be back here again. This is Bag End exactly as it was in "The Lord of the Rings." It was

actually built in our B-stage here in Wellington, which is exactly the same stage as it was

built 12 years ago. We've been shooting for a few days now, and I just wanted to take

this opportunity to give you a little look at the lead-out of filming and some of the

pre-production that lead up to the first day of our shoot. And I look forward to keeping

you up-to-date as we go through the next two or three years. See you soon! Oh, you're in

3D - looking good. See ya. And this pulls beautifully. This look great when it's drawn

- and it actually works. And he could also go fighting with the remnants, sort of hanging

on to his body and be impaling people. We wanted to create a very non-human shape. We

do need to do a little blog. You might want to say "hi" to the fans of "The Hobbit." Shy

artists... my dear, my dear. So we're going up to wardrobe, and we're having a look at

a couple of dwarf wardrobe and makeup fittings, which is always exciting - not that we'll

show you much in this particular blog because we'll save them for the future. But at least

you'll get to see a little bit of our wardrobe department. A lot of very busy people working

on a lot of costumes. A lot of interesting textures and detail and leather and embossing,

and it's all pretty cool, yeah? It's like sort of a big wizard's workshop. Hello. Oh

my God - hello. You can use it like a mase. You can just swing, knocking, and cut their

throat, and whacking like this. Let me say, there's a nice bit were he goes, and takes

out about ten orcs with those. Now this is a familiar set. It's "Elron's Chamber," so

it's an exact copy of the one we had in "The Fellowship of the Ring." In fact, just over

here on the balcony, is where the Council of Elrond took place - where the fellowship

was formed, and Frodo wanted to take the ring to Mordor. Also in "The Hobbit" is going to

be a lot of new bits of Rivendale that we haven't seen before - some really cool bits

of Rivendale, actually, that we'll keep as a little surprise for the time being. Now

there's an old friend upstairs. Let's just have a quick look. Here we are. I'm sure you'll

recognize the statue where the broken sword sits. And, of course, in the time of "The

Hobbit," the sword is going to be here. It is strange walking around here because you

know it was up about ten or eleven years ago, and I'm used to looking at a set like this

on film, you know, and now we're walking back into it again. It's almost like you've stepped

inside a movie. It's a very weird experience. This is where we're going to be shooting.

It's the very beginning of our shoot. It's the goblin tunnels below the Misty Mountains.

It's a very iconic scene in "The Hobbit," where Bilbo has an encounter with, well, you

know who it's with, don't you? If you've read "The Hobbit." No need to spoil it for anyone

who hasn't. But this is a little network of caves. Look, there's a whole little set of

passageways down here. It's very claustrophobic. One of the things we've done to be able to

shoot the shots is make sure that all the different walls of the cave can be removed

so that our big, bulky cameras can actually shoot the angles that we need. Oh my God,

look at this thing here. That looks like a foot, or an arm. Oh, I don't know. That looks

rather creepy, doesn't it? Whew. Okay. So how many chairs do we need? For instance,

I reckon Bomber sits at the end. And then there's a slight grapple, and when you hop

down, it's like ahhhh. And then it's like... yeah. Now, I know it's sort of safe. This

is blocking. This is not really rehearsing, but we're kind of giving the actors a walking

through and we talk to them about what to do with the scene. And it's actually fun because

it means when we come to this, we've got a plan. It'd be good if you come forward, and

then you realize that there's something on your foot. And perhaps, you try to get ride

of it first, and then you... This'll be fun. This'll be more fun when everyone's in makeup

and costumes and dying of the heat. Set up on the corner of the table, we've got Killy.

Next to Killy, Filly. And then Dorry... Dorry, and then Nory... Oh my God. Orry, Dorry, Norry,

Biffer, Bomber... (mumbling) This is a nightmare. We'll have Gandalf here, and Thorin, too.

I thought it would be good to give you this whole doorway to play in kind of. The fire

will be blazing as well... Now my prediction is that it's all going to go incredibly well

on the day, don't you agree? Um... The tricky thing is that there are 13 dwarves on this

set. The good thing is you're not in a fat suit. I am in a nose and false eyebrows, a

wig, a mustache, a beard, but you're right, no fat suit. Yeah, you're a winner. You're

a winner every step of the way. And we can stick a fan up your robe just to give you

a bit of air conditioning. Promises, promises. Well that's going to work with a little bit

of finishing. That's going to work. Good morning. Morning. Mornin'. Good morning. So I'm officially

the first person in the makeup chair on "The Hobbit?" Officially. That's amazing. Chanting...

More chanting... My name's Richard, I'm from London, England. I would like to give thanks

on behalf of everyone here, and visitors for this ceremony, for this celebration, for the

blessing of the soundstage, and for the welcome that you offer to us. We are all deeply honored

to be here. And to everyone who has waited so long for this day, to begin this extraordinary

journey filming "The Hobbit." I'd like to wish them good luck, good health, and good

harmony. Thank you. My name's Martin Freeman. I'm in the cast as well. He stole everything

I've got to say. So it's been a long time coming today, an even longer time than we

thought it'd be. So I hope at the end of this journey we are all as close with each other

as we have the potential to be. So, thank you very much. Hello everyone, I'm Andy Serkis.

I am standing up just to say on behalf of the returning crew and past who have come

gathered here to go on the journey. We are just very, very grateful to your incredibly

hospitality. And to have the opportunity to share the passion to tell such an amazing,

amazing story in such an amazing country with such beautiful people. You know, for a long

time I thought that going back to the amazing experience of "Lord of the Rings" wouldn't

be a good idea. But really, you know, now I've come completely around because films

are stressful and they're hard to make, but ultimately what makes them fun is the people

that you work with. And the fact that we're going to be working with a lot of the old

gang, with a lot of friends, and obviously making some new friends is really the point

of being here. So I'm extremely thrilled. If somebody came up to me today and said that

we could carry on pre-preproduction for another six weeks, I'd say no way. Hell no. Let's

just start shooting. And roll sound. Rolling. And action. In a hole in the ground, there

lived a hobbit. Sky darkens. And flames. And cut. That's great. That'll do. Thank you very

much. Yay! That's the one. Thank you very much everybody for a great first block, and

have a great break. Everyone's having a break, and we'll see you back here soon enough. Ladies

and gentlemen of the second unit, that is a wrap on block 1! So we're just going to

get one more pickup in Bag End. Hello. Come in. Hey Andy. We were going to do one more

pickup in here if that's alright. This is the video blog pickup. That's right, there

you go the end of block one. Anyway, so we just wanted to say hi to everyone since we

haven't done one of these video blocks since the beginning of the shoot. God, it feels

like a lifetime. Because you, the first week of shooting we did with Andy is gone. If he

loses precious then we eats it. You weren't a second unit director in those days. You

were an actor. You were an old-fashioned thespian. Now I've crossed though to the dark side.

You've now gone to the dark side. I'm wiped. I'm completely wiped. It's all yours. Is it?

Just give us a good battle. Yeah, okay, okay. I don't know how you do it. You get tired.

I always just tell people I get exhausted at the end of the first couple days and stay

exhausted until it finishes. We have 250 days of shooting on these two Hobbit movies, and

I think it's a much better way to divide it up into three blocks, and then have some time

to look at what you've done, look at it, hand visual effects shots over to the CGI guys.

You can completely focus on the script revisions. It's just a much smarter way to shoot these

big films. Yeah, on something of this scale, too. I mean, when we were given our T-shirts

that said 54 days down, 200 to go, I have to admit I don't know how great it was to

say "wear these on set." It wasn't a particularly moral-boosting moment, was it? Everywhere

you turn, on people's backs was "200 days to go," and it was like, "oh God," I felt

tired before lunch, you know? The good news is that it's over. The first day back is Monday,

the 5th of September. So thank you guys. What are you guys off to during the break? My lovely

wife and I, my wife Haley, and I, we've got a holiday in the south island of New Zealand

planned. And my lovely, gorgeous wife Nicole, and I are just going to work on the house.

I'm leaving, shortly after talking to you for London, which is a long journey. By plane,

and once there I immediately go into production of a play I'm going to do. I'm going to America,

to pebble beach, in a week to play some golf. I'll work on my tan so I that I can really

freakin make a pic when I come back. I'm having a break. I'm having 4 weeks off. I'm just

sleeping in, my favorite hobby. First, we're going to Australia to see our oldest daughter.

I'm going to run a marathon. I'm going to attempt to sort of write and record a bit

of a psychedelic sludge of rock album. Hitting the fabric shops in central London. I go home

to Thailand tomorrow. To Barcelona to meet tattoo fans from Spain. Bali for 11 days.

London and Paris to see friends. Manhattan Beach because it's the closest beach to the

airport. I haven't been home for the last three years, back in Belgium so my mom is

cracking the whip. And then I'm going to Vegas and spend all my hard earned cash. Do some

more swimming and lots of golf. Probably getting a little bit drunk, a little bit on a holiday.

I'm looking forward to getting back with my mates and getting on the drink, where I won't

get a bad reputation because they already know what I'm like. And then I'm going back

to Ireland to see my family and to see some of my mates in Belfast for a quiet little

weekend. I hope nobody phone's me for about three weeks, at least. Hopefully come back

totally refreshed and ready to rock on the next lot. What are you doing on break Andy?

Well I'm going back home to maybe have a little time off to go on and live with the family.

And then really, before you know it, I'll be back. It's weird because you get to this

point when you're at the end of a block of shooting, and it sort of almost feels like

you're going on vacation, but it's not because on Monday morning I'm in the cutting room.

And then I've got to have meetings with Alan and John and Dan about designing stuff for

the second block and then with Richard Taylor about all the things he has to build. So in

some respects I'm back into preproduction again. But also, I'm in post production because

I'm editing. Plus we're in production because we're shooting these movies. So it's like

being in pre-production, production, and post-production all at the same time. It kind of gets a bit

screwy. But before I get to do any of that I've got to jump on a plane tomorrow morning

and go location scouting down the south island. So we'll take some good pictures. Since we're

going to be doing location shooting during our next block of shooting, it's really time

to have to nail everything down. Along the routine, there'll be about 17 of us that go.

We get around in 5 helicopters usually, and it's quite a spectacle that we turn up. Peter

Carrow, Zane, Brigette, Andrew, Dan Hennah, Simon Bright the art director, Steve Ingram,

John Howe, Ellen Lee, Eric Sanden, Tony Keddy the grip, Rich Gasow the gaffer, myself, location

scout Dave Cummer joins us, and Pete's assistants, Sebastian, the faithful Sebastian's there.

Here on the mountains, I put my hand out and a cup of tea slides into it. That's what we

like. There's even a Starbucks up here in the southern Alps. It's pretty hard to walk

and juggle a cup of tea at the same time on this sort of ground. I never quite prepare

for some of these things. I always somehow imagine it's going to be dry and warm and

nice. At least it's not raining. We'll be not just scouting, which is essentially searching

for locations, we're now returning to the locations we liked and we're going to start

to talk about the logistics. By the time you've helicoptered everyone in and then you've got

to helicopter them out before nightfall. You're not actually here early morning or late afternoon.

You're right, it's all broad daytime. On set, we're allowing approximately half a rugby

field for the essential equipment trucks. And then our marquee's crew parking and also

unit based parking, which is where all our makeup and costume facilities are. In essence,

we need to create space for two rugby fields of equipment. It's weird on locations because

you're standing in the middle of a mountain or a valley or some beautiful place, and you're

having to figure out, "Where are we going to put the crew tents, where are people going

to get changed, where are the Port-a-Lou's going to go?" Because all that stuff has to

be where you're not going to want to point the camera. You can have Gandalf and all the

dwarves running up over this brow here and scurry hiding there behind these rocks, and

just as they get there, you crane up... The last thing you want to find out in 6 months

time as you're standing on this beautiful mountain and saying, "wow, this is exactly

the shot I want to do" and you find that you've got 20 Port-a-Lou's right in front of the