TTT: EE Appendices Discussion -- WETA Digital: Part One

[Arwen's daughter]

Hello, and welcome to my leg of the TTT: EE Appendices Discussion. I'll cover WETA Digital in 3 parts, with a summary of each of the sequences they discuss and a couple of quick questions. Please feel free to comment outside of the questions, they're just meant to get discussion started.

So today we have:

Intro –
-Film one had 540 shots + the DVD work.
-It was more difficult than film one because of all the character work: Treebeard, Helm's deep, & Gollum.
-Dean Wright came up with 790 shots and asked: can we do this? The answer had to be yes.
-WETA Digital doubled the number of artists, tripled storage, and quadrupled processing power between films one and two.
-Roger Kupelian called TTT a line of Sherman tanks bearing down on them that they had to prepare for.

Balrog –
-This sequence is only in the movie because of a John Howe painting. It originally had a slime Balrog sequence after falling into the lake, but it was cut for budgetary reasons.
-WETA did a series of motion tests to work out the speed and PJ's comments were always faster, faster.
-A lot of it wasn't meant to be realistic but to give you a rush. In one shot they actually travel a distance of 5 km in a single shot.
-Decided to go to a digital Gandalf as well as the live action shots they had of Ian McKellan on a big blue log.
-PJ wanted the wide shot of the cavern as they hit the lake. Alan Lee did a drawing that PJ loved and had the team do a miniature of the environment for it.
-John Howe: "It goes so far beyond that little picture I did that there's practically no relationship between the two anymore."

Questions:
1. Do you wish they'd been able to include the Slime Balrog?
2. Did you ever feel like the Balrog and Gandalf were falling too fast?

Warg Attack –
-One of the really worrying shots for WETA digital was of Legolas leaping onto the horse. They had no idea how it could possibly work. Originally, the leap was choreographed, but Orlando had broken a rib and was unable to shoot it. They filmed him leaping up next to the horse and digitally filled it in.
-The meetings (or turnovers) with PJ and the team consisted mainly of PJ trying to see how many jaws he could make drop in the room. He presented Legolas' leap onto the horse very dryly while the WETA team were trying to figure out just how they could possibly do it.
-PJ wanted it to look like a Russian circus performer, someone who knew the animal very well, something really dramatic.
-Most of the Warg attack consisted of a bunch of plates of Rohan running through the battlefield "sort of Monty Python, swinging their swords and horses galloping from one side to another."
-PJ chopped together a bunch of plates that he thought would look good, and then WETA pieced in Wargs to make the actions seem purposeful.
-They tried to find actions for the Wargs that worked and then tried to find any plates where that action would work in.
-PJ then asked for 5 or 6 "punctuation shots": Wargs charging the camera, riders falling onto the camera, etc.

Questions:
1. Did the Legolas stunt work for you?
2. Before you saw the documentaries, did you ever think the Warg attack was quite so unplanned?

 

[weaver]

Sounds like they were setting the table or something! []

What exactly are "plates" in film making terms?

The Warg battle is the part of the film that feels less authentic to me -- maybe because of the way they pieced it together. It has more of a composed, than actual, sense about it, compared to other scenes, like Moria, where even with a lot of effects it feels more natural and real to me.

There's a quote from Bernard Hill on one of the features, about filming this part. He says something like -- "I'm sitting on an imaginary horse, holding an imaginary sword, fighting and imaginary beast -- why the heck do they need me?" That kind of sums it up, really...

On the Balrog part, my favorite part of the whole sequence is that moment where they emerge into the cavern and hit the water like a falling star. It's just a really beautiful shot, and has a spiritual feel to it, to me. Kind of like a baptism, if I can put it that way. Interesting how a small picture by Alan Lee morphed into what we got on screen...

I don't mind the Legolas stunt, though I think it unnecessary. Though I suppose it helps to see him pull off super-human moves like this every once in awhile, so that we can later "buy" how he takes down that Mumak all by himself...

Thanks for taking this week and getting us started on the second half of this part of the TTT-EE discussions!

 

[Alientraveller]

I think the Balrog prologue was absolutely perfect and I think seeing Gandalf fighting a slime monster up the staircase would've ruined the perfect jump from the impact in the water to Frodo waking up. I never thought of them falling too fast, with an opening delivering the perfect shot of adrenaline like that, who cares?

That shot of Legolas jumping on to the horse is amazing and I'm never able to tell the difference between Bloom and his digital double in these scenes. As for the battle itself, it is admittedly rather random, I wonder if there wasn't any music until Aragorn made his almost fatal tumble off the cliff because Shore felt like he could put any power into the fighting itself? It's still a cool scene though because we see the bodycount rivalry between Legolas and Gimli begin and it's utterly hilarious. "But that one counts as mine!"

Btw weaver, if you're familiar with layers in Photoshop I reckon plates is pretty much that with film. So the film without any CGI or digital grading whatsoever would be the original plate.

 

[Alcarcalime]

Balrog

1. Do you wish they'd been able to include the Slime Balrog? No. After I'd seen the drawings for it, I was glad they didn't include it.

2. Did you ever feel like the Balrog and Gandalf were falling too fast? It seemed too slow to me -- at 32 feet per second they should zip past! I guess the slowness makes you realize the distance they fell.

Warg Attack

1. Did the Legolas stunt work for you? No, I disliked it! It looked like a stunt done with the film not an actor.

2. Before you saw the documentaries, did you ever think the Warg attack was quite so unplanned? No. The animators did a really good job of putting the wargs and orcs in the right places!

 

[weaver]

I'm not a photoshop person, but I can infer what the term might mean in that context....

Thanks, glad that helps to get the image of the wargs putting out the good china out of my head...[]

 

[Gimli'sBox]

Questions:
1. Do you wish they'd been able to include the Slime Balrog?
Yep. I got the Art book for TTT and ROTK and the Slime Balrog looked pretty sweet. It would have looked even cooler on film.
2. Did you ever feel like the Balrog and Gandalf were falling too fast?
Peter has a way of making things look good even if they aren't realistic. *Thinks about the lighting of the Beacons, etc* The only thing I wasn't thrilled about was the way Gollum dies in the lava. That is unrealistic in the extreme. But, after hearing why they did what they did I can live with it.

Questions:
1. Did the Legolas stunt work for you?
It "works". I wish they could have had Orli do it for real and then it would have really worked. But, I can live with it since I know that they were going to do it for real but, they just couldn't.
2. Before you saw the documentaries, did you ever think the Warg attack was quite so unplanned?
Nope. I loved it. I really like it when Theoden stabs the Warg in the mouth. *SCREAMS "SWEETNESS!"*

Again, Thank you for doing these Arwen's daughter!