Hobbiton, New Zealand
When traveling through New Zealand, we got an amazing opportunity to visit Hobbiton - the place where the hobbit village from Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies was filmed.
So how did this village come to be?
Peter Jackson has always been a huge fan of Tolkien. In fact, the legend goes that he was traveling through the North Island of New Zealand when he was reading Lord of the Rings and he was continually inspired by his surroundings thinking them the perfect backdrop for the books. So when he finally did get a chance to film the movies based on the book, New Zealand was his first choice. Scouting for places in a helicopter, he found a perfect location for the hobbit village in this rural area of New Zealand. Another urban legend claims that when Peter Jackson knocked on the owner of the land's door, the owner was watching the playoffs of his favorite sports team and told him to f*** off. I'm sure that the owner is now super glad that he in the end did pull away from the TV :-)
According to the first contract drawn for the LOTR movies, Hobbiton was supposed to be demolished after the filming was done and the farm brought back to its pristine state. However, fate intervened. About half-way through demolishing process, there was a heavy rainfall, due to which the work had to stop. And then fans started pouring in, asking the owner to take a look at the place where the movie was filmed. "There isn't much left there", - the owner would say. But the fans were quite grateful for whatever they could get to see. So when Peter Jackson came back to the owner again about using his land for filming Hobbiton, the owner now asked for a new contract:"The village will be built from permanent materials and will be left here, and I will be allowed to run tours in the village".
Thanks to this new contract, buses full of tourists now get to walk through the Hobbit village and experience this amazing part of Middle Earth for themselves :)
Peter Jackson was not sure which paths he would like to film in the village, so he asked to build it entirely, so that wherever he would point his camera - it would be picture perfect:
As a result there is an entire village, even with street names!
With every hobbit-hole being different according to the occupation of its inhabitants.
Beekeeper's hobbit-hole:
Baker's:
Sam & Rosie's and their parents' (I believe, they were gardeners):
The level of detail for every hobbit-hole was incredible. It is literally possible to wander through the village all day long looking at all those details!
Unfortunately, it's not actually possible: the tours are right on schedule, with later tours rushing the laggers. Fortunately, we were able to stay behind our tour a little bit and take a closer look at one of the hobbit-holes. Here's the view from the window:
And here's the view when we opened the door a bit:
You might have noticed, that the village looks well-worn and aged, in spite of being built very recently. The effect was achieved by yogurt, if you can believe it. It was spread on surfaces and has molded really fast, creating the desired aged effect:
Peter Jackson was an absolute perfectionist in creating this movie. Notice the rope with hanging clothes on the picture below. There was a person hired, whose job was to go up the hill and hang the clothes and then take them down in the evening for a month. The intent was to wear a path that the villagers would presumably have done if they did hang their clothes there!
And the craziest act for this village was, of course, the tree above Bilbo's house. Yes, it is fake. 2000 leaves were hand-glued to it. And, of course, once it was done, Peter Jackson did not like the color. So every single leaf from the tree was then spray-painted to achieve the right color. Honestly, if we were not told it's fake, we would have walked straight by it without noticing anything wrong with it!
However, the reality of being outdoors, not in the studio, intervenes in the most perfect scenario. One of the first things the crew noticed once they arrived for filming was that the frogs in the lake were quacking so loudly that they were significantly interfering with the sound equipment. So every single one of the frogs in the pond was relocated to the nearby pond, off the property.
Another aspect was that the farm was a sheep farm, and the sheep really wanted to be the stars in the movies too!
Unfortunately, Peter Jackson did not appreciate their beauty and imported 5 sheep from England: the ones with black head and black feet. However, the sheep on the farm did not give up and attempted to get into the shot at all costs. So Peter Jackson had to frequently call the owner with the request:"Your sheep are in my view! Move them!"
Hobbit-holes are all of different sizes. There are regular, human-size holes for filming Bilbo and the gnomes:
And then there are small hobbit-holes for filming Gendalf to create a perception of his larger frame:
Now that we're done exploring the village and fancy some rest, we'll go:
past the wind-mill:
with some notices:
about the mighty local citizen:
to the Green Dragon Inn:
to watch a Smoke Ring Contest, perhaps? :-)
Visiting Hobbiton was an absolutely incredible experience, worth every penny that they are asking for it! :-)
The rest of my entries about New Zealand can be found here.
So how did this village come to be?
Peter Jackson has always been a huge fan of Tolkien. In fact, the legend goes that he was traveling through the North Island of New Zealand when he was reading Lord of the Rings and he was continually inspired by his surroundings thinking them the perfect backdrop for the books. So when he finally did get a chance to film the movies based on the book, New Zealand was his first choice. Scouting for places in a helicopter, he found a perfect location for the hobbit village in this rural area of New Zealand. Another urban legend claims that when Peter Jackson knocked on the owner of the land's door, the owner was watching the playoffs of his favorite sports team and told him to f*** off. I'm sure that the owner is now super glad that he in the end did pull away from the TV :-)
According to the first contract drawn for the LOTR movies, Hobbiton was supposed to be demolished after the filming was done and the farm brought back to its pristine state. However, fate intervened. About half-way through demolishing process, there was a heavy rainfall, due to which the work had to stop. And then fans started pouring in, asking the owner to take a look at the place where the movie was filmed. "There isn't much left there", - the owner would say. But the fans were quite grateful for whatever they could get to see. So when Peter Jackson came back to the owner again about using his land for filming Hobbiton, the owner now asked for a new contract:"The village will be built from permanent materials and will be left here, and I will be allowed to run tours in the village".
Thanks to this new contract, buses full of tourists now get to walk through the Hobbit village and experience this amazing part of Middle Earth for themselves :)
Peter Jackson was not sure which paths he would like to film in the village, so he asked to build it entirely, so that wherever he would point his camera - it would be picture perfect:
As a result there is an entire village, even with street names!
With every hobbit-hole being different according to the occupation of its inhabitants.
Beekeeper's hobbit-hole:
Baker's:
Sam & Rosie's and their parents' (I believe, they were gardeners):
The level of detail for every hobbit-hole was incredible. It is literally possible to wander through the village all day long looking at all those details!
Unfortunately, it's not actually possible: the tours are right on schedule, with later tours rushing the laggers. Fortunately, we were able to stay behind our tour a little bit and take a closer look at one of the hobbit-holes. Here's the view from the window:
And here's the view when we opened the door a bit:
You might have noticed, that the village looks well-worn and aged, in spite of being built very recently. The effect was achieved by yogurt, if you can believe it. It was spread on surfaces and has molded really fast, creating the desired aged effect:
Peter Jackson was an absolute perfectionist in creating this movie. Notice the rope with hanging clothes on the picture below. There was a person hired, whose job was to go up the hill and hang the clothes and then take them down in the evening for a month. The intent was to wear a path that the villagers would presumably have done if they did hang their clothes there!
And the craziest act for this village was, of course, the tree above Bilbo's house. Yes, it is fake. 2000 leaves were hand-glued to it. And, of course, once it was done, Peter Jackson did not like the color. So every single leaf from the tree was then spray-painted to achieve the right color. Honestly, if we were not told it's fake, we would have walked straight by it without noticing anything wrong with it!
However, the reality of being outdoors, not in the studio, intervenes in the most perfect scenario. One of the first things the crew noticed once they arrived for filming was that the frogs in the lake were quacking so loudly that they were significantly interfering with the sound equipment. So every single one of the frogs in the pond was relocated to the nearby pond, off the property.
Another aspect was that the farm was a sheep farm, and the sheep really wanted to be the stars in the movies too!
Unfortunately, Peter Jackson did not appreciate their beauty and imported 5 sheep from England: the ones with black head and black feet. However, the sheep on the farm did not give up and attempted to get into the shot at all costs. So Peter Jackson had to frequently call the owner with the request:"Your sheep are in my view! Move them!"
Hobbit-holes are all of different sizes. There are regular, human-size holes for filming Bilbo and the gnomes:
And then there are small hobbit-holes for filming Gendalf to create a perception of his larger frame:
Now that we're done exploring the village and fancy some rest, we'll go:
past the wind-mill:
with some notices:
about the mighty local citizen:
to the Green Dragon Inn:
to watch a Smoke Ring Contest, perhaps? :-)
Visiting Hobbiton was an absolutely incredible experience, worth every penny that they are asking for it! :-)
Click to viewThe rest of my entries about New Zealand can be found here.