Filming Begins on Peter Jackson's HOBBIT

So, Janice had shared this with me a few days ago the following promo clip about the start of filming on THE HOBBIT. Now, thanks to another Janice (this time Janice Bogstad), I've seen a link for those of us not on Facebook. So, for any of those semi-Luddites like me who are (a) on line but (b) not on Facebook, yet (c) obsessed w. all things Tolkien, here's the piece:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150223186041807&oid=141884481557&comments;
It's nice to see old familiar scenes (Bag-End, Rivendell) and faces (Jackson himself, McKellan, Alan Lee, Serkis, the final voice-over from Ian Holm), and to have a chance to see new cast members (Martin Freeman, the dwarves). Jackson mentions how walking around in the rebuilt sets gives him the odd feeling of being inside a movie -- and of course he is inside a movie, making a documentary at the very moment he's speaking. It's also odd, from my point of view, that Jackson now looks younger to me than he did a decade and more before due to all the weight he lost: it takes me a moment to recognize him when he re-appears. The Maori blessing-of-the-soundstage seems a bit stagey, but it was interesting to learn that they're apparently going to start filming the best scene in the book on Day One: Bilbo's encounter with Gollum.
We wants it, my precioussss.
It's going to be a long twenty months between now and then . . .
--JDR