Lord of the Rings - Visual Effects

By James Collyer

Lord of the Rings (LOTR) first hit the screens as a live action film in 2001. Directed by Peter Jackson with a budget of US $93 million, set in New Zealand, with an epic following, everyone knew it was going to be a hit. The first film alone won 4 of 13 Academy Awards: Best Cinematography, Best Effects – Visual Effects, Best Make-up and Best Music – Original Score. It is ranked 29^th on IMDB on the world wide box office lists of all time at US $860.7 million the lowest of the three films and at the time was in the top 10 of all time. The Two Towers in 2002 with a budget of $94 million won 2 of 8 Academy Awards: Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Editing. Currently ranked 20^th on IMDB with US $921.6 million, it again broke the top 10 in 2002. Finally The Return of the King in 2003 had 11 nominations in the Academy Awards and won all 11 of them: Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Make-up, Best Music (song), Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects.

The recurring award that LOTR won over all 3 films was Best Visual Effects. This is no coincidence. LOTR had – and still does in my opinion – the best visual effects displayed in a movie.

Peter Jackson founded WETA digital in 1993 (and later sub-divisions such as the WETA Workshop) along with Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk to produce digital special effects. Little did he know that they would create some of the most advanced computer imaging software used in filming. With the making of the first film LOTR was the first to seamlessly use ‘forced perspective’ where due to distances, camera angles and the size of props, Gandalf and Frodo are at the right heights even though Elijah Wood (Frodo) is 5’6’’ tall and Ian McKellen (Gandalf) is 5’11’’ tall. This may not seem very big, but to full this off throughout the whole trilogy without a single slip up is quite an achievement.

 The first true advancement in Digital Technology that LOTR created was in the development of a piece of software called ‘MASSIVE’ whereby they could create huge numbers of ‘agents’ (AI characters) who all act independently responding to individual circumstances. The first use of this software was at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring when the Uruk-hai attack the fellowship at Amon Hen, Massive has since been used to create scenes for movies such as: I Robot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Avatar, King Kong (2005), 300, WALL-E and many more.

Another of the ways that made LOTR stand out when it came to visual effects was its use of models, sets and miniatures/bigatures. Now you may be wondering what a bigature is, well this is a bigature

 This is the bigature of Barad’Dur, Sauron’s castle in Mordor. Many of you might just be thinking that this is just a model, no bigger than a few feet. Wrong. This bigature is a 9ft high monster, the picture on the right is the base of model, each ridge, tower, spike etc. carved with intricate detail so it could be filmed close up. This kind of detail is seen in all the bigatures made for LOTR – others include: Minas Tirith, Minas Morgul, Rivendell, Helms Deep and many more – these images were planted in backgrounds and used in close up shots in the film with a green (blue in most cases) screen for the surrounding setting. For example, the Helms Deep scene where Gandalf rides with the Rohirrim towards the Uruk-hai army (another example of MASSIVE aswell) that Hornburg bigature is set in the background.

These are but a few of the tricks, technological advances and artistic magnificence that the LOTR trilogy changed the world of visual effects. Other camera tricks as well as the creation whole sets (e.g. Edoras and Fangorn Forest) and characters (Treebeard) were utilised by the crew at WETA under Peter Jackson’s instruction to create the masterpiece which was The Lord of the Rings. If anyone wants to learn more about how amazing the production of the LOTR series was, I would highly recommend watching the Appendices on the extended editions of the films.

With the first and third of the Hobbit films taking 3^rd and 4^th spot respectively on ‘The Numbers: Box Office Data’ of highest budgets of all time with US $270 million I am predicting that the films will produce visual effects to the same high standards at the very least.