Richard Armitage is alive and well. Not sure he can speak, but he can move. :D
note: I’m posting this for all of you who are still not on Twitter.
The video below was taken at Ian McKellen’s one man show which has been raising funds for Christchurch’s earthquake-damaged Isaac Theatre Royal.
Once again, RA is almost hidden. Watch how he moves to the back. Some of that is conditioning from being tall. I have a daughter who is 5’8″ and a dancer. She was always up stage unless featured as I would bet he was. But he has long since left dancing and the stage. Hmmm.
For a long time I have believed his humility was part real and part effected, but I’m beginning to believe that he really is a bit shy. Considerate of fans but shy when not performing. Edit: shy is not the best word; reticent is more apropos.
My son is a performer, and at the risk of sounding biased (when has that ever stopped me), he is very good. He’s been known to draw crowds from 50 miles around. Might not sound like much, but it’s big deal in our parts. SO and I have continually encouraged him to also hone his public speaking skills, and he has resisted.
He finally said to me, “Mom, you don’t get it.”
I asked, “What don’t I get?”
“It’s easy to play characters. It’s another matter to play myself.”
TheOneRingnet is trying for 60,000 likes on their Facebook page before Comic-Con begins on July 11. I give you that date in case you have been under a rock somewhere in RA universe.
This is my good faith effort to hopefully encourage you to “like” the page and get your friends and family to do the same. As of this post, there are 56,892 “likes.” So 3,108 more. Just making the number clear for the action fans. ;-)
Okay, the good faith effort:
[click to enlarge]
and a commitment to more and better shots if we get that FB page to 60K and soon.
Some of you may think this is cruel, since you’re so starved for new Richard Armitage photos. Trust me; it’s going to be worth it. :D
And this is the least we can do for TORn, who is going to bring us such good coverage of Comic-Con – including RA’s appearance.
Richard Armitage will be there. A definitive statement? Yes! And I’ve said it before. It’s going to happen, so don’t worry. My gut is in overdrive anticipating it. The man is going to be there, my friends.
And if he’s not there, then my gut needs a serious check. Nah, it’s working just fine. :D
But to stay in the know, keep checking TheOneRing for details.
Are you a Richard Armitage fan who didn’t buy tickets to this year’s event? And you also missed the deadline for the professional passes? Never fear. There might be a way to get in. If you have any reporting background or even a writing background, you might be able to work for these guys.
If I were applying, I would make sure they knew of all the town council meetings where I questioned a panel and then reported on it later. :D I would also make sure they knew I LOVE comic books. *Looks up at heaven to make sure there is no bolt of lightening.* Okay, okay, I’ve bought some comic books — in the last 40 years.
Speaking of which, I’d still like to see RA in a get up like this.
edit:
It’s been brought to my attention the positions are now filled at CBR. If you got in, good for you. If you didn’t, there’s always next year.
Yes, Richard Armitage still exists, or he did as of this video blog:
I think they’re messing with us. Yeah, Peter Jackson and his bunch are definitely onto us. :D But what PJ doesn’t know is that I think I have a crush on Dion. That’s who I would want to hang out with if I got a chance to visit the set. Dion’s job looks really interesting. I might tear myself away to take a gander at RA every now and then too.
In case you missed RA (and as usual click to enlarge):
Once again I’m struck with his ability to command attention simply by his bearing, and no, I don’t think it’s just a case of CWS. At the risk of sounding inane, surely we can’t be the only ones who see this?!!
I’ve been waiting for this announcement, and then @KellyDuck sent me a message about a piece she read via Cumberbatchweb. It concerns an article from Total Film:
[click to enlarge]
Will post article link when I get it. (see edit below)
But this means RA is coming back to America!
The only bad news in all of this is Comic Con is sold out.
Edit: I don’t have a link that’s easy to read, but the entire article is up here. And Comic Con is still sold out, but there may be hope. Go here
Tech is one of my passions. Yes, my eye strays from Richard Armitage at times — especially when he pays no attention to me! No pictures or soundbites to drool over! Nothing to fangirl over (absolutely fangirl is a verb. Don’t argue with me; it’s a verb!) But I get a steady stream of cool stuff from tech, which makes me giddy reading about the latest gizmo (can I say gizmo if I’m a techie? I guess I just did). It also makes me feel in ways I never thought I could even in ways Richard has never made me feel. And I love experimenting. Heck, I love breaking things just to see how I can fix them. I have a savior complex which demands I continually fix things. And since I can’t fix Rich, I settle for inanimate objects. No, Rich doesn’t need fixing. At least that I know of, which doesn’t mean I’m ever going to leave him, but if I did leave him, it wouldn’t be for some wild eyed, angst ridden villain who looks good in leather. ;-)
Meanwhile my real boyfriend has been checking out more of Peter Jackson’s works. He recently finished “Heavenly Creatures” which led to quite a discussion of fantasy. He’s also been reading up on the brouhaha over 48fps and launched into a comparison/contrast of Jackson’s and Cameron’s styles including some talk of how it would be fantastic if Jackson could use technology to artistically get inside a character’s head and Cameron doesn’t even know how to get inside a character’s head. This is the quick and dirty since I can’t remember everything SO said, and it’s times like these that make me want to throttle him for not blogging. Countless times I’ve said, “I’ll handle the technical stuff. Just write the pieces!” The man is stubborn.
But back to Richard.
Rich,
I’m starting to get a complex. I mean are you trying to tell me something?! Are my feelings for you wearing you out?! I really will understand if you don’t like my gushing. C’mon, you can tell me. Don’t hold it in until you have to throw a chair out the window. Or are you just saving the good stuff for later? :D
Hopefully, I won’t be so immersed in this that I miss it:
Go ahead; you can click on it.
Signed,
One of your crazy fans who would leave you only for a wild eyed, angst ridden villain who looks REALLY good in leather.
P.S. My real boyfriend knows you’re not a threat, but he is a little concerned about tech.
P.P.S. I suppose we’re not going to get another production vlog anytime soon. Gotta wait for the trailer in July huh?
Notice how I’m completely ignoring the Facebook IPO. May it crash and burn (after some of you have made some money of course :D)
Richard Armitage has managed to impress one of the toughest demographics — fan boys. Okay, it was one guy out of the demographic, but I’m running with it. I have encountered enough fan boys over the years to know how picky they can be. My first encounter taught me. He was into monsters and those monsters had to be just so. The right kind of plastic molded to perfection. He went on to become Ivan Stang. Excuse me that’s Reverend Ivan Stang, founder of the Church of the SubGenius. “Ivan” was going to have things his way. LOL!
So our resident fan boy, Eric Vespe, aka Quint from Ain’t It Cool, gave us his report and saw what so many of us see and rave about. How good it was to hear from someone else — and a hard case to boot:
It’s late in the day and the idea is that this is a suitable place to make camp, but Gandalf wants to push on and seek Elrond’s council at Rivendell.
This scene is all about Thorin and my first real chance at seeing Richard Armitage craft a layered performance with the character. Thorin’s a stubborn dwarf, very much a leader, but is smart enough to heed the council of Gandalf.
He is a man torn in this scene. His deep resentment at the elves (he believes they have betrayed his ancestors by not stepping in when they needed their help) pulls him one way, but his respect for Gandalf pulls him the other.
Sir Ian had to be here for this moment since a full performance was required from both men, so he spent the day as he does most days on this movie: standing on a platform a good 2-3 feet off the ground. Peter was getting mostly medium shots and over the shoulders (or beside the shoulder for the shots from Gandalf to Thorin if you want to be anal about it) so there shouldn’t be any need for digital augmentation here.
Armitage does a great job with Thorin’s inner struggle. The look on his face isn’t someone locked into a decision. Gandalf urges him to seek Elrond’s help, for the good of the quest. Instead of playing it like a stone-faced general, Armitage does weigh his options and mostly in reaction to Gandalf’s words, not in his own dialogue.
Those firmly in RA Universe know by now Peter Jackson screened 10 minutes of ‘The Hobbit’ at CinemaCon, and it was ill received by a significant number of attendees. The plan by Warner Bros. was to highlight the potential sea change in movie making with the advent of cameras like the Red Epic. What I found completely predictable, and I’m going to be shocked if Sir Peter and Warners didn’t as well, were the stunned reactions of a bunch of theater owners and some journalists who needed something interesting to write. This gathering was not conducive to appreciation of something highly creative and inventive in film making. It was mostly about the bottom line, about consumption and give it to me now.
After the lean years of movie going and fear of not being in the black, I can understand theater owners not being eager to embrace something that requires them to invest lots of money and must in part be an acquired taste for the public. As for most of the journalists, they did not do their homework as per usual and must hear the same things over and over. For those who did do their homework, they knew Peter Jackson had already made it plain how 48fps will look and for ‘The Hobbit’ film will require some additional work on his part. Check out 5:00 to about 6:45 and especially the part about “grading down.”
For now I’m assuming Peter Jackson was not thrown a bit by the reaction at CinemaCon:
Peter Jackson responds to complaints about ‘The Hobbit’ footage — BREAKING
by Anthony Breznican Peter Jackson says the negative reaction this week over new technology he’s using to shoot The Hobbit won’t hold him back, and he hopes moviegoers will give it a try and judge for themselves.
“Nobody is going to stop,” he said. “This technology is going to keep evolving.”
He hopes critics of the format will change their minds when they see the finished film.
“At first it’s unusual because you’ve never seen a movie like this before. It’s literally a new experience, but you know, that doesn’t last the entire experience of the film; not by any stretch, after 10 minutes or so,” Jackson tells EW. “That’s a different experience than if you see a fast-cutting montage at a technical presentation.”
So what does he say to people who just decide they don’t like the glossy new look of the format he’s using?
“I can’t say anything,” Jackson acknowledges. “Just like I can’t say anything to someone who doesn’t like fish. You can’t explain why fish tastes great and why they should enjoy it.”
Right now, every second of a motion picture is made up of 24 images, or “frames,” but Jackson is shooting his two Hobbit films at 48 frames per second, which he says creates a more lifelike picture and will make 3-D less of a strain on the eyes.
I’m also glad I finally got to highlight this vlog. It has been the most fascinating to me so far, but in the autumn I had a few things going on to keep me from giving the piece its due. Oh well, I got a chance to begin now and will have more to say on the subject.
Obviously something interesting happened. :D See you on Tuesday.
I’m finally getting ’round to catching up on my reading of TORn and have discovered Larry D. Curtis (aka MrCere) is an embed on the set of ‘The Hobbit.’ Something ugly flickered in the middle of my being. It was a foreign feeling. One I’ve only felt perhaps two or three times in my life, but one I hope never to experience again, or I may not be responsible for my actions.
From the looks of things here, it might seem I’m jealous of MrCere meeting the cast and in particular, you know who. Nope. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to watch him work! I would love to do that — much more than meet him. C’mon what would I say to him or he would say to me that I couldn’t completely predict? I could write that script. Boring.
But to watch him work?! And the rest of the cast? And Peter Jackson?!! That would be something wonderful. A fantasy! Yes, I’ve had others — mainly where I cook and he talks, but this is my ultimate fantasy of an encounter with Richard Armitage, and Larry’s tweet has inflamed my envy:
RAFrenzy 
