NASA

New Zealand's North and South Island are highlighted in this 2002 image from NASA's Terra satellite.

The movies based on "The Lord of the Rings" and now "The Hobbit" have turned a spotlight on the dramatic landscapes of New Zealand, and this image from about 450 miles up gives you a wide-screen perspective on a modern-day Middle Earth.

The readings that went into creating the nearly cloud-free view of the Pacific island nation were captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's Terra satellite during passes in late 2002. That's just about the time that the second movie in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Two Towers," was making a splash at the box office.

Now New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson has come out with the first movie of his next trilogy, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's tales of dwarfs and hobbits, a dragon and a treasure in a mythical place called Middle Earth. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" grabbed plenty of box-office treasure this weekend — $84.8 million, which translates into the best-ever three-day opening in December. (On the overall ranking for three-day openings, however, "The Hobbit" is No. 40.)

New Zealand is hoping for treasure as well: It provided more than $100 million in support for the moviemakers, and hopes to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in tourist trade sparked by the films. The country provided the backdrop for film locales ranging from the pastures of Hobbiton (near Matamata) to the volcanoes of Mordor (near Taupo). The airport in Wellington, which is New Zealand's capital as well as the home of Jackson's film operation, calls itself "the Middle of Middle Earth." Air New Zealand is now known as the "airline of Middle Earth."

To learn more about the "Hobbit" connection, check out this tale of my visit to Hobbiton, as well as our slideshow of film locales in New Zealand and our five favorite jumping-off points for adventures in Kiwi Land. To learn more about Terra's picture of New Zealand, head on over to the NASA Visible Earth website. And to see more views of Earth from space, click on these links from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar:

• 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• Day 1: A fantastic Chinese fan
• Day 2: Satellite shows a Grander Canyon
• Day 3: Typhoon stirs awe — and alarm
• Day 4: Glittering nighttime view of Riyadh
• Day 5: Night lights shine on 'Black Marble'
• Day 6: Holy sites seen at night
• Day 7: Blue Marble still leaves its mark
• Day 8: Satellites look into a volcano's hell
• Day 9: Jack Frost nipping at Alaska's nose
• Day 10: Cosmonaut looks down on peaks
• Day 11: Earth looms above moonwalker
• Day 12: Skytree casts shadow on Tokyo
• Day 13: Aurora sets stage for meteor show
• Day 14: Apollo's last look at Earthrise
• Day 15: A sobering moment from space
• 2011 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• 2010 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar

Larry Busacca / Getty Images

Elijah Wood

When Elijah Wood entered the temporary portrait studio in the center of the Sundance Film Festival, photographer Larry Busacca knew he had only minutes to capture the actor’s personality.

“He has such powerful eyes,” said Busacca, chief entertainment photographer for Getty Images. “I knew before he walked in that I wanted to do at least one setup with him in dramatic lighting.”

According to Busacca his goal was to catch the light in Wood’s eyes by accentuating his profile. “I simply explained what I was after,” Busacca said. “He is such an experienced pro that he understood immediately.”

Fifteen frames later, Busacca created his portrait of Wood, who was at Sundance promoting his film, Celeste and Jesse Forever, and talking up the upcoming movie based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Busacca said in situations like this, when minutes are few, it’s less about establishing a rapport with your subject and more about developing a mutual professional respect very quickly. In this case, “that respect translated into a basic level of mutual trust that allowed us to create a simple, yet strong portrait in a moment.”

This is the norm at Sundance for Busacca, who has been coming to Park City for the last nine years. Sessions with Busacca are by appointment and they are scheduled by public relation folks and film producers between the talents’ interviews, screenings and meetings. Busacca says he is lucky if he has more than two minutes with any of the stars or filmmakers of a particular movie. “This is just the way it is and everyone involved knows what they are signing up for,” he said.

Larry Busacca / Getty Images

Liv Tyler

According to Busacca, the Getty Images Portrait Studio is located at the T-Mobile Village in a section of a large tent erected for the festival near the Lift in the middle of Park City.  “The scene is often wild and frenetic but a fantastic flow of energy, personalities and characters coming and going at all hours,” he said.

Larry Busacca / Getty Images

Ice-T and his wife Nicole 'Coco' Austin

Larry Busacca / Getty Images

Actor Cillian Murphy, director & writer Rodrigo Cortes, and actress Sigourney Weaver.

“The challenge for any photographer in this situation is too make a connection with your subject in an instant while still managing an ocean of distractions that include entourage, publicists, sponsors and general staff who are all working in the tent at the same time while you are trying to create an image,” said Busacca. “Even though the studio is in a separate section of the tent it still is a very hectic environment.”

Larry Busacca / Getty Images

Producer and director Peter Jackson

Throw in a snowstorm, like the one that occurred in the region this weekend, and the job becomes even more difficult.

“Many cast members didn't make their flights into Salt Lake City. Just going up and down Main Street was a bit dangerous,” he said. “Such is life during a film festival in ski country.”

Larry Busacca / Getty Images

Performance artist Marina Abramović

Busacca started shooting celebrities in the 1980s when he began photographing musicians. “Rock Stars attract all kinds of people and often those people are celebrities,” he said. “One thing led to another and soon I was shooting both.”

He has shot many directors, actors, and actresses at Sundance and there is no way for him to say who has been the most entertaining. “So far there would be multi-level tie for first place,” he said. However, “I really had a great time with Marina Abramović who may not be a household name but she is one of greatest performance artists of all time.”

“She was involved and passionate about the shots. For the brief moments we had to shoot, she threw herself wholeheartedly into the session,” he said.

Busacca said there are many people he would still like to photograph but there is one particular subject high on his wish list. “At the moment, Clint Eastwood comes to mind. What a face and what a history,” he said.

 Sundance was started by Robert Redford in 1981, and this year’s festival runs Jan. 19 – 21.
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Keystone Features via Getty Images

George Peppard, center left, and Audrey Hepburn take a break during filming 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' in New York City in June 1961.

Paramount Pictures via Getty Images

Audrey Hepburn, as Holly Golightly, holds a cup and a paper bag while looking into one of the window displays at Tiffany's in a still from the film, 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'. She wears sunglasses, a little black dress, long gloves and a tiara in her chignon.

Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the classic film "Breakfast at Tiffany's." It is hard to believe that the film has been around for half a century. It still feels contemporary and modern, largely due to how ingrained it has become in our culture. The film continues to be regularly referenced, and can be credited with setting the standard for the "little black dress." The dress worn by Audrey Hepburn was designed by Givenchy and sold at auction for $923,187 in 2006.

AP file

George Peppard, left, Audrey Hepburn and Patricia Neal are shown in a scene from, "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

Paramount Pictures via Getty Images

Actors George Peppard and Martin Balsam compete to light Audrey Hepburn's cigarette at a formal party in a still from director Blake Edwards' film, 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' in 1961.

Keystone Features via Getty Images

Audrey Hepburn stops for lunch on Fifth Avenue in New York during filming for 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' in New York City in 1961.

For more images of Audrey Hepburn see Life's gallery: Audrey Hepburn at her most stunning

Lincoln center is also having a Breakfast at Tiffany's 50th Anniversary screening.

Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

An Apollo lunar module propellant tank sits on display in Dale Cox III's Seattle-area backyard, alongside a more traditional sculpture. The tank might have been sent to the moon if NASA went ahead with Apollo 18, 19 and 20, as originally planned. Instead, it's been turned into an art installation.

Space hardware can be beautiful. Just ask Dale Cox III, a Seattle-area resident who has surplus tanks scattered around his yard. And not just any tanks: Most of these pieces are titanium components that were built for NASA's use on an Apollo lunar module.

Dale's father, Dale W. Cox Jr., picked up all this metal back in 1970, when NASA decided to cut the Apollo moon program short. The Apollo 18, 19 and 20 missions were canceled, and the tanks were no longer needed. The elder Cox, a former astronaut candidate who was familiar with the rainbow look of titanium, spotted the pieces in a California scrap yard.

"Basically, my dad bought everything he could get his hands on," Dale Cox III told me.

His mother, an artist, added metal embellishments to the titanium — and collaborated with another artist, Jae Carmichael, to present an exhibit of the pieces titled "Titanium One" in 1971. Titanium's color depends on the metal's alloy content, surface cleanliness and the temperature at which it's fired. Low-temperature firing produces a golden sheen, while higher temperatures result in shades of green, red, red-violet and blue.

"Titanium never changes color, and it doesn't corrode," Cox said. "It's been outside since my dad bought it, and it's basically never changed."

Someday, the Coxes hope their titanium treasures will be put on display in a sculpture garden, as a tribute to Apollo and to art. In a telephone interview from California, Dale W. Cox Jr. told me that the hardware would have been "pretty dull" if it weren't for his wife. "She transformed them into space junk as an art form," he said.

To learn more about the fate of Apollo artifacts, check out Cosmic Log. 

Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

Half of a titanium tank that was once destined to go inside a lunar module now sits beside a 600-year-old yew tree in the front yard of Dale Cox III's house.

Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

Dale Cox III points to the area on NASA's Apollo lunar module where one of the titanium tanks would have been installed. The diagram is taped to the tank itself, sitting in Cox's backyard.

Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

Dale Cox III points to sheets of titanium with pieces cut out, cookie-cutter-style. The cut-out pieces were used in hardware construction. The leftovers were assembled into an abstract gate ornament. The half-moon hanging to the right is part of a titanium tank, artistically embellished with additional squares of metal. A blue-colored fuel line, also made of titanium, rises from the ground.

More about space artistry:

• Slideshow: Earth as art
• Artists capture the spirit of space
• After the moon, art is his mission
• Spacey artists win crafty prizes

Dale W. Cox Jr. is one of the principal characters in a new book by Colin Burgess, titled "Selecting the Mercury Seven: The Search for America's First Astronauts."

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

AP

In this image released by the National Film Preservation Foundation, Betty Compson, center, is shown in a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock film, "The White Shadow." The New Zealand Film Archive and the National Film Preservation Foundation announced the discovery of the 1923 film, thought to be the earliest surviving feature by Alfred Hitchcock.

Baron / Getty Images

English suspense film director Alfred Hitchcock holding a cigar.

AP reports:

LOS ANGELES — Alfred Hitchcock is still surprising his fans.

Film preservationists say they've found the first half of "The White Shadow," the earliest surviving feature film on which Hitchcock has a credit.

The first three reels of the six-reel film made in 1923 were discovered by the National Film Preservation Foundation at the New Zealand Film Archive.

"The White Shadow" was directed by Graham Cutts, and Hitchcock is credited as writer, assistant director, editor and art director. Hitchcock's own directing debut came two years later.

As a kid, some of my first memories of television were his iconic introductions to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." Only later did I learn what a great director he was.

Related: LA Times story, Early Alfred Hitchcock effort discovered.

Jon Nazca / Reuters

A man, left, dressed up as the fictional character Gargamel, an enemy of the smurfs, stands near a smurf statue during a promotional event in the Andalusian village of Juzcar, near Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, June 16. The facades of the houses were painted blue as part of a global promotion for the Sony Picture film "The Smurfs."

Jon Nazca / Reuters

Children dressed up as "smurfs" take part in a promotional event in the Andalusian village of Juzcar on Thursday.

Sergio Torres / AP

People walk trough the streets of the village of Juzcar on Thursday.

Jon Nazca / Reuters

A girl dressed up as a "smurf" eats a cotton candy as she takes part in a promotional event in the Andalusian village of Juzcar on Thursday.

Jorge Guerrero / AFP - Getty Images

Two Smurfs are pictured on a roof of a house in Juzcar during the shooting of the Smurfs 3D on Thursday in Juzcar.

What an enchanting time to be a kid in Juzca, Spain. According to Reuters, the facades of the houses of Juzcar were painted blue after Sony chose it for the world premiere of the new movie 'The Smurfs 3D,'  opening on July 29 in the US. You can check out more images of the blue village on PhotoBlog here.

Danish Siddiqui / Reuters

Two attendants sit at the entrance to traveling talkie cinema tents in the village of Ond, south of Mumbai, India on Feb. 9.

Reuters photographer Danish Siddiqui reports on India's traveling cinema industry:

OND, India, Feb 16 - The sleepy village of Ond comes alive for a week every year when trucks loaded with tents and projectors reach its outskirts.

The tents are pitched in open fields, converting the trucks into projection rooms for screening the latest Indian blockbusters to exuberant villagers, who otherwise have few chances to see a film at all.

But now, this decades-old tradition known as the "talkie" is under threat in the face of cable television and a flood of pirated CDs and DVDs.

Danish Siddiqui / Reuters

A truck used as a makeshift projection room is pictured in the village of Ond.

"People used to like touring cinemas a lot, but after these new modes of entertainment only about 10 percent of the people come here to watch films," said Anup Chadha, the owner of Anup Talkies, one such company.

Anup, 31, inherited the firm from his father, who started in the era of black and white and ran the company for 40 years.

In Ond, some 350 km (218 miles) south of Mumbai, India's cinema capital and home to its Bollywood film industry, three different companies of touring talkies show films of different genres, in a bid to attract as much of an audience as they can.

Each company runs five shows of three hours each, with the last film show ending at three in the morning. Tickets cost less than half a dollar, about 15 to 20 Indian rupees.

Danish Siddiqui / Reuters

A man adjusts a film reel in a makeshift travelling talkie projection room set up on the back of a truck in the village of Ond.

The shows are packed with people of all ages, who stare raptly at the films as they are shown. Children jump and clap along with the scenes, although some lie down in their parents' laps as the hour grows late, eyes still fixed on the film.

For women, who often have few chances to leave the four walls of their homes, it is an eagerly awaited outing. Dressed in bright saris, they queue at ticket counters for what is one of their only forms of entertainment.

Despite this, though, the threat to the "tambu" - tent talkies -- looms larger every year.

"There were around 50 such tambu talkies in Satara district 10 years ago, but today only seven or eight are left," said Jaywant Thorat, 45, the owner of Ayodhya Talkies.

"We are running these theatres just because of our passion for it. If we shut down our tambu cinemas, regional cinema will find no audience since they don't show these films at multiplexes in the city," he added, referring to the fact that local language films are also shown.

Danish Siddiqui / Reuters

Villagers sit inside a travelling talkie tent to watch a movie in the village of Ond.

Not all the owners are giving up without a fight.

Some have devised new marketing strategies, such as distributing packets of shampoo and pocket-sized pictures of film actresses with the tickets, but the money from this is small.

Anup Chadha forecasts that touring talkies will be extinct within five years if the government doesn't step in.

"Sometimes I want to shut down this business but there are so many people associated with this talkie that I hang on for them," he said.

If that happens, the only cinema available to people in the villages may come from local devotees such as Suresh, a farmer who is also the owner of Akshay Talkies and has converted a vintage truck to a projector room, using a tractor to pull it.

"We can't afford to go to watch a film in a theatre, especially with the nearest town being 70 km (43.50 miles) away from here," said Vikas Shinde, a farmer who waited eagerly at the counter to grab his ticket.

"These talkies are just 100 metres away from my house."

Danish Siddiqui / Reuters

A man walks near posters advertising movies playing inside travelling talkie tents in the village of Ond.

Victoria Will / AP

Actor Hamish Linklater from the film 'The Future' poses for a portrait in the Fender Music Lodge during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Victoria Will / AP

Actress Miranda July from the film 'The Future' poses for a portrait in the Fender Music Lodge during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Victoria Will / AP

Actress Judy Reyes from the film 'Gun Hill Road' poses for a portrait in the Fender Music Lodge during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Victoria Will / AP

Actress Tania Raymonde of the film 'Manson Girls' poses for a portrait in the Fender Music Lodge during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Victoria Will / AP

Photographer Victoria Will, right, shoots rapper 50 Cent in the Fender Music Lodge during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Victoria Will / AP

50 Cent poses for a portrait in the Fender Music Lodge during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

It looks like photographer Victoria Will and her subjects had some fun on this shoot. She certainly captured something of the spirit of the Sundance Film Festival, which runs until Jan. 30 in Park City, Utah.

For more on Sundance, see our slideshow.

This is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Screen Actors Guild Award. Now I'm interested to see the creation process behind all the other prestigious awards.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Workers pour molten bronze into molds during the casting of the Screen Actors Guild Award statuettes at the American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank, Calif., on Friday, Jan. 21.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

The Awards are to be held in Los Angeles on January 30

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Joaquin Quintero applies a green-black patina to one of the bronze Screen Actors Guild Award statuettes at the American Fine Arts Foundry in preparation of the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on January 21, 2011 in Burbank, California.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Each statuette carries a serial number engraved at its base. 660 statuettes have been awarded since the award was first presented in 1995. The Actor statuette weighs 12 pounds and stands 16 inches tall.