Los Angeles, CA (October 11, 2002) Middle-earth comes to home theaters in a brilliant new incarnation as New Line Home Entertainment releases the Special Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring on VHS and DVD on Tuesday, November 12, 2002. The Special Extended Edition, available as either two VHS cassettes or four DVD discs, is priced to own at $24.99 on VHS and $39.99 on DVD.
In addition to the three-and-a-half hour feature, presented on two discs with the enhanced picture and sound quality consumers have come to expect from New Line Home Entertainment, the four-disc Special Extended DVD Edition will also include two discs of supplemental material.
“Perhaps more than any other film in recent memory, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring warrants the kind of total immersion experience the Special Extended Edition has to offer,” says New Line Home Entertainment President and Chief Operating Officer, Stephen Einhorn. “The Lord of the Rings trilogy is especially well suited to the DVD format.”
Following are complete contents of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Special Extended DVD Edition:
Discs One and Two: The Feature and Supplemental Audio Commentary Tracks
Due to the running length of the 3-hour-and-30-minute extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and the additional audio tracks, the film will be split; two separate discs are required in order to not compromise image and sound quality.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring feature will be presented in anamorphic 16X9, 2.35:1 aspect ratio and Dolby Digital EX 5.1 Surround Sound, DTS ES 6.1 Surround Sound and Stereo Surround.
The first two discs will feature four supplemental audio commentary tracks, accompanied by a subtitle identifying each different speaker.
Supplemental audio commentary Track One, The Directors and Writers: Peter Jackson (Director/Co-Writer/Producer), Fran Walsh (Co-Writer/Producer), and Philippa Boyens (Co-Writer).
Supplemental audio commentary Track Two, The Design Team: Grant Major (Production Designer), Ngila Dickson (Costume Designer), Richard Taylor (Weta Workshop Creative Supervisor), Alan Lee (Conceptual Designer), John Howe (Conceptual Designer), Dan Hennah (Supervising Art Director/Set Decorator), Chris Hennah (Art Department Manager), and Tania Rodger (Weta Workshop Manager).
Supplemental audio commentary Track Three, The Production/Post-Production Team: Barrie Osborne (Producer), Mark Ordesky (Executive Producer), Andrew Lesnie (Director of Photography), John Gilbert (Editor), Rick Porras (Co-Producer), Howard Shore (Composer), Jim Rygiel (Visual Effects Supervisor), Ethan Van der Ryn (Supervising Sound Editor/Co-Designer), Mike Hopkins (Supervising Sound Editor), Randy Cook (Weta Animation Designer and Supervisor), Christian Rivers (Weta VFX Art Director), Brian Van’t Hull (Weta VFX Cinematographer), Alex Funke (Miniatures Director of Photography).
Supplemental audio commentary Track Four, The Cast: Elijah Wood (Frodo), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Liv Tyler (Arwen), Sean Astin (Sam), John Rhys-Davies (Gimli), Billy Boyd (Pippin), Dominic Monaghan (Merry), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Christopher Lee (Saruman), and Sean Bean (Boromir).
Disc Three: The Appendices Part I–From Book To Vision
Disc Three of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Special Extended DVD Edition, offers supplemental material detailing the origins of the book and film, from adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s original novel through pre-production design work, pre-visualization and storyboarding. Disc Three is composed of the following features:
J.R.R. Tolkien–Creator of Middle-earth: A feature focusing on the creator of The Lord of the Rings, with specific emphasis placed on the writing of The Fellowship of the Ring.
From Book to Script: This documentary covers the challenging task of translating The Fellowship of the Ring into screenplay form.
Visualizing the Story: This section shows the pre-production and planning process to create Middle-earth including storyboards, animatics and set tests.
- Storyboards and Pre-viz: This video piece explores the various methods that were undertaken to prepare for principal photography including the elaborate storyboarding, animatics, lipstick cam, CGI, and story reel pre-visualization process.
Designing and Building Middle-earth: This section covers the exhaustive process of bringing the world of The Fellowship of the Ring to reality. Using documentaries and design galleries, the viewer can experience the evolution of characters and locations.
- Designing Middle-earth: Examines how teams of conceptual artists and Weta Workshop artisans transformed director Peter Jackson’s vision into physical reality. This feature includes such topics as: art department; VFX art department; props and furniture; wardrobe; arms, armor, and sword making; set design and construction; and location scouting
- Costume Design: Costume designer Ngila Dickson takes the viewer on a tour of the wardrobe department for a detailed look at the costumes created for The Fellowship of the Ring.
- Weta Workshop: This documentary covers the myriad of projects tackled by Weta Workshop including: miniature, armor, weapons, prosthetics and make-up construction, and creature maquette fabrication.
- Design Galleries: These thumbnail galleries present an archive of the design work used to develop the look of the characters and places featured in The Fellowship of the Ring. The galleries are presented as screens of nine thumbnails that can be selected to enlarge and fill the screen. Some photos and sketches are accompanied by an audio commentary with the artist.
Middle-earth Atlas: An interactive feature that includes a timeline of the events in The Fellowship of the Ring with a corresponding map of Middle-earth.
New Zealand as Middle-earth: An interactive map of New Zealand highlighting the various locations used in The Fellowship of the Ring.
Disc Four: The Appendices Part II–From Vision to Reality
Disc Four of the Special Extended DVD Edition, offers supplemental material about the filming and editing of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring:
Filming:
- The Fellowship of the Cast: Humorous personal anecdotes from the actors, and perspectives on their characters. Viewers should come away from this feature not only knowing more about the characters, but about the actors who play them as well.
- A Day in the Life of a Hobbit: This feature covers a typical day in the life of the four actors playing Hobbits in the Fellowship, from early morning prosthetics, make-up and oversized clothing, to working on blue screen stages, acting against big rig doubles, and moving forced perspective platforms. This feature captures the camaraderie and good humor that developed between the actors over the fourteen months of shooting.
- Cameras in Middle-earth: The process of filming the first book of The Lord of the Rings is presented in the order of the journey the Fellowship undertakes, mirroring the plot of the film as it unfolds and covering a wide range of topics: from shooting on wild locations to blue screen sets; from horse and fight training to languages and dialects.
- Production Photos: Still frame gallery of people working behind the scenes on set, at Weta Workshop, Weta Design and more.
Visual Effects: This section uses three documentaries and a photo gallery to describe the use of miniatures (or “big-atures,” because of their size), scale and digital effects. Topic areas include: creatures, environments, digital doubles, motion capture, set extensions and compositing.
Post-Production: Putting it all together:
- Editorial: Multiple film units shooting over 15 months generated hours of footage. This section explores how the editorial team sifted through miles of film and selected the right shots and camera angles to tell this epic story.
- Editorial Multiple Angle Presentation: This is a multi-angle presentation, showing master shot and all coverage for a particular scene, demonstrating the amount of coverage that needed to be edited, followed by the final scene as edited in the film.
Digital Grading: This video piece examines how the process of color-correction enhances a location’s palette or a character’s skin tone for maximum impact.
Sound and Music:
- The Soundscapes of Middle-earth: This documentary follows the sound design team to learn how they created the voices of Middle-earth’s scariest creatures.
- Music for Middle-earth: This documentary looks at Academy Award® winner Howard Shore and his creation of The Lord of the Rings score and the new original score music he created especially for this Extended Edition of the film
- The Road Goes Ever On… : This documentary captures the hype and media when the film opened in theaters including footage from the premieres in London and New Zealand. For more information about The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, visit www.lordoftherings.net. To download The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring press releases and photos, visit New Line’s website at www.moviepublicity.com.
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