:00PM EST (-500 UTC) or 7:00 New Zealand (+1200 UTC). Below his first post indicating his intentions. To follow the rest, click here.

Our last day of shooting.

Ever since starting these blogs, there's been something I thought I'd like to try one day (as well as answering the other 19 questions I owe you!) - blogging throughout a shoot day in real time. Try to give you all a feeling for what we deal with on an average day.

The Hobbit Production Video #11

Peter Jackson has posted his next production diary from the set of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. To start Jackson reveals that he will not be doing anything for San Diego Comic-Con, something he traditionally does try to participate in to promote his movies. From there its welcome to the world of green screen with quick cuts of scenes being filmed, sets and the like being rebuilt with most of it coming from storage when the the films wrapped the first time. The Hobbit actors begin their training for new fight scenes including The Battle of Five Armies (but no scenes) as that will be the finale of trilogy. He also shows an interesting example of a pick-up where a riverside scene was filmed for real the first time and later "picked-up" on a lot set that re-creates that river side rock structures. There is also a look at "new" cast members Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel), and Luke Evans (Bard)
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The Visual Effects of Rivendell, The Goblin Caverns

Weta Digital has added to more videos (below) to their YouTube channel that explores the special effects of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The previous set of vids mostly focused on the digital characters while these two focus on the mostly digital environments of Rivendell and The Goblin Caverns.

The Visual Effects of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Videos

Below are a bunch of new behind the scenes videos that Weta Digital has posted on their YouTube page that shows off some of how they achieved the Oscar nominated visual effects for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The first video covers a wide variety of effects from how Gandalf was inserted into the dinner scenes, to environment effects and more. The laster videos, told with a voice over, get into the individual digital characters of Gollum, The Goblin King, and Azog.

Now back to the first video, it was posted as part of The Hobbit's VFX Supervisor Joe Letteri's presentation about the special effects from the movie where he provided a host of details on how they implemented the amazing effects especially in regards to motion capture where the digital characters had human performances driving every step of the digital creation. Some of the info is repeats from previous behind the scenes videos and interviews but if interested in reading all of it, head over to Collider.