E.L.F. 2006 - Friday
Well, I'm back.
I survived another E.L.F. Weekend of Wonder. As the saying goes, if 'ya ain't tired, you didn't do it right. I can now say I partied with John Noble and Daniel Reeve. Had a good showing in the costume contest. Danced the night away Hobbit-style. Learned what a voiced inter-dental fricative is. Got winks and nods from fellow Hobbits Sean Astin and Billy Boyd. Came home with lots of autographed memorabilia, including one of the enormous stage banners advertising the show. And of course, no E.L.F. weekend is complete without a missed or near-missed flight and an O.J. Simpson-like post-9/11 sprint through the airport. And I wasn't even late for work Monday morning.
Friday morning started with an early alarm at 5:00 am. An hour and a half later and I was on the way to the airport with two dressed but sleeping children and Erica my babysitter. We arrived at the airport in Charlotte, NC, checked the luggage curbside, parked, caught the shuttle, strolled leisurely through security, got a cup of coffee and some breakfast, and boarded our plane in a calm and orderly fashion. After an uneventful trip we landed at the Newark airport shortly after 11:00. The entire day was still ahead of us!
After settling in at the hotel, I picked up my registration materials while the Erica and the children entertained themselves. Sarah, my six-year-old daughter, and I caught the tail-end of the first session, an entertaining presentation by Daniel Reeve, calligrapher, cartographer, and graphic artist for the Lord of the Rings movies and other projects. Any writing, any map scattered on a table, any inscription you saw in the films, he did it. He showed us all the fonts he developed for the different characters and cultures of Middle-earth. He talked about how demanding Peter Jackson was. Think it's easy to distress a map? You can wrinkle it, tear it, burn it, and stain it. Then make three exact copies. Huh? But he did it. He showed us a few inside jokes. He would display a slide of Tolkien's map of ME, then his, then a map of New Zealand. They are remarkably similar, so he added an island here, enlarged a bay there, until his map of ME looked exactly like New Zealand! He also showed us enlargements of some of the maps where you could see the names of members of the art department or Peter Jackson on islands and such.
Some of the documents are written in Elvish or Dwarvish. Daniel Reeve had to compose plausible text for all these because they knew that someone somewhere would freeze-frame it and try to translate it. No jibberish, cursing, or insulting the management allowed! He also found himself composing a few more verses to the Lay of Beleriand since Tolkien only composed 5 himself and they needed more verses on the page.
Daniel Reeve was followed by Michael Drout, pronounced like"drought", a professor of English at Wheaton college. He came in through a door in the back of the room, yelled "What?", then began reciting Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon. When he finished his short recitation, he explained that Tolkien opened his classes on Anglo-Saxon in the same manner, reciting the first 50 lines of Beowulf (though he only recited the first 11). This he suggested, was an attempt to scare the less devoted students out of the class, thus leaving Tolkien with fewer papers to grade. He then discussed various kings in legend and literature, from King Hrothgar and Beowulf, to King Albert, often regarded as the first English king, to Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of Aragorn. These kings demonstrated modesty, usually coupled with a firm sense of their birthright. If you are familiar with Beowulf, you know that he declined to be placed among Hrothgar's sons, declined to marry his uncle Higlaf's wife (um, eeewww, was Drout's ad-lib comment), and declined to accept the kingship of Geatland until Higlaf's son was killed in battle. Only then did he finally accept the crown, and continued to rule for fifty years, which in Anglo-Saxon, means a long time. Similarly, Aragorn of Tolkien's book would not take the crown through force nor outshine Denethor, but waited until he had the opportunity to prove himself and the people were willing to accept him as king. Aragorn of the books never doubted his right to rule as he carried the shards of Narsil about, but waited patiently for the right opportunity.
Aragorn of the films however doubted his ability to rule and was initially reluctant to assert any authority. This Aragorn leaves Narsil in the museum.* (Peter Jackson says this is because it would look silly on film for Aragorn to pull out a broken sword, but I think it fits seamlessly with the character portrayal.) Michael Drout opined that because of relatively recent experiences with dictators such as Hitler, the viewing public regards someone sure of his right to rule with distrust. Thus Viggo Mortensen deflated Aragorn's ego to some extent in order to make him palatable to Western audiences.
After Michael Drout I took a short break, missing some of the filler material like trivia contests and skits. On our way to our room Sarah and I ran into John Noble, who played Denethor, waiting for the elevator. I just happened to have some pictures of myself with John Noble that I took last year at DragonCon in Atlanta (what a coincidence!), so I whipped them out of my purse. We talked briefly about DragonCon. He hated it and told his agent never to book it again. DragonCon put all the celebrities in the back of the vendor room, a hot, crowded, serpentine madhouse of swords, circlets, superheroes, and shackles. To his credit, he autographed my ROTK Visual Companion book after his DragonCon presentation to save me the task of negotiating the autograph room. Anyway, I showed him the pictures and enjoyed this brief conversation until I got to my floor.
Next on my agenda was John Noble's actual presentation. He talked about acting, his career, upcoming projects, and so on. Regarding LOTR, he initially auditioned for both Saruman and Denethor, but agreed that Christopher Lee was perfect for the role. One of the hardest scenes he filmed was where he "sees" Boromir over Faramir's shoulder and then falls backward. He first did a sort of stage fall, but Peter Jackson said it wasn't real enough. So then he did a real fall, to which Peter Jackson said, "Great, let's do it again." They had to get the fall from different angles, so after repeated falls he had a terrible bruise. As a treat for us, he recited Denethor's line about "no long sleep of death embalmed …".
After John Noble's presentation, he and Daniel Reeve began signing autographs. Since I was in row D, and each row had 38 seats, this took a while. I finally got back to my room at about 8:00. I ordered room service for us all and then showered the long day's grime away. Several times that day I had been in touch with fellow message-boarder Sue, who lived nearby. We finalized plans to meet for the first time at the dessert party that night with John Noble. The party was sold out, but I had bought a full pass for my babysitter, and she was going to stay in with the kids, so Sue was going to use my second ticket.
I got to the party late, and all the tables were filled, and all the people at the tables were seemingly engrossed in their own conversations. John Noble and Daniel Reeve were slowly making their way through the party stopping at every table, so not much milling about as no one wanted to miss their turn. While I was pondering sit-down parties versus stand-up parties in my head, my cell phone went off. I expected it to be Sue, but instead it was my security service. My alarm was going off, so that was a little excitement while I spoke back and forth with Security Central, the police, and my next-door neighbor and simultaneously navigated a cocktail party. I found one of my row-mates from the auditorium, Karen, and we chatted a while. I got my table-turn with John Noble where I learned he had a 4:00 am flight to England scheduled the next morning. Then Sue showed up. We had a glass of wine, talked, and staked out the door so she could get a word with John Noble before he left. But neither John Noble nor Daniel Reeve seemed too intent on leaving the party. They just kept coming back. We got pictures. We talked. The party ended. We migrated to the bar. And we shut the bar down. John Noble and Daniel Reeve stayed the entire time, soaking up all the attention. We advised John Noble to forgo sleeping and just stay up until he needed to leave for the airport. Daniel Reeve opened his Saturday session with an apology for being disorganized, but he'd had a late night. Sue and I just smiled.
Coming soon: Saturday!
*My comment, not Michael Drout's.
I survived another E.L.F. Weekend of Wonder. As the saying goes, if 'ya ain't tired, you didn't do it right. I can now say I partied with John Noble and Daniel Reeve. Had a good showing in the costume contest. Danced the night away Hobbit-style. Learned what a voiced inter-dental fricative is. Got winks and nods from fellow Hobbits Sean Astin and Billy Boyd. Came home with lots of autographed memorabilia, including one of the enormous stage banners advertising the show. And of course, no E.L.F. weekend is complete without a missed or near-missed flight and an O.J. Simpson-like post-9/11 sprint through the airport. And I wasn't even late for work Monday morning.
Friday morning started with an early alarm at 5:00 am. An hour and a half later and I was on the way to the airport with two dressed but sleeping children and Erica my babysitter. We arrived at the airport in Charlotte, NC, checked the luggage curbside, parked, caught the shuttle, strolled leisurely through security, got a cup of coffee and some breakfast, and boarded our plane in a calm and orderly fashion. After an uneventful trip we landed at the Newark airport shortly after 11:00. The entire day was still ahead of us!
After settling in at the hotel, I picked up my registration materials while the Erica and the children entertained themselves. Sarah, my six-year-old daughter, and I caught the tail-end of the first session, an entertaining presentation by Daniel Reeve, calligrapher, cartographer, and graphic artist for the Lord of the Rings movies and other projects. Any writing, any map scattered on a table, any inscription you saw in the films, he did it. He showed us all the fonts he developed for the different characters and cultures of Middle-earth. He talked about how demanding Peter Jackson was. Think it's easy to distress a map? You can wrinkle it, tear it, burn it, and stain it. Then make three exact copies. Huh? But he did it. He showed us a few inside jokes. He would display a slide of Tolkien's map of ME, then his, then a map of New Zealand. They are remarkably similar, so he added an island here, enlarged a bay there, until his map of ME looked exactly like New Zealand! He also showed us enlargements of some of the maps where you could see the names of members of the art department or Peter Jackson on islands and such.
Some of the documents are written in Elvish or Dwarvish. Daniel Reeve had to compose plausible text for all these because they knew that someone somewhere would freeze-frame it and try to translate it. No jibberish, cursing, or insulting the management allowed! He also found himself composing a few more verses to the Lay of Beleriand since Tolkien only composed 5 himself and they needed more verses on the page.
Daniel Reeve was followed by Michael Drout, pronounced like"drought", a professor of English at Wheaton college. He came in through a door in the back of the room, yelled "What?", then began reciting Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon. When he finished his short recitation, he explained that Tolkien opened his classes on Anglo-Saxon in the same manner, reciting the first 50 lines of Beowulf (though he only recited the first 11). This he suggested, was an attempt to scare the less devoted students out of the class, thus leaving Tolkien with fewer papers to grade. He then discussed various kings in legend and literature, from King Hrothgar and Beowulf, to King Albert, often regarded as the first English king, to Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of Aragorn. These kings demonstrated modesty, usually coupled with a firm sense of their birthright. If you are familiar with Beowulf, you know that he declined to be placed among Hrothgar's sons, declined to marry his uncle Higlaf's wife (um, eeewww, was Drout's ad-lib comment), and declined to accept the kingship of Geatland until Higlaf's son was killed in battle. Only then did he finally accept the crown, and continued to rule for fifty years, which in Anglo-Saxon, means a long time. Similarly, Aragorn of Tolkien's book would not take the crown through force nor outshine Denethor, but waited until he had the opportunity to prove himself and the people were willing to accept him as king. Aragorn of the books never doubted his right to rule as he carried the shards of Narsil about, but waited patiently for the right opportunity.
Aragorn of the films however doubted his ability to rule and was initially reluctant to assert any authority. This Aragorn leaves Narsil in the museum.* (Peter Jackson says this is because it would look silly on film for Aragorn to pull out a broken sword, but I think it fits seamlessly with the character portrayal.) Michael Drout opined that because of relatively recent experiences with dictators such as Hitler, the viewing public regards someone sure of his right to rule with distrust. Thus Viggo Mortensen deflated Aragorn's ego to some extent in order to make him palatable to Western audiences.
After Michael Drout I took a short break, missing some of the filler material like trivia contests and skits. On our way to our room Sarah and I ran into John Noble, who played Denethor, waiting for the elevator. I just happened to have some pictures of myself with John Noble that I took last year at DragonCon in Atlanta (what a coincidence!), so I whipped them out of my purse. We talked briefly about DragonCon. He hated it and told his agent never to book it again. DragonCon put all the celebrities in the back of the vendor room, a hot, crowded, serpentine madhouse of swords, circlets, superheroes, and shackles. To his credit, he autographed my ROTK Visual Companion book after his DragonCon presentation to save me the task of negotiating the autograph room. Anyway, I showed him the pictures and enjoyed this brief conversation until I got to my floor.
Next on my agenda was John Noble's actual presentation. He talked about acting, his career, upcoming projects, and so on. Regarding LOTR, he initially auditioned for both Saruman and Denethor, but agreed that Christopher Lee was perfect for the role. One of the hardest scenes he filmed was where he "sees" Boromir over Faramir's shoulder and then falls backward. He first did a sort of stage fall, but Peter Jackson said it wasn't real enough. So then he did a real fall, to which Peter Jackson said, "Great, let's do it again." They had to get the fall from different angles, so after repeated falls he had a terrible bruise. As a treat for us, he recited Denethor's line about "no long sleep of death embalmed …".
After John Noble's presentation, he and Daniel Reeve began signing autographs. Since I was in row D, and each row had 38 seats, this took a while. I finally got back to my room at about 8:00. I ordered room service for us all and then showered the long day's grime away. Several times that day I had been in touch with fellow message-boarder Sue, who lived nearby. We finalized plans to meet for the first time at the dessert party that night with John Noble. The party was sold out, but I had bought a full pass for my babysitter, and she was going to stay in with the kids, so Sue was going to use my second ticket.
I got to the party late, and all the tables were filled, and all the people at the tables were seemingly engrossed in their own conversations. John Noble and Daniel Reeve were slowly making their way through the party stopping at every table, so not much milling about as no one wanted to miss their turn. While I was pondering sit-down parties versus stand-up parties in my head, my cell phone went off. I expected it to be Sue, but instead it was my security service. My alarm was going off, so that was a little excitement while I spoke back and forth with Security Central, the police, and my next-door neighbor and simultaneously navigated a cocktail party. I found one of my row-mates from the auditorium, Karen, and we chatted a while. I got my table-turn with John Noble where I learned he had a 4:00 am flight to England scheduled the next morning. Then Sue showed up. We had a glass of wine, talked, and staked out the door so she could get a word with John Noble before he left. But neither John Noble nor Daniel Reeve seemed too intent on leaving the party. They just kept coming back. We got pictures. We talked. The party ended. We migrated to the bar. And we shut the bar down. John Noble and Daniel Reeve stayed the entire time, soaking up all the attention. We advised John Noble to forgo sleeping and just stay up until he needed to leave for the airport. Daniel Reeve opened his Saturday session with an apology for being disorganized, but he'd had a late night. Sue and I just smiled.
Coming soon: Saturday!
*My comment, not Michael Drout's.
posted by Mary Joan | 2:24 PM
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