Stansborough Textiles reopens its doors!

Earlier this month, Welly-moot received an invite to the exclusive Grand Opening at Stansborough Textiles on Wednesday September 9th.

Stansborough, the company behind the Fellowship cloaks, has moved to their new venue in Petone, Lower Hutt. Unfortunately Jack was on a business trip in South Island, so one of the fellow Welly-mooters, Cinnamon, joined me (Alex) as representation of the Welly-moot. Cinnamon was a great companion and we met up with some very passionate people for arts and designs. It was a special night.

New gallery

Secret wardrobe

The tour of the hundred year old weaving machines – they are magnificent

Guess who we met! Alex with Daniel Reeve, Caligrapher, who created the maps, Bilbo’s book, and Thorin's contract in the Peter Jackson’s movies, Lord of the Rings and Hobbit.

The Grand Opening for the general public was today (September 13th), so go and check them out, or give them a call to arrange a tour!

  - Alex

Hobbit 3 Premiere Attendance

The Welly-moot was present at the Hobbit 3 Premiere event at The Roxy last week, and Dianne sent me a copy of a great group shot. Thought I'd share it here for the group!

(If you can't see the picture, click on the link to get out of facebook - the blog has the pics)

  - Jack

Hobbit 3 BOTFA Release - Wellington Events

NB: This page will no longer be updated - check our new Calendar page instead.

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Like last year, I've been collecting details about events planned around the opening of the final installment of The Hobbit movies.

Also: if you HAVE extra information on these, or other events, please let me know!

• Update 1 (26/11/2014) : December 2 Premier event at the Roxy added.
• Update 2 (26/11/2014) : March 7 official opening of Rivendell Archway updated.
• Update 3 (26/11/2014) : December 2 Ian Brodie Exhibition and Book Signing event at the Roxy added.

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Hobbit 3 Release, Wellington Calendar
(last updated November 26, 2014)

November 14, 2014

• Embassy Theatre tickets go on sale for the Hobbit 3 midnight session. Full details on their facebook page.

 

November 30, 2014

• Last date for entries in the Stansborough Prizedraw for an authentic Gandalf Hat!

 

December 2, 2014

• Wellington Premiere for Hobbit 3 BOTFA at the Roxy Cinema, starting at 6:30am (early morning!), breakfast at 7:00am, and an early showing of Hobbit 3 BOTFA for a lucky audience. Event is Invite Only, and invites have been sent out already.

 

December 2, 2014

• In the evening of the same day as the Premiere, Best-selling New Zealand author ("LOTR location Guidebook", "Hobbit Location Guidebook") Ian Brodie will be opening his new exhibition of photography at the Roxy Cinema, starting at 07:00pm. He will give a talk, and will be available to sign books as well. Time to bring in your LOTR guidebook, and buy the new Hobbit guidebook (which mentions the Welly-moot!)... 

 

December 5-6, 2014

• Caburlesque Middle-earth Madness, R18-rated Cabaret Burlesque show at the Fringe Bar, tickets from $20. Their 2012 show Bare and Back again was a real treat - don't miss this event! It's a small venue, so get tickets ASAP!

 

December 10, 2014

• Red Carpet Hobbit Fan Party, at the Roxy Cinema, from 9:00pm to midnight. Tickets are $265. Special guests are California Dreamers William Kircher's (Bifur) band. No door sales, prebooked tickets only.

 

December 11, 2014 - 12:01am midnight

• First showing of The Hobbit 3 BOTFA at the Embassy Theatre

 

December 28, 2014

• Last Welly-moot meeting of 2014, venue to be decided. More details will be posted on this blog later.

 

7 March, 2015

• Official opening of the Rivendell Archway. More details will be released in the coming month.

Welly-moot #3.5 report (from October 26)

Another two months, and another meeting has been held, once again at the Roxy Cinema in Wellington's Miramar suburb. It was well attended, we ended up having to shift to another part of the building to accommodate everyone, and then bring in more seats as well, so that was good.

Jack and Alex opened the meeting, and there were introductions all round. Jack had some updates also on other business.

• The Rivendell Archway is now completed, at the Kaitoke Regional Park in the filming locations, exactly where the original stood. All the building work has been completed, and the paint has been applied. Only two things remain - we are waiting for the end of summer so we can apply a layer of weather-dependent artificial yogurt-mould, and in the next three months we're expecting an official opening ceremony from the Wellington Great Regional Council. Jack will update the group when this takes place.

• The Hobbit 3 - The Battle Of The Five Armies will open early in December for general release, the exact date will probably be December 11th or thereabouts. The World-Premiere red carpet event will be held in London, as expected. A few functions have already been announced; a (more) complete list will be posted later.

• Welly-mooter Emily (aka 'Sadie von Scrumtious') has announced that there will be another Middle-earth themed Burlesque Cabaret to celebrate the last Hobbit movie. The event will be held in Wellington at The Fringe Bar on December 5th and 6th (Friday and Saturday). Both nights will feature a costume competition for the audience, so prepare to get involved! The event has an R18 rating (for adult themed naughtiness!), and tickets will be around $25. I'll post more details on our facebook page at a later date.

• Welly-mooter Kumiko has won the Student Prize at the end of her three year Weltec course’s Graduation Exhibition, to loud applause from her peers and the rest of the audience. Well done Kumi!

• The Stansborough Prizedraw is in full swing, so if you want to win a full-sized Gandalf Hat, make sure you're in to win!

• Sir Peter Jackson's Hobbit Fan Competition has finished, and the winners selected - of the 150 biggest fans around the world, three of them are Welly-mooters! Ash and Cinnamon managed to snag a seat to New Zealand (ok, not far to fly!), and on the names list, I noticed that Nicolas Gonzalez, formerly of Milford Sound but recently returned to Spain, is also returning to Middle-earth. Well done, all of you, and also to all those who tried and weren't successful. On the Welly-moot facebook page we'll be following their adventures through screenshots taken from the New Zealand 100% Pure YouTube videos. Follow us there!

Theme: Hobbit 3 BOFTA - What's The Story?

Finally, we got around to the theme of the day - what will be in the final Hobbit installment. Peter Jackson's last Hobbit film will includes plenty of sword-clashing and arrow-flying action for your dollar, but there’s also a lot of story materials. We spent a large part of the afternoon covering these points (and more!)

• Smaug, having left his treasure-filled nest, will wreak havoc on Laketown
• Thorin has yet to actually retake the Lonely Mountain for his people
• Bard’s quest for redemption needs closure
• Four Dwarves have been left in Laketown (Kili, Fili, Bofur & Ori) – what will their roles be in Laketown?
• The relationship between Tauriel and Kili
• Amidala will get pregnant with twins, while Anakin will turn to the dark side
• The movie needs to carve out screen-time for Bilbo (Martin Freeman), so that his story may actually be brought to a proper concluding point; after all, he's the main link between Hobbit and LOTR
• Setting up other developments that transpire in the Lord of the Rings films

Other points:

• According to the predicted synopsis posted on TheOneRing.net, Thorin will get obsessed with the treasure in the mountain and will refuse to share it --- remember that Thorin's grandfather grew mad with his obsession with gold in the previous movies
• Smaug is not the only danger faced by the Dwarves. The Necromancer has sent legions of Orcs to attack the Lonely Mountain. In the second movie Gandalf was the amongst the first to discover the Necromancer's return in Dol Guldur. He also witnessed the march of his armies.
• A difficult question in Hobbit 3 is posed to all the races in Middle-earth. Elves, Dwarves and Men will have to decide whether they will stand together against the forces of Sauron or die fighting between themselves. So far, there appears to be no good relationships among them.

On a related note, two days before the meeting, a number of leaked photos were posted to TheOneRing.net, probably from the new Brian Sibley "Making of Hobbit 3" book due out in the next month or so. The photos were pulled from the site within 24 hours, but one of the mooters managed to take copies before they were removed. After checking with everyone if potential spoilers would be acceptable, they were shown briefly. If anything, they just made us want to watch the movie even more! And no, they won't be posted here.  
[I will give one detail though - ominously, a pre-battle Thorin appears to be wearing a RED SHIRT. Not good. Just sayin'.]

All too soon, it was time to pack up again. By the time of the next moot, we will (hopefully!) all have seen the movie, and we will no doubt have a lot of new information to digest!

As seems to have become a Welly-moot tradition, Jack & Alex are planning on having another post-christmas moot/party at their house, but full details will be announced in due time.

Stansborough competition!

Last week I was speaking to the good folk of Stansborough Textiles, who made all the beautiful material for the Middle-earth movies (amongst other many things!). Welly-moot visited them last year, and we got to see the ancient looms making "actual" Elven fabric.

www.stansborough.co.nz

Cheryl from Stansborough showed me the new products which will be released for the final Hobbit movie (The Battle Of The Five Armies), notably a new set of fingerless Gandalf gloves - very nice!

Gandalf's gloves - same design, same wool, same sheep. Now also for mortals.

So, we talked for a while, and we thought it might be nice to get these in (on?) people's hands before Christmas 2014.

For an extra incentive, with every purchase you will go into the draw for one fullsized Hat of Gandalf the Grey (a value of nz$320). The Gandalf hat is fully licensed, and authentic down to the last detail, including the patches on top.

Alex the Grey

How do you get into the draw? You get one entry into the draw if you buy any of the following products:

• a set of Gandalf's new fingerless gloves (1x entry)
• the super-cute Gandalf Mini-Hat (1x entry)
• the magical Gandalf Scarf (2x entries!)

 

Buy any of these, and go into the draw to win the world's coolest hat!

To qualify, purchase them straight off their website before the end of November 30, 2014. In the order form "comments" field, make sure you type "Welly-moot".

All prices on the site are in New Zealand Dollars, and world-wide shipping is free, so that's all good!


NB - this draw is open to everyone, you do NOT have to belong to our group (yet). It won't hurt though, and we have a meeting on October 26th, if anyone's interested in joining. :)

Welly-moot visits Stansborough

Peter Kenny visited us today from Brisbane, Australia. He was in Wellington for a few Hobbit 2:DOS events, and I had arranged to take him to Stansborough Fabrics, the people who created the fabric for Gandalf's cloak, as well as the Elven cloaks used in LOTR.


To get us there, I managed to convince Wellington Rover Tours to lend a hand, and they provided me with a van for the afternoon. Peter Kenny will be coming on one of the LOTR tours over the weekend as well.

 
In fact, Stansborough created far more than just a bit of fabric for LOTR. Think: over one kilometer of fabric for LOTR; enormous amounts for The Hobbit movies, more for Avatar, Narnia, The Waterhorse, Thirty Days of Night, and a whole lot of other movies.

A few scarves with different colours weaving patterns.

We arrived as a small group - it was just me (Jack), Peter Kenny, Franziska, and Adam, and Kris joined us as well. When we got to the factory, Cheryl Eldridge met us at the door, and took us into the small shop area. Through the window we could see the enormous looms already.

Cheryl explains some of the finer point of the machinery

Cheryl described how the factory came to be, from breeding these odd looking grey sheep, to finding the old looms, to searching for people who had the almost lost knowledge to use them (and fix them when they break)!
 

This loom is set up with the LOTR Hobbit pattern, ready to go.

Barry took over the tour, and showed us what he was working on. All items are created by hand, and apart from some mechanical tools, no modern machinery is involved in the process at any stage. It's nice to know that when you see the final product on screen, I think. The looms are over 100 years old at the stage.

Barry making hats for a certain wizard. Note what SECRET ingredient he's using!

After seeing how the hats were made, it was Richard's turn - to show us the looms in operation. Incredibly noisy, I tried to film a bit of it but got too close, and Richard shut them off, as apparently (and only occasionally) the little shuttle can shoot off and kill the closest camera person. I'm not sure if he was kidding but took him at his word!

Richard looks calm, while the loom has become a blur of action. Peter looks on and seems impressed!

All in all, a great afternoon - I think everyone enjoyed seeing the factory in action!

Franziska looks like she had a good time.

Stansborough has an online shop as well, where a lot of products are offered for sale. Check them out, they ship to most countries.

Stansborough Fabrics visit - be quick!

Had a great time at the second Hobbit movie (again) last night, at the Embassy Theatre Midnight Screening. While there, we met up with the lovely people from Stansborough Fabrics, who not only created the cloaks for Gandalf in the Hobbit movie, but were actually wearing them at the cinema last night as well.

Cheryl and Barry Eldrige, who own the fabrics company, have invited us for a visit later this week, to coincide with Welly-moot friend Peter Kenny's visit from the Brisbane Tolkien Association. I spoke to my boss at Wellington Rover Tours, and he's provided a van for Friday afternoon as well, so here's the deal:

Friday the 13th of December, I will take a mini-van with Peter Kenny, and 10 empty seats from Wellington City to the other side of the Wellington Harbour, to the Stansborough factory in Petone, where they will take us for a guided tour around the 100+ year old looms. If you would like to see this, email me as soon as possible at jack@welly-moot.com and I will tell you where to be at 2:00pm on Friday afternoon. The first 10 people get in, so be quick. First come, first served.


This is a free event, but there are STRICTLY limited spaces available, so please, do be quick!


Stansborough created fabrics and clothing for LOTR, Hobbit, Avatar, Narnia, and a host of other Wellywood productions, so this is an exciting opportunity to see where it all happened!


We'd also like to thank Wellington Rover Tours for helping out with transport for this event as well. Rover Tours have been running LOTR tours in the Wellington region for longer than anyone else - so if you're after a great tour, please do check out their website as well. All their guides are crazy about the LOTR movies, so you can't go wrong.

So, email me asap, on jack@welly-moot.com !