The Making of 'The Lord of the Rings'

I think we're getting used to this location.

It's not the easiest one to transport people in.

It takes us, like, probably about 40 minutes to ship in 30 people.

And, yes, this is a big day. Two-fifty. Lots of it's with the army.

We've got a few independents, and they've traveled from...

...all over the place, like Napier and Palmerston North...

...and we've got a whole heap of Wellington Elves who've come up to be...

...EIves here again, so we've got a good strong bunch...

...of regulars that keep coming back.

It's a good location. It looks like the moon.

But there's a lot of, you know, ankle-twisting...

...and good knee-snapping to be done...

...as the actual set is so small and they're making people run.

We've been using the army, and we lost five Orcs in the first day.

Basically, two to claustrophobia...

...one to a... Two to twisted ankles...

...and one to a busted knee. - Popped-out knee, yeah.

- So... - And in total, it's seven down, I think.

Seven down. Seven to Ruapehu, nil to us, so...

Yep. Going through them like flies.

Cut!

And the moss. I don't know if you've heard...

- Oh, the moss. ...about the moss.

Doc's probably around, but, yes, we're only allowed to walk on the carpet...

...and you've probably seen a lot of carpet around.

Oh, God, we're probably standing on moss.

- Actually... - And so it makes this a little bit difficult.

Sometimes we've seen people going to war and then they're dodging moss...

...instead of thinking about going to war, so just try and keep an eye on that.

But we're very environmental, and everybody's very careful.

- Go, Doc. Go, the moss. - Go, the moss.

Rocks, rocks, rocks.

- Yep, it's only rocks. - Moss.

Moss. Avoiding the moss.

Going onto carp... Avoiding the moss.

Going onto the...

It's great.

Ready, halt!

One, two...

This is the biggest low-budget film...

...being made anywhere in the world at this time.

It's the biggest low-budget film being made in the Wellington area.

In the Wellington area. It's the biggest low-budget film...

...being made in the history of the planet.

I know.

I've always been asked, all the extras have already said, you know:

"With a budget like this, I can't believe we're, like, shooting in tin sheds.

Where...? Where is all the money going?"

Did you tell them we built these tin sheds?

- Cut. - Very good.

We're gonna have music of the Ring, which is...

...a kind of almost beautiful Elvish music.

So it has this very sort of lyrical, seductive quality...

- That's so deceiving. That's great. ...the Black Speech comes up underneath.

There's this bubbling, insidious, evil...

...whispering stuff which gets louder as it becomes more obvious what it is.

You know, its true nature becomes more known.

Right, so each of the Ringwraiths...

...are gonna have a different sword, is that the idea?

Yeah, that's right. This is the...

We're trying to attain some sort of mythical reality, I think.

And it has to look like it's been lived in and sweated in...

...and broken and repaired. And if that feel can come across...

...then I think something will come through.

I've had requests again about people...

...coming to view things as they happen. For instance, today...

...the makeup tests. I've had to say no.

I'm obviously gonna have to do a memo. It's wonderful that everybody's interested...

...but we can't have people standing around watching...

...actors doing their thing. They may have never seen it before...

...and it might be highly amusing and very interesting...

...but I just have to say again, everybody, the answer will always be no.

So please don't ring and bother asking anymore...

...because the answer's gonna be no.

Just so you know, one debate we're gonna have with the Maori tribe...

...there is the depiction of the peak.

And I'm sure we're gonna wanna see it.

- No. - You don't wanna see it?

Well, should we just kind of...? Should we just say...?

I think we'd probably win it, we just have to go through the argument, you know.

Well, it's interesting...

...because I don't think we would see it.

Because if we're seeing the peak, we're gonna want to...

...put in an exploding volcano because Mount Doom's erupting the whole time.

And if we're putting in an exploding volcano...

...we're probably gonna make a more interesting-Iooking peak.

Because the peak doesn't look like shit from here.

The peak just looks... You can't even see it's a peak...

...it just kind of just goes up to a sort of a ridgeline.

And if we're gonna have Mount Doom, we just want a big cone blasting away, so...

- A conical thing. - This is actually bad for...

In a funny kind of a way, it's a situation where...

...we'd point our cameras up there, but we might then...

...replace everything up there with a miniature and a blasting in CG, so...

So we can tell them that we wouldn't see it.

I think, in a way, we could be very...

...honest and accurate to say that the peak will not be...

...appearing in the film. - Appearing in the film.

At the moment, we're knee-deep in a bit of a numerical challenge.

We were talking about it yesterday, we feel like...

...we're drowning by numbers in this department.

It's because the complexity of it...

...that we need because we've got so many shooting units.

And there are so many doubles, both scale and big-rig double.

We had 64 Frodo outfits that we would need...

...for the films, and 32 Aragorns.

And we were up to 133 bags...

...travel bags, for each of the characters.

And as a consequence, the girls are feeling ever-so-slightly disheartened.

All of the stuff was supposed to arrive today apart from the trunk radios...

...is either not in the country...

...or is in Auckland with customs.

So they're scrambling, trying to find replacements...

...but I'm gonna have to work tomorrow to sort of sort it all out...

...so the second unit aren't left too high and dry.

But they don't need walkie-talkies next week.

I just wanted to know what gear we've got and what gear they have...

...just so it doesn't end up that there'll be anything missing in here.

At the moment, we've got everything.

It's gonna be borderline. I'm waiting on some stuff to come over now...

...whether we've got enough stuff for Monday.

- Right. So there's... - I can make it work, but it's...

...a bit of a shit fight. But, yeah, just letting you know that at the moment...

But at the moment, I don't want you to work tomorrow.

I can't see another way of getting it done.

The one thing that we're obviously gonna deliver, and it's obvious we are...

...just from seeing it, is we're in the sort of ILM...

...or Digital Domain level for quality. Probably better.

I mean, there's every expectation that Gollum...

...is gonna be better than Jar Jar Binks.

Just in terms of his realism and his lip-synching...

...and everything else, you know. I mean, you're sort of...

We're aiming at that level.

We're gonna be using the radios that we've got on Monday.

- Yes. - So there are not gonna be any other...

...radios to work with?

The captain of communications is bringing those 30...

...in case. As standby.

Which 30? You said they weren't here.

We can do... Probably can do every shot that we've got planned for.

If we lower our sights to Lost in Space...

...we'd lose half our guys because they probably wouldn't wanna be involved...

...but then we'd hire cheaper guys in who would just be happy to do it anyway...

...we'd be down to that quality, they'd get the shots for that sort of...

I mean, you know, these are options like that, if they choose.

Well, you know, we've had these radios for ages...

...I'm not quite sure why we just haven't distributed them already.

Because I was waiting for the accessories to arrive and the trunking radios.

Right. Okay. I don't want you to work tomorrow.

- Certainly. - Thank you very much.

I'll drag Charlie in and really get into it with him...

...and I'll just see if there's something I can spot that can get rid of...

...a couple of million at least, just initially to get a head start on it...

...and just see what we can do from there. Yeah.

Take Jo's salary out of my wage if she can't work tomorrow.

She's gotta work tomorrow to get everything finished.

If you have a problem with that, take it out of my salary.

- You have my permission. - Carol... There's...

I found her over there in tears.

Walkie-talkies. I mean, I can't believe we can't distribute walkie-talkies.

She has been working all week trying to sort out the mess that they're in.

- It's still not ready to be done. - Well, I'll be back on Sunday.

There's still people wanting to watch...

...she's battling with people, trying to work out what they want.

She cannot finish it by today. She has to work tomorrow.

I will pay her. That's it. That's all. It's that easy. I'll do it.

- Take it out of my salary. - Hey, how you doing?

- You ready for the first one? - What's up? What was that?

Normally we've got, like, a main unit of lighting.

Which is where most of the lighting goes.

And then there's a second unit, which is not quite as big as the main.

Not using as many lights, perhaps. And then there's a miniatures unit...

...again, which normally doesn't use as much lights...

...but on this job, each of those three units...

...are as big as each other, basically.

The second unit almost has exactly what the main unit has...

...in terms of lighting packages, distribution, grappling gear, what have you.

And the miniature team, a lot of dimmers...

...and that kind of control work, that's huge on that scale...

...that's why we've got so much gear here laid out...

...ready to be distributed to the different units.

So we basically just sit here for most of the day and we talk about old movies...

...keep our eye out for Rick Porras, the associate producer...

...somebody just checks the window, sees if he's approaching...

...and when we see Rick coming, we start doing some storyboards.

Okay, so if you bring this part here...

...would this one...? This is one with a?

And we get two or three done that way so we can talk about old movies again.

So it's a fun day. Good day.

Last of the summer days before we start the hell of shooting, really.

Our storyboards also go into the animatics.

And the animatics are like a little movie version of the film...

...that we make in advance...

...of the actual shooting, where we film our storyboards...

...with a video camera. We then cut them together...

...on the Avid. Gives us an opportunity, really, to look at the film...

...ahead of shooting to... It informs us about the script. Tells us if...

...you know, bits of the film don't seem to be working, if the pace isn't quite right...

...if there's boring bits or if the momentum is wonky...

...we have a chance to fix it.