New ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ Featurette, Stills and a Track From Ed Sheeran
Earlier this week Warner Bros. released an exclusive behind the scenes clip from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The featurette gives fans a glimpse of the intricate sets, in particular that of Beorn’s house. Entertainment Weekly also released several new stills from the film yesterday, which included new shots of Thranduil, Bilbo, Gandalf, Legolas and more.
Beorn is a character who features in J.R.R Tolkein’s The Hobbit and in Jackson’s second installment of his Hobbit Trilogy, he will be played by Swedish actor, Mikael Persbrandt. Beorn is a former warrior and lives in a giant barn surrounded by animals who are trained to prepare food and set the table, pretty handy. Beorn is a large man who can transform into a black bear, or as Ian McKellen says “He is a man who is sometimes a bear or a bear who is sometimes a man.”
The Dwarves are on their way to meet Beorn in the upcoming film when he chases them, before eventually taking them in to rest and help them on their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain. He is known as ‘Beorn the Skin Changer’ and below you can check out the new footage of the set of his house.
In the clips we see scenes from Lake Town, the Dwarves encounter with the spiders, and of course Beorn’s house. The set designers have used what is known as perspective shooting, creating huge oversized sets in order to dwarf the dwarves. Jackson has also employed a technique in the Hobbit series using a motion control system, instead of shooting Gandalf and the hobbits one at a time, he shot them simultaneously but on two identical sets and merged them in post.
In the scene of the dwarves arrival at Bilbo’s (Martin Freeman) house in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the secondary set (where Ian McKellen was filmed) had a green screen which scaled down props so they appeared smaller in his hands when he was sat with the smaller characters.
The Warner Bros. YouTube page has been incredibly busy recently with TV Spots from The Desolation of Smaug, Production Videos and coverage of The Hobbit Global Fan Event which was held last week. Last week the incredibly talented Ed Sheeran released his single for The Desolation of Smaug, I See Fire which you can watch below.
Today we are a month away from being able to see the second installment of the trilogy, with it being released on December 13th!
