Elijah Wood talks The Hobbit

With the release of The Hobbit just under 11 months away, Elijah Wood has been discussing just how nostalgic it was to step back in time to film some more scenes in the familiar climes of Middle-earth.

“It was a gift to go back and return,” Wood told Collider . “I was in Hobbiton again, for the first time in 11 years. I turned 19 in Hobbiton. I’m 30 now. That put a lot of things into perspective. It was beautiful. It was just beautiful to go back.”

"I was there for a month, and the majority of my time was just going to set every day and meeting a lot of the new cast members, catching up with old friends, and being in Wellington again. It feels like home, and those people feel like extended family to me. It was such a treat to go back. It was awesome!”

Wood goes on to discuss how things have changed in terms of the technology available to Jackson and his crew, explaining how the new 3D cameras allow them to tweak things on the hoof.

“It’s an odd sense of just tuning into [ the 3D ] and accepting it, but it’s totally amazing,” says Wood. “And, it’s really cool to see the 3D on set, and to know what the images ultimately look like. The technology is so good now. I remember, years and years and years ago, video assist was really rudimentary and watching playback was so rudimentary.”

“Now, because The Hobbit is being shot digitally, we’re seeing a full HD image, in 3D, pretty much exactly as it’s going to look when it’s thrown up onto a big screen. That’s amazing! And, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of it. They can do a lot of the tweaking on the day, which is really cool.”

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in the UK on 14 December 2012. Start counting down the days…