A non war-gaming post today, and I apologise to those who follow my blog, and are not really in to such things - but its clearly going to be inspiring for my forth coming hobby output...
28th November, 2012 - The Premiere day of the The Hobbit movie in Wellington New Zealand!
My wife and I managed to get the day off work together and took the kids out of school for the day, so they were rapt!
We took the train down to avoid traffic and parking hassles and got into to the city at about 11am, and took our time through the city, enjoying a 'second breakfast', before rambling along the waterfront to the Hobbit Artisan market...
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| The 'Beehive', NZ parliament building. |
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| Becky outside the Law college, a lovely victorian era building and good inspiration for my Empire of the Dead buildings |
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| Chris at same |
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| The entrance to the Artisan Market |
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Lots to see here of various craft activities related to Hobbit movie props and such like. Also a very cool Air New Zealand free photo booth:
Inside Te Papa museum - I picked up the The Hobbit visual companion book here, useful painting inspiration, and was tempted to buy the LOTR card game..., but its an age 13+, so I'd end up just playing solo... and be better off spending the time painting.
Grabbed lunch then strolled through to the red carpet area at about 3pm... Managed a nice shot of the entrance way statues...
After this we couldn't get near the barriers, these had been staked out long before, but we managed to secure a small seat out side the Reading cinema mall, upon which we could stand to see over the heads in front of us... Interestingly, just behind me was the local GW store. I couldn't help but think if GW had thought about it and launched their Hobbit game release for this day, they might have picked up some impulse purchases for the crowds of people... a chance missed indeed I think!
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| The big screen... |
And then the Stars started coming down the Red Carpet, some were great and interacted well with the crowd, stopping to sign autographs for those lucky enough to be close... others walked through with out stopping...
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| Martin Freeman - Bilbo |
The difficulty I had is that a lot of the dwarfs, to be fair, are not 'mega-names', as yet, and were tricky to recognise without all their makeup, plus the red carpet area was so full of assorted security and 'hangers-on' that it got a little tricky spotting who was who...!
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| Richard Armitage - Thorin |
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| Aidan Turner - Kili |
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| Stephen Hunter - Bombur, James Nesbitt - Bofur, Graham McTavish - Dwalin |
At this point my camera battery died, and I had to resort to my son's Iphone...
Peter Jackson, fine fellow - took his time with the crowd...
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| Richard - head of Weta |
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| Dean O'Gorman - Fili |
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| Jed Brophy - Nori |
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| Andy Serkis - Gollum |
Andy 'motored' through at a great pace and I just caught the back of his head as he raced through...
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| Adam Brown - Ori |
As the sun began to lower it started to affect the Iphone's photographic abilities...
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| Sylvester McCoy - Radagast |
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| William Kircher - Bifur |
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| Barry Humphries - Goblin King |
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| Hugo Weaving - Elrond |
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| James Cameron, enjoying the Red Carpet day out too! |
Director James Cameron, recently moved to NZ and I believe owns a large estate in the Waiarapa...
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| The PM - John Key |
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| Cate Blanchett - Galadriel |
The lovely Cate Blanchett, made a delightful female change, to the majority male cast...
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| Me - knackered! | |
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A great day out, and a first for me to experience a Red Carpet movie show. The atmosphere in the city was great and I am pleased I was able to make it.
Must admit I was knackered by the end of it, standing with a hefty 9yr old kid on your shoulders so he can see, takes it out of you!
So please forgive my snooze on train on the way home... ;-)
