Shane, Thanks for the great intro.....
Well, the entire trip was a blast, but I will keep it to LOTR only here. My day began with make-up applying elf ears, hobbit ears and feet, and a pretty cool wormtounge (nose and eyebrow peices) if I must say so myself. All make-up was for the band Dorian Mirth (who can be found at
www.dorianmirth.com) with the exception of the make-up that I did on myself and Julie.
Julie and I arrived at the TORN party shortly after 3:00pm. The party featured lots of neat stuff such as life size replicas of Smeagol, an Orc, an Urukhai, and a Witch King on his horse. There was a room with LOTR games and pinball machine. There was a silent auction and some very cool prizes..the main auction being a bronze statue of Gandalf worth 6,000 dollars. There was a small bar downstairs named the "Green Dragon" where you could find oversized furniture to make a person look more hobbity. Plus a great catered dinner and free drinks for all.
The party held at the American Legion just several blocks from the Kodak theatre looked very rohirim in style. The main hall was a large arched room with banners and such, it included a stage and a large screen where they showed the oscars. Durring the breaks we listened to our MC for the evening Quickbeam who donned costume after costume each time he spoke. (the funniest being Aowyn, saying "I am not a man!")
As the Oscars rolled on the tension got greater and greater. Despite the fact that we are all fans and had hoped LOTR would win all 11 Oscars, no one really THOUGHT it would actually happen. I in fact thought it would win Best Director but not Best Picture. The crowd was wild with enthusiasm, and each time a cast or crew person could be seen on screen there was such a rise of cheering from the crowd that you often could not hear what was being said.
Our group was interviewed by plenty of news media including the L.A. Times (which I bought several copies the next day), a TV station in New Zealand NZOOM, FREDTV, and the BBC.
To make a long story short (Too late) one by one we won all the Oscars.
After the Oscars were over we listened to another band and then were treated by a visit from John Rys Davies (Gimli), Who ask the crowd what we would do now that it was all over. Our next guest was a big surpise, Elijah Wood who made the crowd go really wild, introduced an unscheduled performance by a band he likes "A week without Sundays". They played several numbers and to everyones shock, Dominic Monaghan (Merry) sang lead in their last number. He really has a pretty good voice.
And now the moment of truth, the stage filled with Oscar winners. In a long line across the front of the stage Peter Jackson lead his team in thanking the fans. Each person give a quick speech about the process and the rewards of working on such an epic. I was esspecially intent on Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, Alan Lee, John Howe, Howard Shore, Dominic and Elijah.....the rest of the crew was great and it was very cool to see soooooo many Oscars in one place at one time. There was one thing that upset our group, and that was this year we had been lumped into the general crowd while last year we had been VIP's. This meant that the only interaction we had with the celebrities this year was to admire them from the stage....Oh well. 10 feet from them is much closer than most people get.
The last celeb that we got to see was Billy Boyd (pippin). He made a quick speech to thank the fans but excused himself because he was in a hurry. As he left the stage the fans kept cheering and chanting.."sing, sing, sing." Billy boyd returned to the stage, picked up a guitar and sang a song. I think everyone had hoped he would sing the solo from ROTK but he choose another. I dont think I know the song he sang, but by the end everyone was singing with him in a round of "I love ya, I love ya, I love ya!!" Great fun.
With that we were all pretty tired and left the party...it was about 1:30am. I pulled off my hobbit feet, showered and went to bed a very happy hobbit.
Handyman
It was very cool! 
