An epic fantasy world doesn't just spring to life overnight. From Bag End to Eregion, here's an in-depth look behind the scenes of the entire "Lord of the Rings" franchise. Forth Eorlingas!
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00:00An epic fantasy world doesn't just spring to life overnight.
00:04From Bag End to Eregion, here's an in-depth look behind the scenes of the entire Lord
00:08of the Rings franchise.
00:10Forth Erelingus!
00:12For Frodo.
00:17At the end of The Return of the King, Aragorn leads the armies of the West to the Black
00:21Gate of Mordor, where he challenges Sauron, only to be surrounded by the Dark Lord's armies.
00:26In the battle that follows, he goes toe-to-toe with a huge armored troll.
00:30That troll was a CGI product, but interestingly enough, when Viggo Mortensen was filming that
00:35scene, he didn't know that.
00:37He thought he was fighting Sauron himself.
00:39Peter Jackson revealed that they planned on having a bright white figure meant to represent
00:43Sauron's angelic guise as Annatar come to face Aragorn, which would then turn into the
00:47tall black-armored version of Sauron.
00:50Jackson ultimately decided that he wanted to focus more on Frodo and Sam as they entered
00:54Mount Doom with the One Ring, and so the Sauron part of the scene was cut.
00:59We still see remnants of Sauron's appearance in the final film, like the bright angelic
01:02light that washes over Aragorn, Gandalf, and Legolas when the Morgul host is gathered for
01:07battle.
01:08And Aragorn's fight with the troll still mirrors his battle against Sauron.
01:12The production team just animated the troll over the on-set stuntman dressed in Sauron's
01:16armor.
01:17In the extended edition of The Return of the King, the climactic battle at the Black Gate
01:21is briefly preluded by a negotiation scene with Sauron's representative, a nameless figure
01:26fittingly called the Mouth of Sauron.
01:29Played by Bruce Spence, the character is sort of a half-priest, half-warrior figure with
01:33a helmet that covers the top half of his face so that only his gigantic mouth is visible.
01:38The helmet is real, and makeup and prosthetics created the appearance of split skin around
01:42his mouth.
01:43The idea that every time he spoke, his language was so evil that it would crack the lips or
01:49the skin of his face.
01:51Despite the grisly makeup, the footage didn't wow Peter Jackson when he came to edit it.
01:55He tried digitally turning the mouth sideways, but it still didn't hit the spot.
01:59In the end, he kept the mouth horizontal, but the VFX team at Weida Digital enlarged
02:03it by about 200 percent for extra creepiness.
02:06I was really pleased with the way that the effect worked because it gives you this uneasy
02:11sense that something's weird.
02:15Nobody's downplaying the amount of skill and planning that went into bringing the LOTR trilogy
02:19to life, but some of the most enduring elements happened almost by chance.
02:23Case in point, Andy Serkis.
02:34The original plan for Gollum was to make the creature entirely in CGI and just get a voice
02:39actor on set for a few weeks.
02:41But when Peter Jackson saw Serkis in action, everything changed.
02:45Realizing that, in creating the voice, Serkis also embodied every physical element of Gollum,
02:49he decided to use motion capture to bring the character to life.
02:53Anyway, it's safe to say that the Lord of the Rings wouldn't have been the same without
03:03the incredible motion capture work of Serkis.
03:05But what's even more impressive is that he had to film many of his scenes twice.
03:10After filming with the other actors, he would re-perform each part on a motion capture stage.
03:15Doing this in a contained studio space creates stable conditions, which makes it much easier
03:19to get motion capture to work properly.
03:21At one point, he even had to redo a scene years later in Peter Jackson's house.
03:26It's probably safe to assume that Serkis preferred shooting on a studio stage rather than on
03:30location, because he had to contend with some very challenging conditions.
03:34For the scene where Gollum tries to go fishing with his bare hands in a shallow stream, Serkis
03:39was throwing himself over the rocks and sliding through the water wrestling with an imaginary
03:43fish.
03:44And that wasn't a sunny, warm day the way it looks in the movie.
03:47When the crew arrived on set, it had unexpectedly snowed the night before, so the crew spent
03:52hours melting the snow in the immediate area just to clear enough space to film the sequence.
03:58Serkis donned some thermals and jumped into the cold water to get the shot, which is a
04:01testament to his dedication.
04:03Sometimes, acting takes genuine sacrifice, and it's even more admirable when the actor
04:08in question won't even be seen in the final film.
04:11That's movie magic.
04:14One of the issues with CGI characters is that, while you can use an actor for their voice
04:19and can even capture their motions, it's hard to make close-ups of their face believable.
04:23It's that lack of human expression that cranks up the uncanny valley element to 11.
04:28So the Lord of the Rings franchise took motion capture further than ever to capture the facial
04:32expressions of Andy Serkis in incredible detail.
04:35While Gollum has impressive facial expressions in both trilogies, it's The Hobbit An Unexpected
04:40Journey where the technique hits its peak.
04:49By the very end of Return of the King, the technology had advanced far enough that the
04:52motion capture team was able to get what they needed on set without retreating to a special
04:57warehouse.
04:58And it continued to advance in the years leading up to the filming of An Unexpected Journey.
05:02That allowed Serkis, painted with tracker dots on his face and a dedicated camera helmet
05:06to capture his expressions, to act in real time with Martin Freeman.
05:18Hobbits are short, wizards are tall.
05:20That simple contrast created plenty of headaches for the Lord of the Rings crew.
05:26How do you get two actors, who are roughly human-sized, to look normal when one of those
05:31characters only comes up to the other's waist?
05:33There were some digital solutions to that problem, but actually fewer than you'd think.
05:38Most of the time, the effect was achieved through body doubles or forced perspective.
05:42Gandalf's arrival in the Shire during the Fellowship of the Ring is a perfect example
05:46of non-digital wizardry used to convey those size differences.
05:50To shrink Elijah Wood and help Ian McKellen stand out, the production crew had to build
05:54a unique seat on the wagon so that Wood was actually sitting several feet behind McKellen.
06:00Set at the right angle, though, the wagon bench appears seamless, giving the impression
06:03that a much smaller Frodo is sitting hip-to-hip with Gandalf.
06:12A similar contraption was made for the scene in which Gandalf visits Bag End to talk with
06:16Frodo.
06:17Frodo boils water and pours the wizard some tea.
06:20The two characters appear to be interacting across a rectangular table and looking each
06:24other in the eye as they talk, but they're actually in different parts of the room.
06:28In this case, the table was made out of two pieces, each built to a different scale, and
06:33Wood is standing further away as he pretends to engage with McKellen.
06:37The production team even developed a technique to move props like the table in the opposite
06:41direction to a moving camera shot to ensure that the visual is maintained during a motion
06:45shot.
06:46As a matter of fact, every time Gandalf was in Bag End, production had to pull out every
06:51trick in the bag to make sure the perspective was right.
06:54He crouches through the hobbit-sized door, bumps up against the chandelier, and generally
06:58lurches around being too big for everything.
07:01Each shot came with its challenges.
07:03Forced perspective was used in some instances, but the task of scaling Ian McKellen to an
07:07appropriate size in the Bag End's residence took more than a custom-made kitchen table
07:11and some carefully chosen lines of sight.
07:14The crew actually built two versions of the interior of Bag End on a soundstage, one larger
07:19to make the hobbits seem undersized, and one smaller to give Gandalf the appropriate sense
07:23of gigantism.
07:25Depending on the needs of the scene, one of the actors would be filmed in the physical
07:28set, while the other would time their actions on a blue screen to match what the other was
07:32doing.
07:33Then, all the editors had to do was blend the two shots together.
07:44Some of the tricks were even more low-tech than that.
07:46There were scale doubles for the actors, and two versions of all the props were built,
07:50one sized for Bilbo or Frodo, and one for Gandalf.
07:54In some shots, McKellen just stood on raised platforms to make him look taller.
07:58Regardless of which particular trick was used at any given time, it all comes together seamlessly
08:03in the finished film, giving no hint at all the effort that went into making the Bag End
08:07scenes.
08:08One of the most memorable moments in The Fellowship of the Ring is when the Fellowship is trying
08:12to scale the mountain pass of Caradhras in a growing snowstorm.
08:16Everyone struggles in the deep snow except for one person, Legolas.
08:21This detail comes directly from the book, where Tolkien wrote that Legolas sprang nimbly
08:24over the snow.
08:26Doing this without a ton of CGI was almost stupidly simple.
08:29The mountain pass was created on a soundstage with fake snow.
08:33A deep pathway was created for the actors playing the non-elven characters to battle
08:37through, while the raised edges were solid, allowing Orlando Bloom to walk beside the
08:41rest of the Fellowship while seemingly not impacting the snow.
08:45Wonder.
08:46Majesty.
08:47Fear.
08:48There are still lots of words that you can use to describe the ancient, abandoned, underground
08:51dwarven ruins of Moria.
08:53But before special effects were added, the set for most of the Moria scenes was pretty
08:57underwhelming.
08:58The sequences on the stairs of Khazad-Dum were mostly achieved through blue-screen,
09:02compositing, and massive, highly detailed miniatures.
09:05I use shot after shot after shot.
09:07It's like almost a three-minute section of the film is filmed continuously inside this
09:12model.
09:13Then there's the Great Hall of Doradelf, a space filled with massive, intricately carved
09:17pillars holding up a distant roof.
09:19There's an eye-opener, no mistake.
09:22In reality, the set only had a handful of half-built pillars and statues that they could
09:26use to film around over and over again for the different scenes in the heart of the abandoned
09:30dwarven realm.
09:32One of the most iconic scenes from The Lord of the Rings is when the newly formed Fellowship
09:36of the Ring gathers in one shot for the first time after the Council of Elrond before they
09:41head south on their quest to destroy the One Ring.
09:45Except, they weren't actually together for that iconic shot of the Fellowship coming
09:57together.
09:58It was that pesky size difference again.
10:00For close-ups, in both that scene and other similar set-ups, Jackson was able to get away
10:04with having the hobbits just stand on their knees, but that classic single shot of everyone
10:08in frame was a composite of two different shots.
10:12Again, it's a deceptively simple way to achieve an incredible effect.
10:20One of the most impressive elements of The Lord of the Rings films is the sets.
10:24Many of these are enhanced by CGI, but usually, they're at least partially built in real life.
10:29The crew invested countless hours into building miniature sets that were still massive despite
10:34their shrunken size.
10:36In fact, the crew even came up with their own name for these big miniatures.
10:40Because over half of the miniatures that we built at the Weta Workshop were the size of
10:46sound stages.
10:48The biggest of these was a Minas Tirith replica made at a 122 to 1 scale.
10:54Despite scaling things down, the build was still a robust 23 feet tall and 21 feet in
10:59diameter.
11:00The level of detail was astounding, with over a thousand handmade houses visible throughout
11:04the city.
11:05And that wasn't the only Minas Tirith replica.
11:08Portions of the Tower of Guard were built at a 14 to 1 scale as well, right down to
11:12the tiniest details to give a more lifelike appearance to those zoomed-in shots.
11:16And that was just for the wide shots.
11:18Major portions of the city were also built at full scale.
11:21I always think around this corner of Minas Tirith there's going to be a little pizza
11:25parlor and a jeweler's and a boatman café.
11:30According to Weta Workshop founder and creative director Richard Taylor, a total of 72 miniatures
11:35were created for the original trilogy.
11:37Another impressive miniature was made for Helm's Deep.
11:40When it was finished, it was over 16 feet tall, 32 feet wide, and nearly 40 feet deep.
11:47Construction on the scaled miniature began three and a half years before filming began,
11:51back when Miramax was developing the Tolkien adaptation.
11:54So here we are in Helm's Deep.
11:56This model will be used for the animatics, but it will also be used for the movie, too.
12:00When production hit a snag, Taylor was ordered to chainsaw the miniature into pieces and
12:04put it into storage.
12:06Weta delayed taking such a drastic step and, at the last minute, the project was saved
12:10by New Line Cinema.
12:12So the impressive miniature was preserved for the shoots.
12:16Aragorn's recruitment of the Army of the Dead is a lot more in-depth in the extended version
12:20of The Return of the King.
12:21It ends with a huge pile of skulls bursting out of the wall and cascading over Aragorn,
12:26Legolas, and Gimli.
12:27There was plenty of digital trickery at work here, but not entirely in the way you'd think.
12:32All those skulls were actually real.
12:34To create the effect of thousands upon thousands of skulls realistically tumbling over the
12:38actors, Jackson first filmed Aragorn and Gimli in real-time getting pummeled with life-size
12:43skulls in front of a blue screen.
12:45It's pretty cool, it's pretty cool.
12:49Then the crew filmed it all again, using a scaled-down model and miniature skulls.
12:54How many skulls?
12:55The prop crew started with 200, but quickly realized it was nowhere near enough.
12:59They kept making more, finally settling for around 80,000 mini-skulls in total.
13:04These two pieces were then layered to get both the close-ups and wide shots in the final
13:08product.
13:09With all that work, it's a shame it never made the theatrical cut of the film.
13:13It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing.
13:21Peter Jackson's employment of forced perspective extended to props, too, most notably the One
13:26Ring.
13:27While the life-size versions were cast for the actors to use in regular scenes, there
13:30was also a gigantic version of the ring.
13:33Placed the right distance from the camera, this created a more magnified and dramatic
13:37shot for close-ups.
13:39It captured reflections better and gave the One Ring a bigger presence on the screen.
13:43One example of this being done was the shot of the One Ring falling off Frodo's neck in
13:47the snow, and it's shown briefly sitting on the icy ground with members of the Fellowship
13:51off in the distance.
13:53The giant prop was later used for the scene at the beginning of Return of the King, where
13:56Smeagol and Deagol fight over the freshly discovered ring.
14:01Like Andy Serkis before him, Benedict Cumberbatch lent more than this voice to the holy CGI
14:06character Smaug.
14:07He actually voiced two characters across the Hobbit trilogy, Smaug and the Necromancer,
14:12but his work for Smaug was particularly impressive.
14:15The British actor went all out, donning a motion-capture suit and acting out the dragon's
14:19movements while he provided the lines.
14:22Without context, it looks pretty bizarre, but the end result was one of the best sequences
14:26in the otherwise middling Hobbit trilogy, the confrontation between Bilbo and Smaug.
14:32You have nice manners for a liar and a thief.
14:39One of the most memorable moments in Tolkien's The Hobbit is when Bilbo helps the dwarves
14:43escape the dungeons of the Wood Elves by packing them into barrels that are shipped down a
14:47nearby river, right to the doorstep of the Lonely Mountain.
14:51When Peter Jackson adapted the scene, he chose to spruce it up a bit, and by a bit, we mean
14:55a lot.
14:56Orcs are chasing and shooting at them.
14:59Legolas, Tariel, and the elves are also scrambling around the edges of the violent river, using
15:03the dwarven heads as stepping stones and performing more than a few literally unbelievable feats
15:08of acrobatic archery.
15:10The barreled chase sequence is wild enough with the digital effects added in.
15:14Take them out, though, and it just looks straight-up insane.
15:17Filmed both in a real river and in a controlled sluice, the sequence was stitched together
15:21from multiple different elements.
15:23Orlando Bloom filmed many of his shots in a completely green set as green-clad crew
15:28members operated a pair of seesaws to mimic the movement of barrels in the river around
15:32him.
15:33It took multiple green-screen sets, gimbals, seesaws, and wire setups to get everything
15:37they needed.
15:39In several shots, Bloom wasn't even there.
15:41There were multiple points where they had to use a fully CGI version of the character,
15:45and in those cases, they brought in Bloom's stunt double, Alan Smith.
15:49If we can't get Orlando Bloom, we really do have the next best thing on the planet.
15:55Smith would put on the all-too-familiar dot-covered motion capture gear to film shots of Legolas
15:59firing off arrows and taking out orcs on a soundstage.
16:03The goal was to deliver on Peter Jackson's vision of trying to make even the full CGI
16:07scenes feel like they could have been filmed in real life.
16:10The final results are questionable, but the attempt was an admirable one.
16:14The ending of The Desolation of Smaug involves a lengthy CGI-heavy sequence of Smaug chasing
16:19the Dwarven company through the halls of Erebor beneath the Lonely Mountain.
16:23The whole sequence was filmed by Peter Jackson, and when we say filmed, we mean he actually
16:27walked around a gigantic performance capture stage with a camera filming, well, nothing.
16:32The effects team made a rough render of the entire chase scene, which Jackson could see
16:36playing out on his, quote, camera, which was really a viewscreen with motion capture points
16:41of reference.
16:42Which was ultimately a way in which I could get into the middle of a digital world of
16:47action with a camera myself.
16:50Basically, Jackson could see the scene playing out through his camera, while a computer tracked
16:54the camera itself as Jackson moved it around, letting him get the angles that he wanted
16:58in real time.
16:59Ah!
17:00He's going faster than me!
17:01A bit smug to say the least.
17:05The result was a completely digital Smaug that was essentially filmed with Jackson's
17:09eye for motion in larger-than-life action.
17:12The sound effects always help.
17:17For some reason, I don't know why, they always help.
17:21The climax of an unexpected journey sees Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves cornered by the Pale
17:26Orc's forces at the edge of a precipice.
17:28In a last-ditch effort to save themselves, they scale a bunch of pine trees to escape
17:32the onslaught of wargs, and Gandalf joins the effort by magicking some pinecones to
17:36firebomb the orcs.
17:38There are a lot of moments in the Hobbit trilogy where it's hard to figure out what, if any
17:42thing, is real.
17:43Sometimes the answer is, barely anything.
17:46In this instance, the gang had a set built in front of a green screen with a handful
17:49of trees on it.
17:51Ian McKellen, on the other hand, had a platform with a single treetop.
17:55His job was to grab pinecone props with LED lights and throw them offscreen.
17:59Not ideal conditions for acting, you say?
18:01McKellen would likely agree.
18:04Unfortunately, that wasn't the only time Gandalf got frustrated filming the Hobbit
18:15movies.
18:17For the bag-end scenes in The Fellowship of the Ring, Ian McKellen had to deal with forced
18:20perspective angles and uncomfortable lines of sight with his fellow actors.
18:24It was tough, but he still had fellow professionals to work with and real-time lines to react
18:29to.
18:30McKellen's experience when he returned for the Hobbit franchise was downright awful by
18:33comparison.
18:35Since they were filming in 3D, a lot of the forced perspective tricks wouldn't hold up
18:38on camera.
18:40Their new technique involved McKellen filming his scenes alone in a green set while the
18:44dwarves simultaneously acted out the same scene in the finished bag-end set.
18:48Two linked camera rigs filmed both in real time at different scales.
18:52And it's not a stretch to say that it was an isolating experience spending days at a
18:55time in a green purgatory with no other actors around.
18:59In fact, it drove him to tears.
19:01During one take, he just couldn't handle it anymore and broke down.
19:04Everybody could hear me muttering to myself about how I wanted to go home and so on.
19:12Peter Jackson explained that they felt bad leaving McKellen dumped in green screen land.
19:16And after McKellen considered leaving the movie, and acting for good, the crew organized
19:21a Gandalf appreciation day to let him know how much his work meant for the film.
19:25Considering what went into it, the finished scene really is something of a technical marvel
19:29that took precise timing to pull off, not to mention more than a little encouragement
19:33for the resident Istar.
19:42The Hobbit movies are sort of a conundrum.
19:44The appendices for the trilogy are actually just as fascinating as those for the Lord
19:48of the Rings films.
19:50But one thing you'll notice right off the bat is a whole lot more green screen.
19:53Still, despite early reports, there were plenty of real sets for the actors to work on.
19:58For the shadowy enclaves of Mirkwood, production designers built a large set of misshapen trees
20:03for the dwarves to wander through.
20:12In fact, the set was so large, twisted, and maze-like that the cast and crew occasionally
20:17got lost while they were trying to set up scenes.
20:19This also included a set based on limbs high up in the trees for Martin Freeman to balance
20:24on while he tried to free the dwarves who had been cocooned by the eight-legged spawn
20:27of Ungoliant.
20:37How anyone could keep a straight face doing some of the ridiculous things they had to
20:40do while filming The Hobbit movies is a mystery.
20:43In the Battle of the Five Armies, Legolas and Tariel ride into the ruins of Dale on
20:47horseback.
20:48It doesn't look any different than any other sequence in the film, but behind the scenes
20:52it was, well, comical.
20:54They did a bit of real horsework, but most of the sequence was done on a green mechanical
20:58blob on which they had to pretend to gallop through the city cutting down orcs.
21:02Again, just another day on set, but this time, well…
21:13At least it gave everyone a good laugh, including the actors themselves.
21:16The behind-the-scenes footage went viral, and is arguably more fun to watch than the
21:20finished scene.
21:26Compared to the original trilogy, and even the green-screen Heavy Hobbit trilogy, the
21:30behind-the-scenes looks at Prime Video's Rings of Power are… less epic, to put it
21:34one way.
21:36That is, unless you really like watching digital elements drop into place over digital backgrounds.
21:41And to be fair, the show's VFX really does stand out.
21:44There are moments where Rings of Power really does look like a mil… sorry, a billion bucks.
21:50But although there are precious few behind-the-scenes looks into the Amazon series, a few glimpses
21:54do show a surprising number of physical sets behind the glossy digital enhancements.
21:59For example, the Season 2 scene of Annatar unleashing a bit of his darkness was filmed
22:03on a soundstage with the background added in later, which made it a simple matter of
22:07dimming the lights on set to lay the foundation for the digital touch-ups later.
22:11And the eerie orange hellscape following the eruption of Mount Doom was also blocked out
22:15on a soundstage that closely matched the finished scene, although teams of color correctors
22:20still went in to tweak the final product.
22:23When Prime Video announced that it would be creating a series that focused on Second Age
22:26Middle-Earth, one of the expectations was that it would cover the forging of, well,
22:31the Rings of Power.
22:32Do we proceed?
22:33No.
22:34We must make three.
22:39The end of Season 1 saw the forging of the three Elven Rings, and although it looks real
22:43enough, the VFX team did some seriously heavy lifting to make that happen.
22:48The forge's coals are backlit plastic rocks, and the crucible is entirely empty throughout
22:52the entire sequence.
22:54A scene breakdown from Outpost VFX shows the huge amount of work that went into building
22:59realistic flames and molten metal.
23:01Basically, if something looks hot in that scene, they're responsible.
23:05The forging of the Dwarven Rings in Season 2 followed the same format, with digital layers
23:09applied over the empty chambers and channels where Sauron supposedly pours the strength
23:13and will to govern each race.
23:16So there you have it, folks.
23:17The chains of enslavement for all of Middle-Earth, and all it took was a few computerized layers
23:21to bring them to life.