A Hobbit's Tale

:: Liv Tyler, terrified by horses ::

"If you actually see the shots from when I'm riding, they're pretty funny because I'm sitting there all seriously and then [moans in panic] because the horse would take off. Then they got me a really cute older horse, and I felt secure on him. On him, I got up the courage to canter."

:: Recruted ::

The veteran sword master Bob Anderson, known for training Errol Flynn, was recruited to train the actors in fencing and as an expert in medieval arms. He is credited for the three movies as choregrapher : art action.

:: Landslides = Spaghetti ::

From New York Times, by Peter Jackson (December 2001) : "It is late 1999 in Queenstown, New Zealand, two days after record rainfall caused the worst flooding in the history of the district. We have suffered some setbacks; the weather has stuffed the schedule. Two of the actors, Sean Bean and Orlando Bloom, have been caught between two landslides and are now trapped in a tiny town in the middle of the South Island. They have been taken in by a kindly woman who has offered them food and a bed. They were last reported to be cooking spaghetti and cracking into a bottle of red wine. We had no other choice but to reschedule their scenes."

:: Casting Record ::

Elijah Wood beat out 250 other candidates for the role of Frodo Baggins.

:: Tattoos ::

To celebrate their off-screen friendship, the actors (the Fellowship cast) decided to get tattooed (the Elvish word for "nine"). Billy Boyd said : "I'm pretty sure it was Dom's idea originally, but Viggo came up with the design : the number nine as a Celtic numeral. Everyone was up for it, except Jonathan Rhys-Davies, who plays Gimli. He sent his stunt double instead." Therefore, Orlando Bloom maintained that the idea is his : "It was an idea I talked about with the hobbits earlier on, and eventually managed to convince everyone." Peter Jackson and the producers each got a "ten" as honorary members.

:: Cate Blanchett wanted to wear the pointy ears ::

"Q : What can you tell us about The Fellowship of the Ring and your role as an Elf ?
CB : Queen of the Elves no less (laughs) ! By the time I got to New Zealand they'd been filming for about nine months and I was there for a month; it was one of those once in a lifetime experiences. The sets were so extraordinary and I'd never worked on anything that was that technical but I loved the books and wanted to work with Peter Jackson because he's a genius. But I did want the ears too ! What fascinated me about Peter was that even though there were obviously so many technical things to think about, he was absolutely about actors contacting actors so in the end all that other stuff dropped away and it became just about the dark truth, which is part of the book."

:: Actors duty ::

Dominic Monaghan wore a fat suit made of foam and drank 3 liters of water a day to prevent dehydration.

:: To speak Elvish or not to speak Elvish... ::

Liv Tyler, being dyslexic, couldn't manage to remember all of her Elvish lines. Her scenes couldn't be filmed in a one go. But Viggo Mortensen, who is multi-lingual, asked for more lines in Elvish tongue.

:: A dangerous job ::

While filming the scene where Sam rushes through the river after Frodo, at the end of FOTR, Sean Astin stepped on a branch that was sticking up from the riverbed. It pierced his foot, even through the prosthetic foot, which bled so much he had to be airlifted to hospital.

:: Cate Blanchett, addicted to her ears ::

After filming The Lord Of The Rings, Cate Blanchett has kept and has bronzed her Elf ear prosthetics.

:: The Weapons ::

From the November 2002 issue of "JOM" : "The largest of the swords were Narsil and Glamdring, each weighing between 1.8 kilograms and 2.4 kilograms with a length of 1.2 meters to 1.4 meters. The shorter swords, such as Sting, weighed about 1.3 kilograms and were 1 meter long."

:: The Sounds and Voices of Middle-Earth ::

We learn much about the sound editing on the disc 4 of the Extended Edition of The Fellowship Of The Ring. Ethan Van der Ryn (supervising sound editor/co-designer) and David Farmer (sound designer) explain : The pain vocalisation of The Watcher in the water is the sound of a walrus. The Ringwraith's voice is the shout of Fran Walsh, who could scream in a terrifying way like no one else. The voice of the Orcs is the one of a pig dog. The Cave Troll is a combination of two animals : a tiger when it takes a breath and a lynx when it breathes out. When it is about to die, the Cave Troll needed to express suffering. The sound designers chose a walrus. For the Balrog, a breeze-block has been glided on the floor. The Balck speech of the One Ring is the voice of Alan Howard. 50.000 different sounds were used in the three movies

From SFGate.com (March 2004) : The vocalizations of Calle, a female elephant of the San Francisco's zoo, were recorded and used in The Return Of The King to give the Mûmakils a voice (which is denied in the ROTK EE appendices though). The Mûmakils' voice was a slowed down tiger and lion roar.

Shelob's voice was a combination of a plastic alien face, the whistling of a steam-engine and the scream of a Tasmanian Devil.

:: The Scale-Doubles ::

Informations from the extras on the disc 4 of the Extended Edition of The Fellowship Of The Ring. The scale-double of Frodo/elijah Wood and Sam/Sean Astin was an Indian called B.K. (Kiran Shah). The double for Pippin/Billy Boyd was a girl from Thailand called Phon. Merry/Dominic Monaghan was doubled by Martin, a young boy of 12 years old. Gimli/John-Rhys Davies' double was called Brett Beattie, who is 144 cm tall.

:: Weta Workshop ::

For the three films, Weta Workshop has created 10,000 masks and over 1,800 costumes made of latex. Richard Taylor and his team have created over 45,000 different pieces including armours, prothesis, make-up, weapons, creatures and miniatures. They have built 58 big-atures (the name for big miniatures) like Isengard, Lothlorien's trees and Rivendell.

:: Blacksmith ::

The armours have been forged by New Zealander Stu Johnson and Warren Green. The swords were forged by Peter Lyon, who also created over 10,000 arrows. A sword like Narsil could require a week of work.

:: Costumes ::

Ngila Dickson, costume designer, explained that one costume was done 40 times : 10 costumes for the lead actor, 10 costumes for the body double, 10 costumes for the mini-me double and 10 costumes for the stunt-double. For the first movie, over 19,000 costumes were created.

:: Team Work ::

From New York Times, by Peter Jackson (December 2001) : "At the height of this insanity, we had seven units shooting multiple elements simultaneously for the three different movies that make up Lord Of The Rings."