The second part of Eledwhen’s wonderful translation.
THE CONFESSIONS OF WORMTONGUE
Brad Dourif, the Machiavellian Grima, tells us about the shoot.
To see him so cheerful, a dashing fifty-something, it is hard to believe that this actor could transform himself into the pale, stooped and servile being that is Grima, the king of Rohan’s counsellor. This was at first the opinion of PJ, who to start with rejected Brad Dourif. “I auditioned for the role and didn’t get it,” remembers the actor. “But the other actor finally refused it.” When he set foot on set, Brad Dourif was seized by the size of the project. “There was a guy who assembled the rings of a mail coat one by one. I’ve rarely seen such attention to detail.” Then he discovered PJ who, behind his many screens, directed up to four sets at once. “He looked like Professor Nimbus. [Translator’s note: no idea who this is!] Difficult to sit down and chat to him. I’m a little sorry, because I never had a relationship with Peter, who I admire a great deal, as enriching as those I had with Milos Forman or Ken Loach.” It was with Fran Walsh, partner and co-screenwriter of Jackson, that he created the outlines of Wormtongue. “We tried to give some humanity to this Machiavellian man. He acts from a lack of love. It is difficult to create such a strong character without falling into the grotesque.” Modest, the actor proves he has an unbelievable talent for understanding characters who are a little twisted. It must be said that since he was discovered in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, he has made playing serial killers, mad scientists, and other public dangers a speciality. “Everyone has a little bit of the monster inside them. At my age – 52 – you don’t change your image any more. I’m just happy people are offering me work. My heart doesn’t beat in the same way when I’m not working.”
One year! We had to wait one year to see the second part of LOTR, the adventures of which Peter Jackson began to tell us last winter, leaving us – something almost unique in cinema history – in the thick of the action. It only made the wait more feverish. But this time, the excitement is different. Last year, it was mixed with fear – fear of seeing a cult book massacred by its journey to the big screen. This year, it’s all impatience. Because Peter Jackson won his bet. And how! To start with, the film did not disappoint Tolkien’s fans, who easily understood and forgave what they feared the most: the cuts in the story. The filmmaker knew how to make this expository novel, whose slowness could have been a problem, into an epic saga, an inspired vision, visually astounding and served by perfect casting. At the same time, the director achieved the marvel of helping another audience group, who knew nothing about this universe – who were even resistant to it – set out on this adventure.
The result: a colossal worldwide success, which brought in 860 million dollars and thirteen Oscar nominations, the third highest number in the history of these trophies. And masses of rewards all over the world. The craze crescendoed in August this year with the release of the DVD. In England, 1.3 million copies were sold on the first day, a record! And it’s a safe bet that many viewers will watch the extended version of FOTR (on sale since 13 November) before the release of TTT.
If, before, “only” the millions of Tolkien fans looked forward to the opening of LOTR, now a community of cinema fans a thousand times larger await Peter Jackson. Even more so, because the director has had to face new challenges relating to the story of TTT.
Firstly, the narration. “In the first film, the Fellowship of the Ring travels together,” says Elijah Wood, who plays Frodo, the Ringbearer. “But in the rest of the story, the characters are separated and each starts his own journey.” The filmmaker must therefore follow the protagonists in different places. Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin) follow their road towards Mount Doom where the Ring must be destroyed; Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli (Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and John Rhys-Davies) have taken the road to Rohan; and Merry and Pippin (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd) are prisoners of the Orcs. Many different plots are never an easy thing in cinema – in comparison with literature, where a new chapter helps the transition. Though shooting has been officially finished for two years – because PJ filmed the three parts of LOTR simultaneously – the post-productions has needed almost as much time. The film has been in the editing stage for over a year. A perfectionist, Jackson never stops changing the order of sequences, in order to make the story more fluid. In June, he even brought his actors back to New Zealand to shoot additional sequences – which of course were anticipated, but people have said that the shoot was much longer than first announced. Amongst these scenes was a scene between Arwen (Liv Tyler) and her father, charged with dramatic intensity, because it highlights the dark future of the immortal Elf if she continues to love Aragorn. “It’s a privilege to be able to return to a story to refine the details,” explains Liv Tyler.
One of the bets of the film rests therefore on the alternation of intimate scenes and battle scenes. For the intrigue of the second film is much more dynamic than the first: the dark Sauron having allied with the fallen wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee) – the title TTT refers most of all to the alliance of these two baddies – the forces of Evil are winning land and are menacing the people of Middle-earth. The War for the Ring is about to really start. Despite this, PJ must not sacrifice the dramatic intensity of the piece – which is one of the assets of the first film – on the altar of the spectacular.
84 nights for a mythical battle
One of the key scenes of the film will surely be the battle of Helm’s Deep, where the people of Rohan, helped by several members of the Fellowship, are confronted by thousands of Uruk-Hai, the monsters created by Saruman to kill. For this scene alone, the shoot took fourteen weeks. Or rather, 84 nights! “I was exhausted,” remembers Bernard Hill, who plays the king Théoden, one of the characters who appears in this episode. “In addition, I had armour which must have weighed at least 25kg, because it was soaked! We were shooting in the rain …” At the same time, a team of crew equipped with small cameras occupied themselves with taking shots of the miniature sets, whilst the special effects team refined the workings of revolutionary software – named Massive – conceived to multiply the number of soldiers, and to give each one of them independence in battle, thanks to artificial intelligence. “You press a button,” explains PJ, who had the idea for this software five years ago, “and the fighters decide by themselves how they want to fight.”
Not yet satisfied with the result, the filmmaker had an original idea to make the scene more realistic. In February, he went to the stadium in Wellington, where there was a cricket match between New Zealand and England, to record some sound effects. At half-time, he made the 250,000 spectators tap their feet in time to simulate a marching army, then made them sing an Orcish war-chant whose words were shown on a giant screen! This is characteristic of the person who, as a loyal fan of the “D system” mixes “tricks” of the poor filmmaker with the most sophisticated technological tools.
The greatest bet of the film: the creation of Gollum
“The most important thing for PJ is that everything looks as real as possible,” emphasises Richard Taylor, the head of the special effects department, which won two Oscars for its work on FOTR. “That’s the brief he gave us. It’s what saves us, because so many directors, starting with Lucas on ‘Star Wars’ has been influenced by Tolkien’s world, that we had to start from scratch. The special effects just allow us to catch the imagination of Tolkien and so do justice to the book.”
The creation of Gollum figures amongst what it is possible to do thanks to digital technology. The revelation of the appearance of one of the most emblematic characters of the saga has to be one of the defining moments of the film. From the start, well before he found a producer to finance his vision of LOTR, PJ knew that this ambiguous and fascinating creature would be the true gamble of the adaptation. How do you show a hobbit possessed by the Ring, and who, aged by this unique obsession which drove him into the bowels of the Earth, is transformed into a hybrid being with a slimy body and protruding eyes? “When he came to us, after the failure of his negotiations with Miramax,” remembers Mark Ordesky, the producer, “he already had a video cassette with an outline of Gollum under his arm.”
But it needed more than four years of work to arrive at a conclusive result. “We did hundreds of drawings and sculptures before finding the Gollum which everyone expected,” Richard Taylor says. “Then we moved on to 3D work. We had to catch the schizophrenic character of this creature. At the same time, you have to love and hate him.”
Jackson, as is his habit, kept it real: “Gollum is entirely digital, but I knew from the start that I wanted an actor to create the character.” He called upon Andy Serkis, who can be seen as an eccentric choreographer in ‘Topsy-Turvy’. The actor played Gollum’s scenes dressed in a costume covered in small discs which served as reference points for the animators. “I really treated Gollum as a classical role,” explains Andy Serkis, whose voice will be all we recognise on screen. “I tried to make him as human as possible. I played him as if he was a junky whose drug was the Ring.” The result promises to be surprising. And it might even be worth another Oscar for the head of special effects, Richard Taylor. “It’s true that the creation of this character is one of the hardest things anyone has given me to do during my career. But we have achieved total fusion between the actor’s performance and the know-how of the special effects artists, like never before.”
Another mythical creature makes his appearance in TTT: Treebeard, the tree who walks and talks. Something rather kitsch springs to mind … But there again, there is no question of Jackson going mad. A tree – even if it is alive – must look like a tree. So the special effects team transformed themselves into botanists before constructing an animatronic model nearly 5m high for the scenes with the actors, and to model a digital version for the close-ups. “One of the difficulties was putting the two together,” explains Joe Letteri, the visual effects supervisor, “so that you can’t tell them apart on screen.” The feature uniting the two would be the voice of the tree, given to John Rhys-Davies, who already plays the Dwarf Gimli. With the creation of these two characters in digital images, the number of special effects shots went from 560 to 800. In contrast to this, TTT promises to be even more inspired than FOTR, and to make a bigger star of Viggo Mortensen, the magnificent actor who will enter into legend. We’re eagerly awaiting ‘The Return of the King’ (Viggo is the king in question!), on 17 December 2003. Exactly one year.
Bruce Allpress (Aldor) joins Mimi Rogers (Ginger Snaps, TV’s ‘X-Files’) in the familt action drama ‘Cave In’. The film is set in New Zealand.
Ian Holm (Bilbo) joins Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal and Sela Ward in the Sci-Fi drama ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. The story involves a climatologist (Quaid) who needs to figure out a way to save the world from abrupt global warming. He must get to his young son in New York, which is being taken over by a new ice age. The film is set for a May 2004 North American release.
Ian Holm (Bilbo) is also working with Natalie Portman and Zach Braff (who is also writing, directing and producing) in the comedy ‘Large’s Ark’.
Sean Bean (Boromir) lends his vocal talents and portrays ‘Dark’ in John Downer’s first directorial effort ‘Pride’. Bean stars alongside Helen Mirren, Robbie Williams, and Kate Winslet. The main story focuses on a pride of lions animals, who live in human-type set-ups. They defend each other and form allegiances. It will show how the lions cope when they come into conflict with other prides.
Marton Csokas (Celeborn) joins the cast of ‘The Great Raid’, a war drama directed by John Dahl (Rounders, Unforgettable).
David Wenham (Faramir) stars in a new caper comedy film ‘Gettin’ Square’. The film which recently wrapped shooting in Brisbane and the Gold Coast is directed by ‘Better Than Sex’ director Jonathan Teplitzky.
John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) is lending his voice to the animated film ‘Catching Kringle’, he stars alongside Danny DeVito and talk show great Larry King.
Bernard Hill (Theoden) can currently be seen walking the streets of Montreal while on hiatus from the film ‘Gothika’, his co-star Hallie Berry recently broke her arm during the production. The film is currently slated for an October 2003 release.
Ringer Spy Garfeimao has been attending the giant Book Expo America the last couple of days. If you want to find out the LoTR book, bookmark and calendar goodies that the publishing houses are planning to release, read on!
Day One
Book Expo America (BEA), which is the annual convention for Publishers and Booksellers started, Friday, May 30. It’s a giant trade show, with books as the trade, which makes it pretty special in my opinion. Nearly every publisher in the country shows up, and so booksellers from all across the US go to see the new books coming out, and walk away with a mint in pre-released versions of hundreds or even thousands of books. With hundreds of authors in attendance as well, it truly becomes a literary feeding frenzy at times for new books, autographs, tote bags, shirts, and other little promotional freebies.
Now, because I’m the Lord of the Rings fangirl that I am, I spent a good portion of my day visiting the various Lord of the Rings licensees. The Los Angeles Convention Center has two main halls, and BEA takes up both halls, most of the meeting rooms, and some of the smaller theaters as well. We started on the Low number side, and were able to find CEDCO (calendars and journals) and Antioch (those way cool bookmarks) very early on. Both booths featured Lord of the Rings items prominently with their multitudes of other products.
I had a very nice discussion with the Antioch people about some very cool bookmarks that should be coming. These are the people who had the Rings on the bookmarks last year, and this year put the variety of beads on, such as leaves, Balrog head, Eye of Sauron, etc. In fact, they may not do that with the Return of the King series of bookmarks, because so many people just love the Ring, and the others don’t do quite as well. I don’t know about you guys, but I love the Salamander on Grima’s bookmark, and the Horse heads on the Rohan bookmarks are just cool.
Anyhow, I forgot to get the actual release date, but I intend to rectify that tomorrow. Same holds true with the CEDCO people, I forgot to get details on new designs and release dates, but will do so tomorrow. They have some very lovely designs now for the journals and addressbooks, with gold leafed designs in elvish, or the Moria gate image, or some pictures of Frodo and Arwen on them.
So, after the initial rush into the South hall, gathering up four or five canvas bags full of books, and visiting Antioch and CEDCO, I left for the West hall. Stopped at the car to unload the books I’d gathered before my arms fell off, then made the very long trek across Pico blvd to the other hall. As I came down the ramp into the lobby of West hall, my eyes fell on Gandalf the White astride Shadowfax and a giant Orthanc tower. The Tower was put up by Wrebbit, the Puzzle Innovators, who do the 3D puzzles and the standard interlock puzzles. The Gandalf on Shadowfax was put up by Houghton Mifflin, and served to let me know they were going to be a big presence this year. Woohoo.
After taking a few photos with the statues (I had to, the Gandalf had been at the New York World Premiere of The Two Towers – I’m such a geek) I hurried into the West Hall. I didn’t really need to know which number aisle Houghton Mifflin was, because they had a giant Black and Gold sign above their space announcing their name and Lord of the Rings. As I approached the booth, I ran smack dab into the giant Ringwraith statue that has been known to frequent certain Oscar Parties. Lurtz was nowhere in site, he is probably on his way to the Gaming event in Ontario tomorrow. I also ran into several of the staff I met last year, hello Christina and Bridgette. Clay was nowhere in sight, and was sorely missed by the staff who were there. By the way, Clay, everyone says hello, and there was a nice little sign, but got erased with everything else.
I got a little sneak at some of the new products coming out, mostly (to be released) on November 5, such as a book full of the Maps of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, illustrated by John Howe. There will be a collectors edition of the one-volume hardcover Lord of the Rings with the Bilbo and Gandalf Bag Eng bookends from Sideshow/WETA. A boxed set of the J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide from Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. This set is designed to be the essential reference works all readers and students. The Return of the Kings companion books will include a Visual Companion from Jude Fisher, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum edited by Brian Sibley with Andy Serkis, LOTR: Weapons and Warfare from Chris Smith with John Howe and finally, The Return of the King Photo Guide edited by David Brawn. There will be a 12-copy paperback edition floor display with the new release of the one-volume paperback with an Eowyn standee. The one-volume paperback will have all-new cover art with color endpaper maps and flaps to open up for larger size.
All in all, it looks like it will be a nice year for Lord of the Rings-related books from Houghton Mifflin. In the afternoon, they handed out their now-famous book bags. I love their book bags, they have some of the best of the whole show, and have had so for the past two years. And then it was back into the fray and gathering more books, bags, shirts, posters, and autographs in the giant signing area. Two more days of this, and then I sleep for a full day.
Day Two
Okay, here is some of the missing information from yesterday. CEDCO will be releasing their 2004 Calendars sometime in July/August, and it will be Two Towers images. There are no plans for additional images on journals and planners at the moment beyond existing images. They don’t know at the moment if they will be doing a Return of the King calendar for 2005, but it won’t happen until next year either way.
As to Antioch, they have two releases this year. One is scheduled to be tied in with the DVD release. This will include some very special, more expensive bookmarks, which fold out images and the like. This will be in August, leading up to the release of the theatrical release of the DVD. In November, they will release a whole new line of Return of the King images, all with Rings.
I guess they overestimated how cool it would be to have personalized beads on the tassles of the bookmarks. Personally, I like the variety, but it appears the gold rings were the most popular of the bunch.
The most popular items to get at the Book Expo appear to be the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix baseball caps from Scholastic, and the black canvas tote bags for the Lord of the Rings from Houghton Mifflin. Actually, Tote bags in general tend to be very popular because after picking up 20 books within 200 feet, the totes begin to look very good, no matter their color or style. That’s why I ended up with anywhere from three to seven totes on my shoulders, all with 20 to 40 pounds of books in each, at any given time during the weekend. I hurt from head to toe already, and there’s still one more day to go.
As to which authors and special guests can be found at this convention, think everyone who has bothered to write in the past year or so. There are actors here, such as Jeff Bridges, Jane Seymour and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as cartoonists such as Bill Amend (Foxtrot, and he says hello to Michael Regina – Xoannon), and Jim Davs (Garfield turned 25 this year). There are comic book artists such as Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Howard Chaykin, Paul Dini, and our own little Colleen Doran, who chatted away with fans today.
The list of authors includes Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Lemony Snicket, Neal Stephenson, Coach John Wooden, newcomer Jonathon Stroud, Brian Lumley as a surprise drop-in, Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, Alice Sebold, and Julie Andrews. And there were so many more, but you cannot be in the South hall, the West Hall, and the downstairs autograph area at the same time. So you learn the fine are of prioritizing authors and special guests to seek. Tomorrow, I hope to have time to visit more of the actual publishers exhibits without the autograph or book grabbing frenzy.
This is – in the main – oldish news now, but a couple of weeks ago the LoTR Fan Club published its most recent edition. One of the most interesting reads was an interview with Peter Jackson. Grammaboodawg – one of our Board regulars – transcribed the juicy bits. And although we already new the guts of the interview, it’s nice to see some of the detail. Enjoy.
Update with Peter Jackson
Q. Peter, are you going to be doing some additional shooting for The Return of the King?
A. Yes, we plan to. We haven’t quite gotten to the point where we know exactly what it is we want yet. Philippa and Fran are looking at the footage as I cut. We work up ideas, and then get together and talk about the storyline and potential scenes we would shoot to improve it and enhance it. That process is beginning now, too. We’re still anticipating that we’ll shoot bits and pieces with most of the cast. But it’s born from ideas that come from the cut, and I haven’t done quite enough of the cut yet for Philippa and Fran to really get into the script writing. But the first seeds of ideas are starting to happen.
Q. Fans were very excited to see the incredible CG (computer-generated) work with Gollum and Treebeard. Won’t Shelob be the next big CG character you introduce?
A. Yes, that’s true, Gollum is now a member of the cast and continues through the story. The mûmakil and Nazgûl have their real center-stage appearances after cameos in The Two Towers. They will be more spectacular from a cinematic point of view. But Shelob is definitely going to be the creepiest and scariest of the creatures. We did some work on Shelob a long, long time ago when we were in pre-production.
Most of the creatures of the trilogy were designed before we even started shooting back in 1998-99. We’ve just dusted off the designs for each of the creatures as we’ve gotten to them in the post-production process, so Shelob has only just come back onto the drawing board for re-evaluation now.
I’ve got a real fear of spiders; I guess I have arachnophobia. Ever since I was a kid, spiders have freaked me out. There is a spider in New Zealand called a Tunnel Web spider, which is a common New Zealand spider but a very nasty, fat, pudgy one that lives in gardens.
Ever since I was a kid, I have been terrified of coming across these things. You find them under old bricks and old logs and leaves and such. It is a very evil-looking spider; it’s small—about an inch and a half long. About three weeks ago, we had a Shelob design meeting, and I looked at the designs and said, “You know, we have to make this look more like the Tunnel Web. She has to be more like this horrible spider.” Most of the CG guys that I was talking to were from the U.S., so they didn’t have a clue what a Tunnel Web was. So I turned to one of the Kiwi designers, Christian Rivers, and said, “Can we find pictures of one?”
The next morning, Christian poked around in his garden and managed to catch one in a glass jar! So right now, we have a live Tunnel Web at Weta being the model for Shelob. As far as I’m concerned, a photograph would’ve been just fine!
Q. How closely will you be sticking to the book in The Return of the King?
A. The Return of the King is quite close to the book. There are notable exceptions. The first thing with RotK is that we still have to wrap up The Two Towers. We have the Isengard sequence—in which they go to Isengard to deal with Saruman, who is imprisoned at the top of a tower—which is at the tail end of TT book. It is now at the beginning of RotK. Likewise, we don’t have the scouring of the Shire, which is a major chapter at the end of the book….
…When the ring is destroyed at the end of RotK, that is really the climax of the film. Those two things are the notable major exceptions as well as Shelob, which is another spill-over from TT—Minas Morgul, the stairs of Cirith Ungol and into Shelob’s tunnel are now in RotK.
When fans of the book see that sequence, I think they will understand immediately how impossible it would have been for it to be in TT. It feels so right to be where we’ve got it from a story point of view—for reasons I can’t discuss now! At this point, we don’t have Ghân-buri-Ghân, the Wild Man that the Rohirrim come across on their way to Minas Tirith in there. I don’t know if this will change with us doing pickups, but I doubt it.
Having said that, the rest of RotK movie is going to follow the book reasonably well. What I like about RotK is that the story is the centerpiece of the film, more so than in the first two films. If you thought about what the major memorable thing was about FotR, it would probably be meeting these characters for the first time, and getting used to the actors playing them—that was the memorable thing.
In TT, you’ve got Gollum and Helm’s Deep — the spectacle and the size of it. The same characters are there in RotK, the spectacle and size is there, Gollum is there — but there are not those new elements anymore. What it does have is the most compelling narrative of the three films. It has a story that unfolds in a very exciting way.
I think that is going to make it a very strong film, because you know the places, you know the characters, and you know the situation. We only meet one new character, which is Denethor — and he’s only new to these who don’t check out TT extended cut in November! We’re now just simply paying it all off with a narrative that twists and turns and unfolds in quite a thrilling way.
Q. Many of the Actors who worked on these films have spoken of their unique collaborative nature. Bernard Hill told us that the actors involved in upcoming scenes would gather at your home or Philippa’s home to go over scenes and that everyone involved was invited to give feedback. He was struck by the fact that he was offered this opportunity to contribute. How did you, Fran Walsh, and Philippa decide to take this collaborative approach, and how did it help you? Can you think of any examples where input from an actor changed the direction of a scene or a character in a particularly striking or positive way?
A. We just have a philosophy of collaboration. We ended up with some very good actors in the films, and as with any good actor, they are going to get under the skin of their character. They are going to get to know their character better than you do. As screenwriters or director, we have to give equal attention to many characters; in this particular trilogy of films, there are 20 major characters….
The wonderful thing about actors is that, obviously, the only character that they are interested in and that they really think about is their own. We find that the actors can be wonderfully useful to sit down and talk about scenes with because they are going to be approaching the scene from a unique point of view.
They are going to be approaching it from their point of view, whether they are Théoden or Gandalf or Aragorn – their take on reading a particular scene is going to be from their character’s own viewpoint. They provide insights into that character and we don’t often think of these insights because we’re looking at it from a more global perspective.
We’ve always found it very useful to discuss the script with the actors and to figure it out. It serves two purposes for me: One, it obviously improves the script because they come up with ideas and bits of business we like to use. The other huge advantage is that when you get on set, everyone knows that he or she is doing, and there is less debate.
You can easily use up the first hour or two each day talking to the actors about the nature of the scene and what they have to do. But if we have already had those discussions in the context of a meeting, then we turn up on set and can start shooting because we all know what we’re doing. Not only that, but the scene has been improved, and everybody is happy, so we can just shoot it. It actually makes the shoot run a little bit more efficiently to have these early meetings.
Actors contribute to various degrees. For instance, Ian McKellen would always have suggestions that were based on the book. Ian became a very great fan of the book; he hadn’t actually read the book at all when he was first approached about the role. By the time we were filming on the set, he became a very great admirer of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Ian would turn up for meetings — and sometimes on set — carrying the book under his arm. He would have basically looked at the scene that we had written and [then] gone to the book to look at the equivalent moment there, too, and he would see lines we hadn’t used, or he would see moments for Gandalf that Tolkien had described that we hadn’t put in our script.
A lot of Ian’s ideas and suggestions were based on the book itself. He was very funny because he would say, “There is this wonderful line. Why didn’t you put it into the script?” We would always have a reason and say, “Oh, well, the scene was too long,” or “We didn’t think that was very important.” Because he is such a wonderful actor, he would say, “Well, that’s fine, but if this line were in the script, this is what I would imagine it sounding like.”
And then he would read the line to us in the character of Gandalf, and it would be so wonderful that we would immediately want to put it in the script! He knew that and would always get that past us! He always had the ability to pull that off, because he was so great. He was a great salesman for getting us to put extra bits and pieces in the script!
Q. How do you reach the point on these films where you can let go and say, “It’s done”? Is it a matter of tweaking a film as much as possible until you have literally reached the deadline, or is it there something that you just clicks instinctively and lets you know it is finished?
A. These films are tool long and complicated to ever be able to sit back and say, “It’s finished. I don’t want to do anymore.” That moment never arrives. You literally run out of time.
You are really describing what happens in the last two months of post-production. The end of post-production is at a point that is called “the delivery of the film.” Here in New Zealand, we have to supply the studio with a finished cut negative and soundtrack of the movie. That usually happens at the end of every October or the first week of November.
The reason that date is very, very important — and really can’t be changed — is that New Line has a phenomenally complicated process that they have to go through in producing up to 10,000 prints of the film. The delivery date allows New Line the barest number of weeks to do what they have to do to release the film simultaneously around the world …The entire soundtrack of the film is on computer hard drives — every sound effect, every piece of dialogue, every piece of music, every nuance of sound is on the computers. We edit the film on computers, so the picture is on a hard drive too….
…What happens now is that at almost any time before delivery, I can say, “You know, I want to extend this shot by 10 seconds,” or “I want to cut this scene out,” or “I want to reduce this by half.” It happens automatically on the hard drive containing the picture….
All these computers talk to each other, and the process happens relatively easily. That enables the filmmaker to keep fiddling with the movie right up until just before delivery, which can be both good and bad. It gives you enormous flexibility and advantages, and we were certainly fiddling with TT right up to the delivery and the same with Fellowship.
For example, on TT, I added the scene of Saruman talking with the wildmen the day before delivery. I just have a simple philosophy that nothing is ever perfect. There is no perfect cut of the film — it doesn’t exist … We’ve shot over 5 million feet of 35mm film on this project, and there are infinite ways you could tell the story. You can generally keep improving the films the longer you can spend on them.
The most useful thing that could happen during cutting would be to walk away from it for three months and have the ability to then come back and take a fresh look at the film, because it is after the passing of time that you suddenly see things that you hadn’t thought of before.
When you have been cutting for a year, and you have a deadline approaching, you really just lose objectivity. You’re operating on gut instinct, and you have to try to guess the best way a scene should play. After the space of two or three months, a lot of the things you were confused about or just couldn’t get your head around become glaringly obvious if you see the film again.
That is why we are also shooting these pick-ups. RotK was shot over three years ago. As we put that footage together, what we are finding — which is enormously helpful – is a fresh view of the film. We’re able to look at a rough cut of the film, and it is something that we haven’t really thought of or looked at for three years. Everything that we had written and shot… suddenly it all has a wonderful sense of perspective about it.
We look at it and say, “Oh, you know we should have a scene that does this,” or “Let’s add that.” Looking at it with fresh eyes after a distance of time is a really exciting thing to do because the script problems you couldn’t get your head around at the time — because you were so tired or so busy – suddenly become obvious. It all becomes clear, and you are able to shoot the scenes that help the film.
It’s an interesting process. But I never really get to a point where I think something is perfect. I do work on it until there is no more time left.
Eowyn and Theoden are borne off the battlefield in honour, while noone notices a small fatigued Merry wandering in the background with tears filling his eyes. When Pippin finds his friend, Merry is already falling under the Black Shadow. Soon the wounded are all laid in beds in the houses of healing, but though they are tended well there seems to be no cure for the shadow of the nazgul. But then a wise woman of Gondor remembers an old proverb; “the hands of the king are the hands of a healer”.
How do you think the Black Shadow affects its victims? How are Eowyn, Faramir and Merry affected differently? What can the houses of healing tell us about Gondor?
Now Aragorn enters the capital city of his realm at last. Not yet to rule, but to aid the wounded. We shall look at how he goes about treating Faramir, Eowyn and Merry. Furthermore we shall talk about what Aragorns behavior tells us about him as a man and as a king. Perhaps this one chapter reveals more about the mysterious and aloof future ruler of the reunited kingdom than any other part of the book.
Join us in #thehalloffire as we take a look at Return of the King book V, Chapter VIII – The Houses of Healing.
Times: Saturday Chat: 5:30pm ET (17:30) [also 11:30pm (23:30) CET and 7:30am Sunday (07:30) AET]
Sunday Chat: 7:00 pm (19:00) CET [also 1:00pm (13:00) ET and 3:00am (03:00) Monday morning AET]
ET = Eastern Time, USA’s East Coast CET = Central European Time, Central Europe AET = Australian East Coast
Do you have a possible topic for Hall of Fire? Drop us a line at halloffire@theonering.net.
Bruce Allpress (Aldor) joins Mimi Rogers (Ginger Snaps, TV’s ‘X-Files’) in the familt action drama ‘Cave In’. The film is set in New Zealand.
Ian Holm (Bilbo) joins Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal and Sela Ward in the Sci-Fi drama ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. The story involves a climatologist (Quaid) who needs to figure out a way to save the world from abrupt global warming. He must get to his young son in New York, which is being taken over by a new ice age. The film is set for a May 2004 North American release.
Sean Bean (Boromir) lends his vocal talents and portrays ‘Dark’ in John Downer’s first directorial effort ‘Pride’. Bean stars alongside Helen Mirren, Robbie Williams, and Kate Winslet. The main story focuses on a pride of lions animals, who live in human-type set-ups. They defend each other and form allegiances. It will show how the lions cope when they come into conflict with other prides. 
Marton Csokas (Celeborn) joins the cast of ‘The Great Raid’, a war drama directed by John Dahl (Rounders, Unforgettable). 
David Wenham (Faramir) stars in a new caper comedy film ‘Gettin’ Square’. The film which recently wrapped shooting in Brisbane and the Gold Coast is directed by ‘Better Than Sex’ director Jonathan Teplitzky.
John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) is lending his voice to the animated film ‘Catching Kringle’, he stars alongside Danny DeVito and talk show great Larry King. 
Bernard Hill (Theoden) can currently be seen walking the streets of Montreal while on hiatus from the film ‘Gothika’, his co-star Hallie Berry recently broke her arm during the production. The film is currently slated for an October 2003 release.
