Lord of the Rings
From Wings to Rings
This blog update is for those of you that have not caught up with my news.
A few weeks ago I handed in my notice as Director of the New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum.
On the 1st September 2009 I commence my new position as Media and Communications Manager for Hobbiton Movie Set & Farm Tours in Matamata.
The last seventeen years of my life in Wanaka have been amazing and I have thoroughly enjoyed my work and all the wonderful people I have worked with. I will miss you all.
I will continue to undertake my work for Warbirds Over Wanaka so will still be able to keep in touch with many of you.
However, I felt it was time for a change so now I move from one passion to another. The Alexander Family in Matamata have become good friends and I am really looking forward to working with them, Henry Horne and the rest of the staff.
Please excuse the brevity of this blog but I am currently half way through a journey of commentary around the English Airshow Circuit. I will be in touch with many of you upon my return late July.
For those of you who want to follow my experience of living with hobbits you will be able to check here, the Hobbiton page, Facebook and Twitter. Once I commence work I will be updating all of these regularly.
With my best regards,
Ian
A few weeks ago I handed in my notice as Director of the New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum.
On the 1st September 2009 I commence my new position as Media and Communications Manager for Hobbiton Movie Set & Farm Tours in Matamata.
The last seventeen years of my life in Wanaka have been amazing and I have thoroughly enjoyed my work and all the wonderful people I have worked with. I will miss you all.
I will continue to undertake my work for Warbirds Over Wanaka so will still be able to keep in touch with many of you.
However, I felt it was time for a change so now I move from one passion to another. The Alexander Family in Matamata have become good friends and I am really looking forward to working with them, Henry Horne and the rest of the staff.
Please excuse the brevity of this blog but I am currently half way through a journey of commentary around the English Airshow Circuit. I will be in touch with many of you upon my return late July.
For those of you who want to follow my experience of living with hobbits you will be able to check here, the Hobbiton page, Facebook and Twitter. Once I commence work I will be updating all of these regularly.
With my best regards,
Ian
0 Comments
Ian Brodie's New Zealand
After many months of waiting I am thrilled to announce the release of Ian Brodie’s New Zealand. It is now available in all good bookstores in New Zealand or from Amazon in the UK.
I am so pleased with the book, and very proud to have a book that shows the diversity and uniqueness of our country.
Over the next few weeks I will be promoting the book via television and radio in many towns. One interview I am really looking forward to is with Kim Hill on National Radio. If you would like to listen please tune in at 11-00am on Saturday 06 December.
I am so pleased with the book, and very proud to have a book that shows the diversity and uniqueness of our country.
Over the next few weeks I will be promoting the book via television and radio in many towns. One interview I am really looking forward to is with Kim Hill on National Radio. If you would like to listen please tune in at 11-00am on Saturday 06 December.
In Search of Rivendell
Last week I was visited by an American writer, Ethan Gilsdorf. He is travelling New Zealand looking at Lord of the Rings Locations and the placement of New Zealand as Middle-earth.
He has a great sense of humour and is very easy to talk to.
Most of his travels around New Zealand seem to be with a video camera glued to his eye as he captures special moments. These have then been posted onto the blog of his hometown newspaper The Boston Globe.
I found this clip on his blog of yesterday as he searches for Rivendell at Kaitoke Regional Park near Wellington.
This location is featured extensively in The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook. It is also great to see an interview with Wellington Rover Tours who undertake Lord of the Rings sightseeing tours of many Wellington film locations.
What doubled my pleasure in watching this video is the very thumbed copy of my Location Guide being used by the tour guide as a reference.
Excellent!
He has a great sense of humour and is very easy to talk to.
Most of his travels around New Zealand seem to be with a video camera glued to his eye as he captures special moments. These have then been posted onto the blog of his hometown newspaper The Boston Globe.
I found this clip on his blog of yesterday as he searches for Rivendell at Kaitoke Regional Park near Wellington.
This location is featured extensively in The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook. It is also great to see an interview with Wellington Rover Tours who undertake Lord of the Rings sightseeing tours of many Wellington film locations.
What doubled my pleasure in watching this video is the very thumbed copy of my Location Guide being used by the tour guide as a reference.
Excellent!
Paper Plus Gore Presentation
16/09/08 09:58 Filed in: Announcement | New Zealand
For anybody that lives near Gore, I will be making a presentation at the Gore Paper Plus this Friday (19 September).
Paper Plus books spokesperson Kerre Woodham is visiting Gore on Friday 19 September to chat about her favourite reads. Doug and Denise Grant from Paper Plus Gore invite the community to attend the evening event and enjoy a glass of bubbly while talking with Kerre about their favourite books.
It will be an evening of celebration for Kerre too, as she looks forward to discussing her memoir Short Fat Chick to Marathon Runner, a characteristically witty and candid account of how she worked her way to fitness and completed both the Auckland and New York Marathons – all after inauspiciously turning up to her very first training session with a hangover.
Guests will also enjoy a special appearance by accomplished New Zealand photographer and non-fiction writer, Ian Brodie. Ian’s love of country, film, travel, photography and warbirds has combined to produce some remarkable books and images. His The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook was one of the inaugural Booksellers Platinum Award titles, and Cameras in Narnia, simultaneously published in four countries, had one of the largest initial print runs of any New Zealand book.
Doug and Denise say the evening will be a celebration of great reading and a chance for the guests to chat about their favourite books while relaxing with a glass of bubbly.
The event will be held at Paper Plus Gore from 6.30pm. Entry to the VIP night costs $10, with $5 from every ticket going to Gore and Districts SPCA. Tickets can be purchased from Paper Plus Gore.
Kerre is a well-known presence on the Paper Plus website and in stores, each month announcing and reviewing her preferred latest books in Kerre’s Choices, and sharing her thoughts in the Paper Plus Book Club online discussion forum. The Paper Plus Book Club gives readers the opportunity to review books they love, add comments to other reviews and receive special book offers.
Paper Plus books spokesperson Kerre Woodham is visiting Gore on Friday 19 September to chat about her favourite reads. Doug and Denise Grant from Paper Plus Gore invite the community to attend the evening event and enjoy a glass of bubbly while talking with Kerre about their favourite books.
It will be an evening of celebration for Kerre too, as she looks forward to discussing her memoir Short Fat Chick to Marathon Runner, a characteristically witty and candid account of how she worked her way to fitness and completed both the Auckland and New York Marathons – all after inauspiciously turning up to her very first training session with a hangover.
Guests will also enjoy a special appearance by accomplished New Zealand photographer and non-fiction writer, Ian Brodie. Ian’s love of country, film, travel, photography and warbirds has combined to produce some remarkable books and images. His The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook was one of the inaugural Booksellers Platinum Award titles, and Cameras in Narnia, simultaneously published in four countries, had one of the largest initial print runs of any New Zealand book.
Doug and Denise say the evening will be a celebration of great reading and a chance for the guests to chat about their favourite books while relaxing with a glass of bubbly.
The event will be held at Paper Plus Gore from 6.30pm. Entry to the VIP night costs $10, with $5 from every ticket going to Gore and Districts SPCA. Tickets can be purchased from Paper Plus Gore.
Kerre is a well-known presence on the Paper Plus website and in stores, each month announcing and reviewing her preferred latest books in Kerre’s Choices, and sharing her thoughts in the Paper Plus Book Club online discussion forum. The Paper Plus Book Club gives readers the opportunity to review books they love, add comments to other reviews and receive special book offers.
In Memory
04/09/08 10:23 Filed in: The Hobbit | The Lord of the Rings
Thirty-five years ago this week we all lost our beloved JRR Tolkien to this world. On the 2nd September 1973 a light went out in Arda.
Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast!
In a totally inadequate form of memorial I completed this image last night. Taken in the Yorkshire Dales it is my impression of how Hobbiton might have looked after the Party Tree was destroyed by the evilness of Saruman.
The Lord of the Rings Locations Documentary
08/08/08 19:42 Filed in: The Lord of the Rings | New Zealand
As part of updating my website I came across this piece that was played on TVNZ when my first Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook was released.
It is a bit of a blast from the past, having featured just before The Two Towers came out in 2002. Who would have though six years has passed by!
I had an absolute ball writing the guidebooks and it was also great fun sharing this part of the journey with Hamish Clark who did a wonderful job of the documentary piece. We travelled to just a few of the locations but came across tourists looking for that right spot at virtually every one we visited. It gave me confidence that somebody might want to buy my book. The couple at Isengard were just randomly there, it was totally unscripted!
Since the guidebooks were first released in 2002 I have sold over 350,000 copies, so that is total proof of the power of the subject we all love.
I hope you enjoy it,
It is a bit of a blast from the past, having featured just before The Two Towers came out in 2002. Who would have though six years has passed by!
I had an absolute ball writing the guidebooks and it was also great fun sharing this part of the journey with Hamish Clark who did a wonderful job of the documentary piece. We travelled to just a few of the locations but came across tourists looking for that right spot at virtually every one we visited. It gave me confidence that somebody might want to buy my book. The couple at Isengard were just randomly there, it was totally unscripted!
Since the guidebooks were first released in 2002 I have sold over 350,000 copies, so that is total proof of the power of the subject we all love.
I hope you enjoy it,
Farewell Pauline Baynes
06/08/08 15:40 Filed in: The Hobbit
It is very sad to see the death of Pauline Baynes, as reported by my friends at TheOneRing.net.
When I first started reading Tolkien the imagery of these strange sounding places demanded I needed a map to follow these journeys. Even as a child I had a love of geography, spending hours poring over contours to find hidden places and secret glens. I distinctly remember (like it was yesterday) searching everywhere to find a map of Middle-earth, and eventually one was ordered in for me from our local Whitcoulls.
All of a sudden the adventure was real, progress could be followed. There were even little illustrations of places that until then I had only imagined. It was a treasure. It was drawn by Pauline Baynes.
That map hung on my bedroom wall in a home-made wooden frame constructed by my Uncle for over ten years and every reading of the book was punctuated with glances at that map on the wall.
Of course, Pauline Baynes accomplished much more; her images on the slip cover version of The Lord of the Rings provided me with a glimpse into Middle-earth and what it might look like.
In 2006 when I worked on Cameras in Narnia it was again a Pauline Baynes illustration of Lantern Waste that looked at me from the cover of my copy of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe.
Thank you Pauline for all you have created in the fantastical worlds that I have had the opportunity to live in. Your achievements will live with us for ever.
When I first started reading Tolkien the imagery of these strange sounding places demanded I needed a map to follow these journeys. Even as a child I had a love of geography, spending hours poring over contours to find hidden places and secret glens. I distinctly remember (like it was yesterday) searching everywhere to find a map of Middle-earth, and eventually one was ordered in for me from our local Whitcoulls.
All of a sudden the adventure was real, progress could be followed. There were even little illustrations of places that until then I had only imagined. It was a treasure. It was drawn by Pauline Baynes.
That map hung on my bedroom wall in a home-made wooden frame constructed by my Uncle for over ten years and every reading of the book was punctuated with glances at that map on the wall.
Of course, Pauline Baynes accomplished much more; her images on the slip cover version of The Lord of the Rings provided me with a glimpse into Middle-earth and what it might look like.
In 2006 when I worked on Cameras in Narnia it was again a Pauline Baynes illustration of Lantern Waste that looked at me from the cover of my copy of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe.
Thank you Pauline for all you have created in the fantastical worlds that I have had the opportunity to live in. Your achievements will live with us for ever.