Friday, July 25, 2003

Danielle at San Diego Last week I was in Los Angeles and San Diego doing some publicity work for the “American Splendor” film. “American Splendor” is distributed by the Fine Line company, which also handles “Lord of the Rings.” At the San Diego Comic Con, my Danielle, my wife and I had the chance to hang out with some of the cast and crew responsible for making the “Rings” series. I thought people we met, including cast members Sean Astin, Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan and Andy Serkis, and folks involved in the New Zealand-based special effects company WETA, were especially considerate. The kind, attentive way they treated Danielle made this trip quite worthwhile. She spent hours with Wood and the rest as they patiently discussed their “Rings” work and the movie business in general with Danielle. Possibly more important was what she learned from the WETA people. She’s become very interested in the nuts and bolts aspect of film production and has demonstrated at least some artistic ability, which she’s working very hard to develop. The guys at WETA explained to her how they created lightweight armor, the character Gollum and told her about some of the short cut techniques they’ve developed to save time. Since Danielle was already interested in getting into film production, the attention given to her by the “Lord of the Rings” people was not only thrilling, but may result in influencing her career decisions. 9:42:30 AM