Seeing all this casting for LOTR extras is going on here in Wellington I thought I'd fill you in with a few details. I went along on Friday to sign up (as per the newspaper ad), and was told at the door by the secretary that I wasn't of the right build, however my two taller and skinnier friends would be appropriate (they were deemed acceptable for elves). They each got 3 pages. Two were to be filled out with personal details - mostly to do with body size - legs, arms, neck, feet all had to be measured. On the second page (blue - they wouldn't let me leave with one of these, I'm not sure why, but the lady was very aggitated about it) was a small box with a checklist of races - elf, hobbit, urak, orc, rohan, horse rider, dwarf and special. The secretary ticked the appropriate one as we were given the forms. We then had to cue for about 3/4 of an hour for photos to be taken of us, which were scanned into a computer.
While in line I looked at other peoples forms, there were many elves and uraks, and a couple of hobbits, but I only saw 1 rohan and none of the others. There was no mention of Gondor or any other type of human - they seemed to be looking for the more difficult roles to cast, I guess. They seemed to be quite loose at casting elves - many weren't as tall and slender as I would imagine an elf. However the Uraks were very solid looking individuals (mostly of Maori/Polynesian background).
As a side note a friend is working over at Weta studios - apparently he is working on the models for Moria - currently he is working on some big impressive gate design.
Anyway thats about all from me for now.
Later,
Ned Kelly