|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chen G.
Mithlond
Fri, 8:48pm
Post #1 of 3
(76 views)
Shortcut
|
|
"It's not a franchise!" How Middle-earth was hand-crafted
|
Can't Post
|
|
One of my favourite quotes is from Sir Ian McKellen, already with both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit under his belt, mock-grumbling "It's not a franchise! It's a series of films."
This might seem like semantics, but there's an aspect that gives it weight, and that's the fact that Middle-earth was hand-crafted by...really the same people throughout. The defining characteristic to me of the Hollywood franchise is precisely that it is creatively "faceless" in that the studio controls the property and hires director X for film A and Cinematographer Y for film C, etc...
Even in film series that we identify with a specific director, when you peer closer you find huge tidal shifts: just the fact that each film in the classic Star Wars trilogy – nevermind the prequel trilogy or the Disney-era projects – had its own director, its own director-of-photography, its own special effects supervisor, and changes of note in the writing, editing, costuming and camera departments...is a meaningful difference.
That, however, has not been the case with Lord of the Rings, and that's partially due to the circumstances of it being produced out of New Zealand for the last 25 years, but also by design. "We have tried to pull the same people back again," says Peter Jackson, "because they are the beating heart, they're the spirit of the film." Quite. So I wanted to follow this through the departments and see if we can quantify this.
Directing
Certainly the most striking aspect of these films is that the main six films were all directed by the same person in Sir Peter Jackson. And I'm saying six but, really, in terms of scope they're more the equivalent of seven or even nine films in any other film series. So Peter has a leg up on Spielberg (who directed four Indiana Jones films), John Glenn (five Bond films) and, in a way, over David Yates who directed seven much-shorter "Potter" films.
The next director to take the helm in Kenji Kamiyama had a bit of an easier time than most in stepping into Peter's shoes because not only was he directing a film set almost completely apart from Peter's films in terms of storyline, but he was doing so in the different medium of animation. But now that Lord of the Rings is headed back to live-action, we have the extraordinary situation of Andrew Serkis stepping in to direct in Peter's stead.
Much had been made of "Gollum directing Gollum" but what's really of interest here is that Andy DIRECTED on these films before: he directed the fight with Deagol in The Return of the King, and then acted as second-unit director through The Hobbit. There is some precedent to this with the likes of John Glenn and Peter Hunt stepping in to direct Bond films, but with the important distinction that they were well-seasoned production people before the advent of working behind the scenes on Bond, whereas Andy really is "homegrown" as a director in this regard. He just moved up from second unit to main unit, as it were.
Of course, lots of other people envelope the director: I've already touched on second-unit directors like Serkis and Christian Rivers (John Mahaffie and others also worked on Lord of the Rings). But there's also the continuity supervisor – Victoria Sullivan for all six preceding films – and most importantly the first assistant to the director: Carrolyne Cunningham on all six "main" films. Curiously, Peter's personal assistant changed from Jan Blenkin to Sebastian Meek. It remains to be seen what the arrangement would be like on The Hunt for Gollum as far as these people are concerned.
For the sake of streamlining the piece, I'll count the storyboarding department under the "directing" header. Peter's storyboard artist of choice – for all six films – was the aforementioned Christian Rivers. By The Hobbit, he headed a previsualization department, with one of Weta's artists, Warren Mahy, swapping for this department.
There is, of course, the elephant in the room that is Rings of Power. This is not part of this film series in any sense of the word: it's our Never Say Never Again or, more to the point, our The Great and Wonderful Oz. Even so, at least on season one, there was a huge effort to draw in familiar talent, and while this applies almost exclusively to the craftspeople it did also apply to a few of the additional AD-s and coordinators like Joanne Pearce. One of Peter's cameramen, Simon Raby, even directed a few scenes in the third episode.
I'll note people who worked on this project and others like it as we go through the departments, but it should be noted that they were by and large not department heads (these were usually brought over from the States or England) nor involved with any of the core creative departments like editing or writing. Most of them dropped out by season two and while I'll make note of some people who did work on season two, ultimately it's down to a point where it's no different from any other film production which might overlap with some people who happened to also work on Lord of the Rings back in the day.
Writing
It's one thing to have had Peter direct all six films, but we've also had the same writing talent, including Peter. Others pitched it – Stephen Sinclair helped write the two-film draft of The Lord of the Rings and enough of his contributions made it to The Two Towers for a screen credit, while Guillermo del Toro is credited on all three Hobbit entries. But the main writing talent throughout were Peter, and especially Dame Frances Walsh and Philippa Boyens.
Remarkably, Boyens also has a co "story by" credit on The War of the Rohirrim: the film was originally written by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews under the aegis of Boyens as producer. Phoebe Gittins (Philippa's daughter) and Arty Papageorgiou were brought-in to do some additional dialogue, but when it was decided that Addiss and Matthews didn't have the right feel for Middle-earth, Gittins and Papageorgiou became the principal writers: all four are credited on the script. In any case, it's clear that through this process Boyens got drawn deeper into shaping the script, and in every interview with the writers its clear she was integral to writing it.
Although Gittins and Papageorgiou are also co-writing The Hunt for Gollum, the film is notable for Boyens and Walsh joining in as writers de rigueur. The trades as yet don't credit Peter with a writing credit, although from interviews its clear he's helping to shape the script like Boyens did Rohirrim: how could he not, when the script is surely being written on his kitchen table? IMDb had recently added him as a "writer" though this isn't confirmed yet. Boyens is also attached as a writer to Shadow of the Past.
Again, this department has other people besides the writers. For one thing, there's Tolkien himself, of course! There is, obviously, a difference between The Lord of the Rings and even The Hobbit - both of which are principally adaptations of fleshed-out novels – and stuff like The War of the Rohirrim and The Hunt for Gollum, which are based on more summarized material from the professor: for Rohirrim, they decided to credit Tolkien only as "characters by" and it remains to be seen if that will also be the case with Gollum, where the material is somewhat more plentiful. Nevertheless, it IS Tolkien who provides the basis for all these stories and how they relate to one another.
Besides this there's a small army of people involved with the words on the page. Namely, the writers occasionally pepper-in lines in Tolkien's fictional languages, which involves a linguist (David Salo for all seven films to date) and dialect coach: this task fell to Roisin Carty for all seven films. She had worked with the late Andrew Jack on Lord of the Rings and with Leith McPherson on The Hobbit (Leith went on to work on Rings of Power), and also contributed to such events as the ongoing live-to-projection concerts. They had also consulted Tolkien scholars: Tom Shippey provided some advice on the languages for The Lord of the Rings, Janet Brennan Croft helped the writers navigate through the limits of their copyright on The Hobbit and The War of the Rohirrim, and Beppe Pezzini is now on The Hunt for Gollum. Shippey also helped develop The Rings of Power.
Producing
Peter and Fran produced both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The former was produced with Barrie Osborne: Tim Sanders was attached through preproduction and the first couple of weeks of shooting and is duly credited on Fellowship of the Ring. Barrie moved on to other projects – he was one of the few crew members not to jump from Lord of the Rings to Jackson's King Kong – but his lieutenant, production manager Zane Weiner, took over the role, together with the aforementioned Carro Cunningham.
Unlike her co-writers, Boyens originally only had a writing credit, but by the time of The Hobbit she became co-producer, and then the producer of The War of the Rohirrim. Jackson and Walsh were revealed later on as executive producers and although this has been taken to mean that they joined the project in name only, that's not the case: both Boyens and executive producer Jason DeMarco explained that they were involved throughout, as springboards for ideas for the script (Walsh literally named the main character), reviewed the finished script and two screenings of the evolving cut. What's more, it's clear that although the film is Kamiyama's, Boyens clearly had her hand not just in shaping the story but also in casting the film and even directing the actors, not least because the director couldn't communicate back in English! And, wonder of wonders, The Hunt for Gollum is being produced by the quadrumvirate of Jackson, Boyens, Walsh and Weiner and it looks like Shadow of the Past will follow suit.
Again, this department has plenty of other people in it. Succeeding Weiner as production manager on The Hobbit was Bridgitte York – originally the art department's production manager, then production manager on Return of the King. The other unit production manager, Nikolas Korda, served in this role for the London-shot scenes. Again it's not clear what the situation is like for The Hunt for Gollum.
This is also a department where people who were attached to Guillermo del Toro's production team boarded later projects like Rings of Power: Serving both as line producer and executive producer is Callum Greene, who was attached as producer in the del Toro tenure. Several other production assistants like Jared Connon (more on him later) worked on season one.
Producing, executives
I've decided to deal with the subject of executives producers separately because it also deals with the corporate framework within which these films operate. The Lord of the Rings started as a Miramax-Dimension production and while a lot of early, important work was done under the aegis of the Weinsteins, it quickly moved to New Line Cinema. The company was already part of Warner Brothers but operated quite autonomously under Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne. This changed in 2008 when it was effectively absorbed into Warners, and Shaye and Lynne were handed their walking papers, along with Mark Ordesky. The involvement of MGM – which ironically got bought by Amazon in time for season two of Rings of Power – was mostly contractual and they didn't seem to have had an executive in a position of calling any shots with regards to the films.
When the films were brought to New Line, the executive in charge of production was Michal de Luca, and he kept abreast of the films all through the shoot and into the early period of editing, when after a series of costly flops he was replaced by Toby Emmerich. It was Emmerich who would then executive produce The Hobbit and The War of the Rohirrim. And, in a funny twist of fate, when Emmerich was replaced, who should have come in his stead if not de Luca? Both Serkis and Boyens had marked de Luca out with praise ahead of Gollum although it's unclear if he'll have a screen credit: as yet he's only credited on IMDb and not in the trades, but it seems likely.
This discussion would not be complete without mentioning Ken Kamins. He's given a "special thanks" credit on The Lord of the Rings but, as Peter's agent, fulfilled a role very similar to an executive producer. He'd travel regularly to New Line's offices and watch footage when it was made available States-side. From The Hobbit going forward, he became attached as executive producer, and this is still the case on The Hunt for Gollum. Boyens also made the comment than Alan Horn – who was Warner's CEO between 2000 and 2012 and is credited as executive producer on The Hobbit – is back in the studio.
Cinematography
Both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were shot by the late Andrew Lesnie. But, again, this department has several other highly important collaborators: namely, the chief lighting technician ("gaffer"), the key grip and the colourist. What's more, given the multi-unit nature of these projects, there were multiple people occupying each position.
The supervising gaffer on Lord of the Rings was Brian Bansgrove who sadly died prior to the Two Towers pickups. For The Hobbit he was replaced by Reg Garside (who joined Peter's team beginning in King Kong), and the second-unit gaffers of old like Dave Brown. The second unit director of photography was Richard Bluck, who was one of the men occupying this position in The Lord of the Rings. As key grip, we've had Tony Keddy throughout, as was Peter Doyle as the colourist. Again, the situation on The Hunt for Gollum remains to be seen, but some of the colourists also worked on The War of the Rohirrim.
This is the first department where we're seeing a substantial turning out of the same crew for Rings of Power: roughly a third of the camera department on season one – gaffers, second unit DPs, grips and so forth – worked on at least some if not all of the films. This includes gaffer Scott Harman and Key Grips Jay Munro and Corey Moana, all from The Hobbit.
Not all camerawork is practical. These projects also require special effects cinematography. On The Lord of the Rings this job was divided between Brian Van't Hul – who worked on the VFX side and just might be returning for The Hunt for Gollum – and Alex Funke, who shot the models. Although they ended up not shooting models on The Hobbit, Funke stayed onboard shooting the split-scale shots. Notably, The Hunt for Gollum is reviving the Miniature unit. Whether the venerable Funke will be back, at least in an advisory capacity, remains to be seen.
In the interest of streamlining the piece again, I'll count the behind the scenes team under this header as well. This might seem rather outside the framework of the films in and of themselves, but I find that it is not so for two reasons: one, the presence of the on-set EPK camera is part of the atmosphere on the set that is consistent between all three live-action productions, and in documenting the way these films were made so assiduously, they're canonizing the knowledge that went into making them. Lee Pace, for example, watched those documentaries as part of his preparation.
Costa Botes was originally contracted to shoot the documentaries on Lord of the Rings, although the ranks were later augmented with Michael Pellerin, who went on to shoot the documentaries about The Hobbit as well. A plethora of other making-of materials were made in print by Brian Sibley, Daniel Falconer and others, again across both trilogies, The War of the Rohirrim and, presumably, The Hunt for Gollum now.
Editing
The supervising editor for The Lord of the Rings was Jaime Selkirk, although he was only the proper editor on The Return of the King and even then, lacking AVID skills, he had to work with one of the assistant editors in the guise of Annie Collins. Fellowship of the Ring was principally the work of John Gilbert, but The Two Towers was edited by Michael Horton and Jabez Olssen.
As with Collins, Olssen was one of the "below the line" assistants, and worked in this capacity also on the Fellowship of the Ring: he was also the editor of the all-important Cannes reel. He struck a chord with Jackson and became the editor on all three Hobbit entries. Other members of the editing department also stayed onboard, and the first assistant editor from the Hobbit, Dan Best, also worked on The War of the Rohirrim.
Production Design
The production designer for The Lord of the Rings was Grant Major. Being Auckland based, he chose not to continue with Peter's notoriously-prolix productions, but it was only natural for Dan Hennah – the supervising art director and set decorator – to take over. Hennah was the production designer on The Hobbit, a whole host of extensions and renovations made to the Hobbiton set, and now on The Hunt for Gollum. As Supervising art director on Lord of the Rings, he shared the task with Simon Bright, who took this job on The Hobbit, although I'm told that one of the other artists in the department is taking over this job for The Hunt for Gollum.
And what would any of these projects be without Alan Lee and John Howe, two of the triumvirate that had dominated Tolkien illustrations since the late 80s? They had worked on all seven films to date, and now on The Hunt for Gollum: IMDb also lists them for Shadow of the Past, which one would consider far-fetched except for Lee's suggestive remark that "there's so much else happening" in Wellington. Other concept artists worked on the films at times, some under del Toro like Eduardo Pena and Wayne Barlowe.
The list would be too short to enumerate the people who occupied substantial positions across the different productions on this list: Calligrapher Daniel Reeve (all seven films), jeweler Jasmine Watson (all six films), construction supervisor Ed Mulholland (six films to date), Nick Weir (Property Master) and many others come to mind. Others moved around a little: The all-important job of Greens Supervisor on Lord of the Rings was filled by Brian Massey, who was bumped up to the art director for Hobbiton, replaced by his foreman in Simon Lowe. When Hennah moved up from set decorator, one of the carpenters in Ra Vincent got bumped up: Vincent went on to supervise most of the work on the renovations in Hobbiton like "Beyond the Door."
This part of the filmmaking also involves Weta Workshop, although strictly speaking they didn't work on the sets, mostly relegating themselves to weapons and creatures: this they did across all seven films, and a bunch of ancillary projects including video games like Tales of the Shire and Shadow of Mordor, as well as the Darrylgorn spoof. And it's not just Weta as a title, but so many of the same artists: not only Sir Richard Taylor, but also Daniel Falconer, Sean Bolton, Andrew Baker, Greg Tozer and so forth. Other workshops also worked on the productions, including leatherworks by Meniscus, and additional prop work by Human Dynamo, Scale Studios and Bill Hunt studios.
For sake of streamlining, I'll also count the on-set special effects under this heading. In all six films, this was headed by Steve Ingram. Other important contributors include Phil McLaren and Geoff Curtis (all six films) and others. All we know about what this department is up to for The Hunt for Gollum is via IMDb, which credits another veteran of all six live-action outings in Karl Chisholm.
An inordinate amount of people from this line of work came to work on Rings of Power season one: I'd say roughly two-thirds of the production design department, half of the set decorating department, half of the props department and at least half the special effects team. This included people who worked as additional art directors on Lord of the Rings like Mark Robbins and Jules Cook, and others who had been mentioned above like Reeve, Lowe, McLaren, Watson, Barlowe, Pena and John Howe. Weta Workshop and almost all the other workshops mentioned above had also worked on the season, although some of Weta's artists worked outside the workshop per se: Falconer and Matt Appleton worked with the costume department, the latter as an armourer. A circuitous piece of shared talent is Ryan Church: he worked on the tie-in game Battle for Middle-earth, alongside talent from Weta, and then worked on season one of the show.
Wardrobe
Costume designer Ngilla Dickson seems to have jumped ship together with Grant Major. Even so, costume design on the films was kind of divvied-up between the costume department under Dickson and Weta Workshop under Taylor, so much so that Taylor shares the screen credit and this situation was repeated on The Hobbit and will probably repeated on The Hunt for Gollum. Alongside him was Bob Buck, who worked on the extras costumes on Lord of the Rings, and got bumped up to costume designer on The Hobbit and now on The Hunt for Gollum. Ann Maskrey, who joined as a supervisor, also got promoted on The Hobbit.
In this department, too, there had been additional designers. Namely, Kate Hawley who was del Toro's pick: although Jackson ended up dispensing with her services, enough of her contributions survived for a small credit on all three films. Lesley Burkes-Harding, a veteran of the wardrobe design on the Weta Workshop side (specifically armour), also acted as an additional costume designer on The Hobbit. Hawley, meanwhile, went on to design the wardrobe for the first season of Rings of Power, together with probably three-quarters of the artisans in the department. Libby Dempster, also a veteran on all six films, stayed on for seasons two and three.
Cast and Casting
The casting effort on both trilogies was four-pronged: the Hubbards did the bulk of the casting, supervising the UK end. Ann Robinson did the Australian sweep and Victoria Burrows did the American casting. Liz Mullane did the New Zealand casting and seems to have acted as a point person for the other casting branches as well. At the very least, Mullane is back casting Gollum and it seems Robinson and the Hubbards will, as well. Mullane also contributed "additional casting" for The War of the Rohirrim and even for the first season of Rings of Power.
As for the cast itself, the leads obviously need no introduction. But it really does make one stop when one thinks of how, across the eight films as yet, we've had not just so many of the same characters weaving through the whole project but also the people playing them. They may be in a supporting role or extended cameo in one project – see Miranda Otto narrating The War of the Rohirrim or even Billy Boyd singing over the credits of The Battle of the Five Armies, very much in character as Pippin – and a main role in another, but they nevertheless weave through the piece.
Really, the Aragorn recast for The Hunt for Gollum is the first outright recast these films had known: even Martin Freeman played what was ostensibly a younger version of Sir Ian Holm, who himself appears in The Hobbit. Many of these actors also branched out into other fields of Tolkien, including audiobooks (Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis, Brian Cox), video games (again Lee but also McKellen, Mortensen, Wood, Sean Astin, Hugo Weaving, John Rhys-Davies and others), documentaries (Graham McTavish and others) and on and on.
Peter is also of the habit of casting people they originally saw for other parts but who lucked out. Sylvester McCoy and Sir Billy Connolly were considered for roles in The Lord of the Rings, while Brian Cox was originally considered for Balin. Kate Winslet, who joins The Hunt for Gollum, was talked about at least on the studio's end as a possible Eowyn. Rings of Power again followed suit in that they cast another prospective Balin, Peter Mullan, as their Durin.
In some cases, we have the same talent even when they're not playing the same characters or not recognizable as the same person. Several of the stunt doubles motion captured the characters they originally doubled for tie-in video games. Other actors returned to do voiceovers like Peter Hambleton, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan doing voices in The War of the Rohirrim. Small-scale doubles like Kiran Shah and Bret Beattie returned to double some of the Dwarves in The Hobbit, and Shah also appears in the Throbbit spoof. Lawrence Makoare, who I'm told is also back for The Hunt for Gollum, played Lurtz, Gothmog AND Bolg across the films. This again extends to Rings of Power: Jed Brophy, Peter Tait and several of the stunt people (cf. the thugs that get all up in Halbrand's business) appear in minor roles in the first season of Rings of Power.
Hair and Makeup
The hair and makeup supervisor on all seven live-action films to date is Peter King. Peter Owen, who shares the screen credit on Lord of the Ring, still continued his main milieu by providing the wigs for The Hobbit. Dan Hennah's daughter Nancy Hennah rose through the ranks of this department as well, and IMDb credits her as hair and makeup supervisor on The Hunt for Gollum, as well.
Again, roughly half of the craftspeople in this department also worked on Rings of Power season one. The supervisor for season two also worked on The Lord of the Rings. Flora Moody, who worked on The Hobbit, went on to supervise on season two of the show.
Choreography
This department had slightly more substantial shifts than others. Most of the stuntpeople between the two trilogies are the same, and many of them contributed to other projects, like doing motion capture for a plethora of video games, and even working on the first season of Rings of Power. But the stunt coordinator himself, George Ruge, was replaced by Glenn Boswell.
The sword master – first the legendary Bob Anderson during principal photography, then Kirk Maxwell on the pickups – was replaced by Steven McMichael on The Hobbit. Even so, most of the department exhibited strong organic continuity: several of the veteran stunt performers became stunt coordinators, like Tim Wong and Augie Davis. I'll also count the animal wrangler, Steve Old, here: he worked on all six films (and counting?). Again, several of these people – namely Augie – hopped onboard the first season of Rings of Power, as did at least a third of the stunt people.
Visual Effects
The main VFX house for all the films was WetaFX, although they were not the only ones. The demands of The Lord of the Rings meant contributions from a number of other houses were required. This is also a field with a lot of motility and so people shifted between jobs and effects houses between projects.
Even so, the overlap is substantial: Joseph Letteri joined Jim Rygiel as VFX Supervisor towards the end of work on The Fellowship of the Ring. Now head of the company, Letteri was credited as senior supervisor on The Hobbit and, at least per IMDb, on The Hunt for Gollum and Shadow of the Past. I'm inclined to believe as much, since Gollum was Letteri's specialty in The Two Towers, so it makes sense that he should want to be involved in bringing him back to life.
Other VFX supervisors are also noteworthy: Matt Aitken, WetaFX' employee number 2, was responsible for the creatures on The Lord of the Rings and acted as an additional VFX supervisor on The Hobbit: he's one of the three supervisors credited on The Battle of the Five Armies, and went on to supervise WetaFX contribution to The War of the Rohirrim, and will surely work on The Hunt for Gollum. Eric Saindon, who started as a "sequence supervisor" on Lord of the Rings, became the VFX Supervisor on The Hobbit and IMDb credits him for The Hunt for Gollum and The Shadow of the Past. In the animation department, Lord of the Rings' Randall Cook was replaced by David Clayton, who joined the company to work on The Return of the King and rose through the ranks.
WetaFX also provided a substantial work on Rings of Power season one. Strictly speaking, the main house on the show was ILM, but WetaFX had the distinction of providing the on-set VFX supervision and building the pipeline. Also, people who worked at Weta at the time of Lord of the Rings went on to work on the show via other companies, like Greg Butler working on the Eregion scenes at DNEG, and Dean Wright working in-house on MGM's special effects' division. Between that and Rising Sun Studios – another company that provided effects for Lord of the Rings – probably more than half of the work was done by veterans of The Lord of the Rings. This includes specific people at Weta, like animation supervisor Paul Story and virtual art director Peter Baustaedter.
Sound
This is another multi-pronged department. The on set sound was largely handled by the same people, from boom operators like Corin Ellingwood to mixer Chris Hiles. This branch of the sound department also went on to work on Rings of Power season one.
The post-production sound was essentially the same across all seven films to date: David Whitehead, David Farmer, Brent Burge and others designing sound (Lord of the Rings also had Ethan van der Ryn), while Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges and so on did the mixing. There's good reason to assume this continuity will continue into The Hunt for Gollum: at the very least, it will be handled under the aegis of the same facility and company: Park Road Post.
Music
Where would we be without the music of Howard Shore? His possible return – all he said in 2024 was he'd be interested to "see how it works out" – is one of the questions hanging on so many fans' minds. He composed the music for all six live-action films, and recorded both with the London Philharmonic and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra: many of the orchestral players have worked on all seven scores, as well as on other projects like Rings of Power. The music editing and mixing crew also comprises of many of the same people, from Peter Cobbin and Johanna Whalley to Mark Wilsher.
In fairness, Howard wasn't the ONLY composer working on the films. By and large, if you're hearing music from WITHIN the world of the film (so called "diegetic" music) its not by Howard Shore. These pieces, like some of the end-credit pieces, were given to various people but most importantly to David Long and the musician ensemble Plan 9. This group also composed music to be played in situ on the Hobbiton set.
Both Howard and Longe and Plan 9 had returned to score a few pieces on Rings of Power season one: Shore did the opening titles, again with some of his usual collaborators like orchestrator James Sizemore, while Longe and Plan 9 did the diegetic music again. The Walking Song - perhaps the most recognisable piece from the show - is their work, and Plan 9's Janet Roddick even sings it over the end-credits of the respective episode.
The War of the Rohirrim represents an especially interesting case. Not only had Longe and Plan 9 again contributed to it – both the end song and the new version of the Rohan lament are their work – but it was principally composer by Stephen Gallagher, who is also no stranger to the preceding films. He had worked on Howard's score as a music editor, and also composed some diegetic pieces heard in An Unexpected Journey.
Locations
All six live-action films and counting were shot in New Zealand. The various out-of-doors locations were scouted and managed under the baton of Jared Connon (all six live-action films), Matthew Gordon (also Rings of Power season one), Robin Murphy (only Lord of the Rings) and our late location scout David Comer (all six films). Some of the locations, either standing-in for the same location or shot from different angles, also return: Hobbiton is built in the same place, and both shots of and locations around the Remarkables tended to stand-in for the Misty Mountains in both trilogies.
The production hub for the films is Wellington: specifically, Stone Street Studios where all the films were shot (also some scenes on Lord of the Rings were shot in other available indoor spaces in town) as well as some of the facilities already mentioned: Park Road Post, Weta Workshop, and WetaFX. Two of the soundstages – A and B – are still the same structures and many of the production buildings, including WetaFX' headquarters and their animation wing, are the same as they were in 1999-2003.
Rings of Power also shot the first season in New Zealand, although they were centered in Auckland. In moving to Britian for season two and on, most of the people we've enumerated here stopped working on the show, although a few stayed on like Howe, McPherson and some talent in other departments. Even though the projects are, as mentioned, unrelated, they oddly chose to return to some of the same locations, but now standing it for other places in Middle-earth, so that Jackson's High Fells become the seat of the show's entrance to Khazad dum. What's more, for season two, huge amount of plate photography from New Zealand was kept so that whenever you see a big wideshot of a place, aerial shots or trekking montages, chance are you're seeing New Zealand.
Conclusions
In sum, the two trilogies – The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit – were made by practically the same crew. There were some people missing, and some people who shifted departments or got bumped up in place of somebody else, but by and large we're dealing with the same people down to the catering and assistants. This set up a strong foundation on which The War of the Rohirrim built: although the animation was mostly done in Japan and Kamiyama edited the film with his own editor, so much of the preproduction work from the casting, script and design, as well as post-production (music, sound, VFX) were done in New Zealand by veterans of the live-action films.
The Hunt for Gollum stands to be an even more substantial gesture in the direction of continuity in terms of talent: in spite of a rather glaring recast, it is already set to reunite the main writers, producers, some of the original executives, the production designer, the concept artists, hair and makeup supervisor and others. It seems like the intention is to make Shadow of the Past in some short order after this in order to retain the same people for the ninth time.
Many of these people – usually the craftspeople rather than the core creatives – worked on ancillary projects: some of these are direct tie-ins of the films, from video games to tie-in editions of the novels. Others are for all intents and purposes separate projects, like some video games (Shadow of Mordor, Return to Moria, Tales of the Shire) and film and television projects like Rings of Power.
Nevertheless it represents Peter's films taking root in the larger Tolkienian landscape. Some of it also acts as a veritable Tolkienian windup between film projects. Either way, it represents a unique achievement in film history, and in art history in general.
(This post was edited by Chen G. on Fri, 8:49pm)
|
|
|
squire
Gondolin
12:08am
Post #2 of 3
(53 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Wow! Thanks for this extensive and amazing essay on the various films' production teams.
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
I admit I got a little lost trying to follow the various people who have been jumping around the production departments of all the Tolkien-based films of the past few decades.
And I'm not sure I buy that the "Tolkien film" sequence has not become a 'franchise' in Hollywood terms. I would suggest that the 'franchise' word doesn't just apply to whether the productions are farmed out to different teams. The Tolkien films, per your essay, have largely not been farmed out -- and yes, good work showing that to us: each new film's 'team' is mostly the same people.
But I interpret the 'franchise' label to also refer to the audience and the efforts to market each new film to that audience. If it's "Tolkien/Lord of the Rings/Hobbit" etc. to a film fanbase, then later films -- not really representing a written work by Tolkien (and so not very attractive to purists like me!) -- are just the same to that non-purist fanbase. That seems like a 'franchise' to me.
Again, thanks for the amazing depth of research into the artists who have been working on all these films!
squire online:
Unfortunately my longtime internet service provider abandoned its hosting operations last year. I no longer have any online materials to share with the TORn community.
 = Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.
|
|
|
Chen G.
Mithlond
9:42am
Post #3 of 3
(35 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Obviously the "not a franchise" thing is a, um, CERTAIN way to look at it
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
because, yes, from a marketing and packaging standpoint it very much is a franchise: it has all those aspects I'm less fond of like merchandising and all that stuff. But from the more artistic level of the films themselves, there is weight to McKellen's claim that it is just...a series of films.
I didn't get too in-depth into how these films are or aren't based on Tolkien because that's an entire aesthetic debate worthy of an article in its own right. But I'd say there are three basic tiers:
1. Adaptations of Tolkien's novels: These may be very faithful or looser, but in either case they're essentially adaptations of Tolkien. I'd count all six "core" films under this rubric: even The Battle of the Five Armies is still based on comfortably over fifty pages: longer than the entirety of short stories like The Man Who Would Be King, that John Huston had no qualms about turning into a two-hour movie.
2. Writing in effect an original story over a few Tolkienian plot points: I'd put Rings of Power in this category very much. It's adapting no more than 11 pages of broad descriptions (yes, I counted: more on that later) and turning them into no less than 2500 minutes of television. And it's adhering to those few pages none too closely: it has a similar relationship to Tolkien as a Tolkien-esque fantasy movie like Willow might be said to have.
3. An intermediate category: I'd say The Hunt for Gollum AND The War of the Rohirrim fall under this category where it's not a novel-length story with characters and scenes, but it's also not just a few bare plot points. The War of the Rohirrim is based on 3 pages, and it's only 120 minutes. The Hunt for Gollum is based on even more material - at least eight pages - and while it'll probably be longer it's still one film, so lets say 150-190 minutes. It's really not very different from trying to adapt the Gondolin chapter in The Silmarillion (nine pages) and yet nobody would have raised an eyebrow if someone attempted to do so.
This is more than just hard accounting: when I call the pages used for Rings of Power "broad" I mean that. The War of the Rohirrim may be based on three pages, but in those three pages we get not just the events but also a sense of the dramatis personae, what they did within the scope of the events and even a rudimentary sense of WHY they did what they did. The material used for Rings of Power really concerns itself almost entirely with the events: the only character about whose actions we have any sense of is Ar-Pharazon. Everybody else are just name-drops.
So I daresay the films - those we have and those we're looking forward to - do have more of the artistic lifeblood of Tolkien. You could say [1] is Tolkien having written a rough draft of the screenplay, [2] is Tolkien having made a pitch and [3] is Tolkien having written a story treatment.
(This post was edited by Chen G. on 9:46am)
|
|
|
|
|
