Richard Armitage opens Maori Ceremony

Oh happy day!  As promised, Peter Jackson posted a video from the set of The Hobbit.  RichardArmitageNet has it available for download here:  http://www.richardarmitagenet.com/career/214.html

I always like to caption and transcribe Richard Armitage appearances.  Here you’ll find my edit of the Maori Welcoming Ceremony from the first day of filming The Hobbit on March 21, 2011.  The video has closed-captioning and my transcription is below.

---

Richard Armitage: My name is Richard. I’m from London, England. I would like to give thanks on behalf of everyone here as visitors for this ceremony, for this celebration, for the blessing of the sound stage and for the welcome that you offer to us. We’re all deeply honored to be here.  And to everyone who has waited so long for this day to begin this extraordinary journey filming The Hobbit I would like to wish them good luck, good health and good harmony.  And Martin would like to say something.

Martin Freeman: Thank you. My name is Martin Freeman and I’m in the cast as well.  He stole everything I was about to say in Maori. As Richard said, this has been a long time coming today. It’s been even longer than we hoped it would be.  So at the end of this journey we are all as close with each other as at the moment we have the potential to be. So thank you very much.

Andy Serkis: Hello everybody, I’m Andy Serkis. I am  standing up just to say on behalf of the returning crew and cast who have come gathered here to go on the journey. And we’re just very very grateful to your incredible hospitality and to the opportunity to share the passion for telling such an amazing amazing story in such an amazing country with such beautiful people. Thank you.

Peter Jackson: You  know, for a long time I thought that going back to the amazing experience of The Lord of the Rings wouldn’t be a good idea. But really now I’ve come completely around because films are stressful and they’re hard to make. But ultimately what makes them fun is the people that you work with.  And the fact that we’re going to be working with a lot of the old gang, with a lot of friends, and obviously making some new friends is really the point of being here. So I’m extremely thrilled. If somebody came up to me today and said that we could carry on pre-production for another six weeks, I’d say, “No, no. Hell no, let’s just start shooting.”