Ian McKellen describes Martin Freeman’s Hobbit costume test (in 3D!)

Every teensy piece of HOBBIT news that comes down the pike that isn’t about some Sauron-level calamity threatening to shut down Peter Jackson’s return to Middle Earth… just makes me smile.

The latest tidbit from the Shire comes courtesy of Gandalf himsef, Sir Ian McKellen. On his website, the actor posted a very eloquently written description of co-star Martin Freeman during his costume test in front of PJ’s new fangled 3D digital cameras. Nothing groundbreaking, but it’s just exciting to me to know this is finally gearing up fo’ realz. Here’s the avuncular wizard:

“I’ve seen Bilbo — in three dimensions.

I was visiting old friends in the Stone Street offices and heard Martin Freeman was just round the corner by the permanent greenscreen, done up as Bilbo, testing his costume in front of the 3D cameras. Indeed, there he was in the open air, mostly oblivious to the camera, though turning this way and that as required. Martin improvised a hobbity gait, padding back and forth, testing his big hairy Hobbit feet, pointy ears and little tum.

Beneath the shade of a tent, in a sun hat, Andrew Lesnie was remotely controlling the two lenses within the mighty camera which digitally records in 3D. His screen showed the familiar 2D image but next to it, above the director’s chair, was a large colour screen in full magical three dimensions, much as it will appear in the cinema — courtesy of the spy-glasses that transform the blurred outlines onscreen to the high definition exactitude of the 3D effect.

Three Bilbos simultaneously, two performances on screen and the actor beyond: which was the real one? Martin Freeman was transmuting into a character whose reality will soon be as authentic as his own.”