Daniel Reeve in Wellington

This morning was the most luxurious of all of them, because we did not actually have to step onto a bus at all. We only had one scheduled event this day, and it was to meet Daniel Reeve, who would be presenting for us in the hotel conference room. We could get moving late and simply walk to it. We rearranged our suitcases, planned what to wear in the future days, I worked on the blog a little, then we headed down to meet Mr. Reeve.

Red Carpet Tours had let us know we would be meeting a calligrapher, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Forgive me, but I had not considered the amount of work contributed by a calligrapher on these movies. But I KNEW he was needed, if I only considered some of the books I had read over the years, and the multiple languages and maps involved.

In the image on the right above, is the saddest thing about this book: a torn out page. After I stole the book off Mom’s shelf and moved it to my bedroom, she found it one day. Inside the front page was a page full of handwriting from Mom’s friend Jeffrey. They had a meeting of like minds while both of them were married to other people. They ended up deciding it was too chancy to continue their friendship and still be faithful to their spouses. During their short friendship, Jeffrey had gifted this to her, and wrote an emotional empassioned message about the importance of dreaming and kindred hearts and value of hope and fantasy in the world. That is his writing in the blue, and Mom’s in black. When the book was discovered in my room, though I knew the whole story, Mom couldn’t bear to leave that message from Jeffrey for me to witness – physical proof of her human temptation. Right in front of me, on the spot she tore out the page and crumpled it in her hand. In all the years since, I have wished and wished that I had fished that paper out of the trash and saved it. But Mom heated and cooked with fire in those days, so it’s likely that she burnt it. So sad, huh?

Anway, Daniel Reeve.

From his website: “DANIEL REEVE is a freelance artist from Titahi Bay, New Zealand. He is most well known for the calligraphy and cartography in various film and television projects, including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, Mortal Engines, Tintin, the Narnia movies, King Kong, Van Helsing, The Light Between Oceans, Krampus, Wellington Paranormal, The BFG, Dr Strange and others. Daniel does illustration and lettering work, and creates logos, fonts, tattoo designs, and other graphic art. He creates replicas of historical documents, including The Treaty of Waitangi – New Zealand’s founding document. Daniel also paints, exhibiting from time to time with The New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts and with Watercolour NZ, amongst others, in Wellington. His paintings and calligraphic pieces are represented in private collections throughout the world.”

What we found is that Daniel Reeve is the best of human beings. He is warm, interesting, friendly, humble, generous with his time. He quietly thrills to personal victories and achievements, but only so much that you can see it in the glint of his eye and a half smile. He is easily encouraged to tell stories. He is forthright. He is vastly talented and curious and wants to learn more, discover things, and invent things. He is ready to work hard and wants to be considered for new projects.

He began by telling his origin story; how he got into this business; how he got involved with movies. He told many stories about how, when Peter Jackson needed something and thought that possibly Daniel Reeve could do it, Mr. Reeve did do it. Usually better than someone else would have. We were asked not to take photos of his main presentation because, like the Weta Workshop, everything he had created for a movie studio now belonged to the movie studio. But afterward, he showed us some of his own work and demonstrated his calligraphy.

He told us about all the different languages he had to write for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit and Rings of Power productions. How, not only did he need to learn the calligraphy of Hobbits, but he had to invent Bilbo’s penmanship, and Frodo’s penmanship. He told us that, while actors did study, practice, and eventually learn their proper Hobbit penmanship…that for a close-up shot of Bilbo writing in the red book, it was actually Mr. Reeve’s fingers in the film.

Mr. Reeve told us all the many steps he went through in the creation of this contract, that you might recall seeing in the movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. He invented this entire thing! It’s now sold by Weta, and multiple people had purchased them, and then brought them to Mr. Reeve to autograph.

All the cartography of the films was done by Reeve, and some of his maps are unquestionably works of art. The portrait of a young Bilbo, that Frodo sees him pull from the pages of the red book in An Unexpected Journey, was a sketch by Daniel Reeve. He also does other work with pen and ink, and with watercolour.

We were asked to get only one thing autographed to begin with, and then once everyone in line had a chance to meet Mr. Reeve, THEN we could get in line a second time and make special requests. I was near the front of the line, and the first two or three of us followed orders. But soon after that, people began getting all of their calligraphy requests and autographs done the first time. So it was about 2 hours before I made it up to the front again for my second autograph. You can see that his signing hand was tired by then! The man was immeasurably generous with his time with us.

After his presentation, we were free to go. Most people stayed to stand in line and requests autographs and calligraphy, to hear more stories, to get to talk to the man, to look at the things he had for sale and to chat with each other. By the time Pedro and I got through the line the second time, it was well into afternoon and we were really ready to get out of that conference room.

It was summer in New Zealand and we had plenty of daylight left. The days were so long it never ceased to surprise us during the entire two weeks in New Zealand. For Christmas, Pedro gave me a smart watch. I chose a face that displayed a 24-hour clock with brightness matching the time of day, and a measure of the amount of daylight. Because of this watch face, I discovered the most wonderful thing while traveling to the southern hemisphere.

With so many hours of daylight left, we decided to head out into Wellington. Here, as with many other New Zealand cities, I noticed the voice of the people in quiet protests on walls and posters and spray painted onto sidewalks.

We walked along the waterfront, and enjoyed the people, the art, the sounds and smells.

We spotted a flowering shrub playing the saxophone, and it was lovely.