From David: "I also attended the Andrew Lesnie event in Melbourne last night. While he said the rough version of TTT he had seen ran about 2h 15m, he implied that there was quite a bit more to go in yet. I can't remember his exact words but I believe he said there was some digital material still to be added, plus some of the recent pick-up shots."I concur with Matt's description of the night, and of how enthusiastic and forthcoming Andrew was. He was on stage for about 3 hours (with an interval) and told numerous stories about his work. We also saw him in front of the camera twice. About 20 or so years ago Andrew was a cameraman on a children's current affairs show, shooting two 4 minute stories every day. In one of these he also played a vet operating on an injured cat, along with the soundman and the reporter as surgical assistants! The second on-camera appearance was in the "making of The Long and the Short of it" doco on the Sean Astin short film. Andrew played a painter (Peter Jackson played a bus driver). This was a wonderful piece, which also included Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, Mark Ordesky and many others.
"As Matt reported, Andrew was quite happy to talk about his days as a clapper loader and focus puller, and to show early corporate film work (including a truly bizarre Kellogg's board meeting) and one of his television commercial showreels. He made the point to the many young filmmakers in the audience that there was always something useful to learn in every sort of work.
"It was a fantastic evening, topped off when Andrew kindly signed my copy of LOTR (the hardback version illustrated by Alan Lee)."
And from K: "I was also lucky enough to see Andrew Lesnie last night and, I want to agree with everything Matt said, very interesting and a great guy.
"Some clarifications: When Andrew mentioned TTT running time it was in the middle of other discussions and not in response to a specific question, so he wasn't really focused on that information. He clearly was unsure and stumbled on it, saying something else (possibly 2.4X...) before settling (uncertainly) on 2.15 - I wouldn't take much notice of this information. He made an interesting comment that PJ clearly felt, on viewing a rough cut, that the characters where overwhelmed "getting lost in the landscape", and so almost all the pick ups were character development - very good news I think.
"He was very excited about TTT, as Matt said, and said the film will be of a much higher visual quality (he wasnt that thrilled with this aspect of FOTR) due to the technicalities (quality losses associated with anamorphic optical stretch - this can now be done digitally as the whole film has been digitized) Matt mentioned. (could this be why the FOTR DVD looks so much better than the theatre release?) The whole discussion was approximately the expected length of the FOTR SE, so I will now sleep at my desk."