Courtesy of MGM/New Line, here’s your first look at Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, and Mark Hadlow as Nori, Ori, and Dori, the dwarves from The Hobbit.  Ori is the Jewish one, while Nori and Dori were given girl names to make them tougher.  Okay, I made that up.

These three brothers, all sons of the same mother, could not be more different from each other. Dori, the oldest, spends much of his time watching out for Ori, the youngest; making sure he’s not caught a chill or got himself killed by Wargs or Goblins. Nobody quite knows what Nori gets up to most of the time, except that it’s guaranteed to be dodgy and quite probably, illegal. Dori, Nori and Ori are intensely loyal to each other – and whilst they are perfectly happy fighting amongst themselves, woe-betide any anyone who means harm to one of these brothers.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on December 14, 2012. [ComingSoon]

My sources tell me braiding Nori’s beard was the most exciting to happen to New Zealand since Wellington got a pickling plant. Prime Minister Steve even declared it an official holiday!  Everyone got the day off from shearing.

Peter Jackson is getting fat again, and you know what that means: MORE HOBBIT MOVIES! The first (how many of these are there now, ten?) of the two-part The Hobbit is set to open December 14th, 2012, after a back-to-back, 254-day shoot.  Jackson provided these new set pictures to EW, featuring stars Martin Freeman and Ian McKellen.  BRITISH PEOPLE LOOKING PENSIVE! IT’S THE MOST EXCITING THING EVER TO HAPPEN IN NEW ZEALAND! I kid, I kid. Actually I hear things are really starting to heat up down there, Tom Rogers just bought a Walkman.

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"Hi. I'm Peter Jackson."

We’ve got six more hours of Hobbit movies coming next winter, and now they have titles. Starring Martin Freeman (below right) in the lead role, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14th, 2012, and The Hobbit: There and Back Again is set for a year later.  Because God forbid you call them The Hobbit Part 1 and 2.

Both films are set in Middle-earth 60 years before Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,”  The adventure of “The Hobbit” follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug.
Under Jackson’s direction, both movies are being shot consecutively in digital 3D using the latest camera and stereo technology. Filming is taking place at Stone Street Studios, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand.
Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf the Grey. Also reprising their roles from “The Lord of the Rings” movies are: Cate Blanchett as Galadriel; Orlando Bloom as Legolas; Ian Holm as the elder Bilbo; Christopher Lee as Saruman; Hugo Weaving as Elrond; Elijah Wood as Frodo; and Andy Serkis as Gollum. [press release via ComingSoon]

I can’t imagine devoting a full decade of my career to 70-year-old books about dwarves and dragons and elves who sing songs, but luckily Peter Jackson isn’t even close to being bored of it, because he grew up in New Zealand.  Those people are like X-Men when it comes to imperviousness to boredom. I heard The Olive Garden recently scrapped plans to expand to New Zealand after the locals deemed it “too zesty.”  Meanwhile, the hardest part for the rest of the cast will be the three months they have to spend in Delaware after shooting to get reacclimated.

Peter Jackson just posted a 10-minute video blog from the set of The Hobbit, and now half the people on my Facebook news feed are like, “OMG, I have chills!”, “EEEE! I can’t wait!”, and “ROFLMAO HobbItZ R Mai Lyfe smh TTfn RIPLiLsmoovie~~SKEETSKEET.”

I’ll admit that I don’t share everyone else’s sick fascination with these verbose, homoerotic midgets, but even I have to admit, the behind-the-scenes stuff is cool.  And The Hobbit was far and away the least boring book of the series, so who knows?  Maybe this one won’t be like watching two awkward gay guys not screw. At the very least, it’s neat to see the elaborate sets and costumes before WETA hate-f*cks them with glowy CGI and magical falling elf leaves.

There’s also about a thousand immature double entendres to giggle at.  Besides the obvious, where Bilbo Baggins lives in “Bag End”, my favorite was “This is where we’re going to be shooting.  It’s the Goblin Tunnel under the Misty Mountains.”  [3:47]  HEE HEE, and may I add HEEEEEE! MY ELVES DEMAND ENTRANCE TO YOUR GOBLIN TUNNEL, ENT WENCH! YOUR MISTY MOUNTAINS HAVE THEM MOST AGITATED! Me, sometimes I enter the goblin tunnel a few times, but still end up shooting on the mountains. It’s fun to switch it up.

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For the past year, James Cameron has been telling anyone who will listen that a lot of the problems of 3D would be worked out with a higher frame rate, rather than the old 24-frames per second standard that causes blurring and strobing when you move the camera too fast, which in turn gets exacerbated by 3D.  Now Peter Jackson has announced that he’s shooting The Hobbit at 48 frames-per-second, and hopes it will be one of the first films projected at the higher rate.  Here’s the word straight from Jackson’s beardy mouth.

Looking at 24 frames every second may seem ok–and we’ve all seen thousands of films like this over the last 90 years–but there is often quite a lot of blur in each frame, during fast movements, and if the camera is moving around quickly, the image can judder or “strobe.”

Shooting and projecting at 48 fps does a lot to get rid of these issues.  It looks much more lifelike, and it is much easier to watch, especially in 3-D.

Originally, 24 fps was chosen based on the technical requirements of the early sound era. I suspect it was the minimum speed required to get some audio fidelity out of the first optical sound tracks. They would have settled on the minimum speed because of the cost of the film stock. 35mm film is expensive, and the cost per foot (to buy the negative stock, develop it and print it), has been a fairly significant part of any film budget.

So we have lived with 24 fps for 9 decades–not because it’s the best film speed (it’s not by any stretch), but because it was the cheapest speed to achieve basic acceptable results back in 1927 or whenever it was adopted.

Now that the world’s cinemas are moving towards digital projection, and many films are being shot with digital cameras, increasing the frame rate becomes much easier.  Most of the new digital projectors are capable of projecting at 48 fps, with only the digital servers needing some firmware upgrades.  We tested both 48 fps and 60 fps.  The difference between those speeds is almost impossible to detect, but the increase in quality over 24 fps is significant.

We are hopeful that there will be enough theaters capable of projecting 48 fps by the time The Hobbit comes out.  However, while it’s predicted that there may be over 10,000 screens capable of projecting THE HOBBIT at 48 fps by our release date in Dec, 2012, we don’t yet know what the reality will be.

3D is stupid, and it’s only more realistic than high-def 2D in the sense that a pop-up book is more realistic than a regular one.  But they’re totally right about the frame rate.  There’s no reason to use an old format that visibly can’t process motion as well as the eye.  Your NTSC TV already projects at 29.97 fps, and motion looks much smoother.  The higher frame rate on digital projectors will look sharper, allowing filmmakers to utilize better 3D, faster camera movements, quicker cuts, and– MOTHER OF GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!?