New Zealand Stories

It is painfully obvious that I've been more than a little absent for several months. It's not for lack of love for the films or the idea of celebrating them, just life taking over. But there's still plenty of time for a walk down memory lane so hopefully together we can bring the comm back to life.

The monthly themes are there but I'm not going to make reminder posts. I worry that they may have been too proscriptive and that people were waiting to post when the theme fit rather than post whenever they had something to share. They are still listed here to give you ideas, but you by no means have to follow them.

To get things rolling I'd like to share two clips from the Fellowship promotion. It's a Burly TV interview (in two parts) with several of the cast including most of the Fellowship. It's one of the first clips I ever saw and I believe I downloaded it from Bag End Inn several years ago. ( Behind the cut to save your friends page *g* )

Why go back to where it all started? Because many of us missed this part of the fandom altogether. Because thinking about the cast and crew as they created these amazing films is fun. Because it gives us a chance to celebrate our love for the books and movies, and celebrate our fandom all in one shot.

How will this work? As loosely and openly as possible. :-)

While I know some people have a good idea about when several specific scenes were shot, most of our information is sketchy at best and we're never going to be able to follow the exact filming schedule without turning into a bunch of control freaks rapping people on the knuckles with our rulers. We want this to be fun so the idea is to break things up into manageable parts that honor the spirit of the filming (many things being filmed at once) and allow for a large variety of options throughout the next year and a half.

The monthly breakdown is just a rough attempt to keep things organized. If you have something you want to share that's connected to the story and the scene it's related to isn't scheduled to be up for four months, go ahead and post. No one is going to smack your wrist for being enthusiastic. For example, we all know Viggo arrived late. If you want to be super accurate you can post about it in October or post in August or September for the "cast arrives" theme, or wait and post next year just to mix things up. It's all good.

The scene list is from the extended editions (of course *g*). On the resources page you'll find links to sites with transcripts, but the most fun would be to rewatch the films for inspiration. :-)

You can contribute anything and everything that comes to mind. Write a story about the characters during this particular part of the film, write a story about the actors and what they were doing as they filmed those scenes (both on and off screen), post screen caps, post recs to favorite fics, post fanvids or fanmixes related to the scenes, write something about the first time you watched it, start a discussion about subtext or the costumes, draw a comic, post trivia questions, create a banner, post links to articles or interviews. As you can see, the options are only limited by your creativity and what you think would be fun to share.

To help give you ideas we have a post of resources that we'll be adding to as the months go on. Please share any and all favorite links, archives, wikis and/or books to add to the list. The more resources the better.

But most importantly, have fun with it. This is a celebration of all the joy these movies have brought us, of the incredible friendships forged during filming, and of our mutual love for this timeless story.

This is an assortment of links to help get you in a New Zealand mood and spark ideas. It is by no means complete or comprehensive. If there's a site that you think has some great information, please pass it along and I'll add it to the list.

Please note that while I have visited all of these sites I can't vouch for them. Please use all suitable care (anti-virus programs and the like) when downloading anything from the Web.

( Resource List )