Grima Wormtongue
June 25th,2003, 12:15 AM
so, as you all may know im going to film school. one class im taking is film buisness and out final assignment was to write an essay on anyting involving movies, so i of course had to do something related to LOTR. it was either that or a biography of kevin smith, but this was more interesting. so basically i did it on the weta digital/workshop, all the stuff they did in the movies,s ome special effects they used etc etc etc. anyway, heres my report, please tell me what you all think of it, is all the info correct? should i add anything in there? remove anything? any inout is appreciated, thanks.
Weta Digital/Weta Workshop, founded in 1993 by a group of young filmmakers, is New Zealand's top special effects
workshop. With a combination of ingenuity, skilled technicians, and talented artists, Weta Workshop has been providing high-
level effects to the film and television industry for years. Weta teamed up with writer/director Peter Jackson in 1994 to form
Weta Ltd hoping to supply an effects facility to cover all types of effects for the young New Zealand film industry. Included in
Weta workshop is a number of departments including design, fabrication and on set operation of Miniatures, Armour,
Weapons, Props, Prosthetics, Creatures, Costumes, Special Make Up and Suit effects. Weta digital covers everything from
stop motion to blue screen to 3d scanning services, as well as much more. Weta is probably most well known for its work on
the recent Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
Of the many projects weta has worked on for Lord Of The Rings, one was costuming. Not only did they help to design every costume for the films, but built them as well. Every suit of armor was built piece by piece by hand, even each suit of
chain mail was hand made, out of plastic rings to lower the weight of the armor. Over 12.5 million plastic rings were made for the chain mail armors in the movie. Over 1200 suits of armor were built for the trilogy. Also hired for the project were
swordsmiths and other weapons experts. Over 2000 different real weapons were designed and created, including swords,
axes, spears, bows and arrows, as well as many others. The blacksmiths were even featured in the movie (made up as orcs)
creating the vast arsenal of weapons for the armies. In addition to weapons and armor Weta designed and created prosthetic
masks and body suits for various characters as well as many gore and injury rigs, which included more than 1,600 pairs of latex "hobbit ears" and "hobbit feet", each cooked in a special oven running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There was no way of removing the feet at the end of the day without damaging them and so each pair could only be used once. Not only is the the costuming and character design vital to the realization of the novel, but the look of Middle Earth itself plays an important role in creating a believable world.
To create the world of Middle Earth Weta used many different processes. Most of the film was shot using the beautiful natural terrain of New Zealand. Of course it was not perfect and many things had to be added. One such way that was used was computer generated images. Surprisingly this simple for was used very sparingly, only for a few establishing shots. Another way to create the mythical world of Middle Earth was matte paintings, large paintings inserted into the films images using blue screen. Most often used were miniatures, which were dubbed "bigatures" by Weta, as they were normally around 10 feet tall, and weren't exactly "mini". Weta has created over 70 bigatures for the films, including vast forests, enormous cities, stupendous fortresses, and soaring towers. Then of course theres actually building some of the smaller locations in the movie, such as meduseld, a small city consisting of a few houses, built on location atop a plateau, and the shire, home of the hobbits. In Tolkiens book hobbits are simple farming folk, that live in houses built into the sides of hills, called hobbit holes, which they have been living in and farming on for hundreds of years. To make this look realistic some of Weta's team went on location and built the fronts of the hobbit holes and planted plants a year before recording was even started to give it that "lived in" look. For some shots a combination of all effects were used, sets, with bigatures and mattes in the background. To make Middle Earth look even more mystical the entire film was color gradedonce filming and editing was done. Another magical aspect of Lord Of The Rings is the characters that populate Middle Earth .
Middle Earth is full of many fantastical creatures including wizards, elves, dwarves, orcs(a goblin type creature), ents(tree people) and hobbits(like humans, but very short with big harry feet and pointy ears). All the different races have quite a different look and had to be done perfectly to make the film appropriately. As stated before alot of prosthetics were used to
create these looks. The orcs got the most, being completely covered in make up, prosthetics, and costuming, some taking up to 9 hours to complete. The more simple prosthetics were for elves, which included only pointy ears. The hobbits had pointy ears as well as large hairy feet, each hobbit actor would have to be up at 5am to get in make up each day, which would take about 3 hours. Giving each race its own look wasn't complete with only the addition of prosthetics, to make the characters convincing to fans, size had to be taken into consideration. Men and elves are the size of regular humans, hobbits are approximately 3.5 feet tall and dwarves about 4.5 feet. To get the sizes proportionate Weta used a number of different methods. One such way was using blue screen, although it was not practicle to use for all scenes. Other times doubles were used, using little people , wearing masks modeled after the mains actors faces for hobbits to make them smaller compared to men or elves, or people in specially designed giant suits to make the men looks taller than the hobbits. Yet another process was making over-sized props for the hobbits to use to make them look smaller, or tinier props for men to use to make them look larger. Mostly though to show size relation, a method called forced perspective was used, in which the character which was to appear larger was positioned closer to the camera. To help create this effect properly numerous different sized props had to be created, in both man and hobbit sizes. Weta even designed a system of pulleys and dollies so the camera can still pan and truck with keeping the desired effect. As for the Ents, there is obviously no way to have an actor play a 20 foot tree, so most ents were done using CGI and some scenes stop-go animation was used. Some other scenes, in which an ent carries 2 young hobbits, a life sized model was used for the ent. One of the most talked about and fan anticipated characters was Gollum, a hobbit that had been basically mutated and almost withered away due to his possession of the ring for so long. By the books description there was no way this could be done using an actor, so Weta and Peter Jackson decided to use CGI. Instead of typical CGI they used motion capture. Actor andy serkis donned a blue spandex suit covered in many motion capture dots. With this technology all his movements were translated directly into the computer for Gollums moves, in addition to the movements, serkis also did the voice of gollum, as well as stood in during scenes for proper placement and interaction. One last
selling point of recreating the popular book into a film was the massive battle scenes. Most armies in the book consisted of
10,000+ people, with some battles consisting of 4 or more armies, this would be very hard to pull off on film. Thus Weta
created a program they dubbed "massive". Massive is a program which made armies of CG orcs, elves, and humans. These digital creations could 'think' and battle independently, identifying friend or foe, and thanks to individual fields of vision Weta could click on one creature in a crowd scene and see through that characters eyes. Different species even boast unique fighting styles. On the first test run of the program the armies were programmed to fight in the most efficient manner possible, and all turned and ran away. The Weta staff joked that they were the "smart fighters".
Weta has been working on the trilogy for 6 years to date and at the height of filming have serviced seven shooting units and two miniatures units. They are are currently putting finishing touches on the final chapter of the trilogy, "Return of The King", due out dec 17, 2003. Weta is also reproducing different props from the films as merchandise, including swords, axes, bows, arrows, and helmets, as well as busts and full statues of various characters. Recently Wetas crew has won the 2003 BAFTA award for best special effects, 8 out of 9 visual effects society awards, as well as the best special effects award at the 2003 academy awards.
Weta Digital/Weta Workshop, founded in 1993 by a group of young filmmakers, is New Zealand's top special effects
workshop. With a combination of ingenuity, skilled technicians, and talented artists, Weta Workshop has been providing high-
level effects to the film and television industry for years. Weta teamed up with writer/director Peter Jackson in 1994 to form
Weta Ltd hoping to supply an effects facility to cover all types of effects for the young New Zealand film industry. Included in
Weta workshop is a number of departments including design, fabrication and on set operation of Miniatures, Armour,
Weapons, Props, Prosthetics, Creatures, Costumes, Special Make Up and Suit effects. Weta digital covers everything from
stop motion to blue screen to 3d scanning services, as well as much more. Weta is probably most well known for its work on
the recent Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
Of the many projects weta has worked on for Lord Of The Rings, one was costuming. Not only did they help to design every costume for the films, but built them as well. Every suit of armor was built piece by piece by hand, even each suit of
chain mail was hand made, out of plastic rings to lower the weight of the armor. Over 12.5 million plastic rings were made for the chain mail armors in the movie. Over 1200 suits of armor were built for the trilogy. Also hired for the project were
swordsmiths and other weapons experts. Over 2000 different real weapons were designed and created, including swords,
axes, spears, bows and arrows, as well as many others. The blacksmiths were even featured in the movie (made up as orcs)
creating the vast arsenal of weapons for the armies. In addition to weapons and armor Weta designed and created prosthetic
masks and body suits for various characters as well as many gore and injury rigs, which included more than 1,600 pairs of latex "hobbit ears" and "hobbit feet", each cooked in a special oven running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There was no way of removing the feet at the end of the day without damaging them and so each pair could only be used once. Not only is the the costuming and character design vital to the realization of the novel, but the look of Middle Earth itself plays an important role in creating a believable world.
To create the world of Middle Earth Weta used many different processes. Most of the film was shot using the beautiful natural terrain of New Zealand. Of course it was not perfect and many things had to be added. One such way that was used was computer generated images. Surprisingly this simple for was used very sparingly, only for a few establishing shots. Another way to create the mythical world of Middle Earth was matte paintings, large paintings inserted into the films images using blue screen. Most often used were miniatures, which were dubbed "bigatures" by Weta, as they were normally around 10 feet tall, and weren't exactly "mini". Weta has created over 70 bigatures for the films, including vast forests, enormous cities, stupendous fortresses, and soaring towers. Then of course theres actually building some of the smaller locations in the movie, such as meduseld, a small city consisting of a few houses, built on location atop a plateau, and the shire, home of the hobbits. In Tolkiens book hobbits are simple farming folk, that live in houses built into the sides of hills, called hobbit holes, which they have been living in and farming on for hundreds of years. To make this look realistic some of Weta's team went on location and built the fronts of the hobbit holes and planted plants a year before recording was even started to give it that "lived in" look. For some shots a combination of all effects were used, sets, with bigatures and mattes in the background. To make Middle Earth look even more mystical the entire film was color gradedonce filming and editing was done. Another magical aspect of Lord Of The Rings is the characters that populate Middle Earth .
Middle Earth is full of many fantastical creatures including wizards, elves, dwarves, orcs(a goblin type creature), ents(tree people) and hobbits(like humans, but very short with big harry feet and pointy ears). All the different races have quite a different look and had to be done perfectly to make the film appropriately. As stated before alot of prosthetics were used to
create these looks. The orcs got the most, being completely covered in make up, prosthetics, and costuming, some taking up to 9 hours to complete. The more simple prosthetics were for elves, which included only pointy ears. The hobbits had pointy ears as well as large hairy feet, each hobbit actor would have to be up at 5am to get in make up each day, which would take about 3 hours. Giving each race its own look wasn't complete with only the addition of prosthetics, to make the characters convincing to fans, size had to be taken into consideration. Men and elves are the size of regular humans, hobbits are approximately 3.5 feet tall and dwarves about 4.5 feet. To get the sizes proportionate Weta used a number of different methods. One such way was using blue screen, although it was not practicle to use for all scenes. Other times doubles were used, using little people , wearing masks modeled after the mains actors faces for hobbits to make them smaller compared to men or elves, or people in specially designed giant suits to make the men looks taller than the hobbits. Yet another process was making over-sized props for the hobbits to use to make them look smaller, or tinier props for men to use to make them look larger. Mostly though to show size relation, a method called forced perspective was used, in which the character which was to appear larger was positioned closer to the camera. To help create this effect properly numerous different sized props had to be created, in both man and hobbit sizes. Weta even designed a system of pulleys and dollies so the camera can still pan and truck with keeping the desired effect. As for the Ents, there is obviously no way to have an actor play a 20 foot tree, so most ents were done using CGI and some scenes stop-go animation was used. Some other scenes, in which an ent carries 2 young hobbits, a life sized model was used for the ent. One of the most talked about and fan anticipated characters was Gollum, a hobbit that had been basically mutated and almost withered away due to his possession of the ring for so long. By the books description there was no way this could be done using an actor, so Weta and Peter Jackson decided to use CGI. Instead of typical CGI they used motion capture. Actor andy serkis donned a blue spandex suit covered in many motion capture dots. With this technology all his movements were translated directly into the computer for Gollums moves, in addition to the movements, serkis also did the voice of gollum, as well as stood in during scenes for proper placement and interaction. One last
selling point of recreating the popular book into a film was the massive battle scenes. Most armies in the book consisted of
10,000+ people, with some battles consisting of 4 or more armies, this would be very hard to pull off on film. Thus Weta
created a program they dubbed "massive". Massive is a program which made armies of CG orcs, elves, and humans. These digital creations could 'think' and battle independently, identifying friend or foe, and thanks to individual fields of vision Weta could click on one creature in a crowd scene and see through that characters eyes. Different species even boast unique fighting styles. On the first test run of the program the armies were programmed to fight in the most efficient manner possible, and all turned and ran away. The Weta staff joked that they were the "smart fighters".
Weta has been working on the trilogy for 6 years to date and at the height of filming have serviced seven shooting units and two miniatures units. They are are currently putting finishing touches on the final chapter of the trilogy, "Return of The King", due out dec 17, 2003. Weta is also reproducing different props from the films as merchandise, including swords, axes, bows, arrows, and helmets, as well as busts and full statues of various characters. Recently Wetas crew has won the 2003 BAFTA award for best special effects, 8 out of 9 visual effects society awards, as well as the best special effects award at the 2003 academy awards.