JACKSON: I thought, "I'm never going to make three films back-to-back again."
Never such a long shoot.
I never realized that 10 years later we were doing it all over again.
BLANCHETT: If anyone can keep the spirit of the book...
...it's Peter and Fran and Philippa and the gang.
BOYENS: In the scramble to get a movie made...
...sometimes you don't really know where you are at any one time...
...but I remember the day when I knew we were back in Middle-earth.
[ALL LAUGHING]
WOOD: It's a mixture of nostalgia and surrealism, and I didn't know how to, ha, ha, process it.
FREEMAN: That was probably what Pete was, rightfully, mindful of...
...is like, what happens when a load of people descend on a small space?
The Lonely Mountain.
FREEMAN: Lots of men, lots of testosterone...
...all acting the hell out of each other. You know what I mean?
SERKIS: I took a bashing over those two weeks. I took a real bashing.
And the thought of sitting in front of a monitor watching 3D with glasses on...
...I thought, "Bring it on, bring it on."
MAN 1: The process of making this film...
...is one where everybody is just trying to keep up...
...and deal with things that are happening on the day...
...and sometimes they're quite major.
MAN 2: Everyone went, "Okay, if we can achieve that in that much time...
...then we can make this movie. We can get it done."
TAYLOR: It's rare that a challenge will be so great...
...that myself or our team are sort of hitting our heads against a wall.
But I think we were close to it.
McKELLEN: I've felt pretty miserable, and thought, perhaps, "Has the time come for me...
...to stop acting altogether if I can't cope with these difficulties?"
[MEN CHATTERING AND McKELLEN LAUGHS]
MAN 3: I think, in a previous life, quite a few of our construction and design people...
...were part of some medieval torture kind of world, I don't know.
HENNAH: We put the same effort and ethic into this and Lord of the Rings...
...but it just got bigger and it got more extensive on The Hobbit.
MAN 4: The was one of the things Peter told us very early on:
"Don't think small. Think big, think wide."
[ALL SHOUTING]
ARMITAGE: He has a big picture for the character that I can't quite see yet.
So even though there's stuff here I don't know if I can do it...
...I just know that he'll take me there.
JACKSON: The making of the movie was almost walking step by step, stride by stride...
...with our company, as they were on their own journey.
This is a very complicated movie times three, all at once.
This is going to be the hardest thing I ever do in my life, and I will never--
I've actually had enough of these complicated things.
My next movie is going to be really simple. Whatever it is, it will be simple as hell.
When we made The Lord of the Rings, I was absolutely sure...
...that was going to be a once in a lifetime experience.
Just run forward and give him a big hug.
And, you know, I thought, "it's done."
It was an amazing experience. Finished.
Then, you know, time carries on and post Rings...
...he gets into the world of King Kong...
...and then there starts to be these rumblings of:
"What's going to happen with The Hobbit?"
After The Lord of the Rings finished, all of us are, of course, anxious.
When is The Hobbit going to happen?
CROWD [CHANTING]: Hobbit! Hobbit! Hobbit!
JACKSON: Let's not shut TheOneRing.net down just yet.
[CROWD CHEERING]
FALCONER: And there was all this fan build up, and excitement about trying to get it made.
"Let The Hobbit happen," I think, was the campaign.
The idea of doing The Hobbit was always there...
...in terms of the fact that The Lord of the Rings trilogy had been successful.
The studio was keen to do it, but there were rights issues involved...
...which were quite complicated.
Primarily, because Warner Bros. didn't own all the rights.
They were shared between Warner Bros. and MGM.
A historical situation, I think, that goes right back to the '60s, actually...
...when Tolkien originally sold the film rights.
And around 2008 there was a real will to sort out the rights issue.
But Peter had made the decision, "I don't need to direct this."
The first time I ever mentioned it, or asked Pete...
...if The Hobbit was ever something he would consider...
...we were on location on Rings somewhere in a forest...
...and we had a bit of downtime, and I just kind of:
"Would you ever think about making The Hobbit after this is all done...
...now that you've spent the time establishing the world of Middle-earth?"
And he was quick to answer with, "No, not interested in that."
I was always unsure whether I should direct The Hobbit.
I didn't really want to end up in a position where I was thinking back...
...to what I did in The Lord of the Rings. Feeling like I was competing with myself.
But on the other hand, we kind of feel a sentimental attachment, a sort of ownership...
...to the Middle-earth that's been put on the screen.
So the concept was that we would produce it...
...and Fran and Philippa and I would be involved in the script...
...as writers, possibly with somebody else...
...and we'd have another director come on board.
He had a very strong inkling of who he wanted to direct it very early on.
JACKSON: Guillermo del Toro was one of our favorite filmmakers...
...and he was very enthusiastic about doing it.
And in our mind he was a director that would do an interesting version of The Hobbit.
I am exploding with the desire to just, argh, showing everything.
It's fun, but it's challenging, and it requires you to have your stuff together.
You know, you have to do your homework every day.
I really trust that we're in good shape.
BOYENS: We began writing with Guillermo and that was wonderful.
But, unfortunately, we had no green-light. Literally, the movies weren't green-lit.
However, during that time, Warner Bros. were still funding...
...the preproduction so Guillermo was able to do a lot of the work...
...the director would do in that year and a half before you start rolling the camera.
- That's great. That's my favorite. - Okay.
LEE: Like Peter, Guillermo is really passionate about design.
DEL TORO: That's great.
It's a very intense and enjoyable period.
JACKSON: We had a workshop, we're building maquettes...
...and I think they're even starting to build armor.
There was a lot of money being spent.
And yet, there was no deal between MGM and Warner Bros.
And when a deal was getting close...
...when it felt like there was a deal, then MGM got into some financial problems.
That got to the state that each of our proposed start dates...
...with Guillermo got pushed. Delayed, delayed, delayed.
We got to the point where it really was difficult to maintain...
...the drive that you need to make a film when you're in this suspended state.
And so it became a question of whether Guillermo waited for the next six-month delay...
...or does he move on and jump on board one of the other projects he was developing.
That's ultimately what happened around May and June in 2010.
HOWE: I remember the meeting where he announced that he had to leave.
And was very clearly heartbroken.
MULLANE: I saw Peter's face, which was gray.
And I thought the whole thing had just folded, to be honest.
It was a horrible moment.
We understood why he needed to move on. Respected that decision.
But it did leave us with the issue of, "Okay, so, what now?"
Peter didn't immediately, like, pick up the reins, either.
I think a lot of people think that.
That as soon as Guillermo left, Peter was in. That was not the case.
I think Peter kind of struggled with it.
At the point that Guillermo left, a substantial amount of money had been spent...
...and a huge amount of work had been done. And we talked about it and said:
"Do we now find somebody else who would like to make The Hobbit?"
And essentially start that journey again.
Or do we help the studio in a very difficult situation and do I step in and do it?
MULLANE: I was in a tricky position with agents...
...trying to start doing deals with people that we were wanting.
And agents were going, "Hang on a minute. You don't have a director.
So, you know, we can't. And you're not actually green-lit completely."
And I spoke with Carol, producer, and said, "I'm completely stuck now."
And she went, “Right. Let's go and see Peter."
And we went and saw him.
And I said, "I can't really go any further because nobody can take it seriously.
They need to know if there's some certainty here, because there is none."
And I'll never forget. He went, "You're absolutely right."
Picked up the phone. I think he was calling Ken Kamins, Peter's manager...
...and he went, "Ken, we can't move ahead until this is confirmed.
So we need to confirm this.
And it was like, “Excellent. All right. Urn. Good." Heh.
It might be interesting to see Gandalf in something like this.
You think: “Oh, my God, Gandalf's gotten trapped."
BOYENS: By this stage, I think, Peter had fallen in love with the story.
We'd spent 18 months writing it. We had a lot of ideas.
It took us a few weeks after Guillermo left to really make up our mind to do it.
And then we still didn't have the green-light.
I mean, that's what is easy to forget now.
That after Guillermo left, it was another four months, maybe five months, before...
...MGM did sort out its financial problems and we knew we were making the film.
Just sort of pick Bag End out as being the focus.
FALCONER: When we heard that Peter was going to step in and direct it...
...it was like coming home, because he was there leading the charge for us...
...on those first three films, and it's hard to imagine those happening without Pete.
Put the front entrance there, the main entrance there...
...and put Dale-- Kind of cheat Dale down there a little bit...
At the point that we got the green-light and everyone wanted to make these films...
...I suddenly looked up and found myself with very little time to prepare.
On The Lord of the Rings I had two and a half years to prepare for three movies.
And on The Hobbit, I had about five months to prepare.
Valentine's Day, the 14th of February, was our original start to shooting.
The first question we all had was:
"What's going to change and what's staying the same?"
In terms of Guillermo's designs...
...I looked at it and I thought, "This would be an amazing Guillermo del Toro film."
But I can't do that. I can't suddenly step in and impersonate another filmmaker.
All the ones I've identified as the current favorite. It would be good to do our layout.
What I thought I had to do at that point...
...was to say, "Okay, you're the guy that made The Lord of the Rings.
Get back into that zone. Get back into that headspace."
TAYLOR: For me and our team at the design studio, we began a process of redesign...
...because, of course, Peter is a director of his own vision...
...and he therefore needed to remodel the work...
...to suit the way he wanted to visualize the world.
We were able to start casting the film. We were able to see people in particular roles.
It gave us the energy of, “We're doing this. It's going to happen."
There was quite a long period in the years between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
And Fran and I just took the attitude, “Well, if we end up doing The Hobbit...
...it'll be because that's where fate has pushed us."
So now, 10 years after The Lord of the Rings, we find ourselves back on set with...
...essentially, the same crew.
So I've sort of done the once in a lifetime experience twice in my lifetime.
But not a third time. There won't be a third time.
Whatever the best plan that's laid, sometimes you can never predict...
...the humps on the road that will throw you off.
And we were ultimately left with just a matter of a few months...
...before we started shooting.
At that point in time we were ramping up at record numbers of people.
We were trying to find crew from all over the world to come and facilitate...
...Dwarven prosthetics, Dwarven hands, weapons.
Pretty much crafts and skill basis from all over the world.
The first thing to do is probably just to bog up a few of those...
...and also then make a few that are more crooked.
HENNAH: We were going to be building over a hundred sets in four studios...
...and I can't say we actually panicked...
...but we started to develop strategies to make that happen.
I mean, one of them was we started to work out how to utilize...
...our spaces and our facilities better.
And one of the ways we did that was put on a night art director...
...a night team who could be very effective.
And so we basically got our studios working 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The pressure was on. Designs still needed to be locked off...
...manufacturing was going guns.
We were casting hot metal, we were machining, we were forging...
...we were molding and casting with urethanes and polyesters.
We've got 11 of the 13 Dwarves here, and this is final approval...
...on the prosthetics sculpt before I take it and show the director tomorrow.
We were starting to come up with some beard and hair designs...
...and some early concept passes.
Alan and John were furiously working into it, the Costuming Department. It was crazy.
So it's the excitement and buzz, but it's also quite a challenge...
...to produce something so quickly.
The Camera Department had already started...
...because that was quite a massive undertaking.
We had to turn over cameras within a couple of weeks...
...of actually getting the equipment out of the boxes, out of the crates.
At one point we had A Stage itself, which was quite a large stage.
We had almost like a factory going with the rigs and various accessories...
...and people building boxes with networking systems...
...and sync pulse generators and wireless systems.
And we were very much learning the ropes at that point.
So there were many, many things that still had to be solved:
Mechanical things, electronic things.
We had to basically hook it up and get it to run very quickly.
This balcony thing is a little bit too tall.
The railing, I think it should come down about two-thirds that height.
We had constant reviews of sets we were building...
...key props we were introducing. It's a scramble, you know?
It's January, the actors are turning up.
I had no concept of what was ahead.
None whatsoever.
We were wondering, thinking, “What's it all going to be like?
What's the makeup going to be like? What costumes? Where are we going to go?"
Because we hadn't even really read the script.
Then we had our first taste of what it was going to be like.
We were given a tour of the studio.
Go on. Go on, kiss it.
[CHATTERING]
[INDISTINCT DIALOGUE]
MAN 1: It's just amazing- -No way.
Oh, my God.
MAN 1: It's just extraordinary.
MAN 2: Look at that.
I am so impressed.
BROWN: it kind of felt like it was really happening.
This wasn't a surreal dream, I was actually on this journey with these guys.
And then suddenly, the Dwarf Boot Camp happened.
[INDISTINCT DIALOGUE]
[GRUNTING]
Hey! Whoa!
[ALL HUMMING]
The boot camp was essentially a training period.
During which we were introduced to various aspects...
...of what we would be required to do through the production.
Once you're on set shooting the movie, there's very little time to actually train.
So it allows the actor to look like they were born doing this.
And they've been doing it for, in the case of a Dwarf, a hundred years.
They're not just somebody, whoa, doing it nervous and doing it for the first time.
You want that confidence, you want that sense of:
"Okay, this is who I am and this is what I do."
And that only comes with quite prolonged training.
Roll and pop yourself back up, okay?
BOSWELL: Tim Wong, who was on my team...
...would put all the Dwarf actors through a routine...
...to ascertain their fitness, basically.
You had people like Graham McTavish...
...who'd been training for months leading up to this role...
...and then had other people who hadn't done as much training and preparation...
...for the physical side, anyway.
BROWN: Yeah, I'd never done any exercise prior to this in my whole life. Heh, heh, heh.
Everybody then was beginning at varying levels of ability...
...because you've got John Callen, 65.
I'm quite sure I was very frustrating for a number of other people...
...who are so much more agile than me.
You know, you had some guys who'd never done a forward roll...
...since they were 7 or 8 or 9 years old.
Can I do a forward roll? Who can't? I can't.
Those of us who maybe let ourselves go in recent years...
...had to confront some challenges about aerobic fitness and weight.
WONG: Five.
Six.
FREEMAN: You were invited to do as much as you wanted to do.
Given that, if you want to be fit to do this job...
...you'd probably be quite wise to get fit, you know what I mean?
WONG: Three.
WONG: Martin joined us, I think, a week or two later.
Because of his character and the way Bilbo is in his ability...
...he probably didn't have to be there.
But he told us that he wanted to be there.
WONG: Eight.
We did a lot of time with Tim Wong when we first started.
Our basic sword movements.
WONG: Six.
Seven.
It is muscle memory, and it is-- You're doing it so often...
...that you don't have to think about it. And that's the way it works.
[GRUNTING]
We've been really chucked into the deep end, but all this...
...we've been doing it as the 14 of us.
Not only do we have the actors to deal with, we had all the scale Dwarves to deal with.
We call them scalies, actually. The scale doubles.
They ranged from 5' 2" down to about 4 foot.
We had some people return from The Lord of the Rings...
...who'd been scale doubles. There was Kiran Shah...
...and Trevor...
...and Brett.
And it was really good to have them back doing the work.
One hundred and two, 103, 104...
All the scale doubles were put through the stunt training...
...because we knew we were going to fight, we were going to fall...
...we were going to do a lot of things.
They were probably going to be doing as much fighting and falling as the stunt guys.
So we had to try to make them as skillful and believable as the stunt guys.
[GRUNTING]
We actually had a whole liege people training them...
...because they had so many specific skills that they needed for their performance.
Nathan and Nick, in particular, were there for their acting.
Initially, we had the scale doubles...
...and we trained them separately from the actors.
That was because we really wanted them to feel they were at a really good level...
...before going to the actors.
WOMAN: Okay. Rehearsing.
Sometimes they would be playing a scene opposite Sir Ian McKellen.
So you don't want to put kind of chops up there to work with them.
When you hear the word "noise," look, see where that white cross is?
That's where you're looking, and then you can react to Gandalf's line.
In a perfect world, there would've been the perfect sized actors...
...with the same credentials and qualities that our actors had, but there isn't.
BLAKE: What we needed were people who were just small people.
We needed their proportions to be very, very similar...
...to the actors whose roles they were doubling.
So, for us, it didn't matter, male, female.
It was all about height, body type, and attitude.
MEISTER: So we had a gas fitter, we had a mom...
...who was going to swap out with her husband.
He was going to be the at-home dad.
I don't think they quite believe that Mum's been sword fighting and wrestling. Ha, ha, ha.
It's awesome.
MEISTER: We had a recovery nurse, we also had a former police detective.
Argh!
And a young woman straight out of high school who wasn't anything yet...
...in terms of career.
So we kind of had to teach them the film industry.
We had to teach them some of the things that they had to be required to do.
Nathan and I, both, who have a lot of experience teaching acting.
So what we really developed was like an intensive first-year drama school course.
I would like you all to cast your eyes over the script from the top...
...and identify what you think is the first beat in this scene.
In a hole, in the ground, there lived a Hobbit...
...not a nasty, dirty, wet hole full of worms and oozy smells.
This was a Hobbit hole...
...and that means good food, a warm hearth, and all the comforts of home.
During our rehearsal period, our boot camp period...
...we were called to the read-through for the first film.
Have you seen the state of my kitchen?
They've pillaged my pantry, there's mud trod into the carpet.
And I'm not going to tell you what they've done to the bathroom.
- They've all but destroyed the plumbing. MEN: Ha, ha, ha.
We were so nervous about that read-through, because they film that, of course.
It'll melt the ﬂesh off your bones in the blink of an eye.
A flash of light and then poof. You're nothing more than a pile of ash.
[MEN LAUGHING]
Even though everybody says, “Relax, it's okay. Nobody's judging you."
Everybody's judging you.
Everybody. Down to the guy bringing in the tea.
Yeah, that first read-through, that was really nerve-wracking for me...
...because I definitely didn't have Thorin's voice at that point.
I am telling you, we act now or we lose what is rightfully ours.
And I was experimenting with vocal tone, and pitch and sound...
...and at the same time you're nervous because you're thinking that...
...Pete, Fran and Philippa are sitting there wondering why they cast...
...this British actor who's not quite old enough, so I had all my reservations.
MAN: Must've come down from the Ettenmoors. - They cannot move in daylight.
MAN: No. - So they must have a cave nearby.
Just hearing the read-through was extraordinary.
Thinking about what was ahead was neat.
Really, it was for them to hear the story, to hear those characters evolving.
And it was interesting. It's always good to hear the script off the page.
It allows you to feel the pace of the film.
It's been foretold when the ravens of Erebor...
...return to the Mountain, the reign of the beast will end.
At the first script read-through, the true realization...
...of the journey we were about to embark on suddenly came to life.
It's all going swimmingly well, and I'm excited.
FREEMAN: Well written, folks. - Yeah, it's well written.
BOYENS: We were in the most critical part of pre-production.
And I remember getting a phone call saying Peter had been rushed to the hospital...
...because he had an ulcer and it had perforated.
[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]
Award-winning, Kiwi filmmaker, Sir Peter Jackson had a health scare...
...and filming of The Hobbit will be delayed...
...while he recovers from surgery for a bleeding ulcer.
Sir Peter was admitted to Wellington Hospital last night...
...after suffering from stomach pains.
So we got all the heads of departments...
...got them all up in the cafeteria and let them know that Peter was quite sick.
I've said to our team here there's a few things in your life...
...that you always visualize as completely solid.
It's like when you were a young child...
...you never can imagine your dad falling unwell or being frightened of anything.
And to a certain degree it was like that with Peter.
He's always been this solid rock of a person...
...soldiering through any storm.
It was not the most pleasant experience, I can tell you and the world, to go through...
...but I was sitting there recuperating and storyboarding...
...and actually working with Phil and Fran from my sickbed, as it were.
Of course, the immediate thought is, “Well, we'll go into some sort of hiatus.
Everything will stop for a while." But that wasn't to be the case.
In fact, we were going to carry on.
The camera guys all stayed on. They kept testing.
All right, here we go. This is the 3ality rig, straight handheld, no back brace.
We were able to just push out so many kinks in the system...
...between, you know, what they were doing on set...
...what was happening down at Park Road Post.
A huge amount of problem-solving.
The actors were here when that happened...
...so they got a slightly extended training period.
I think their boot camp lasted a bit longer.
We got an extra month training together...
...which was good, because we got to work out our characters...
...and we got to spend time with all the other Dwarves.
We got to know each other, we got to socialize quite a bit. It was great.
I love it, I love it...
How's my beautiful Molly?
What a beautiful girl. She's such a good girl.
Monday morning around here. Can't get any better really, can it?
This is Popeye. This is Ori-- Oh, hello.
This is Ori's horse.
Beautiful.
We share beards.
This is Gypsy. Gypsophila. She's a beautiful mare.
As if I wasn't lucky enough, we get to go horse riding.
We have horse riding because we do actually ride horses in the film...
...and we have to have competence so that you can actually sit on a horse on set.
Safety both for us and for the other people on set...
...but also just to make it look like we actually know what we're doing.
HADLOW: Our riding instructors are just incredible. The whole feeling of that...
...and that's another thing that comes with it.
This wonderful feeling of camaraderie when we're out there on the horses.
[HUMMING]
Good girl, good girl. Yes.
I do quite like riding and we've done a lot of riding training.
So I was determined that Thorin wasn't going to be a poor rider.
But you know what? I really got it and, God, I love that horse, Shaman.
We got on so well.
I love horses. I was brought up with horses as a kid.
It's just magical. And again, that's part of our training.
The rest of my day: a bit of sword training, the gym...
...and then an early start for me...
...because I've got a 4:00 call tomorrow morning, so ah.
Getting into your ready.
Go!
CALLEN: Terry Notary was our movement instructor.
He worked in the Cirque du Soleil troupe...
...and before that was a United States representative gymnast.
I mean, he's just amazing. He has an incredible ability...
...to create movements for, you know...
...any type of creature that you could possibly imagine.
[GROWLING]
Let's start just moving the weight side to side.
Feel that weight distribution.
Terry took us through a long period of learning how to move as Dwarves.
Because they wanted it to be a signature movement that is unique to them...
...rather than a human style of moving.
Dwarves have a deep foundation in their core...
...and they leave a large footprint.
And they're gut-driven, so they lead with their gut.
We were spending lots of days with our stomachs pushed out...
...kind of walking around this room in a very different way than humans do.
Excellent. Excellent.
The walks were the trickiest thing.
It's getting the sort of lollop out of the walk.
Humans rise as they walk...
...whereas a Dwarf is low and it just moves like a tank.
That's it. That's it. There it is. You feel that?
That's it. Right there.
They're not characters that are light and that bounce or jump-.
They're characters that when they move, their feet stay connected to the ground.
They are people of the earth.
That's it. That's it. Yes.
You concentrate on the center of you and you move accordingly.
Demonstrate Dwarf movement to you very easily.
So that's me at 5' 7" and a half.
So I just go down to that.
So it's like-- It's deep. It's down.
As Terry says, “Get down. Get down, guy."
Get it down. Get it down. Shake it down.
"You've gotta get down."
Get it down. Get it down.
-"Just keep down." - Keep down. Keep down.
One of the most important things is how you move.
And the shoes make a hell of a difference.
McTAVISH: Oh, yeah, the boots.
Oh, boy. Yeah.
Those boots, the first day, they brought them in.
And they just looked so big.
We pulled on these big boots and started walking around in them.
And everybody's thinking, “Oh, my God, this is so peculiar."
My shoe is about this size.
And lifting your leg off the ﬂoor is about as much as you can do. Ha, ha.
As soon as you got those boots on, there was really only one way to move...
...which was exactly what Terry had been aiming for.
When you first put them on...
...you feel like you've just suddenly wrapped your feet in concrete.
And then, "Please run now."
"Please fight."
Yeah, you can't imagine how you're gonna do it.
Left leg forward.
And then we did a lot of gestures, gesture exercises...
...where they would come up with different gestures than from our culture...
...but still have a recollection of meaning to us, you know, as viewer.
- Brother. - Brother.
And this is people who know each other very well.
[ALL LAUGHING]
[CHATTERING]
WOMAN: Thank you for coming down to New Zealand. Just a quick question.
We take our Hobbits pretty seriously down here.
How important to you guys was it that The Hobbit was shot down in New Zealand?
It does feel like home. We've all settled in quite easily.
And the weather's so fantastic and it's freezing cold back home.
This is the closest thing to summer camp I think I'm ever gonna get, really.
- So I'm loving it. ACTORS: Ha, ha, ha.
It is genuinely lovely and the people are bending over backwards to look after us...
...and they're really, really appreciative of the fact that those of us who've left family behind...
...and are starting new families here... ACTORS: Ha, ha, ha.
...they're being very mindful of that.
WOMAN: Richard, we haven't heard from you yet.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role?
I just think it's a really amazing opportunity...
...to take a character from a book that I was brought to as a child and that I was--
I mean, my first experience on stage was in a production of The Hobbit.
- Really? - Really?
At the Alex Theatre in Birmingham. And I played an Elf.
And Gollum was a little papier-mâché puppet with a man offstage on a microphone.
MAN: There's a lot of singing in The Hobbit. ls anyone not gonna be doing their own singing?
We'll all be doing our own singing...
...and some of us will be singing for everybody else at the same time as well.
[ACTORS LAUGHING]
[ALL MAKING NOISES]
As part of our Dwarf boot camp, we had Dwarf singing lessons.
[ALL HUMMING]
Well, I've got a fantastic vocal warm-up, and I made them all do it.
Vi-va-vi-va-vi-va-vi...
ALL: Vi-va-vi-va-vi-va-vi...
That was wonderful. I mean, everyone was joking and fooling around all the time.
There was-- Oh, I mean, it was just insane.
- There's ******* Bilbo Baggins. ACTORS: Ha, ha, ha.
Let's get him!
- Kill him! - Kill him!
I definitely think the actors were enjoying themselves.
- They got a great sense of humor. - We took it seriously though.
Don't get the idea we're just out there to have fun. We were working.
FREEMAN: I was just gonna come in and watch and listen, if that's all right.
MAN: This works out wonderfully.
All the actors at this point were sort of in their workshop phase.
So part of that was all sort of, you know, being together...
...and going through these experiences together as a group.
Can we make a circle?
[CHATTERING]
It was actually fantastic to have Martin in the rehearsal room...
...because he became the focus, and then all the Dwarves...
...sort of looked to him and were taunting him and could focus everything at Martin.
And he was great. He was great to have around.
[ACTORS SINGING]
[ALL LAUGHING]
[ALL SPEAKING IN DWARVISH]
That's it. That's it.
And it's-- Just watch it's not Khazad.
Like, Khazad-dûm.
BROWN: Khaza. - Yeah, that's it.
We have Dwarvish lessons as part of our dialect coaching.
Absolutely fascinating. And hearing Roisin and Leith do it...
...and helping us learn was absolutely extraordinary.
It was a fantastic time getting to know and work with the actors...
...in terms of the language work, introducing them to Khuzdul, to Dwarvish.
So what we want with the K-H, as in "Khazad-dûm"...
...we've been going "Khazad."
- Bring it forward, so it's more "Khazad." - Khazad
Khazad-dûm.
Khuzdul has a very different feel to any of the other languages, I think.
It has a roughness to it as well.
[SPEAKING IN DWARVISH]
So it's that feeling of, you know, just clearing something away.
It's harsh and it has those harsh tones.
[SPEAKING IN DWARVISH]
McPHERSON: Yeah, so the K...
[GRUNTS]
There's a raspy sound. There's a heavy sound.
It kind of really matches how the Dwarves move.
So let's try "lron Hills," which is Urâd Zirnul.
- Urâd Zirnul McPHERSON: That's exactly right.
- So it just kind of becomes-- - Do it exactly right again, John.
- No, it won't happen ever again. McPHERSON: Ha, ha, ha.
- Certainly not when the cameras are rolling. McPHERSON: No.
It's a very in-house, very private thing to talk Dwarvish.
Their language is secret.
They have a secret name.
We believe that if you say your name, you're giving your power away to someone...
...and they can steal it and use it.
That gives you an ownership.
That gives you a particular connection to your character that I think is unique.
Show them how much Dwarf language you've learned.
[MUTTERING]
- Paying attention, weren't you? - Yeah.
[SPEAKS IN DWARVISH]
That means, "Not fit for a fight."
William Kircher has a very particular kind of connection to Dwarvish...
...because his character can only speak Dwarvish...
...is not capable of speaking in the common tongue.
The entire interview is gonna have to be in Khuzdul because that's all I respond to...
...so, please, fire away. Heh, heh.
[SPEAKS IN DWARVISH]
Like he said, never trust an Elf.
I hope you're all happy. The things I do to get an extra few weeks of prep.
[ALL LAUGHING]
It was the only plan I could think of.
YORKE: it was nice to have Peter back in charge...
...and making decisions and stuff like that in person.
He recovered. He had his energy back and his color back...
...and is the same Peter again.
I remember the original Conan the Barbarian, you know, the first Conan film...
...where he had that great big, bronze sword...
...sort of hand and a half or two-handed sword.
You know, he made that fighting look incredibly heavy.
You knew that that sword had got real weight.
So within the boot camp as well, we had weapons training.
I mean, to really sell the weight, I think you also probably need to have to almost--
The weapon's almost gonna pull you off balance...
...and you need to sort of use your foot to catch your balance a couple of times.
I think the good thing with Pete is not only can he tell you what he wants...
...a lot of the times he can actually show you what he wants.
It's making sure that when you do it, it's not too kind of quick.
It should be-- You know, if you're leaning back, it should be:
MAN: Yup.
You know, it's almost like you've got to kind of fight against the weight of it...
...but then you gotta...and sort of drag the thing forward.
It's getting that kind of feeling that you're as much fighting the weight of the weapon...
...that you're gonna use and harness all that momentum.
So, what we did was we supplemented with heavy sledge hammers...
...and they would swing them around to get the idea and feel...
...of what a heavy weapon should feel like.
[GRUNTING]
We worked with sledge hammers, learning how to get that really powerful swing...
...because I have to use the Orcrist sword, which is really heavy and really long...
...and it's quite a hard sword to balance, so I've had to work on my forearm strength...
...so that I can actually wield the sword.
I'm gonna drop it forward and put the blade behind, point it down...
Steve, the sword master, just takes you through it...
...and by the end, we were zooming about, taking on five guys at once.
[GRUNTS]
[ALL GRUNTING]
McTavish just scares the bejesus out of me.
That Scottish man coming at 100 miles going, "Eeh! Argh!"
And even Adam Brown, who's supposed to be my younger brother...
...is scary as hell.
[BOTH GRUNTING]
I mean, I don't know what's happened. They're becoming these fervent...
...angry little Dwarves.
[GRUNTS]
[LAUGHING]
- What are you trying to do to me? - I'm so sorry.
I think all the Dwarves all loved the fight-training side of things.
Should I be screaming like a baby?
WONG: So the scale doubles had exactly the same weapons...
...as the actors and the stunt doubles...
...so all it would be was that their weapons were a little bit smaller.
[GRUNTING]
As you can see, everything I have to do, Amy has to do.
- So it's Dori, Dori and Dori. - Yeah.
So the aim is to make stunt double Jeremy expendable.
- Yeah. - Dori number one, Dori number two...
-...coming for Dori number three. - There ain't no room for a third.
Ain't no room for a stunt boy.
- Shit! My shoes coming off! ALL: Ha, ha, ha.
I think he's hitting a little hard.
You're gonna get some people who are just a lot more enthusiastic...
...about swinging the weapons around compared to others.
Argh! Ah! Ah!
CALLEN: Watch out! Ah!
[LAUGHING]
WONG: It's all about control.
Oh, Mum.
It's like being a kid on the playground. Playing Cowboys and Indians.
Every boy's dream.
It's basically Cowboys and Indians with a paycheck.
It's basically what it is.
I've just been doing archery training.
I would pay to learn how to do archery.
McTAVISH: Yes!
Doing a lot of archery stuff, yeah, yeah. Kili, he's quite a skillful bowman.
Dwarves shoot their bow horizontally and low-slung.
And we had to do this obstacle course...
...where we had to, like, fire from the hip, turn around and run and fire, and...
Yes, varying degrees of success.
MAN: Ha, ha, ha. - Elegant.
Some people were really not that great.
Well, dare I use the word "shit."
-Oh, ****. MEN: Ha, ha, ha.
Where's the ******* arrow gone?
Oh, shut your face.
[MEN LAUGHING]
Yeah, but you totally forget that you're doing this as part of your job.
Looking back on it now, I think getting us together out in New Zealand...
...all the Dwarves, for boot camp, was vital.
We ended up, I guess, being essentially three months of training.
And apart from getting us fit, we got to bond very, very much as a group.
So that period was invaluable in bringing us all together.
We've all really enjoyed it.
Yeah, I mean, I think that it's pretty commendable...
...to say what these guys went through and what they did...
...was hard work for them.
But I am now very, very fit.
I am. Heh, heh.
What was achieved in that last two months before the first day of shoot...
...actually defies human endeavor at some level...
...and a real tribute to the teams across all departments...
...that rallied around and got the work done.
When it's actually in pre-production and we haven't actually started...
...to shoot our first scene yet, you can feel the anxiety.
Is this gonna get done in time? Is that gonna get done in time?
You're looking at 18 months ahead...
...and the enormity of the job is kind of almost overwhelming.
But you know what? I mean, I'm of the feeling that you could, you know...
...add another two or three months to that process...
...and that feeling would sort of still be there.
It would never really go away.
But once you start shooting, you're actually only looking a day or two or a week ahead.
You're just taking it one day at a time.
The beginning of the shoot has a calming influence on the entire company.
One of the things we wanted to do to mark the start of shooting...
...was to do a pōwhiri ceremony.
Pōwhiri is a traditional Māori welcoming ceremony.
So when you have visitors from away coming to participate in a project...
...we introduce ourselves to one another of the two groups.
A ceremony like that means everything to New Zealanders, all forms.
So it was absolutely the right way for us to start.
[HORN TOOTING]
Up until the pōwhiri and that morning...
...there was a little bit of foreboding kind of hanging over the whole Hobbit film.
And to open it in a very special way...
...put a whole lot of hope into everybody.
[GRUNTING]
And the pōwhiri is really saying, "We're here. This is our place.
If you come with peace, then welcome home."
[GRUNTING]
And there was a challenge where a feather or a part of a tree is put down on the ground...
...and if you come in peace, then you, holding eye contact, have to pick it up.
[GRUNTS]
And I remember everyone being up in this lovely sort of early-morning lights...
...just waiting to go in.
[GRUNTING]
FREEMAN: We weren't exactly sure what it was gonna be like, you know?
We'd kind of been prepped for, you know--
Someone had come to talk to us about 20 minutes.
He was saying, "You know, it's a very traditional, age-old Maori custom.
A sort of greeting and a kind of warning.
So I said, "Presumably, you know, people are gonna be wearing traditional gear, right?
He said, "Yeah." So I said, "So I suppose it would be nice for us to make an effort."
Went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
So I arrived basically looking like Dr. Livingstone.
I must have looked ridiculous, know what I mean?
Because this is New Zealand after all.
And so when someone had told me, "Yeah, make an effort"...
...they meant you wear special all-black shorts and your special jandles. Give them a shine.
So that's what I think of when I see photographs of it.
Just me looking way overdressed.
[ALL SINGING AND CHANTING IN MAORI]
That was really, really emotional, that first day that we came on for the pōwhiri.
That was really special. I really enjoyed that day.
And my family could come as well. My girls came, and so...
...you know, they were part of that and they'd never seen that before.
[MAORI SINGING AND CHANTING]
I would like to give thanks on behalf of everyone here as visitors...
...for this ceremony, for this celebration...
...for the blessing of the soundstage...
...and for the welcome that you've offered to us.
We're all deeply honored to be here.
And to everyone that has waited so long for this day...
...to begin this extraordinary journey...
...filming The Hobbit...
...I would like to wish them good luck...
...good health and good harmony.
[APPLAUSE]
[SINGING] Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep
And caverns old
We must away
'Ere break of day
To find our long-forgotten gold
Each group sings a song.
The song is a vehicle for making sure that the words that were spoken...
...travel to the places where they're supposed to be.
And that kind of puts you a little bit closer to the spirit realm...
...and that's sort of where that tradition comes from.
ACTORS [SINGING]: It ﬂaming spread
The trees like torches
Blazed with light
[SINGING IN MAORI]
To actually have that traditional ceremony and the feeling of tradition...
...and to bless the production and to start the wheels rolling...
...of this massive machine was an incredible start.
[ALL SINGING IN MAORI]
You know, for a long time, I thought that going back...
...to the amazing experience of Lord of the Rings wouldn't be a good idea.
But really, you know, now I've come completely around...
...because films are stressful and they're hard to make...
...but ultimately what makes them fun is the people that you work with.
And the fact that, you know, we're gonna be working with a lot of the old gang...
...with a lot of friends, and obviously making some new friends...
...is really the point of being here...
...so I'm extremely thrilled.
But you know, if somebody came up to me today...
...and said that we can carry on pre-production for another six weeks, I'd say:
"No, no. Hell no. Let's just start shooting."
Finally, this was the day we were starting.
You felt that at that moment.
You've got a huge boulder at the top of a hill...
...and it's just there. And then you push that boulder.
And then it just develops this life of its own.
And that's kind of what it felt like when we started.
It's like, "Where's this gonna go?"
BILBO: Why don't we...
...have a game of riddles?
GOLLUM: Too many bones, precious. Not enough ﬂesh!
JACKSON: What you generally try to do...
...at the beginning of a shoot, in your first few days or the first week or so...
...is you try to shoot something that is-- I don't wanna say relatively simple, ha, ha...
...because nothing is ever simple, but something that's sort of contained...
...because we just thought, strategically...
...it would be great to start shooting with Gollum and Bilbo...
...just those two, and it would effectively give all the departments another week...
...or week and a half to finish the work on the Dwarves.
Hey, Andy, how are you? All right? Love you.
JACKSON: it was also good for Andy Serkis...
...who I had only a few weeks earlier invited to be the 2nd unit director.
I got an e-mail from Fran saying:
"Pete would like you to be a 2nd unit director."
And I... I mean, I must have appeared like some sort of crazy madman...
...because I was looking at it and I was just going:
it gave Andy a chance to just come to New Zealand, focus on that...
...and get that part of his job done on this film and then his other job...
...which was 2nd unit director, could begin a week or two after that...
...and he was done with the Gollum part.
So that, in hindsight, that worked out really well.
You said, "Ask me a question," and that is my question.
What have I got in my pocket?
SERKIS: It must give us three guesses, precious. It must give us three.
Very well, three guesses. Guess away.
FREEMAN: it was really nice to do a little chamber piece first.
It was just two people hammering it out and it was really nice.
[CHATTERING]
JACKSON: Maybe the first thing to do is for you guys to run it...
...and do what you feel like doing, and we'll just see what happens.
We rehearsed it really well...
...because at that time we had the time to rehearse it.
- I don't know what your game is. - Games? Ha!
JACKSON: Yeah, good, good. SERKIS: Games? I love games.
We literally had a couple of days to block it through and Pete just sat back and said:
"Look, just go where you feel right."
[PANTING]
Curse us and splash us. That's a meaty mouthful.
It made a lot of sense, I think, starting there, for everyone...
...for Martin particularly.
I think if Martin had been faced, for instance, with the scene with the 13 Dwarves...
...it would have been a big thing for him to deal with.
And we use this rock and, like, Sméagol appears at one side of the rock...
...and Gollum appears out of the other.
I think dealing with one...
Is he lost?
Well, two personalities, I should say.
We knows. We knows the way out.
SERKIS: That was probably a good place to start.
And Andy is very good, he's very straightforward.
He's not at all precious. He's, um... Precious.
Did we say so, precious?
FREEMAN: He's the ideal actor you wanna be doing that stuff with.
What has it got in its pocketses?
And, yeah, it was kind of weird just hearing Andy make that voice...
...you know, and sort of suddenly do:
[FREEMAN THEN SERKIS GASPING AND GURGLING]
I-- I don't want any trouble, do you understand?
FREEMAN: Because it's something you're so familiar with in pop culture...
...but then you're seeing the creator of it and it's not a joke. It's not an impression.
- Is it juicy? FREEMAN: Keep your distance!
It's like, "No, this is who I'm playing the scene opposite."
Let's finish him off now. Finish him.
[RETCHING]
No, no. Wait. I wanna play.
I kind of felt like anybody could do it, really. Anybody can play Gollum.
There are so many good impersonators...
...that, you know, would-- Really, anyone can go and do this voice now.
[IMITATING GOLLUM] Bless us and splash us, my precious.
A tasty morsel, yes.
[IMITATING GOLLUM] Gives us a chance, my precious. Gives us a chance.
While we were in preproduction on the movie...
...before we had the actors arriving in New Zealand...
...I wanted to try to get a head start on some of the early scenes.
WOMAN: Action. FREEMAN: A box without hinges, key or lid...
...yet golden treasure inside is hid.
JACKSON: I got a couple of actors, Jed Brophy was actually one...
...I got him to come in and perform Gollum.
This is nice, precious.
This is crunchable.
JACKSON: I spent a day or two shooting a form of previs with, like...
...a virtual camera. So it's really the system we built for Tintin.
You come away not with a prototype of the scene...
...but you come away with a good idea here, a good idea there...
...and you just put those in the back of your mind...
...and so eventually several months down the track...
...when you block it with the actors, get other ideas...
...it becomes an amalgam of ideas from different times, different places.
- String or nothing. - That's two guesses at once, both wrong.
You lose.
MAN: Good morning. - Morning.
SERKIS: Yeah, yeah, that's what I need. Yeah.
So I'm officially the first person in the makeup chair on The Hobbit.
- Officially. Ha-ha-ha! - That's amazing. That's something, isn't it?
[SINGING MAORI FOLK SONG]
We missed it. We were actually in the studio...
...but what we were doing at the time of the celebration...
...was we were at the back of stage, actually, dressing the actor...
...a guy called Ravi, who was one of the scale doubles.
We ultimately ended up with 13 days to build this character.
Needed to be fully animatronic on an actor for the first day of shoot. Ha, ha.
I got a little bit of sleep this morning, but some of them are 48 hours in now.
Dressed Ravi into his outfit, took him on set...
...laid him down and they started filming.
WOMAN: You're on now, please.
MAN: Your first shot.
The first shot always feels like you are literally standing at the foot...
...of a very, very tall mountain, and you cannot imagine a day...
...when you are gonna be finished shooting this film.
It just feels like it's gonna be the rest of your life.
MAN: Action, Andy.
[SERKIS GASPING]
Yes. Yes. Yes.
[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
Unfortunately, an overzealous Andy Serkis bashed him over the rock...
...and managed to smash most of the animatronics within the first hour.
So we had yet another long evening ahead of us getting him fixed for the next day.
Heh, so... But it was great. It was great to be there on the first day.
Very, very challenging, but very rewarding all the same.
WOMAN: Corning through. Thank you, Ravi.
You're wrapped. Whole thing.
MAN: Action.
JACKSON: That's it, that's it. That's great. That's great. Thank you. Perfect.
And action.
GOLLUM: The cold, hard lands They bites our hands
They gnaws our feet
The rocks and stones They're like old bones
All bare of meat
[GOLLUM YELLS]
Shh!
Martin is the sort of actor who thrives on the situation being and feeling real.
Bless us and splash us. That's a meaty mouthful.
Gollum. Gollum, back.
SERKIS: And apart from getting over the fact...
...that he was looking at someone in a crazy suit...
...with dots all over his face and a head-mounted camera...
...you know, once we locked eyes and got on with the scene...
...I think he forgot about all that very quickly. I think it worried him.
He was entering into this whole other realm of acting in an environment...
...that he hadn't spent much time in.
I'm not used to going into a studio and just seeing banks of computer people.
It's like going into NASA or something. It's not like going on to a film set for me.
It is now because I know this is the film set.
But at that time it was like, "Why are all these people on computers?" You know.
But then after that you're just in a scene.
You don't see any of that. You just see Andy giving you this mad creature.
And if he loses, what then?
Curse us and splash us, my precious is lost!
We knew our gear were safe, but you throw water...
There was one scene, and they went crazy, and our facial camera...
...we enter the water, came up and they went: "Zzt!"
Mustn't ask us! Not its business!
And we were like: "Ooh." Heh, heh.
That's not good. We had to check to the first AD:
"You know, cameras aren't really good in water, they don't last."
She was like, "Well, okay. We'll have to talk to Pete." We talked to Pete.
Pete said, “How many cameras do you have?"
"Well, we've got about three more." "You better order some more." Heh, heh.
I think that was day one.
So we did. We did order some more cameras.
Peter did not want to pull back on Andy's performance.
He stole it.
JACKSON: Remember yesterday we did a thing where you lowered the sword...
...and then bring it up again when he makes the threatening move.
- If we could go back to that. - Yeah, cool.
Great. Thank you. All right, shall we give it a go?
- And action. - Go.
BILBO: I'm warning you, don't come any closer.
It's got an Elfish blade. But it's not an Elfs.
It's about a 12-, 13-minute scene.
And we treated it like a piece of theater.
[SERKIS YELLS]
MAN: Reset. Reset.
SERKIS: We just kept resetting and doing it over and over again.
Let's have another one. Oh, come on. Do it again. Do it again.
Let's do another one, but it was terrific.
SERKIS: Pete must have shot it over the course of 10 days...
...and we shot the scene from beginning to end every single time, pretty much.
What have I got in my pocket?
Not fair. Not fair. It is against the rules.
- Ask us another one. - You said, "Ask me a question."
That is my question. What have I got in my pocket?
Three guesses. It must give us three, precious.
Three guesses. Very well then, guess away.
FREEMAN: We did that scene a lot of times uncut, and it was lovely.
I could do that all day.
SERKIS: He stole it!
[GRUNTING]
And cut it. Thank you, that's terrific. I think we can check the gate on that.
MAN: You all right, Andy? - Yeah.
It really taxed me, really taxed me.
Unh!
Getting back into those positions and crawling over those rocks...
...took a real bashing over those two weeks.
JACKSON: Reset.
Although, I like to think nothing has changed in the last 12 years...
...my knees would like to disagree with that.
When we started doing this 10 years ago, we weren't even sure if it was gonna work...
...as a potential tool to bring Gollum to life.
It was set in a very strange place, a very freakish sort of activity...
...that happened in a tin shed away from everyone.
For a long time it was not even considered, you know, proper acting.
You know, I mean, it's crazy, but it hasn't been in the past.
Whereas, I think, now people are realizing...
...that it is just another way of recording an actor's performance.
First, they champ Then they stamp
Then they stand still
Teeth?
Teeth. Ha-ha-ha!
Oh, yes, my precious.
But we-- We only have nine.
[GROWLS]
Our turn.
With head-mounted cameras and being able to shoot live on set...
...meaning that there's no disconnect whatsoever.
--As nobody sees?
SERKIS: The performance that's caught on the day between Martin and I...
...there's no going back and repeating that.
So there's much more of an emotional connection.
It was exciting. It was intimidating to see some of the shots. It was like:
"Oh, wow, how are we gonna get Gollum to do that?"
Like when he's trying to find an answer to a riddle...
...or he's getting really angry.
He was pulling expressions that we'd never seen him do before.
Eggses!
One thing we really wanted to push was performance capture.
We wanted to be able to literally channel Andy Serkis...
...through Gollum, as best we can.
Every decision we make with Gollum we always look to Andy...
...whether it's his skin textures or the wateriness of his eyes...
...or the redness of his eyes.
He stole it.
As lighters and compositors, our goal is to make that look...
...like Andy as much as we can, you know.
CLAYTON: The sliding of his skin as well, all those little extra details in CG...
...that's what makes it feel real and compelling.
What we did is we got Andy. He's a great friend.
So he came in and we did a face cast on him...
...and we got his skin scans and so we were able to use Andy's skin scan.
So his pores-- And put them on the digital Gollum.
So there's a lot more of Andy into the new Gollum than there was in the old one.
I find myself laughing so many times when we're watching the reviews.
We know safe path for Hobbitses.
It's so Andy. I mean, it's almost more Andy than Andy.
- I didn't say anything. - We wasn't talking to you.
I mean, in the design of Gollum, you know, he's not so scarred.
I actually think he looks pretty hot, actually. He's far more attractive than he was in Rings.
[YELLS]
ACEVEDO: We had to take the scars off of his back...
...because back on Lord of the Rings, he was captured and tortured by Sauron.
So this is before all that, so we had to take all that kind of stuff away.
We actually physically build the anatomy. The muscles are attached to the skeleton.
So everything going on under the skin...
...is true to the science that's there.
All those details go into giving you a sense...
...that when you see this on the screen, visually, you're perceiving a weight...
...and an organic quality to the character that feels real.
A box without hinges Key or lid
We brought it into line with our facial system...
...which we developed on Avatar and have been using ever since.
Like, you wouldn't animate his smile, you'd animate his lip-corner puller.
And you wouldn't do angry, you'd do brow lowerer, nose wrinkler...
...maybe some squint. You know, you're activating all the muscle groups.
So it's a really great structure to set up your facial puppet.
Yes.
Yes, just us.
The thing we spent a lot of time doing was actually working on his eyes.
Since Gollum is primarily big eyes, ha, ha, huge eyes, in fact.
With the new eye system in place, it gives it a lot more depth to the eyes.
So we're actually, you know, shading.
We're getting the light scattering through all the different layers of the eyes...
...to properly shade and shadow and provide caustics and depth...
...beyond a simple sphere with a texture on it.
Animation helped in certain things that you couldn't physically do.
For example, when he would go from being sort of a Sméagol-esque character...
...to his Gollum-esque character.
Do it again, ask us. No.
They did some really cool tricks in animation...
...where they give him kind of a shiver or a quiver.
And his pupils would dilate between transitions...
...so those beautiful little subtleties are wonderful.
Oh. Oh!
We knows. We knows. Shut up.
With all the new technology, not just with our textures...
...but with animation and with shading and with the Creatures Department...
...to get all the facial animation and the movements and things...
...it's unbelievable. I mean, it's still my favorite part of the film.
Getting to work on Gollum again in his final cinematic scene is pretty cool.
Curse it and crush it! We hates it forever!
[HISSING]
[GASPS]
WOMAN: Thank you, everybody, for another long, hard day.
Bag End tomorrow and forever.
Very good, Andy. Thank you so much. Fantastic.
Man, you just went into Gollum like you'd never stopped.
Strangely, he wasn't that far from me. Ha-ha-ha.
Strangely.
BILBO: I am a Baggins of Bag End.
- Good morning. MAN: Good morning.
JACKSON: When you're dealing with a huge, long movie...
...that's 266 days of shooting, you've got to be as prepared as you possibly can.
We had sets built, we rehearsed, we had actors coming in, we blocked.
Dwalin, at your service.
JACKSON: I had Andrew Lesnie, our DP, there.
Oh, it's very good, this. Any more?
JACKSON: We planned the camera angles.
[ALL GRUNTING]
MAN 1: Ha-ha-ha. - You might wanna be getting this fixed.
MAN 2: Oh. Hello, Gandalf.
Ori down next to Bombur. Dori and then Nori.
I really worried that we weren't gonna fit.
Seriously. When we went in there in rehearsal, out of costume...
...we could barely fit.
It was a dark and dangerous place, rank with festering evil.
Rumors have begun to spread.
The dragon, Smaug, has not been seen for 60 years.
Is he gone? Is he dead?
Or is he merely sleeping?
God, this is gonna be crowded, isn't it though?
- It's gonna be hot. - I'm already hot now.
We had this period of a few days where we could actually get our act together.
But it was for the first two weeks of the shoot.
The first 10 days of the shoot. After that we had no preparation at all.
It's the weird thing about moviemaking...
...you get hugely prepared for that first week or two...
...and then you kind of just wing it after that.
MAN 1: Yeah, thank you, Graham. MAN 2: Come. Look at the freak show.
I remember the first person I filmed in there with was Graham McTavish...
...who plays Dwalin.
When you rub his thighs they're particularly strong, I found.
[WOMAN LAUGHING]
FREEMAN: And yeah, it was nice. It was quite relaxed actually.
It was quite relaxed.
I love scenes where there's fewer people in...
...because I get more screen time. Shoot me.
I was very sort of pathetically proud of that moment.
MAN: Ready now, and action.
McTAVISH: When the door opened for the first time and there was a Dwarf.
Dwalin, at your service.
JACKSON: The way a first shot ought to be. MAN: Aha!
Yes, yes.
That was probably what Pete was rightfully mindful of is, like, what happens when...
...it's the explosion of pent-up energy in a small space.
Bring me another Dwarf.
Lots of men, lots of testosterone, all acting the hell out of each other.
You know what I mean?
I want another Dwarf here right now.
Oh, very good.
Well, you look great, Mark. And thanks very much.
- Thanks very much. - You can-- You can go back down.
Ori, old bean.
Hello, Adam.
I was like, "Oh, my gosh.
This is my first day on the set and it's in Bag End."
JACKSON: Looking very good. MAN: Yes.
We're gonna plug a Dwarf in here.
We've got a lovely little Dwarf socket for a Dwarf.
WOMAN: Action.
The constant factor of being Gandalf in the film is that you have to be taller...
...than most of the other characters.
Certainly than the Dwarves or the Hobbits.
Now, this was achieved on Lord of the Rings by putting me...
...the larger character, closer to the camera.
Your eye tricks your brain...
...and you kind of think that these two people are side by side.
Now, of course, that trick is no good when you're dealing with 3D...
...because 3D tells you exactly how far away they are...
...and you can see that the whole thing's a big cheat.
So we had to devise a different way of creating this size difference.
Since we have Dwarves and Gandalf, who are actually the same height...
...we need to make Gandalf 25 percent bigger...
...than the Dwarves so that they're in the correct scale.
The only way we can make a person bigger is to put the camera closer to him.
So effectively, we have a camera that looks at the Dwarves...
...and Bilbo in a set that's built to their scale...
...and a camera that looks at Gandalf on a green screen...
...which is 25 percent closer, which makes him that much bigger.
Now, these cameras are locked together...
...so whatever one camera does over here on the live set with Bilbo...
...and the Dwarves, the other camera on the green set does exactly the same thing...
...except scaled down.
So effectively you're creating two different worlds that are in different scale...
...but they're matched in terms of position.
So that when we take out the green screen, make a composite...
...and put Gandalf in, suddenly he's 25 percent bigger.
A little glass of red wine is requested.
This slave motion-control system...
...we'd been developing for a couple of months leading into our shoot.
And there was a couple of days of test shooting...
...which we wanted to do as a proof of concept for ourselves...
...and also something to show the actors...
...so they could actually have some confidence...
...that this rather bizarre system was going to end up working.
MAN: Gandalf. - Great to be back.
What a good-- It's good to see you. Have a look around.
- You've been busy. - I have. You're right, I have. I'll show you.
Marvelous.
Hey, Gandalf, this is Fili. Fili is staying with me for a couple of days.
- Yeah, I get a bit lonely, you see. - Yeah, I understand.
[ALL LAUGHING]
- Cheers. - Cheers.
-Cheers.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Whose table is Gandalf's left hand on?
So Gandalf's on the green screen and all the props are scaled down.
- So he's on a slightly-- - But how come his hand is on--? Oh, dear.
- I didn't know where your throat was. - I didn't know.
Well, I didn't even know where you were. I couldn't see anything.
We did a series of tests and demonstrations to show to Peter...
...where one of our crew guys would walk in, let's say carrying an apple...
...and hand it to the other guy. The other guy would go...
...and get a basket and he'd bring it over and give it to the first guy.
So essentially we were...
...handing things off across the scale line.
And those were just done very roughly, just to demonstrate the process.
Okay, here we go. Rehearsal.
We rehearsed in costume and makeup with me with the 13 Dwarves.
All right. Does that make sense? You look a little bit bewildered.
- I'm over there, aren't I? - Yeah, yeah. You are.
- But thanks for filling me in. - Yes. Okay. Okay.
McKELLEN: I then had to leave them for the filming...
...and go into a set that was smaller than this set, in which I would look tall.
The problems for us were that...
...they can't hear each other from that distance away.
So they had to work off ear pieces.
He would wear an ear piece and hear the Dwarves...
...and Bilbo on the Hobbit set and vice versa.
As soon as you hear them say "mark," there's no mark at the door...
...and you'll have an ear piece. So you'll take your cue off Martin...
...and then you close it.
If someone has to get up, walk somewhere...
...they tend to do it off a dialogue cue.
There's no mark on my door. Da-da-da-da-da.
So if the sound didn't work, the shot didn't work.
WOMAN: Is it going to work, Colin? COLIN: Oh, I sincerely hope so.
I wouldn't have found it at all had it not been for that mark on the door.
BILBO: Mark? There's no mark on that door. It was painted a week ago.
There is a mark. I put it there myself.
And that means immediately on the monitors...
...we are interacting with Gandalf as a much bigger person at precisely the same time.
And that has actually never been done before like that.
[ALL CHEERING]
[BELL RINGING AND CHEERING STOPS]
That's all very well and it looks very good...
...but when you're actually doing it, it means that you...
...the Gandalf actor, are on your own when you're filming.
You can't see the faces of the other actors you're working with...
...who can all see each other in the adjacent set.
McKELLEN: This is not what they promised me. ALL: Ha-ha-ha.
McKELLEN: I get to be choosy. - Yeah.
McKELLEN: Middle-earth?
It's hard for Ian.
A lot of his acting is on the green screen.
He was coming in to see all these Dwarves whittling around him...
...and running everywhere and taking food and he had to name all the Dwarves.
- Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori. BILBO: Not my prizewinners, thank you.
GANDALF: Ori!
We get to the end of it and we've all got ear pieces on...
...and we can hear Pete go:
"That's almost it, but Adam, you went through Gandalf with your arm."
I'm like, "Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's do it again."
[ALL LAUGHING]
MAN: That's it. It's about time. JACKSON: Okay. Very good.
It was very tricky and took a long time.
GANDALF: A little red wine, I think, for me.
WOMAN: Cut.
Finally Pete comes over the cans going, "I think we've got it. I think we've got it."
And it was like, “Yes. Thank goodness, we've done it."
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
WOMAN: Thank heavens, we did it! MAN: Yeah!
[ALL CHEERING]
Confusticate and bebother these Dwarves!
My dear Bilbo, what on earth is the matter?
The main problem with Ian was he's a big guy on a little set.
When you're lighting him...
...you have to light him exactly the same way for both sets.
If he's walking from one part of a set to another...
...you've actually got to put shadows in areas where there should be shadows.
Because he has actually got to be real-time matched with the other people...
...he's interacting with.
But what shall I do with my plate?
GARSIDE: And also we had to give him the correct eye lines.
So we gave the AD a dimmer board where they could switch lights on and off...
...so Ian could actually see who he was talking to on the other set.
JACKSON: What you should have is you--
- You should only have their eyes glowing. SERKIS: Ha-ha-ha.
It's, like, something to do with:
[MAKES BLEEPING NOISE]
And they were all put in at the right ratio position and the right ratio height.
So his eye lines were correct to the other set.
ORI: Now I understand. That's why we need a burglar.
BILBO: Oh, yeah, a good one too.
- An expert, I'd have thought. GLOIN: And are you?
You might think, acting to a tennis ball, what's the difference...
...if you know where it is. But suddenly that person doesn't react...
...or that tennis ball doesn't smile or doesn't do anything.
It means what you do is affected by that.
You need to have a pre-planned idea of the way you're gonna say things...
...the way you'll receive dialogue from people...
...and that's quite difficult.
GANDALF: The answer lies somewhere hidden in this map.
I do not have the skill to read it, but there are others in Middle-earth who do.
For me, that's the most difficult thing...
...because I really like to be able to look into the character's eyes that I'm talking to.
It puts much more importance on the rehearsal...
...because you have to give the rehearsal everything as if it's a performance.
Because what you're doing, you're programming their memory...
...to what they'll be getting when we come for a take.
Yes, thank you. I was saying, Bofur...
...the task I have in mind will require a great deal...
Oh, gosh.
I got absolutely miserable and had a little cry to myself.
But I didn't realize that the microphone I was wearing was open...
...so everybody could hear me muttering to myself about how I wanted to go home...
...and so on.
[SNIFFLING]
To put someone in what is-- it's not even sensory deprivation.
It's like sensory torture. May be too strong a word.
But for some actors, it looked like torture to put them in that situation.
And then to ask for those natural acting instincts to just be there...
...and the expectation of actors upon themselves is, "Well, this is my job.
I should be able to do this."
Yeah. For Ian, especially, he found it particularly challenging at the start.
I'm sorry, everybody.
MAN 1: No. MAN 2: Ignore it.
MAN 3: Don't be silly. MAN 4: It's impossibly difficult.
- When I say sorry, I mean sorry. ALL: Ha-ha-ha.
It was so distressing and off-putting and difficult...
...that I thought, “I don't want to make this film...
...if this is what I'm gonna have to do."
It's not what I do for a living. I act with other people.
I don't act on my own.
I can't just get it.
He truly had such a miserable time on the first day or two of the shoot.
We felt sorry for him, being just dumped in green screen land.
We wanted to make him feel a little bit better.
We wanted to make him feel loved.
So Zane Weiner, our producer, had a great idea of giving Martin and Ian a surprise.
We should do something special for Ian.
Do you think we could sort of do up his little tent where he relaxes?
We knew about it the day before...
...because this was a surprise.
[GIGGLING]
We wait until the crew had finished for the day to go in...
...and dress these things.
- The actors are all gone. - Great.
And they're just moving his tent.
So they'll be side by side, which works so we can make it funny.
Add some Elven fabric onto this La-Z-Boy, it'll be gorgeous.
It was kind of obvious to us what we should be doing for Ian.
He was making his return to Middle-earth...
...and they had to have a bit of a Middle-earth theme.
Beautiful relic from the Lothlórien group of Elves.
Definitely Ian McKellen.
- My God, this is Alan's curtain. Ha, ha. - Is it?
- We've got our stuff out. - Yes.
- Is it? -It's okay.
VINCENT: Floor mat. We dressed up his room in a kind of '60s eclectic mix of stuff.
It was a little bit retro.
I discovered that Martin was right into his music.
The Commodores, Diana. Little bit of Stevie Wonder.
Awesome. if I had a place to chill...
...this would be my music.
Well, that night I felt pretty miserable...
...and thought, perhaps, has the time come for me to stop acting altogether...
...if I can't cope with these difficulties?
Ian e-mailed me a couple of days into this Bag End stuff...
...and he just says, "Listen, I'm struggling.
You know, I feel really depressed."
It was quite a sad e-mail...
...and I had actually kind of already written him an e-mail.
Which crossed with one from him saying, "Don't worry, it was all fine today.
We've got some good stuff. You'll be very pleased with it."
I'm seeing this scene come together really great.
And I just wanted Ian to know that it was all okay.
Everything was gonna be fine.
"It's lovely to have you back and well done."
Me having felt that I'd absolutely failed.
I guess we could leave them set up like this the whole time they're in Bag End.
Yeah.
McKELLEN: Oh.
Who's done all this? Who's done all this?
How beautiful. Who does this?
It's an Appreciate Gandalf Day today. And we do appreciate--
[BOTH LAUGHING]
As another, not pat on the back...
...but arm round the shoulder, in my little makeup tent...
...it had all been decorated with bits of old scenery from Rivendell.
Look, and fruit. Oh, just gorgeous.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
Well, you're all very, very welcome to come and visit me.
[ALL LAUGHING]
He stepped into his tent...
...and he was sort of into this really weird retro 1960s world.
[LAUGHS]
FREEMAN: I love that. That's very good.
We thought it'd be a little Martin Appreciation Day today.
WOMAN: Oh, look at you. FREEMAN: It's really lovely.
It's beautiful.
I'm back.
JACKSON: And you've learnt-- You've learnt your lines?
- We'll see about that. - We'll see about that, right?
I was made to feel, as so often happens when you're working with Peter Jackson...
...and his colleagues, that you belong...
...and they want you to feel at ease and happy and at home.
However, once the flowers faded, I noted they weren't replaced.
I think I was meant then to get on with the job. Ha-ha-ha.
WOMAN: About 20 minutes remain and then we'll...
Thirteen, including Bilbo and Gandalf, were cramped around the dining room table.
And the Bag End set is quite small anyway.
You can do the newsreader thing where you don't have to wear your trousers...
...or boots for the scene. MAN: Yeah.
I beg your pardon.
BROWN: So underneath we had fans blowing up our bottoms.
Don't think Mark Hadlow had any trousers on underneath the table.
To work in the space was hot, uncomfortable...
...and a little bit perspiry.
It's so hot.
We were told it would be hot.
It was gonna be crammed and difficult.
Oh, dear.
Heh, heh. It was very cramped.
Thanks, darling.
We have electrolytes standing by. We have water.
Constantly having to drink loads of water. Loads of electrolytes.
Bag End was a bit of an oven at times.
- Ready? One, two, three. - Oh, yes.
HAMBLETON: We're lucky enough to step out...
...and the whole team of people that are devoted to our comfort...
...making sure we have water and cool air blowing on us, helped us get through.
[CHATTERING]
WOMAN: Nice and quiet now, thanks, and roll camera, please.
MAN: Shooting. Shooting.
Ian was the very first actor...
...that I worked with as second unit director.
The very first shot, in fact...
...of the second unit was Gandalf's eye appearing at the window at Bag End.
Which was an incredibly technically-difficult shot...
...because it was a beveled window.
And the precision with which we needed to kind of execute the shot...
...and the positioning of his eye, you know, for it to read.
To your right. Stop.
McKELLEN: Oh, bugger. - And out.
WOMAN: Stand by!
It's great having second unit with us filming finally.
It was their first real day of shooting today.
What happens if you're on the same stage...
...is they have to stop every time we're starting. The main unit gets priority.
WOMAN 1: Action. WOMAN 2: Action.
SERKIS: So we've had to down tilt or stop...
...while shooting's been going on or turn over very quietly.
- And this is reset. MAN 1: Still rolling.
MAN 2: Shooting! WOMAN: Rolling!
[SERKIS WHISPERING INDISTINCTLY]
McKELLEN: Why are you whispering? - They're rolling next door.
JACKSON: Cut. Lovely. That's excellent. We've got that.
WOMAN: Here we go now.
[SERKIS WHISPERING INDISTINCTLY]
WOMAN: And action.
It was great because Pete was able to then come over...
...and chat, and it was just fantastic to have his input.
It's quite good to see there's a nail on it...
...because you get it and when Bilbo hears a scratch...
...it's like you're sort of knowing something's coming.
SERKIS: Okay, all right. No, it's okay.
Yeah, no, no, it's cool. It's great.
That is the best thing about being 15 feet away from the director, basically.
But I think it might be the first and last time.
Most of the time the idea with second unit is you don't actually share the same stage.
You shoot on different stages so there won't be a problem.
Like tomorrow, they're in Bag End and we're out of Bag End.
So we've been in here for, I don't know, how long is it?
About 12 days or something?
DWARVES [SINGING]: Blunt the knives Bend the forks, smash the bottles, burn the corks
Chip the glasses and crack the plates
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates
[DWARVES LAUGHING]
Thirteen, fourteen days? I don't know. It seems like a long time.
[JACKSON LAUGHING]
It's fun. I like Bag End.
[LAUGHS]
Yeah, it's:
MAN: And then it's the feet one. - Ha, ha.
Yeah. There's juggling.
And I think the more chaotic it got, the more Peter liked it in the end.
DWARVES [SINGING]: That's what Bilbo Baggins hates
JACKSON: And cut. MAN: It's great.
[SINGING] Just a little lighting tweak Enough to make Caro weep
Put the schedule right to steep
That's what Cunningham hates
That is the truth, that's Caro.
JACKSON: That's lovely.
[CHATTERING AND LAUGHING]
JACKSON: Thank you.
So after Pete had finished shooting a lot of the early scenes in Bag End...
...then we moved in.
And it was really lovely being able to work with them...
...and for them to individually get a chance to work on their character.
WOMAN: And action!
SERKIS: Just experiment and play around and have fun, actually.
We had a lot of fun.
Being given a free hand by the director was wonderful.
And salute Bilbo. Go "cheers."
- Bilbo Baggins! ALL: Bilbo!
We really went for it.
I was pouring beer down John Callen's ear trumpet.
I thought, "Crikey, what am I gonna do with that?"
So I just blew into the end that fits in my ear...
...and out comes all the liquid. DWARVES: Ha-ha-ha.
It's what I spent most of my teens doing...
...so I have plenty of training for it.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Probably the most memorable moment is Bombur crawling along the table...
...to grab the big mutton hock and pull it down the table.
[LAUGHING]
Stephen Hunter is an animal.
- He's choking! He's choking! - Great hard one, Nori!
He's so enthusiastic. He's so up for anything.
I was truly worried. Ha, ha.
And I had to throw this egg...
...and have it land in Bombur's mouth. First egg we threw?
Nailed it. Couldn't hit it again after that.
[LAUGHING]
I think one night I must have eaten about 13 boiled eggs.
Because I chose to actually eat them properly on the first take.
But then after that I really just had to roll with it.
Just stuffing them in his face.
I mean, it was literally like recreating Cool Hand Luke in Bag End.
I had basically two half of eggs in my mouth.
And then Andy goes, “Now put a whole one in."
SERKIS: Put the whole egg in your mouth. Just put the whole egg in your mouth.
HUNTER: Mm-hm.
And luckily about three takes later, he said cut.
SERKIS: Cut.
And I fronted up, like, two days later I had eggs for breakfast...
...so, you know, so no worries.
MAN: Action.
[ALL GRUNTING]
They set up the scene in Bag End with the food and it looks amazing.
And everything is in place and it looks really delicious.
Fresh thing of food at least seven or eight times on that table.
And we're just told, “Okay, listen, just wreck it."
And it would just get destroyed.
[ALL SHOUTING]
We trashed the place, good God, on a daily basis.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Towards the end, he said, “Just go nuts," and it was chaotic.
Because that's what it's like. We're just, you know...
...just a pack of rowdy boys, really.
We love to eat, but then when we're full, it's just food fight.
I was aiming for Ken Stott.
Because he couldn't take it.
The dude can't handle an orange to the head.
Hit him with a leg of lamb when he's not looking.
I mean, vicious stuff. Nothing playful about this at all.
I never told him this. Surely he's gonna hear about it now.
But I was hitting him hard. I think I nearly took his nose off.
Yeah, for goodness sake.
That dining table was kind of pretty rank actually.
It was kind of filled with the smell of 13 Dwarves pretty quick.
Ian's been on beans all lunch, and he's still here.
- He should have some pretty good wind too. ALL: Ha-ha-ha.
MAN 1: Enough! MAN 2: This is what it is.
MAN 3: A Wizard's wind is not to be scoffed at.
Looking back on Bag End, it's like we're just so innocent.
We were all so happy as characters in that place about to begin this journey.
And that's absolutely how it was for the actors as well as the characters.
- Thank you, Dori. MAN 1: Yes.
- Thank you, Doris. Dori. MAN 2: "Doris." Ha-ha-ha.
Now, Bag End was a good laugh actually. It was a really good laugh.
We were all there together.
And whatever nerves people had, I think they kind of just worked themselves out.
- This is a Dwarf waltz. - A "Dwaltz."
[ALL LAUGHING]
We were all just, “Okay. Great, we've started work now."
- More Hobbit gold. - Some of my best work there.
Some of my exquisite work.
TROLLSHAW: What are you, then? An oversized squirrel?
Trollshaw was the defining moment as an actor for me...
...to go, "Wow, this-- It is this big."
Great to just see a big set.
I think we're on the K Stage, you know, which is one of the bigger sets in Stone Street.
I'm hoping Bilbo can sort of get himself up, and go, "Wait, wait, wait."
- And then-- So the Trolls all kind of turn. MAN: Yes.
- So we'll obviously be up high. MAN: Yup.
TURNER: And I just remember it being huge.
I remember thinking, "I finally made it.
I'm finally in a big movie."
Daisy and Bungo are missing.
Massive big trees, you know. Awesome set.
Turf grass.
Tons and tons and tons of dirt.
There was an old ruin farmhouse...
...that had taken three or four days to put in there.
A lot to coat.
JACKSON: As big as a film like this is, it's always wonderful...
...when you can be flexible, adapt on the spot.
There was one day of shooting in Trollshaw Forest...
...where we were shooting a sequence with Bilbo and a couple of the Dwarves.
And when we were blocking the scene...
...I wasn't happy with the way the scene was blocking.
And I wanted to shoot it in slightly more continuous shots...
...and not, you know, break it up into a lot of different angles.
And in order to do that, the set that was built wasn't really gonna work for us.
It was interesting because he then came up to me...
...and basically said we need to clear the stage...
...and get the next part of the Trollshaw Forest in there.
We had to change the set and there was nowhere else to go.
None of the other sets were ready because it was a last minute thing.
Our task was to change the edge of the Trollshaw Forest into the Trollshaw lab.
Heh, and so this huge task which is, you know, really days of work...
...Peter was going back to his office and would come back...
...to shoot some more when we had finished.
The crew could see that the eight of us on-set team...
...would be rather pushed...
...to get this set out and turn around by lunchtime...
...to shoot something else that day.
And suddenly, I looked up and there was 200 shooting crew out there...
...throwing sandbags, rolling up turf, helping our guys.
That's one of the marvelous things...
...about New Zealand film technicians is that everyone went:
"Right. This is a huge job.
Let's all get together and let's get this done."
So every department, and I mean every department, was in there.
Here in New Zealand, we take Easter egg hunts seriously, all right.
Hello again.
Just this ferocious effort by the crew.
- Quick. - A major reset like this involves...
...as many people as we've got, as many as we could find.
To go as quick as we can.
The last thing we wanna do is hold up any shooting crew.
The world's fastest set change.
I think we did it in about a couple of hours.
Which given-- There were tons of dirt.
Took up half of Kong stage.
It was really sort of a bonding moment.
And it was very early on in the shoot...
...and every department realized the importance of doing this thing for Peter.
MAN: Easy does it.
And that was pretty hard work at the time, but looking back, you're pretty proud of it.
[ALL CHEERING]
You don't get that every movie. You don't get that.
I think it was actually a turning point in the morale of the whole crew as well.
Like, everyone went, "Okay, if we can achieve that in that much time...
...we can make this movie. We can get it done."
WILLIAM [ON RECORDING]: Quit your griping.
These ain't sheep. These is fresh nags.
--Leathery old farmer.
All skin and bone, he was. I'm still picking bits of him out of me teeth.
Hello, Mum.
HAMBLETON: Three of us Dwarves, Mark...
...myself and William are portraying the Trolls as well.
There's more where that came from.
That involves, uh, mocap, motion capture...
...which is a whole other world.
So there I was minding my own business as Dori, being a Dwarf...
...and suddenly, I'm flung in to the volume to become a Troll.
We love it.
I actually thought of John Rhys-Davies doing Treebeard...
...because I knew that he played a different character.
Treebeard is my name. According to some...
I thought I would love to have a go at auditioning for one of those characters.
We had done some stuff as Trolls in some of the readings of the script...
...and it just seem to fit.
What are you, then? An oversized squirrel?
Shut your trap. You'll eat what I give you.
- Right. Just trembling? - Peter is not-- Just only a moment.
Just sit there for a bit because we just wanna now...
...send the signal through, and make sure you're all set.
First thing to do is to make sure you're sitting...
...where you need to be set sitting there.
We really wanted to have something on set...
...for Peter to use for framing of the cameras.
So we had some idea what the final composition of the shots were gonna be.
They were there working on a wee little volume...
...on the side of the film set.
So we could comp the Trolls in real time.
So that Andrew Lesnie and his team could be framing up...
...of what space in those frames the Trolls would be occupying.
The camera operator and Peter could really see how big the Trolls were for framing.
Here we go.
MAN 1: Action! MAN 2: Action.
SAINDON: So that when we panned off Martin, went to the Trolls...
...he could get the right scale, get the right proportions.
So that when we get it back into the digital realm...
...everything fits better...
...because the cameras really work for the scale of the Trolls.
[YELLING]
WOMAN: Action!
[ALL YELLING]
Trollshaw was quite a challenge.
Uh, it's the first time that we've really fought properly.
We've got a particularly dangerous fight with a bunch of very nasty Trolls.
I think you charge in with your hammer already cocked back ready to go, you know.
Yeah. Yeah, that's gonna be fine.
The Dwarves are getting used to their weapons.
It was the first time they're holding their ax. "Do I use two axes or do I use my sword?"
You know, really learning the tools of their character.
JACKSON: That's good. Yeah. Good, good, good.
MAN: Hold there. Hold. - Good. Good timing.
WOMAN: And three, two, one! Action!
[ALL YELLING]
Fighting big plastic legs...
...which would then be Trolls, which was quite amusing.
We were working with Troll legs, you know, manfully operated by the stunt guys...
...who wore full combat outfit.
You know, crash helmets and--
It was like the riot police, basically.
We're the Trolls' legs. So they can hit us or the leg.
So that gave the physical presence on set.
And also too, if we actually-- When the leg's hit...
...one of the actors or stunt guys that actually would look like an impact.
So when they put CG character in it, it's gonna be more believable...
...because of the interaction with the physical world.
SERKIS: They just took a beating, those guys.
They literally had to stand there and puppeteer these great big, huge weight bags.
MAN: And cut.
Cut, cut, cut. That's great, guys. That's terrific.
I think we're good.
NESBITT: Take a look up to a Troll-- WOMAN: That's right, Jimmy.
It's tennis balls and sticks. You're told, "This is a Troll, what he looks like."
You see a little figure Weta brings over. You see, "Okay, brilliant.
Okay, that doesn't help me at all."
You're looking at these tennis balls going, "Holy mother of God."
It's gonna be a wee bit hard to look at that there and not that.
WOMAN: Swipe!
And fight!
[BOTH YELLING]
But then you look at this playback, yeah, and it shows the Troll moving.
And with you in mind.
It completely makes sense, then you kind of go, "Oh, right."
You know, relatively speaking, the size.
They're always way bigger than you think they are, even on the set.
- So one Troll there. WOMAN: That's funny then. Really...
Okay. We should run a rehearsal.
[ALL YELLING]
We were playing Dwarves attacking ourselves as Trolls.
[CHUCKLES]
And so there was a scene where Bifur ends up clutching onto my leg as Tom the Troll.
So my character Dori...
...gives my character Bert a shot in the pills with bollocks.
[SHREIKS THEN GRUNTS]
Ouch!
[GRUNTS]
I smashed out one of the Troll's teeth.
And I just remember the first time I did it...
...swinging the hammer, and everybody standing off camera...
...flinching.
Because they thought I was gonna let go. As if.
[YELLS]
MCTAVISH: If I'd let go, it would've been bad.
WOMAN: We're a cut, thank you. We're cut. Very nice.
It's a sight for sore eyes, yeah?
This is the best place to have you two be--
If I could get my hands to you now...
Yes, yes. Lucky, you guys. Count yourselves lucky.
Some of them were lucky enough to just be lying in bags.
But some of us were put on this spit.
I think in a previous life, our Construction and Design people...
...were part of some medieval torture kind of world, I don't know.
MAN: Nice.
We're gonna have six of the Dwarves on a spit.
And very tight fit, I might add.
Everything's gotta be really fast and efficient.
So that's why we built plates onto the harness they already have on...
...before they actually get their wardrobe on.
Brackets that get bolted to the actual log.
MAN: How are you doing?
Ahem, this is actually the most comfortable position.
All right, guys, let's go. One minute. Time is gonna start.
Vinny, you're on first.
This a test to make sure that we can, uh, put six Dwarves on a spit.
One of the main factors here is how long it takes to do that.
I'm just sort of timing this at the moment.
You've gotta put them on, get your shot, get them off of the thing.
So this is all practice.
We ended up being like a Formula 1 kind of team.
People with pneumatic drills and getting them on and off.
It was like, "Bzz, bzz."
MAN: Done. - One Dwarf on, "Bzz, bzz."
One Dwarf on. Once they're all on, they go, "Clear."
Everyone steps back, started filming.
[ALL CHATTERING]
I hadn't realized we were gonna be in a spit. I thought it would be our stunt doubles.
The hardest thing was the waiting...
...because you could only be put up one at a time and bolted on to it.
[ELECTRIC DRILL WHIRRING]
We had to get a few guys on then we're gonna rotate the spit...
...so the guys are on their side...
...put some more actors on, rotate the spit...
...so we had to do that to get them all on.
And they said, "Look, you'll be on there for half an hour, tops."
Then I saw what was gonna happen.
We were being layered on top of one another. It was brilliant.
- All right, Mark. How's that feel, Mark? HADLOW: Peter, it's fabulous.
- Pete, this is known as Jackson's revenge. - Ha, ha, ha.
Well, I drew the short straw in that I was the first on and the last off.
MAN: Okay. MCTAVISH: Oh, mother. Oh, no.
[NESBITT LAUGHING]
MCTAVISH: Who's laughing? Who's laughing?
[MCTAVISH GROANING]
MAN: Look at their faces.
Seeing the guys on the spit, the Dwarf kebab, was quite enjoyable.
Watching Jimmy Nesbitt spinning round on a Dwarf kebab.
Hello.
I made a special visit just to see that- I couldn't stay away for that, could I?
MAN: B marker.
JACKSON: And action.
As we came around towards camera, we were trying to do a line...
...if we weren't feeling sick. Heh, heh, heh.
This isn't good for my hemorrhoids.
I didn't realize how fast it was gonna go round.
- If you let us go now-- - Have we got this--?
It was great until about three-quarters the way through.
We were starting to get nauseous as it got faster and faster.
It became then getting through to the end without being the first one to heave.
Everyone, blow!
Blow!
I don't do rides at the amusement park well at all.
In fact, I'll come off the ride, and it: "Uh-oh, I'm gonna vom:"
[RETCHES]
And there's vom. So I don't go on the rides.
Now, I had completely and utterly forgotten about this sort of thing.
And we got on the spit...
...which goes round and round and round.
It gets faster.
So we were going round really fast...
...but also looking up to see where Trolls were.
And looking at the fire and screaming and shouting.
MAN: Care's enjoying it. Aren't you? - We are all enjoying it.
What's funny about is-- Because you're doing it and Peter's giving direction...
...and he wasn't in the tent for that, he was outside watching us.
And you can't help as you're going around seeing him laughing...
...but not sort of necessarily at what we're doing.
He's just laughing at the kind of uncomfortability--
At the world he's put us into.
Okay, guys, stills.
Rotate them around, guys, so we get some bunch of stills.
MAN: That's it. Light her up, yeah.
All right? Okay, all right, get them down.
Hey, that was great work, guys. Fantastic.
HADLOW: I did think my spleen was gonna come up at one point there.
My head was spinning after it.
Everyone should do it.
Mark was getting pretty sick.
- A bit dizzy. MAN: Yeah, yeah.
- Very close to vomiting. MAN: Yeah.
I said, "I need the bucket." I didn't vom, but it was the closest I've come.
"I'm gonna vom, I need the bucket. I need to vom."
Poor little Adam did, my little brother.
So I was over there, sort of, "Are you okay?"
Then, "Whoo."
Yeah. Just a little bit of sick, maybe. Heh.
In his hands. He won't mind me mentioning it.
MAN 1: You all right? MAN 2: You all right? Turning.
Some got more ill than others, but we all felt-- You got off, suddenly you felt queasy...
...and you sort of think, "Get me a bucket."
I nearly did the vom. And that would have been very embarrassing.
They all-- Peter thought I had. I never heard the end of it for the next three or four days.
- Who threw up on the spit? - Well, no one actually threw up.
I nearly came close to it. It was terrible. That was terrible, wasn't it?
That's not what I heard.
Ha, ha, Peter, that's terribly unfair.
- Is this me here? WOMAN: That is you.
Dean O'Gorman joined us near the end of block one.
Um, he was cast as Fili.
And I came to it three or four months after everyone had started.
It had its challenges because there was this thing that was happening.
I was like, "What's going on? What do they do? What's happening with prosthetics?"
And I was sort of walking around like a deer in the headlights.
Hm.
[BOTH CHUCKLE]
MAN: He'll be all right. - That's fine.
[GROANS THEN LAUGHS]
Dean just had to arrive and get in there basically.
Ha, ha!
I never had two swords in my hands, obviously.
Why would I have two swords in my hands?
So I had to get the coordination of that going.
Which was challenging in the beginning. But actually, once I got it, it was really fun.
Hoo, ha-ha!
That's good. It's fun. It's kind of like what you dream of doing when you're a kid.
JACKSON: Not only did he just join and obviously carry on...
...shooting the scenes that we have been doing...
...we were able to go back into scenes we had not had Fili around for...
...and pick up some shots of Dean.
- Hello. SERKIS: Come and have a look at this.
My first shot, my first day on a green screen...
...standing on Aidan's shoulders in a wire harness trying to catch an ax...
...and then hit a Troll in the face with an ax.
Well, that's my first shot.
And Peter came up to me, just before the shot, and went:
"We got some good ball-crushing scenes for you in this one."
Because I was wearing this harness, and it's kind of strangling the lads.
And I was like, "Oh, my God. This is my first scene, my first shot...
...in The Hobbit."
And Pete came up and went:
I thought it was pretty funny.
Oh, all right.
If you're up in the harness for too long, it cuts off the circulation in your legs, and you go:
And I was like, "Please, don't let me faint."
I thought, I'm supposed to be playing this guy...
...that's like, you know, a little bit of a young warrior...
...a bit cocky, you know, sure of himself.
And I thought if I fainted...
...I fainted on the first shot, first day, it would be so embarrassing.
WOMAN: Action!
Gloin.
[GRUNTING]
But I manned up and I got through it.
[CHUCKLES]
MAN: And cut.
It was good to get the first day, you know.
Now I feel like I'm on my way.
Now I'm gonna home and take off my nose. Ha, ha, ha!
GANDALF: He keeps a watchful eye over the vast forest lands. ..
...to the east. And a good thing too.
[PEOPLE CHATTERING]
So this could be like a shot of the kitchen when we pull the other wall out.
When we tilt up and he turns, and we see a POV of the hedgehogs.
WOMAN: Rolling.
When do I--? If you could say "action" for me.
WOMAN: Action. - Action? Oh, okay, good.
Maybe the cup's over here.
And tilt it down to the hedgehog.
- Hey, how's that? MAN: Yeah. That sort of thing's good.
JACKSON: All right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This will be-- This is a good day to start with actually.
WOMAN: Have you meet everybody, Sylvester? MCCOY: No.
JACKSON: Careful-- - Hello, everybody.
WOMAN: This is Sylvester. Our Radagast. - We've met.
We wanted that very, you know, forgetful professor...
...or forgetful wizard, in this case.
And Sylvester McCoy is a genius at doing that.
[SNEEZES]
JACKSON: That is a persona that he does so well.
And the mice can sort of scurry up here and just go into there and scurry up here...
...and sort of burrow into there, so: "Whoo, whoo!"
And sort of arm put-- So touch the--
Peter, you know, he's a good bloke, you know.
And he's just-- He's a bloke, really.
He hasn't any airs or graces.
He's so relaxing. He brings a lovely atmosphere to the set.
JACKSON: So this shot, Sylvester, is gonna be--
If you would just stay there cradling the hedgehog.
MCCOY: But he does work and work...
...and work and work. And he lives and breathes the whole thing.
You're trying to concentrate on what you're doing while the attack is underway.
Three, two, one, action.
Creeps, knees.
Spiders.
Go, go, go. Go, go, go.
And look behind. The windmill's behind you. The camera up here too.
Slowly and cut.
WOMAN 1: Cut. WOMAN 2: Cut.
We're happy we got that. That's terrific. Thanks, Sylvester.
[BIRD TWITTERING]
The old fortress?
Show me.
I can't remember quite how it happened, but I just came up...
...with an image of a sleigh towed by rabbits.
The large rabbits, they are towing the, uh, sleigh.
I think it was the first preproduction meeting.
He sort of told us all by surprise by saying:
"Of course, Radagast's sled will be pulled by large rabbits."
The rabbits are, you know, will probably be reasonably large rabbits.
HENNAH: I-- Personally, I thought he was joking.
What do you mean large rabbits? That's crazy.
[ALL CHUCKLE]
Yeah, that's crazy. What?
JACKSON: We need to find...
...the biggest rabbit in the country and see how big they are.
At the back of my mind, "I don't buy this."
But I mean little, small, normal sized ones all look a bit silly.
And I saw this thing on the Internet, where they actually have rabbits that size.
Giant Norwegian rabbits.
And there's some photos of people with their giant pet rabbits.
Yes. That's the bastard there. God. What a-- Look.
- They're-- WOMAN: Oh, my God.
JACKSON: That's the German guy.
And there's a photo of this guy holding this rabbit up.
And they're literally the size of big dogs.
- Those are the rabbits. These are real. - Oh, my God!
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHATTERING]
They're all gonna be CGI, every single rabbit shot.
They were one of the first things we got turned over to us.
And Peter had this idea of really feral rabbits.
You know, they were gonna have mangy fur.
These had to be natural rabbits, but large, you know.
And certainly not anything domestic about them at all.
But they had to be big enough to believably be able to pull Radagast through the forest.
Some fantastic animation. All key frame animation, obviously.
We're not gonna motion-capture rabbits.
You build walk cycles, run cycles for the rabbits.
Knowing that you're gonna have a lot of chase scenes.
You do rabbit tests and finding some nice footage of rabbits.
There was an animal trainer out in the hut...
...who has all these big, enormous rabbits.
So we were able to kind of go and take detailed photographs of them.
And also we recorded video stuff of how they move.
There's only a couple of scenes where we see them...
...just not running at full speed.
There's rabbits laying there on their back. There's rabbits, like, just itching their ears.
We even had it where the one rabbit stands up...
...and starts tapping his foot as a warning to the other rabbits.
I'm not entirely sure that's a real thing to do.
I think we referenced Bambi. Heh, heh.
That's shorthand for-- That's how rabbits warn everybody. Heh.
But we still had to make a sled.
A practical sled that you would believe could be pulled by rabbits.
And something like that.
But I do think it should have a curve at the front.
My first drawings of the sled actually had the wheels on.
I was kind of cheating.
[CHUCKLES]
There shouldn't be wheels on it. It should skate along on logs.
I think wheels make it look like a chariot.
Pete was determined it should be a, a sled.
It's a lightweight, wooden sappling framework.
- Yee-ha! - Wow!
HENNAH: Lightweight aluminum frame...
...with a rubber texture over it to look like branches.
- It's great. LEE: Not bad, huh?
And it was good fun in the testing phase.
Mt. Crawford is at the top of the hill behind Miramar.
We thought we'll do some testing at Mt. Crawford with the stunt guys.
And before we knew it, it became into a full camera test.
You know, every man and his dog was there.
We needed a Radagast stunt double.
We did have other people within the team who were very similar to Sylvester's height...
...but they were really busy.
So it kind of left me.
Yeah. At first, we did think, “Well, Tim as Radagast, that's crazy."
But he could come on, and, you know, he figured out how to steer it relatively quick.
WONG: There comes a time when you probably have to hang your hat up...
...and retire from stunts officially. I don't quite feel I'm there yet.
I have this ego in me that still says I can do stunts as well as everyone else.
You know, I still like to keep proving it to myself and challenging it.
I don't know who decided that Tim Wong should be the--
Would be the best candidate to be the stunt double for Radagast.
I mean, Sylvester McCoy and Tim Wong have nothing in common.
But I think it came down to height.
- We're twins. MCCOY: What?
- We're pretty much twins. Yeah. MCCOY: Yeah.
So that's Sylvester's face there, with an early nose study on it.
What we're doing right now is we're doing the prosthetic...
...to try and turn his stunt actor into Radagast.
The challenge being that his stunt actor is played by Tim Wong.
Sylvester is an aging, uh, Caucasian man.
And we decided that we needed to create a likeness makeup for him.
WONG: I sit down on the chair and the first thing they do...
...is lay this one-piece silicone prosthetic on my face.
It's just one whole piece. It's like: Phht!
- Goodbye. MAN: Bye, Tim.
WONG: It is literally like what you see on Mission: Impossible...
...with the guy just peels it off and unveils what you look like.
The transformation is now complete. Ta-da!
Poor man, he's got to wander around looking like me.
People keep throwing things at him.
Tripping up. And asking for money that I owe them.
WONG: As I walked on, literally, the whole of Second Unit...
...once they found out who I was, their jaw just dropped.
And the very first take was very, very interesting.
It's like a football field long...
...I'm sitting at the back, and they count me down in three, two, one.
[AIR HORN BLASTS]
WONG: Boom, you're away.
The initial acceleration is such that you have to hold on quite hard.
And over jumps we go, under trees, through bushes.
And then they have to button off at exactly the right time...
...towards the end of the run, otherwise, the sleigh just keeps on going.
So we're going more with the manual switch.
Start the winch with a button...
...wind up the speed and then wind it down manually...
...with just-- With the eye.
WONG: They normally have...
...a whole lot of stunt nets for me to crash into, things like that.
We just did that all morning.
Fortunately enough, it was just a fake tree.
- Maybe it will make the bloopers, we'll see. - I love the sleigh jumps.
We had a couple of good ones where the lower angle was looking up.
Really seeing it come full frame and get some air.
[YELLS]
He's done extraordinary stunts, and I've got to recreate them.
WOMAN: Shooting. Quiet please.
Yes, well, you see, I do my own stunts.
Well, at least close-ups. With my eyebrows, you see.
If they don't-- Can't find a stuntman...
...that's got stunt eyebrows.
MAN: Can you do a wave with those?
[MAN LAUGHS]
MCCOY: A killer just doing close-ups.
I used to think, "Oh, let the stuntman do all the stunts and all that physical stuff."
When it comes to the close-ups, you just sit there and wink and nod and nudge and smile...
...and, you know, that's it.
But no, when it comes to close-up time, you know...
...I'm doing all this stuff all over the place.
I need a stuntman to do the close-ups.
JACKSON: How you doing, Sylvester?
Do you wanna cut for a minute, get your breath back?
- That's all right. JACKSON: Yeah. You can keep up? Heh.
Three, two, one. Pull.
Dol Guldur.
JACKSON: That looked good. We'll just review, but that looked very good.
- Thank you so much. - Yep. Yep. Good one.
- See you in November. - November, sometime.
- You've done great. - Thank you.
WOMAN: Thank you.
All done. All finished for the first block.
JACKSON: It's their favorite wizard.
- Bye-bye. WOMAN: Bye-bye. Time for a pastry..
Ooh.
ELROND: You are not the only guardian to stand watch over Middle-earth.
It really feels like a reunion...
...when everybody that was in The Lord of the Rings...
...that we needed for The Hobbit returned.
Welcome to Rivendell.
It's been great to be back here. Great to meet up with lots of people...
...that were all working on Lord of the Rings.
Ah, the ring.
Elrond has one of the three Elven rings.
WOMAN 1: Do you remember that? WEAVING: That's the one. I do.
[WEAVING HUMMING]
[LAUGHING]
Look at you. You look fantastic.
- Got any other poses? - No.
[LAUGHS]
This could be you.
It's gonna be so grim.
Look at that. Hello. We have a winner.
I'm serious. You have not aged a single day.
I think I look younger, actually.
- You do, actually. MAN: I think so too.
You are not the only guardian to stand watch over Middle-earth.
- I remember it now. - Yeah. Really.
But, oof, later on... Oof!
I didn't have a script until I got here.
But that's part of the nature of working with Pete anyway.
New lines in.
So I kind of knew that that's what would be the situation.
Did you have another meeting outside of that one?
No, in the meeting we had this morning...
- Just learnt those lines. JACKSON: This is a result of the meeting.
Quick! Let's film it now.
WOMAN: Action!
These runes were written on a Midsummer's Eve...
...by the light of a crescent moon nearly 200 years ago.
I remember that day's filming...
...in particular as I with Hugo Weaving...
...one of the most congenial members of the original cast.
And to meet up again with him was lovely.
Oh, yes.
And we always laugh together, Hugo and I.
I was kind of in awe of him initially...
...but he's an incredibly fun person to be with just on a day-to-day basis.
McKELLEN: Our background is very similar...
...working in the classical theater. WOMAN: Action!
These runes were written on a Midsummer's Eve...
Suddenly, we have a prominence in the film industry, which amuses us.
[BABBLING]
Because I think we both basically think...
...that where we belong is with our feet firmly planted on a stage somewhere.
WOMAN: Three, two, one, action!
WEAVING: I mean, it's always interesting...
...when Ian and I are off set doing all those characters, heh, heh, heh.
I don't know that I can explain it. It was very bizarre.
So all the scale doubles, large and small, were required for a wide shot.
Which meant that none of the actors in the scene were actually there.
So it was kind of slightly weird sitting in a couple of chairs...
...reading this radio play...
...while watching these smaller and larger people acting it out.
- We still have time. - For what?
Well, to find this entrance, we'll have to be standing in exactly the right spot...
...at exactly the right time.
We're alert to the ridiculousness of it all.
What do you mean?
You are not the only guardian to stand watch over Middle-earth.
But I think we can behave when necessary.
[INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE]
JACKSON: Well, we've had a few... We got rid of this.
Bret will come down the stairs...
...and do a wonderful bit of Elvish reading for us.
And you'll, you'll cry, and...
I was completely thrilled to be asked to come back on the film for any part.
He had played a very beautiful elf in Lord of the Rings.
So beautiful that he'd drawn attention away from more important characters...
-...on the screen. - My lady!
McKELLEN: And got his nickname, an acronym from...
..."Frodo is great," F-I-G.
"Who is that?" Referring to Bret. FIGWIT.
And Peter asked him back and he very gamely came along...
...with a name now, Lindir, and a line or two.
My Lord Elrond, the Dwarves, they've gone.
- Resetting. - Do you like it'?
- Ha, ha, ha. - I'm going back to my unit now.
WOMAN: Caro is very pleased to hear that, Peter. JACKSON: Keep going. All right.
It's like you're always-- In a way, the Elves are always...
...prepared to welcome Gandalf, and that's no big deal...
...but when he brings these bastards in, it's just like a cultural shift.
- Mithrandir. GANDALF: Lindir.
Working with Ian McKellen was a total career highlight.
I was sort of nervous and, you know, intimidated.
Mithrandir.
He's incredible to watch on-screen and then to get to watch him up close.
Where is he?
He's a very good actor.
Lindir.
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
I mean, I can handle one sentence quite well, like...
..."Mithrandir"...
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
Got it. Got that one down, right?
But this one about the Dwarves using all the wine up. I mean...
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
It was a complete mind flip.
Uh, uh...
The Creative team decided, over lunch, that they wanted him to do an Elvish scene...
...that afternoon.
Bret, you've got some Elvish. He says, "You're joking."
I said, "No. And it's three lines. And it's going to be shot in one shot."
"So we can't cut in and out of it." And he went a bit pale.
WOMAN: We're gonna shoot that, yes? - Straight up. First up.
JACKSON: First up. One take. Get it perfect. No pressure.
Oh. So stressful. Yeah.
Because being on set is a very stressful atmosphere...
...even when you're speaking English.
Now, if you can start your line, Bret, before you're even here, so you're...
Fran and Philippa write the lines in English...
...then those lines are sent to David Salo.
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
McKENZIE: The Elvish specialist.
And then he translates the English into Elvish...
...and then Róisín then shows me the words.
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
And then I can't say them.
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
And so I was walking around the set trying to remember this nonsense.
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
All right.
It always sounds good on the rehearsal, never when the camera rolls.
- First rule of filmmaking. WOMAN: Here we go. And action.
[LINDIR SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
[LAUGHING]
JACKSON: Okay, let's have take two then.
[LINDIR SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
Something.
Sorry.
Hey, Pete.
[JACKSON MIMICKING ELVISH]
What?
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
MAN: Yeah. What?
I got my Elvish right.
- Yes. - What was it?
McPHERSON: He and Hugo had a fantastic rapport as well...
...and so they kind of helped them-- Helped each other...
...through a particular level of panic that I don't think, heh, heh, everybody thrives on.
[SPEAKING IN ELVISH]
And I just, just got it right, barely.
JACKSON: Very good. Let's give Bret a shot of Scotch.
- Say it perfectly again for the camera now. - What did you say?
[in ELVISH]
[IN ENGLISH] Something or other.
- You're forgetting already. -It's gone. It's gone.
You see it's slipping away. Slipping away. - Ah.
So we're shooting in Rivendell...
...and this is the courtyard for the arrival of the company.
Arriving in Rivendell was difficult because we had all our bags and sacks.
We had the full kit. Most of us could barely stand up.
It's pretty tough. You can see them suffering in between each take.
Ah. Here we go again!
Oh, yes. The Dwarves, they travel light.
I think there was a communication problem with the packs.
I don't know whether they said, “Let's see how much these guys can carry."
[GROANS]
When it was put on me, I couldn't believe it. And I couldn't believe Jed's weight.
BROPHY: I don't feel like I've got enough stuff. MAN: I know.
Can you give me some more stuff?
HUNTER: I mean, there was nearly 50 kgs worth of weight that was put on us.
See, that's more like it.
Got my toilet in there, my tent, matches, got food, some tin fruit.
I've actually been hiding over there to delay putting this on as long as possible.
- Where's Ori? Ori? MAN: Taking off that big load.
Yeah. Ori?
- Stay there. I'll just go on my soap box. MAN: Thanks, Peter.
So, hey, guys, what we're gonna do, we're just gonna do...
...like, three shots in one.
And we're gonna get a bit of the beginning where Ian walks through the gates...
...and then Ian will retire...
...because the real shot's gonna be with Paul leading you guys.
MAN: And charge!
[SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY]
And circle.
The Dwarves will be, sometimes, our real actors...
...but they were far too big for horses.
We're also going to be using our scale doubles...
...who will bravely stand their ground as horses thunder towards them.
We hope. We'll have to see.
And we'll find out in a couple of hours how brave they really are.
The scales are vitally important.
And yeah, you build up a relationship with your scale...
...because he's watching you on the screens...
...all the time you're doing your stuff, and he's in costume and wearing a face mask.
Wearing a mask that is a mold of your own face...
...with similar facial hair, coloring, everything, but with a stern look.
He's walking around with this look on him...
...this evil look the entire time.
Then you go, "All right, Rob." And he goes, "How's it going?" What?
MAN: They're on here too tight. - Yeah.
And this kind of voice comes out, and you kind of go:
"Shit. This is weird. I wish he'd take off his mask right now." Heh, heh.
And so it's quite disconcerting. It's quite weird to have them walking around.
I mean, it's uncanny how close some of them look...
...some of them more than others.
And horse charge! Horse charge!
[YELLS]
And around. And around. Very good.
It was a great way of seeing the whole process of being a scale double...
...come down to a nice, complete scene.
[in ELVISH]
What is he saying? Does he offer us insult?
GANDALF: No, Master Gloin, he's offering us food.
- I just pop one in. -It's like-- Yeah. Okay.
And I think I would need a napkin.
- Is this the napkin? WOMAN: Yes. This is the napkin.
MAN: Yes. Yes. - Heh, heh.
Could I have the proper size one?
[LAUGHING]
- This is clearly the small scale. - Yeah.
I've done a terrible job.
[IN ENGLISH] What did I tell you about the large napkins?
Right. Rolling resets this time, guys.
The way that we try and get through this as quickly as possible...
...is to keep the cameras rolling and just do take after take after take.
There's only one thing for it.
JACKSON: And reset! WOMAN: Resetting!
And as soon as we were done with a take, I'd say, "Okay. Reset. Let's go again."
- We call them rolling resets. MAN: Reset.
- And reset. One last one for that. It's cut. WOMAN: Resetting.
Because as soon as I said "cut"...
...you'd literally have 30, 40 people sweeping in around the Dwarves.
There's someone to look after their hair, their makeup, their costumes.
Every time you say "cut" it's like 20 minutes gone. Every time.
They're running, something falls off, sweating, cooling them down.
- Twenty minutes gone. JACKSON: And it was that sort of thing.
You need to have the patience of an ox.
- Should we shoot? WOMAN: Let's clear everybody off the set.
- They're just going to take that. - I need to see some rolling resets.
We're able to do that because we're not shooting film.
When we're shooting film, obviously, it's very expensive.
Digital cameras, you put a little card in, you can shoot for like 15 minutes...
...and you can just download that footage and you can reuse the card.
The whole thing is a bit cheaper.
So I kind of realized that the best thing I could do to speed along the day...
...was not to yell "cut." MAN: And reset!
That's the way I love working and I think a lot of actors love working like that...
...because you stay in the moment, there's energy and you build on the energy.
One take builds on the next.
But it was also a great way to kind of keep the Dwarf contingent at bay...
...so I could get through four or five takes in a reasonably quick time.
[CHEERING AND LAUGHING]
We'll have to cut and call it a day...
MAN: Yay!
Hey. How are you?
- Okay. Thank you. - Great. Thank you.
- That was fun. - Yeah. It was great.
Thanks, Adam. You're all done. Peter, we'll leave you in that for a while.
- Oh, yeah? - No, no. You're done too. Ha, ha, ha.
- Bastard! Ah, ha, ha. - I just wanted to get that look in your eye.
Naughty Dwarves. Badly behaved.
[PEOPLE LAUGHING]
Thank you very much, everybody, for that very long day.
We needed to get Martin away from our fair shores.
Yep. That was fantastic. Thanks, everybody.
We lose Martin today...
...so we will have finished the first six weeks of shooting with Martin...
...then he's got to go back to the UK to do another season of Sherlock.
- The game is afoot, Watson. - I'm gonna take a nap for six hours.
- Don't want to see any of this in Sherlock. - Or any of this.
- Oh, well, you can take them. - The game is afoot.
And while he's away, we're going to be shooting more Elvish stuff with Elrond...
...Gandalf and Galadriel.
- Ooh, it's all coming back to me. -It's coming back to you?
It's an amazing thing to be able to return to something that was begun 12 years ago.
- Oh. Here she is! - Here she is, like you'll never exist again.
Welcome.
- Little elf kiss. - Yeah.
- Welcome. - Thank you.
It was a little bit like returning to summer camp.
- Very well. McKELLEN: Very nice to see you.
WOMAN: And action!
Lady Galadriel.
GALADRIEL: Show me.
I suppose it's this thing about whether it raises the stakes for this thing...
...to suddenly be produced in terms of the outward meeting.
McKELLEN: Cate Blanchett has played some of the great classic roles in theater.
And you can't do that unless you're alert to all the possibilities for your character...
...and discuss them openly with your colleagues...
...and that's how we go about preparing.
Maybe it's what stops me is the psychic speech...
...of you're carrying something. JACKSON: Yes.
There's something going on with him and I'm trying to work out what it is.
And that sort of preparation is not usual in films.
In films, the actors are cast because of their known qualities...
...and they turn up on set and they're expected to deliver...
...on the first day of shooting with very little preparation.
But in this case, we did all sit around.
You know, I'm perfectly fine to just sit down with the cast...
...and send everyone away for a cup of tea for half an hour...
...give us the set quietly to ourselves and just work the scene up...
...and change it and we either have, you know, Philippa or Fran there.
- Hello, darling? WALSH [OVER PHONE]: Hello?
- Hello, I'm just here with Cate and Ian. - Yep.
And quite a few other people, but never mind. Um, heh...
We were just talking about this scene.
To be on a set with one of the greatest living actors, Sir Ian McKellen...
...and one of the greatest living directors, that's a gift anyway.
But then to have such a key scene in a way that it sets up...
Mithrandir.
...the journey that Gandalf is going on.
Why the Half ling?
It's a very, very beautiful speech.
I do not know.
In Ian's hands, there's not a trace of sentiment, there's just a well of feeling.
"Why the Halﬂing?" I do not know, but I'll think about it.
"I have found it is the small things." Where is he going with this?
"The everyday deeds of ordinary folk that can keep darkness at bay."
What he's coming round to is he doesn't know...
...I don't know how to put it into words...
...but Bilbo Baggins somehow gives me courage to carry on.
WALSH: That's it. You're trying to understand it yourself inside of it.
- That's right. - The sentence.
You're figuring it out as you go, not understanding it or knowing it...
-...before you say the word. - That's it. That's it.
- That's it. - Yeah.
And he makes the great confession, which needed Galadriel to bring out of him...
...and thinking about these things, to say "I am afraid."
- That's wonderful. Which is wonderful. - Which has to come at the end. Yes.
I mean, we've been reading each other's minds in the previous scene.
Part of the function of the scene is to say: "Something's troubling you."
Mm-hm.
Trying to draw it out of you, trying to get to this moment...
...you know, of naming the fact that you're frightened, okay, would--
But I'll also tell you what's at the heart of this.
What's at the heart of the speech is this ties into the speech...
...in the Mines of Moria, in the second film, when you say it was the pity of Bilbo...
...that stayed his hand.
GANDALF: My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill...
...before this is over.
[GOLLUM MUMBLES]
The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.
So there's something you play here...
...that you don't even understand. McKELLEN: That's right.
It has something to do with the essence of a Hobbit...
...that somehow you can have armies, you can have might, you can have force...
...you can do everything in a sensible kind of rational way...
...but there's something that you haven't discovered yet...
...that you haven't been able to rationalize that's telling you the end of the story...
...has something to do with this little guy...
...and you, yourself, don't know that journey yet.
- Something like that. - But Elves have problems with...
...what we think of as human emotion, don't they?
- They don't cry or laugh. BLANCHETT: No.
Do you understand what he's talking about?
Well, I think there's something...
...that I say in the next film:
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
I don't know. Maybe I've strangely learnt from you.
McKELLEN: Yeah. - Hmm.
I think Elves would laugh at a good fart joke. Wouldn't they?
I mean, everybody does.
But they only happen once every thousand years.
- Heh, heh. That's right. Yeah. Their diet. - Heh, heh, heh.
Who wouldn't want to sit around with Cate Blanchett...
...and talk about almost anything in the world?
BLANCHETT: Elf wear.
- If Kim Kardashian can bring out some... WOMAN: I know.
...platform sneakers, I think Galadriel should have them on. Don't you?
JACKSON: Well, yes, I think that's very good.
I think the platforms were about-- Yeah, they were-- No, they're about that.
WOMAN 1: Have you got your disco boots?
Yeah. You've got the disco boots. You've got them on.
WOMAN 2: Or the ankle breakers. WOMAN 1: Oh, look, she can move in them. Wow.
BLANCHETT: Disco platforms, because, of course, Elves are very tall.
I was always relieved when we got to sit down and put the UGG boots on.
But somehow you couldn't perform Galadriel in UGG boots.
I think I always needed the height.
Don't stop now.
Tell us what the woodsmen say.
Christopher Lee was not sitting around the table with the rest of us.
His contribution to the scene was filmed in London.
JACKSON: Yeah.
[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
Yes, the wardrobe was always a little bit tricky, wasn't it?
I seem to remember you tripped up on that a couple of times.
LEE: And you were very cold about it. - I wasn't cold about it.
- I said, "I can't get up these bloody steps." - No, I remember. Yeah.
No, you said "goddamn steps."
LEE: I'm sorry. I cannot get up these goddamn steps smoothly.
I can't do it, Peter. I'm sorry.
Because every time I try, I step on the thing.
-"I can't get up these goddamn steps." - And you said, "You did it this morning."
[LAUGHING]
And then you said the great line, "This wardrobe is a menace."
- Yes, you did. - Did I?
LEE: These clothes are a menace.
For me, that was the signature line of the entire series.
This Necromancer is nothing more than a mortal man.
I couldn't do the trip to New Zealand.
I shot those scenes here with ordinary people...
...standing there giving me the lines and the eye line.
So you do have to use your imagination quite a bit.
You've been busy of late, my friend.
The scene had already been shot in New Zealand with a double.
And by the magic of film, it all comes together...
...and it looks as if we're in the same place.
You've been busy of late, my friend.
JACKSON: And just watch the eyebrows on-- During that...
Here we go. Here we go. Here we go.
Ten years. Eyebrow acting.
[CHUCKLING]
I have a habit of doing this...you know. A lot of people do.
You used to say to me, “There you go again."
- All that eyebrow acting. - Well, yeah, you know...
Because I was always doing this:
Just give us a little bit. Just give us a little...
...sliver of it.
Well?
Don't stop now.
Tell us what the woodsmen say.
Graham and I went to Pinewood. We weren't filming there, but we went to London.
Christopher is such a character.
It was such an honor to meet him and listen to his stories.
The most extraordinary thing that happened to me in the war...
...was a time when I was in charge of an Australian squadron...
...and, you know, the Aussies were, in those days, not very easy to control.
They're still not. We've got a bunch of them on the crew.
Caro Cunningham, our first AD and producer...
...I think she dreads the moment that Christopher and I get on a set together...
...because it's her job to keep everything moving...
...to shoot a shot, set up, shoot the next one.
That's what she's there for, to do, and she's very, very good at doing it.
And yet Christopher loves telling stories...
...that are of Lord of the Rings length in their epic scope.
- We went to Hong Kong. - Yeah.
- And then to Macau. - Yeah.
And to Bangkok.
Boy, that guy's had a life. He's had a life.
You go up and you meet a man like that...
...and you have to take the time to realize what's happening.
- You know that famous shot of the car? - Yes. Yeah. The corkscrew. Car.
Nobody believed it, you know.
I remember Guy Hamilton saying:
"God," he said, "That was absolutely wonderful.
Would you do another?"
He said, "That's the first f-ing time I've done it.
I'm not f-ing doing it again."
[CHUCKLING]
It was always-- A part of spending time with Christopher are his stories...
...and his ability to recall detail.
[IN FRENCH ACCENT] He spoke like a very, very high, squeaky voice with a very French accent.
Yeah. You're right.
I tend to be happy to sit there with the crew standing around...
...and listen to Christopher's stories.
[IN NORMAL VOICE] Took me about two years to get that book back to her.
I could just see Caro looking at her watch in the background...
...a little concerned about how long it was taking.
But we got there in the end.
It was the Australian Aborigine who bought himself a new boomerang...
...and spent the rest of his life trying to get rid of the old one.
[LAUGHING]
He is one of my heroes, and he lived up to it all.
Oh, I should crouch, of course I should.
No, don't kneel for me.
No, he is Sir Christopher, so kneeling is appropriate.
Well, you had to kneel, didn't you?
JACKSON: In front of you? - No.
No. Well, I always kneel in front of you.
Well, I mean, I wasn't going to bring that up but...
[LAUGHING]
He's awesome. He was great. He's unstoppable.
- Thank you. Thank you very much. - Oh, please. Don't forget the photograph.
Yes. No, we will do a photograph.
The return to Bag End, it was actually kind of incredible...
...because the, you know, there were parts of Bag End in London...
...that they'd brought with them.
MAN: There we go. - There we go. And action.
We had Ian Holm in the study.
We took certain parts of Bag End with us, so Ian could be in there.
You can't ship this massive set...
...that took up all of B Stage. And so it had to be very planned...
...as to what was going to be needed.
We plotted out the layout of Bag End...
...and then Peter went through and worked out...
...which parts we would need to take with us.
We break it in small-enough pieces to fit inside an air freight container...
...and then ship it to London.
YORKE: And put it together at the other end. It was like a kitset Bag End.
GARSIDE: We also took with us a green-screen version...
...because I wanted to use the effects of the window patterns.
So we built the set in plywood, but with the windows cut out.
So if I put light through them, I'd still get exactly the same window patterns.
I think originally it was just that Peter and Caro were gonna go...
...but as per normal, more people got added...
...who conveniently happened to be in the UK at that time.
It's cool. It's really cool.
To have a chance to return, pop the wig on and the feet on...
...all those things are part of my DNA, in a way. It's so familiar.
WOOD: I love that there's actually leg now. MAN: Yeah, I know. It's impressive.
-It's not just the feet. - I know. It's much better.
The advances in Hobbit feet, I think, are going to make certain Hobbits upset.
[LAUGHING]
The old Hobbit feet were molded to our feet. Then we were glued into them.
It took about an hour and a half.
Now they're slip-one. The entire thing is a slip-on.
This is great!
MAN: People run in these.
- This is a bit, yeah. Can we get this film out? - Could we just do this one?
- Why was it so easy before? - I don't know.
MAN: There you go. Now pull that bit up. Don't let it go. Don't let it go.
- Oh, my God! Sorry, Elijah. - No, it's fine.
[LAUGHING]
Sagging foot. I love it.
MAN: Tie him to the chair. Tie him to the chair.
WOMAN: All right. Once we get that heel in... Yes!
MAN: Stand-- You stand back there and do nails.
[LAUGHING]
- You guys are properly hot. WOMAN 2: I know, I'm getting a...
it actually felt oddly normal.
Heh, heh, literally. And in some ways that felt stranger to me.
Like, it just feels so normal, it doesn't even feel surreal, in a way.
WOMAN: No, but I mean that foot may be a little longer than this.
WOMAN: Two Hobbits, one director.
[WOOD CHUCKLES]
WOOD: A very, very cool feeling, and wonderful to work with Ian.
I mean, I hadn't seen Ian in probably eight, nine years.
JACKSON: Action.
They seem to think you have tunnels packed with chests of gold.
It was one small chest, hardly overflowing.
And it still smells of Troll.
[LAUGHING]
JACKSON: Great. Good. Let's just get one more of those. It was great. That's good.
Looking around at the landscape, enjoying the sunshine.
And this nice big smoke ring now.
Lovely. We can cut that.
[BOTH CHUCKLING]
Looking good. One, two, three...
There we go. Thank you.
MAN: Thanks, everybody.
BALIN: This is no thunderstorm.
It's a thunder-battle!
Look out!
[ALL SCREAMING]
[THUNDER CRASHES]
They tried to recreate the conditions of being in a storm and they did that very, very well.
You could imagine that the rock is splitting apart...
...there are huge rocks being chucked at us by the Stone-Giants.
And there's a lot of things to think about.
[YELLING]
Today's scene, we've got a lot of lightning effects in it.
The way we've done it is we've used the fluoros in the roof as a wraparound lightning.
Plus, we've also got around the place a whole bunch of lightning strikes.
I think it may be the first time that people have used fluoros...
...as in Kino Flo, to simulate lightning.
Hey, Rubes, can you take out 115 and 116, will you, please?
Basically I break up the roof into groups...
...and then turn it into sort of chunks of lightning in the roof.
We can record and then sort of compose it.
And if the bosses like faster or bigger pieces...
...you just kind of go mental on the buttons like you're doing rock 'n' roll.
And then once that's recorded, then I can just kind of play that back.
The guys on the other lightning effects are wearing out their thumbs all day, so--
They don't know about this so don't tell them.
This was a new technique, so we really liked this new use of these lights.
We'll do rehearsals, but there'll be a lot of wind and a lot of rain...
...and you should play the cold, the uncomfortableness...
...you know, the sheer drop, hundreds of feet down here.
You know, just make it look miserable. I mean, it won't be.
You'll be enjoying yourselves, but make it look miserable.
[LAUGHING]
The rain is the little shower nozzles, yeah.
- We've chosen-- MAN: Random.
Oh, not random. No.
[LAUGHING]
Carefully selected.
HUNTER: I bet I'm getting the cold one, I just know.
I didn't-- I shouldn't even have to ask that question.
I fancy a cold water tower, please.
Because it's-- I've been boiling in this costume.
I'm just a little bit disappointed.
I did have a shower before I came to work this morning.
WOMAN 1: Bring it on. Go on.
They're just decontaminating us.
WOMAN 2: Turn around, face me again. MAN: Turn around.
This is the best part of the whole job.
Fortunately I don't have any lines.
It's just reactive, basically quite easy days for me.
Apart from the fact I'm gonna be probably extremely cold. And wet.
Wet. Bring it on.
NESBITT: It's a Saturday. There's nothing more I want to do on a Saturday...
...than get soaking wet in 25 kilograms of clothes.
- You're not finished. - I'm supposed to be a light spritz.
MAN: No, you're not. NESBITT: I'm a light spritz.
WOMAN: No, no, no. Spritz on the head. - It is.
- Oh, no-- Ha, ha, ha. - Oh.
Like a typical Irish summer. Very wet.
WOMAN 1: Can you--? You actually might get wet and...
MAN 1: Oh. Jimmy.
[LAUGHING]
MAN 2: I could-- Yes, go on... WOMAN 2: Can you do that?
They'd wet us down completely and utterly with hoses...
...they put teeming, teeming water on us.
O'GORMAN: Like cattle at the beginning.
Wet us down so we're soaking, then we'd shoot the scene.
Bang, down comes the rain. They had these huge sprinklers.
MAN: Okay. Here we go.
BOFUR: Stone-Giants!
And they had these huge big wind machines that blew the rain into our faces.
And the noise.
[GASPS AND GROANS]
The noise was unbelievable.
[FANS BLOWING]
There were times when I literally didn't have to act.
I thought that we were in the worst storm on the mountainside from hell.
We were just, like, in this full force-9 gale.
McTAVISH: And I remember just being behind Martin...
...and he couldn't see anything.
O'GORMAN: And I remember Peter saying, "Open your eyes! Open your eyes!"
And Martin was like-- Like, he just couldn't.
MAN: Here we go, eyes wide open! And second rock!
There was so much rain and wind that he was just laughing...
...as we were coming around the corner. He was just:
[IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE] “I can't f***ing see anything!
Wait, wait. What's going on?"
[IN NORMAL VOICE] That was my impersonation of Martin Freeman.
[FREEMAN LAUGHS]
On that particular scene, Bilbo ends up lying completely on top of me.
So I was lying there with Martin Freeman on me.
I'm sure it wasn't great for him either.
And it was just completely drenching.
And Martin got off and I was just lying there...
...and they turned the sprinklers off.
And there was a water pipe...
...that was pouring water straight on to his crotch.
And I was just sitting there, just wetting my pants basically.
For about three or four minutes.
Of course everyone thought it was hilarious.
[LAUGHING]
It was pretty embarrassing.
[GROANING]
One of my all-time favorite moments in that whole Misty Mountain sequence...
...was when Ken did his close-up.
He has that huge white beard.
And on action, as the wind came...
...every time Ken went to deliver the line:
"That's not a so-and-so. That's a--" The beard would just go pfft.
Look!
It was like something out of Monty Python.
"That's not a so-and-so, that's a:"
It's a thunder-battle!
Eight, nine, 10 times.
JACKSON: Whoops. Can you try not to get that beard in your face?
McTAVISH: And I'm convinced Peter did this deliberately.
Just try that again.
I'm sure he had a word with the guy operating the wind machine...
...to just turn it up a couple of notches.
It was just too perfect.
JACKSON: We just got the beard. Do that one more time without the beard going up.
[LAUGHS]
"That's a-- Pfft."
"I'm sorry, Ken, we're gonna have to go again."
[LAUGHS]
This beard gets everywhere, right?
Turns up in the most unlikely places.
[LAUGHING]
It was quite brutal at times, physically for us as actors.
But I like to think that that really helps...
...the jeopardy and the kind of gritty feeling of the sequence.
MAN: And cut it. Good. We got that. Very good.
WOMAN: How was that? - That was great.
I love it, being in the rain tower. It's fantastic.
- The rain tower rocks. MAN: Good?
It was very fun.
I feel like a big kid again.
WOMAN: Are you okay, Jimmy? - No.
I couldn't get off the tower with the wet--
Our costumes obviously absorb water and retain it...
...so the costumes got heavier.
We were wearing our full costumes that we leave Bag End in.
And then they waited us down.
NESBITT: They were pretty heavy, I have to tell you.
And afterwards, we were all determined to weigh ourselves.
I think I was like 25 kg over, so-- No one took me seriously.
You know, I was carrying 50 kg, which is a lotto be carrying for six hours.
So it's like 115, 110 pounds?
That he's carrying? That's incredible.
You get to a time when it gets hysterical.
That we're on this set inside and there's wind and rain being thrown at us...
...with all these costumes and this weight.
And Pete saying, “There's a big foot gonna stand on you now."
I have to contain my laughter...
...because I thought at times we were in a Monty Python film.
Yeah, just another day on the set of Hobbit.
Wake up! Wake up!
Whoa!
[ALL GRUNTING AND SCREAMING]
WONG: The trap door stunt, which led to the Goblin caves...
...was probably the most intricate and dangerous stunt...
...that I've ever been a part of.
That was a tricky one. That was extremely dangerous, that one.
That was a very nerve-racking outing.
There was a real sense of tension on the set that day.
JACKSON: This is all the movements happening on the set...
...so you don't need to be doing much with the camera.
Because it'll sort of start to negate the actual action that's happening on the set.
In the cave, a little crack appears...
...and sand disappearing down this crack.
The Dwarves are all asleep...
...and then these big interleaving pieces of floor set...
...start to fall away gradually:
[IMITATING THUMPS]
MAN: One, two, three, four, five!
- That's quite good, isn't it? MAN: Yes.
[MAN CLEARING THROAT]
[LAUGHING]
I think at first, as always, the stuntmen were pretty macho about the whole thing...
...till they actually saw better.
It was quiet for about a minute when the full gravity of it sank in, that:
"Wow. This could be one of the most dangerous things that we do."
MAN: Once you're happy with what you see now...
...get yourself prepared for a run, eh?
This was, I think, seven, what they called petals. These petals weigh tons.
And they're all meant to drop at different times, okay?
Once you pull the pin, the thing is gonna drop.
Once it drops, nothing can stop it.
This was potentially, you know...
...tons and tons of metal crushing you if it went wrong.
It had to be a fair drop. It had to be about 4 meters...
...because of the nature of the floor that gave way.
And also too, if one guy fell down on top of the other...
...just from that height, it could have caused substantial injuries as well.
- I'd probably go that way. - Go that way.
- I'd go this way. - Go there?
WONG: And as soon as they hit, they're being given a way they're meant to roll.
So they have to either move-- Roll to their left or roll to their right...
...or stay exactly still.
And they probably have about a second or so after they hit to make that movement.
And if they don't make that movement, then it could potentially go wrong.
Seen the tests. So far it's all been good, but...
You know what it's like. It's always a little bit nervous on the day, you know.
WONG: Anyone want a pillow? No?
BOSWELL: Big game, this one.
WONG: It's a nice soft spot.
We're lucky Glenn Boswell allowed us to do a few rehearsals. We staggered into it.
We started with a few guys at a time and slowly went back...
...and did a couple of rehearsals today.
We're gonna drop petal one and two at the same time as usual, so this is drop one.
You guys give a set that you're happy...
...he'll give a set to us up here.
Then when you're ready, we'll drop you.
Sand will progressively go along that way.
WOMAN 1: Rehearsal in five minutes. Counting down.
MAN 1: Camera's going, watch your backs.
I'm ready to go.
WOMAN 2: Are you excited? - Eh? Excited.
I was wondering what's for lunch, actually.
MAN 2: Schnitzel. - Curry.
WOMAN: Yep.
WONG: Okay, stand by!
And one!
MAN: You guys good?
BOSWELL: You set, buddy? Okay, cool. MAN: Set.
WONG: Stand by!
And two!
Three!
Stand by!
And four!
- Yup. That's safe. BOSWELL: Thanks-- Thanks, guys.
WOMAN: Thank you.
That's kind of where, I think, the planning made the stunt guys feel a lot safer anyway...
...where they could actually see where they would drop...
...and do by themselves.
But it's almost like we need to go, "And one and two."
- You know? "And three and four--" WOMAN: Like they need recognition...
-...of what's happened before the next one. - Exactly. Exactly.
BOSWELL: Straight after action...
...Tim will go, "And one and two," and do the call for the-- For them to drop.
So there's not one between.
You have to react to action and you'll be dropping.
I got onto open comms channel, and all the Special Effects guys...
...would pull their pinto my count.
So you can't go in rehearsals:
“And one, and two, and three, and four."
Then shoot, adrenaline takes over, you can't go: "And one, and two, and three, and four."
In my mind, I was sitting there trying to think of a rhythm:
“And one, and two, and three, and four."
Over and over again in my mind, I just keep going:
“And one, and two, and three, and four."
SERKIS: You can only really do these things once...
...because the reset time would have been phenomenal.
So it had to pretty much work first time.
MAN 1 : B marker.
WOMAN: Walk away, Dusty.
We“, do-
Thank you.
And we're going hot. Cameras are rolling.
WONG: Going hot.
One is hot.
Number two is hot.
Three hot.
Four's hot.
Five's hot.
WOMAN: All right. MAN 2: We're hot.
WOMAN: Here we go.
And everyone's sleeping.
- And action. WONG: Stand by!
WOMAN: Wake up! Wake up!
WONG: And one, and two, and three, and four, and five!
MAN 3: Cut! WOMAN: Cutting there. Everybody okay?
MAN 4: Dave. WOMAN: Nice and easy. Thank you.
MAN 5: You all right? Jimmy? WOMAN: Nice and easy on the tail slate, thanks.
MAN 5: Dave? WOMAN: Turn around.
MAN 6: Oh, yeah.
SHEERIN: That take was actually quite fun...
...and all the guys had a really good time and all went really well.
See, we're happy now. We wrapped and that's the first shot.
All the guys are stoked. And, yeah, that's what you get...
...when you prepare and put all that training in and become trained professionals as we are.
So see you. Oof!
GREAT GOBLIN: Abomination.
Mutations. Deviations.
That's all you're gonna find down here.
Good morning at Day One of Goblins, here at the studio.
Weta Workshop have worked for weeks through the night...
...seven days a week to create these Goblins.
Finally they've been delivered and arrived.
And now, as you can see behind me, we're rapidly dressing the 30 Goblins...
...ready for the shoot today.
Heroes, stunt performers, extras, all in Goblin suits...
...with different masks on, loads of animatronic masks.
And there just over to my right now...
...the operators all arriving to set up all the animatronics stations.
Now we've got about two hours left to finish dressing them.
And then it's all go, and shooting all day on set at Day One.
And we've got two weeks of it to go.
[GROWLS]
Just talcing the inside of a silicone suit. That makes it a bit more slidy on the inside.
All right, I'm straight up in the air.
How are we gonna get it over this bloody hump?
NOTARY: It's actually the first day we've all been in the suits at one time.
Usually it's just costume fittings. So it's a big day.
We're gonna see how it goes. We're gonna take it slow, hopefully...
...and watch out for overheating.
Down. Back.
We've been training for about five weeks on the movement.
Go, go. Hit it. Hit it.
[GRUNTING]
Costume's feeling fine.
There's lots of bits and pieces that don't usually go with my bits and pieces.
I've got a good special nipple down here.
I'm a bit alarmed.
But I didn't get a nipple over here. Oh, wait, that's new.
Well, you turn your back and someone gives you a nipple.
When Pete asked us to make translucent suits with moving bones under the skin...
...that was one thing.
Then asking them to have elephantitis, huge humps on their backs...
...and all sorts of body deformities, it was definitely gonna be a crazy breed.
WOMAN: Who has the biggest hump? - That guy over there. He's massive.
[WOMAN CHUCKLES]
So this is the most animatronic characters...
...we've ever had on set at one time.
We've got 40 heads without animatronics and then 10 heads with.
So what we've got here is some spiked movers.
And the silicon sits down onto it. And it grips really well on there.
So we've got some nice, snarly mechanism going on here.
And then we've also got the eyes.
And this is all operated by cables, which will come out of the back here...
...and go into a cable pack, and it's all operated with remote-control gear.
The guys finished them about one hour ago.
So it was a lot of very tired people.
But excited about the fact we've got all this cool stuff.
FRENCH: Some of these guys have been going all night and then straight onto set.
A lot of components, a lot of people. Today's gonna be really full on...
...and we're looking forward to seeing our Goblins looking fantastic on set.
So what's that? What's--
[BARKING]
Oh, gosh. Zoe's a gritter. She's a gritter.
MAN 1 : B marker.
MAN 2: Looking at the board or the camera. Straight at the camera lens, if you can...
...if you can see where that is. Right there.
TAYLOR: It's always going to be restricted.
And when you wear a mask that is this deep off the face...
...no matter how much perforations you put...
...ultimately they just end up being this series of little tiny holes...
...way out on the periphery of your sight.
Dwarves are more than a match for Goblins.
Don't you worry about that.
Come on, buddy. Come on.
Come on, Pete. Be nice. Play nice together.
He's a bit shy. He don't talk much.
Goblin-town was one of the most demanding sequences that we did.
Because it was a very, very hot set.
BROWN: We started off in this kind of cage...
...and we had to look up and have hundreds of Goblins run at you.
MAN: Charge!
[ALL YELLING]
BROWN: And, honestly, it was pretty scary because the lighting was dark and dull...
...and there was lots of screaming involved where I was being caught.
It was really quite frightening.
We were all getting very, very tired when we did that sequence.
[ALL YELLING AND GRUNTING]
That by far was the roughest day on a film shoot I've ever done.
It was so hot in there. We had Goblins falling over.
Goblins that were meant to be harassing us were falling over...
...and we were having to pick them up off the ground.
You couldn't choreograph it.
All you could do is say to the Goblins:
"Okay, you've gotta go in and get them."
And all you could say to us was:
"You have to try and stop them getting you." Action!
[ALL YELLING AND GRUNTING]
McTAVISH: People were swinging punches and there was all sorts of stuff going on.
Pretty much everyone's been smashed in the face by the Dwarves.
Like Jimmy Nesbitt's elbowed me in the face twice.
I think my highlight was a head butt from Marky Hadlow. Yes!
Yeah, there was some bruising that day.
MAN: Cut! Cut!
They said, "Look, after each take-- Among the people playing Goblins--
--if you don't want to do it, put your hand up and you can stay back."
- People were actually overheating. - Every time there'd be one or two more.
Until, by the end, there was only about four Goblins attacking us.
Because all the rest of them had passed out.
[CHATTERING AND CHEERING]
WOMAN: How was that? - Good laugh. Ha-ha.
That was outrageous. And I couldn't see anything above this:
You look up and go, "Is that it?"
"I can see the tips of my fingers. That doesn't help."
I couldn't see a thing.
I could actually see really well. I was one of the lucky ones.
I had nice big holes, so, yeah, I could see. I could move around pretty well.
At one stage my fan turned off, so that got pretty warm.
Literally, they would pour the sweat out of their shoes at the end of the day.
I'm serious.
This is a foot that I've been wearing all day...
...and I'm just gonna empty out some of the goodness. Oh, God.
Very nice.
...and you say cut and these extras guys...
...they're just, they have a smile right then.
At the end of the day they're like, “I loved it, it was amazing...
...and I want to come back tomorrow and do more."
You go: “Hmm. What's wrong with these people?"
It's pretty impressive just to be able to get everyone moving...
...and it's nice to actually see it down...
...so we get an idea of what we're actually doing.
It's good. It's a good first day. Really good first day.
Peter made a lot of changes for the better after that day.
And things improved after that but still it was sort of, like...
...it was off to a very, very tough start.
You've suddenly got people who are incredibly hot...
...who can barely breathe...
...who have to have their heads off every three or four minutes...
...because they're literally, it's so stifling hot with the lights on the set.
MAN: Action! Action! Keep it alive. Keep it moving.
Busy in the background. Busy in the background, pushing around.
JACKSON: And suddenly, you know, you're realizing that the Goblins that you're filming...
...are not the Goblins that you had in your imagination...
...nor are they the designs that you saw, nor are they the movement that you saw.
It's coming together and it's not kind of working.
WOMAN: Four dwarves, we've got five stunt doubles...
So we ended up putting on sort of these green heads...
...so they could CG the heads on later.
The performers were able to breathe. They were able to feel less constricted.
Suddenly the movements that Terry had, you know, trained them...
...they were able to just focus and do more of that.
From my department I really wanted them to be moving correctly, you know?
And being able to be comfortable enough to where they could perform.
So yeah, that worked out good.
- That is the reason they say, "We'll fix it." -"We'll do it with CG Goblins."
- Yeah. CG. -"Let's do it in post."
Those Goblins won't die when you do three, four passes in a row.
So using these heads, these rugby helmet hats...
...and putting little markers on and putting reference cameras on everybody...
...we can actually track their position in 3D space...
...and then put the Goblin heads back on the bodies.
You know I take my job very, very seriously, as you can tell...
...by the amount of balls Fritz is putting on me.
The more serious you are, the more balls they put on you.
So at the moment, I'm kind of a big deal.
MAN: That way.
HENRY: I had a rip in my suit, on my bum.
So, Andy, my minder, had to put a boil to cover it up.
Yep. Right there.
Whenever you get rips in your suit, you get more boils put on.
So probably by the end of it, we're just gonna be walking boily messes.
It's just part of the daily routine for Goblins, unfortunately.
One minute you're on two legs, the next minute you're on all fours.
And the next minute you're on your front...
...bent over with someone patting your bottom.
WOMAN: Is this the best part of your job? - Putting boils on Johnny's butt...
...is the best part of my job. JOHNNY: It's the best part of my job.
Definitely.
WOMAN 1: You're gonna lick it. WOMAN 2: Lick it!
- That actually tastes like my sweat. MAN: Yeah. Funny that.
-It's not K-Y that's making that-- Yeah. - Oh, yours tastes disgusting!
- I'll get back to that one. - Ha-ha-ha.
It's really dangerous to leave Goblins by themselves.
It's a bit like if you leave your dog in your apartment, it goes a bit crazy.
So we had a couple of days that we turned up at a very early hour to get suited up...
...because we were all expected on set straight away, and we just waited.
And when we were made just to wait, sometimes people got a bit crazy.
Ready, Ben?
[GRUNTING]
[PEOPLE LAUGHING]
MAN 1: Don't break the suits. - Oh, shit!
- What's happening? MAN 2: I don't know.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Still good. Still good.
MEISTER: And then some people started dancing. Some people played other games...
...and it turned into a bit of a flash mob...
...and the idea that, “Let's put a dance sequence together."
I was queueing up to get our food in the catering tent...
...and the Goblins got together and did a big dance routine.
Goblins dancing while you're eating your lunch, obviously.
We're all sitting down eating lunch and talking about the day.
Which is weird enough as it is, you know, with a whole lot of Dwarves.
I mean, it's a weird experience.
And then there's suddenly a whole lot of Goblins dancing.
[UPBEAT DANCE MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS]
Just one of those random things that happen on set.
WOMAN: And action!
GREAT GOBLIN [SINGING]: Down, down, down to Goblin-town
GOBLINS [SINGING]: Down, down, down to Goblin-town
It's Day Four of the Goblins...
...and we've finally arrived at the Goblin King's throne.
The Goblin King is played by Barry Humphries, who is fantastic.
Welcome to your kingdom. You've got a few souvenirs.
Yes. Grisly souvenirs.
WOMAN: Just make sure that I get her.
We'll have you on a platform off to the side.
Because you're actually too small for this platform anyway.
So you're, like, nine or ten foot tall.
[SINGING] Down in Goblin-town
GOBLIN 1: Yeah!
In spite of the gross repellant appearance of the King of the Goblins...
...he's a highly intelligent man.
No tricks. I want the truth, warts and all.
Something quite Kiwi about him, in a way.
I played him as a New Zealander.
Search them for every crack, every crevice.
We realize that underneath it all...
...he is a New Zealand intellectual fallen upon hard times.
“Made in Rivendell."
Second age. Couldn't give it away.
I suppose in modern New Zealand he would have received a knighthood.
I haven't met a single person on this trip who is not knighted.
[LAUGHS]
I'm thinking of becoming a New Zealand citizen.
[CHUCKLES]
Barry Humphries, what a legend. Working with Barry Humphries.
I used to watch Dame Edna's show every Saturday night with my parents.
Hello, possums.
Hello, darlings, let me look at you.
Oh, you've aged! You--
So to meet him was pretty special. It was like, "Ahh."
I never meet other actors except at funerals or charitable events.
HUNTER: Barry Humphries was incredible. He got into the whole fun of it.
There's only a certain amount that he could do because it was all CG...
...but he was here on set and he was doing all the off lines.
It was not to be, but comfort yourselves with the thought...
...that you will die a needless and painful death...
...here in the Misty Mountains.
No doubt some Dwarf minstrel will turn the whole sorry episode...
...into an irritating ballad in years to come.
[ACTORS YELLING]
Very, very hard to keep a straight face through some of his dialogue.
Kiran, are you gonna come around and bloody have it first to beat these guys?
And having Kiran, heh, Kiran Shah, this annoying little Goblin.
[BROPHY CHUCKLES]
He's a very naughty little man.
Peter encouraged Kiran to dry hump Mark Hadlow...
...I think out of pity.
KIRAN:
So Kiran ****** my leg for the whole of the scene.
And I'm trying to throw this little guy off. "Get off. Stop ******* my leg."
This above all is a family film...
...and any depictions of perverse sexual activity...
...could only be described as educational.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[LAUGHING]
The whole world's gonna see me beating on a little man who's humping my leg.
Peter Jackson, you've got a lot to answer for.
No, Mark Hadlow enjoyed it.
He can protest all he likes. And protest he will.
But Mark Hadlow, you know, I really did it for Mark.
I did it for Mark's benefit.
Mark takes it where he can and on that day he took it from a midget.
There's nothing wrong with that.
At one point I thought, “I'm not gonna notice it."
[LAUGHING]
- So last day as Goblins. - Last day as Goblins? Yeah. Last day.
The thing I will miss the most is the absolute ridiculousness of me...
...and my friends turning up really early in the morning...
...and getting into really big silicone suits, and just sitting around having fun all day.
I'm going to super miss all the Weta people just taking ridiculous care of us.
- I'm not even sure my parents did that. - Ha-ha-ha. I know my parents didn't do that.
WOMAN: Dominatrix.
I was in the supermarket and I found rather than walking upright...
...I was actually shuffling forward like a Goblin. I didn't even have this on.
- Yeah, it never really leaves though. -It sort of seeps into your soul, you know.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
[ALL GRUNTING AND GROWLING]
Several months later, when we were editing the scene...
...we also were able to enhance it quite a lot by adding completely digital Goblins.
So we were able to put more digital Goblins in the scenes...
...with the people in the suits with no heads...
...and in some cases we replaced the suits entirely with digital Goblins.
It sort of ended up being an amalgam a little bit of each technique.
You may scratch your head and say, "Why just not jump straight...
...from design to the digital characters that we see in the movie?"
By having the mob in there...
...by having this dynamic, energized group of Goblin extras...
...backed up by the incredible acting skills, bravado, just cool stuff...
...that the stunt guys do, it all just brings a reality to the stage.
SAINDON: It's always better to have something on set. We did replace Goblins...
...but the creepiness of the Weta Workshop Goblins still came across...
...because the actors had a few days where they did have these guys...
...in these really creepy suits and they were able to get that into their head...
...so they knew what these Goblins were gonna be.
I was actually freaked out by the Goblins.
Oh, dear. So that was just reality.
That is-- That's giving me the shakes.
And, ultimately, it can only lead to a better experience...
...for the audience when they watch the movie.
[GOBLINS SCREECHING AND GROWLING]
JACKSON: So the fact that we went to digital Goblins...
...actually ultimately gave me an opportunity...
...to make this whole sequence a little more dynamic...
...than what it would have otherwise been.
I was able to get Goblins doing stuff that the guys in suits...
...were just not capable of doing...
...just physically, like a human being wouldn't be capable of doing.
- Cut the ropes! JACKSON: It was one of those things...
...that ultimately worked out for the best, the fact that they became largely CGI...
...I think just helps to enhance the whole sequence.
[GROWLING AND SCREAMING]
[GRUNTING]
THORIN: Out of the frying pan.
GANDALF: And into the fire. Run.
Run!
Morning.
JACKSON: Good morning. Good morning. - Yeah.
McTAVISH: Philippa, Fran and Peter are shaping the story continually.
So it is a constantly evolving organic process. So that's why you get script changes literally...
...on the day you're shooting.
JACKSON: We tweaked a couple of lines this morning-- Well, Aidan's got a line...
Yes.
A couple of Ian's got tweaked.
- This is incorporating some of your thoughts. McKELLEN: Thank you very much.
I've been allowed to make a few suggestions vis-à-vis the script.
All of you, quick! Now! This way!
Run! Follow me!
- That's all good, that. That's all good. - Climb! Climb! High as you can, up the tree!
All of you, now.
Climb! Run!
- That's good. BROWN: Your pack needs to climb up.
Quick!
BROWN: Hurry. - Hurry!
I'm not one of the scriptwriters. I'm just a concerned actor...
...probably with a bit too much time on his hands...
...who's made a few suggestions.
- This way. -lan, what I thought with you...
...is that if you draw a couple of them through the front of you here...
BROWN: He's here somewhere. JACKSON: ...and you stop here...
Whether it should be "11, 12 and Bombur"...
...or whether it should be "Bifur, Bombur..."
Or whether we should actually be naming.
McKELLEN: I think it would be better to name. - I think it is better too, isn't it?
[BOTH CHUCKLE]
MAN: Brilliant. BROWN: You had it done perfectly before.
[INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE]
FREEMAN: Not my-- - Dori, Nori. Ori!
- That was months back. - Come on, come on.
MAN 1: Here we go, rehearsal. MAN 2: You're gonna hit bumps.
JACKSON: And action.
McKELLEN: Five, six...
Bifur. Bofur. That's 10.
Fili, Kili! That's 12.
And Bombur. That makes 13.
We have to run along and get lifted on to trees...
...by various people.
Get that foot up there, you...
And then the trees fall onto each other.
We needed to have some trees...
...that would shake with the actors on.
O'GORMAN: And they can dial it up to how strong they want it.
So they turn it up a little bit and the tree shakes a little bit...
...they turn it up a lot, and it shakes all the way across.
[GRUNTS]
O'GORMAN: So me and Aidan, we were going, "What are the stunts he's doing?"
We were like, "We can do that. We can do all the stunts he did."
Trying to prove we can do what the stunties do, which we can't.
So Andy, for the last take, went, "Okay, yeah, lock it up."
And they turned it up really high.
I mean, it literally almost threw us out of the tree.
MAN: Will you shut up?
O'GORMAN: And then I sort of fell back.
And as I fell back...
...the tree came forward, like smashed me on the chest.
And I made this involuntary squeak. It kind of came out just like:
[SQUEAKS]
MAN: All right, smash!
[O'GORMAN SQUEALS]
And everyone heard it.
Like the whole crew just heard me yelling like a tiny scared mouse.
MAN: And cut!
[ALL LAUGHING]
What's happened at this point is that Gandalf, he's lit a pine cone...
...and he's thrown a pine cone down into the Wargs.
The whole mass of Wargs is down here going crazy.
And they've made these pine cones that--
Pine cone-shaped and had real little lights going all the way around.
We wanted interactive light coming from the pine cones.
So one day, Reg rang me up and he said:
"Rickster, I want you to make me some ﬂaming pine cones."
I thought, “I've heard everything now."
But apparently this is what he wanted.
There were all RF so we could radio control them.
So we could sit down and my board operator could switch them on...
...and dim them up and down, whatever.
So these create the light effect on the faces of the Dwarves.
And they throw them around and hopefully don't break them.
The first pine cone we ever built...
...we brought on set. This is the baby, right?
This is pretty awesome because we were very proud of it.
So the executive producer, Zane Weiner, got ahold of this thing...
...and the first thing he did is throw it straight on the floor.
GARSIDE: Goddamn it. - And it's on the concrete.
Just-- I gotta say that was not a piece of the scene, that was the studio ﬂoor.
GARSIDE: He just threw it. MAN: Right.
And we go, "Hang on, we haven't even shown Pete this thing yet."
- Did you get that? CAMERAMAN: Yeah, I did.
He thought it was a great joke, we didn't, but there you go.
The problem with them...
...was, obviously, once all the Dwarves started getting hold of them...
...they're throwing them everywhere.
MAN: Now volley!
Burn, you Wargs!
[GRUNTS. LAUGH]
Yes! Ha-ha-ha!
Yeah!
So I would go, like:
[SPEAKS IN DWARVISH]
Which means "fire upon you."
MAN: Yes! - That was the girliest throw in the world.
You know, you're very much in the hands, in those scenes, of the filmmakers who...
...with the particular angle of the camera, will make it look more dangerous...
...than it actually is.
SERKIS: And when you're directing this kind of stuff, which requires timing...
...you know, it's all in the imagination, Wargs appearing down on the floor level.
SERKIS: Three, two, one. Crash!
You've got to drop down burning pine cones which are actually lights...
...which come on at a particular time.
All of that stuff- Ian doesn't like getting caught up with that kind of direction.
When you're dealing with Andy as a director--
This is a superb actor.
--He can cut straight through, as actors often can with other actors...
...to the root.
You are searching for an answer...
McKELLEN: What's going on?
So you feel very secure.
Ian has to know exactly what he's thinking and feeling...
...or else it can feel very fake to him.
SERKIS: There's gonna be the Dwarves-- The Dwarves arriving first.
Before the b--
They'd arrived. You didn't see them?
But he didn't like receiving direction whilst the scene's going on.
SERKIS: Just watching the Wargs now, watching the Wargs...
...to see it working.
[MCKELLEN GRUNTS]
SERKIS: The Wargs are all below you. They're barking and they're going crazy. Here we go.
There was one day I think where he tore me off a strip for doing that.
SERKIS: Do you want me to cue you for the judders?
- I'll cue you for the--
I'll say, three, two, one, crash.
Just tell me what happens and then I'll try and do it without you...
SERKIS: Okay. Yep. -...telling me.
And then at the end of this, he kind of:
"You know, because I can't think and I can't do it if you're calling it out...
...because then I can't react to it, you know, truthfully."
If you tell me what to do, then I do it.
And of course what you do isn't always expressed on your face, and I--
So you say angry...then I go angry and...
I'd rather be angry inside. Know what I mean?
But I was going, "Yeah, but, Ian, actually you need to be cued for that...
...otherwise you'll never know when it's gonna happen."
And he goes, "Well, yes, of course. If it's a matter of cueing then..." Heh, heh.
SERKIS: It's a matter of timing for the Wargs arriving.
Yes, I appreciate that. And then you must cue me, of course, in that case.
SERKIS: Okay, so it was very funny.
It was very funny, that. I do remember that.
It's the director and the people behind the camera who know exactly what they're doing...
...and have planned for it over months upon years.
The day comes to film it and we just have to do what we're told, really.
Now, if I'm not doing it right, darling, you must shout out, but--
SERKIS: Okay.
This behind me is the forest ledge set.
It's a set we built a few months ago.
We shot a lot of action on it.
There was always a point where we were gonna have to come back...
...bring it back and resurrect it and burn it.
This is pre-burn.
We're just getting ready now to do the big burning scene.
INGRAM: You know, we were sort of being told...
...that if we can just do sort of a token flame here and there...
...that would be enough, and we'll put on CG flames later and--
Us, as a group decided...
...that even though, you know, we actually have only got one night to plumb it...
...that we're gonna do as much as we can...
...to put as much fire as we physically can and have it, you know, real.
Pete's asked for some foreground elements...
...that the camera can sort of head past that's on fire.
That's what we're running at the moment.
Keeping a plan of what's going on is our biggest thing.
So we always draw up little sketches.
So we've all gone to art school for this. Heh, heh.
And we just number everything so all our operators know what's going on.
We probably had about 18 or 20 sources of flame.
And it was quite scary for a lot of people...
...when we did our first test on the night Peter wanted to see it.
So we lit it all up, everyone was, you know, quite taken back, I think...
...by how much fire there was.
As long as you control it, you know, that's what we do.
If you hear this:
[BLOWING]
It means we want you to evacuate out of the building.
SERKIS: Should we just assume that in terms of the length and number of resets...
...that we-- You will make the call as to when it is--?
Or someone will make the call as to when to stop and tell us...
-...then we'll just--? MAN: Right.
Steve, you probably want to sprinkle a bit of burning crap on this rock here.
INGRAM: This rock? - Yeah. That's right in the foreground.
WOMAN: Striding scenes, thank you.
Striding, Richard!
You see all these ﬂames, then I heard somebody saying:
"We just need the flames as a reference. They're gonna be CGI flames."
And I'm like, “Why am I walking through these flames...
...if it's gonna be CGI?"
But I'm kind of glad that they did do that...
...because it gave me what I needed to feel that moment of heroism.
There was one day where I was doing that run down the log...
...it was with Andy on Second Unit. SERKIS: Great, Richard, one more.
I was running from the beginning of the day till the end of the day.
[YELLING]
MAN: And reset. WOMAN: Reset it.
[YELLING]
And I didn't stop running all day.
And I was determined.
I knew what Andy had done on the Rings.
I knew the physical demands that he put on himself.
WOMAN: This way, Andy.
I'm out of breath there.
That was--
MAN: How cold? -It was cold.
It was freezing, but it was the energy needed to keep going through.
I remember him saying, “You got another one in you?"
WOMAN: Reset. MAN: We've got time for one more. One more'?
WOMAN: Thank you. Still rolling.
ARMITAGE: And I was like, “Yup, I got another one in me."
Knowing that my legs were about to go underneath me.
[YELLS]
SERKIS: And reset. Are you all right, Richard? WOMAN: Resetting.
SERKIS: By then it was the modus operandi, was to do rolling resets, was to--
Because it's shooting pixels, you can go straight in for another take.
[YELLING]
Okay, just reset. We'll do one more.
I would just-- I was not gonna give in.
I was gonna keep running for Andy Serkis.
- And cut. Cut, out, cut. WOMAN 1: Cutting there.
WOMAN 2: Thank you. Making safe. MAN: Coming down.
WOMAN 2: Cutting and making safe.
Look.
[SCREAMS]
Okay, now we got these guys on eagles. Okay, how are we gonna shoot that?
We'll take out the steepness...
...and just do the flap, flap, glide, and then bank. Yeah.
The Special Effects built a great motion-based body of an eagle. it was all computer operated.
MAN 1: Thank you. Rehearsing, and action.
MAN 2: And now the top down. Right down, right down, right down.
CLAYTON: When we were prevising the eagle sequence...
...we went to the trouble of creating quite a well-animated flight cycle on the eagle...
...so that our previs would have the right scale and feel majestic...
...and sort of get the tone of the sequence.
So we would take the previs data...
...and we could extract the movement data from it...
...and program our base to replicate exactly what the creature was doing in previs.
So our base scenes are moving just like the animated model moves.
So what it means is that the Digital Department and the Physical Effects Department...
...are both working with the same motion as one another.
When that comes back to us in the form of the live action that they shot...
...we know that the wings and everything are in the right poses...
...so we can just apply our cycle at that point and we have the confidence to know:
"Yes, it's gonna work. It's gonna interact with our digital eagle."
We sort of had a short amount of time, and the word came that, you know...
...we were gonna get the actors onto the eagle and shoot all the stuff.
- This one's very-- It's very safe. - And I should go up?
Yeah, I think the time has come.
WOMAN: Okay, Ian's ascending. MAN: We're gonna--
WOMAN: Ian, we'll just hook you up before you get up there, sir.
We'll just hook you up from the back before you get up.
Ian would, you know, do as many physical things as he could.
O'GORMAN: Ian McKellen sets a pretty good precedent, like, he works a lot.
He takes it all with good grace.
MAN: Action.
INGRAM: Ian, you know, he just killed it, you know, so--
Did everything perfectly, enjoyed it, and said thanks at the end of the day.
JACKSON: And cut it. Good.
I think that's great, Ian.
All the actors from then were like:
"Oh, well, I can get on and do it." You know, "I can do it."
The eagle.
- Now you ride an eagle and look cool. O'GORMAN: Yeah.
Well, that's good.
Oh.
JACKSON: Okay, here we go.
All right, and action.
I can't believe--
JACKSON: Can somebody just step in and grab Adam's trouser leg?
Pull it down a bit.
Not you.
You can take your hands off his trousers.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
JACKSON: That looks good. It's a bit more of a Bilbo-ish kind of eagle flight...
-...than a Harley-Davidson sort of ride. - Okay. Sure.
It was great fun because it was on hydraulics. And Bifur, of course, being a little abnormal...
...decides to stand up on his eagle.
NESBITT: Bifur!
KIRCHER: And Bofur looks out and goes, you know:
"Get down, get down." Drags him down.
I did it with Bill Kircher.
And he was, of course, going bananas, you know.
And that's-- So I was just trying to make sure that I could also be seen in shot.
Which is often a challenge with Bill Kircher.
Peter and Andy Serkis, and saying, you know:
"We'll be talking you through the various emotions you'll be feeling."
And it was just a great kind of marriage of what your acting imagination can do...
...beside an extraordinary and unusual constructive bit of machinery.
And I love that. Really great.
It's fireworks. Good.
Pretend fireworks. That's what you have to do.
It's the first day of being Hobbits, and we are shooting on a stage.
And we have been filming at Old Took's party, which is when Bilbo is 4 years old.
Look at his hair. Look at his hair.
It's a scene where Gandalf actually lays eyes on a young Bilbo Baggins...
...and so we wanted a lot of children.
I'm gonna go "three, two, one," kaboom.
And Gandalf's gonna let off...
...a particularly big firework right up above us in the sky here.
And another one, bang!
[CROWD GASPS]
Maybe you lock arms. Lock arms.
Let's see.
[SCATTING AND GIGGLING]
Maybe not. Ha, ha, ha, we tried that one.
Peter said to me, "You know, Dan, how would you like to be Old Took?
You could be Old Took."
And I said, "Oh, you--"
Well, what a great opportunity.
I must say, it's interesting to be able to see your nose.
- Yes. - Ha, ha, ha.
HENNAH: Peter's sense of humor wouldn't let my nose just be a big nose.
It had to be a huge nose.
Good morning, sir.
- Especially made for you? -It was especially made for me.
I think Peter had a hand in making my nose.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
Well, I gave him about the biggest nose of all.
- But you don't need a wig. - No, I don't need a wig.
I think you may be the only character in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit...
...not to wear a wig.
-Interesting. - A good quiz question.
I should check that one out.
Of all the people on the films, his appearance has changed the least over the 13 years.
There's still a mass of unruly white hair and the beard and mustache...
...and always a ready smile.
He's one of the most comfortable people to have around.
Soto see him all dressed up and smiling even more broadly...
...was very pleasant.
[LAUGHING]
HENNAH: Hello.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Look at Grandpa.
GIRL: Take your nose off.
I can't take it off.
It's gotta stay on all day.
Oh, my goodness, the whole day?
HENNAH: It was a great experience to be in a set that we've created.
And Dan, you plop yourself down there. You're the biggest Punch and Judy fan.
You're watching a Punch and Judy show...
...and you're kind of enjoying it more than the kids.
The whole thing was just exciting, and lots of energy, lots of laughter.
No, I won't. All right, you can have-- All right, you can have it.
Amazing how being on a family show where you have access to all these children...
...to work as actors.
And they're all beautiful and wonderful...
...and know how to perform.
Hi, darling. How are you?
So there I was...
...at the mercy of three monstrous trolls.
- Hey, darling. - Hi.
It's really great, because he's working so much throughout the day I don't get to see him.
So when I do come on the set and I'm able to kind of work with him, it's just great.
I think I've got the biggest Hobbit feet.
- Holy Mary. - Out of everyone.
- It's bigger than the boys' as well. - Holy God.
FREEMAN: Oh, my gosh.
Was that the plan, that you've got really big feet?
- No. No, not at all. - Right.
-It's just my feet size. GIRL: Yeah.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHATTERING]
JACKSON: Let's put Amelia down in the front here too.
My main memory of that day is, A, we had to hire a clown to entertain the children.
So we were all about the clown in the production office.
Hi. Heh, heh.
That wasn't me, by the way.
I didn't do that smell.
- Let's look at Harry. HENNAH: Yes.
JACKSON: And then fireworks.
GANDALPH: Look up! Oh, ho!
It was a crazy day, actually, because that was the day we were packing to go on location.
MAN: Off we go.
YORKE: Production wasn't really concerned about what was actually going on on set...
...apart from the clown.
Peter drove up in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that day.
I think that really set the tone for that day.
JACKSON: I've got the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car.
It's one of my prized possessions.
So on that day, we had all the kids and I brought the car in.
Incredibly magical day. You turn up to work...
...and there's the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car, just sitting in the parking lot.
The keys are in it. Let's go around the block.
JACKSON: It was interesting, very few of the kids were interested in the car...
...but all the 40- and 50-year-olds went crazy about it.
WOMAN: He wants to meet the car. - That is so awesome, man.
- It's pretty awesome. MAN: Yep.
JACKSON: Thank you very much, everybody.
Thank you very much, Hobbits.
- Thank you. WOMAN: Finished.
[ALL APPLAUDING]
YORKE: it kind of had a holiday feel about it...
...that we were going on the road...
...which is the bit everyone looked forward to the most.
You've been in the studio for so long, you're finally getting outside.
I mean, that's the part of filming that everyone just loves, is being on location.
Hi there. Good to see you all back again. Uh, here we are at Hobbiton.
That's another one down, yeah. Only 16 to go.
We got security on the gate just to stop any infiltrators.
There's plenty of people who will give it a go.
Up on the corner there is one place where we invariably find somebody packed up.
Just gonna walk across the field there.
We get suspicious as soon as we see a car, if any of my spies see a car.
We've catch them halfway in.
The other day we caught them three-quarters of the way in.
Hello, hello, hello. What's going on here?
So we escorted them off...
...but they'd had a look, and they're quite pleased with their...
Their adventure, that's for sure.
[ALL CHATTERING]
Shall we go for a wander, eh? Let's go down to Bag End.
Actually, coming down into Bag End.
Yes.
Bilbo has no privacy.
WOMAN: Look at that. MAN: Yeah.
When we shot Ian in London, we kind of--
The idea was that he came out of this doorway.
Ha, ha, ha. He wouldn't miss a chance to let off his Whizpoppers.
- You know, stood here... MAN: Yup.
...and then Frodo was gonna run off down that hill.
But we've also got the other one-- The earlier shot of Frodo collecting mail.
WOMAN: That's what we're doing. Yeah.
JACKSON: Right.
WOMAN: Go.
- Heh, hey, dude. JACKSON: Heh, heh, heh.
Made it.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
WOMAN: All right, we're shooting.
MAN 1: He'll never make it to the east. MAN 2: Yeah.
MAN 3: Here we go. MAN 4: Ready.
MAN 3: And action!
WOOD: The experience of making Rings and the friendships forged making it...
...and the growth that I experienced in making it...
...will always be one of the greatest experiences of my life.
It's incredible to be back.
I think when we finished pick-ups of Return of the King in 2003...
...I didn't anticipate ever playing Frodo again or ever returning to Middle-earth.
And, in a way, it kind of feels like vacation for me...
...because I get to return to New Zealand and see old friends, so it's just all fun.
I have none of the, heh, responsibility that I had before.
Of the stress, of the weight of the entire story.
FREEMAN: And I'm older than Elijah...
...and certainly I'm older now than he was. There's quite an age difference...
...between what I'm going through in Hobbiton and what he was going through in Hobbiton.
What ultimately those three films meant for him in his life...
...and what they're going to mean for me in my life.
[CHATTERING]
- Action. WOMAN: Action.
For him, you could tell it was weird because he was saying, "This is weird for me."
Do you think he'll come?
It's a mixture of nostalgia and surrealism and, uh...
Not being able to process it.
- Okay. We're all good, aren't we? MAN: Yes.
Shall we--? Do you wanna do a rehearsal with this or do you wanna shoot it?
JACKSON: Should we rehearse on-- - Why don't we do that?
WOMAN: Action!
The thing I loved about it is it so cleverly sits us right back...
...in a moment that happens just before we see them in Fellowship.
- Do you think he'll come? BILBO: Who?
Gandalf.
WOOD: He has a book in his hand...
...and he's going to the East-farthing Woods to wait for Gandalf.
And the first moment you meet Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring...
...is sitting in the tree, reading the book, hearing Gandalf's arrival and meeting Gandalf.
So it's just so cleverly constructed.
So I think you come back and you look at that sign...
...and then you realize Bilbo is there and--
That feeling of asking about Gandalf should be sort of slightly excited...
-...but a bit tentative, you know-- - Yeah.
It's a bit sort of childish, but you're kind of excited about doing it anyway, so--
- You know, that sort of feeling will be great. - Okay.
JACKSON: Here we go, please. Rehearsal time.
And action!
- What, it's Elijah's last shot? Last shot. - Ha, ha, ha.
- Is it? -“Last shot" last shot. Oh...
- Is it? - I remember the last--
Last time we did this in Lord of the Rings, it wasn't fun.
One of the lasting memories of The Lord of the Rings...
...is the last day of the shoot and actually shooting Elijah's last shot.
It's been four years to the day since Weathertop, Sam.
It has never really healed.
JACKSON: And having this rather devastating feeling that I would never...
...work with Elijah as Frodo Baggins again...
And cut.
Lovely. Lovely last shot.
WOOD: Thank you.
JACKSON: Take good care, all right? WOOD: It's been so amazing, Peter.
JACKSON: You've been so amazing. You did great.
Thank you very, very much.
- What a shot to go out on, huh? - Yeah.
- Right, then. I'm off. BILBO: Off to where?
East-farthing Woods. I'm going to surprise him.
BILBO: Well, go on, then. You don't want to be late.
So, everybody, that was Elijah's last shot.
[ALL CHEERING]
MCKELLEN: I mean, "Oh!"
WOOD: I didn't quite know how to react. MAN: Elijah Wood.
- Whoa! All right? WOOD: What a treat.
Who would've thought it would ever happen again?
- I know. - Another last day.
- Indeed. - There's not too many last days.
We have to make this the "last" last day apart from the next time we have a last day.
It was kind of like stepping back into time and connecting with your family...
...and having a kind of family reunion.
Where were you running off to?
- To see you. -Intimate--
-intimate moment too. WOOD: That's right.
JACKSON: To the trilogy. WOOD: Yeah.
Running off into 1999.
I know.
When they called last shot, I didn't-- I didn't know how to--
Ha, I didn't know how to process it.
- I turned 19 at this location. - Did you?
WOMAN 1: Yes, I do. WOMAN 2: Birthday boy. Mwah!
- Happy birthday. MAN: Yes, well, of course.
WOMAN 1 : Nineteen today.
I'm 30 now.
- Jesus. - Ha, ha, ha, ha!
- That puts things into perspective. - Oh, God.
Here we go. We can film something.
- Say hello. - Hello.
Goodbye.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
JACKSON: Elijah's last shot.
- Yes. - We were here--
- And the sun came out for it. - The sun came out for it.
We were here in 1999.
And it's 2011.
My God. Same location.
WOOD: And it looks no different.
There's a few more extra Hobbit-holes this time around.
JACKSON: Right. - That's it.
The scary thing is you look no different, Elijah.
[WOOD LAUGHS]
JACKSON: Very good.
The market in Hobbiton. Day one.
- He means-- Oh, sorry. Cheers. - Cheers.
Good morning, Hobbits. Thank you for coming.
My name's Carol.
This, of course, is Peter.
This is Bilbo.
Hello.
- Good morning. - Good morning.
We're just chatting.
[ALL GIGGLING]
We love casting Hobbits.
Casting Hobbits is always a really fun casting.
Hobbit-type people are really close to their characters.
[ALL LAUGHING]
They're really lovely and sweet and chatty and gorgeous. They're Hobbits.
My daughter wanted to go to the auditions and so I went to keep her company.
And she didn't get to be a Hobbit, but I did.
And I was so thrilled.
Because she's a lady, she can choose which husband she wants.
- Oh, okay. - I can't do that.
Have the good-looking one.
- I'm too short to reach-- Ha, ha, ha! - Perhaps--
They're short and round and cheerful...
...and they have round eyes and round cheeks.
[CHUCKLES]
- I'm a natural. MAN: Guys, you ready?
And they have a naughty twinkle in their eye...
...I tell you. MAN: Sweep that up.
I've smoked better stuff.
[CHUCKLING]
When we cast extras, we always like to use locals from the area.
It makes a lot of sense to use people who live nearby to the set.
I auditioned in Matamata.
I actually went for a friend who wanted some company...
...and unfortunately he didn't get in, but I did.
So I feel slightly bad about that. And if he's watching, I'm terribly sorry.
I thought my mom was joking at the start. She was serious when she said:
“You should audition to be a Hobbit."
And I think after about two and a half thousand people...
...here we are. Fantastic.
A lot of people turned up saying, "I've always been told by my friends I was a Hobbit."
Hello.
I've always wanted to be a Hobbit.
- Yeah. Just random. - All my life.
And all my friends, they're jealous, and I can't tell them anything...
...or I'd have to kill them.
We had some familiar old faces who are now really old.
A few that had originally been in Lord of the Rings...
...you know, turned up. Gorgeous.
The Lord of the Rings, we had-- We were on as a Hobbit quite a bit.
There was more main actors and more, you know...
- With this, we have people say-- MAN: There's more of everything.
JACKSON: Have a bit of fun, here we go!
Okay, background, action. Go! And action.
WOMAN: What's your name?
Sometimes the shots are so wide and there's so many extras...
...Carol, the first AD...
...wants to communicate with someone on set, in frame...
...to adjust the position of the extras if need be.
- I'm gonna send you later. - Okay.
So the timing is gonna be better.
So we're dressed as Hobbits because they keep telling me...
...I look like a Hobbit anyway. They're like, "Put a costume on."
WOMAN: He makes a good Hobbit. They'll never know.
MAN: He does make a good Hobbit.
What I love about working with Peter and Fran is that-- And Philippa...
...is that they get this whole family thing.
It's really lovely when people can get their children...
...and crew members can get their little cameos.
Hi.
RIVERS: it really makes it feel like you own the project.
That made it such a special day for us all.
MAN: You wanna tell us what you're doing? - Behind the scene!
Absolutely best day of their lives.
WOMAN: How's that look? - This is Terry and Ruby.
- Guys, this is Martin. FREEMAN: Yes. Hello, both of you.
You're beautiful.
One of the things I'm really pleased about that this production does...
...is give fans a chance to come onto the set.
A lot of stuff with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
And there was a woman in a wheelchair who came in...
...and she was made up as a Hobbit and she was--
You know, she could barely move.
And she communicated, I think, through...
I'm not sure if it was through blinking.
You see just in her eyes...
...the joy that she had being on set on The Hobbit.
It's actually very hard to sort of work on things when you know--
You think, “We're making a film. It's really important."
Then you see something that's really important and you go, "Oh, Jesus. God."
But...
It is important because...
Because it's important to them.
And so-- You know, I really--
Oh, God, I feel such idiotic--
But this is how-- You know, this is how it sort of made me feel.
That's what I really remember from that marketplace scene, actually.
That this is her wish, and...
I'm very proud of-- I don't know.
How we looked after them.
I'm such a dufus.
[CHUCKLES]
JACKSON: How are you? - Yeah. You know, good.
- So how's your week been? -It's been a great week.
- Yeah? -It's been good. We got everything done.
- Great. - Haven't left you too many bits to tidy up.
You've only got your wonderful shots you have to do first, but not--
- Ha, ha, ha. - Not much clean-up work to have to do.
We'd sometimes bump into where Main Unit were leaving.
So Second Unit would literally come in as Main Unit were pulling away.
JACKSON: One of the other shots you could do...
...could be running out of the door of Bag End.
He should just slam the door behind him. Don't have him be too fussy, you know?
He's really kind of racing-- And he's got the contract in his hand.
Comes bounding out through the gate and racing down this path.
We're supposed to be doing some shots in beautiful sunshine...
...but as you can see, that it ain't.
Not today.
What we're shooting at the moment is basically the moments leading up to Bilbo's departure.
Action.
JACKSON: I think this is the one.
So it's the sense of everyday mundane life in Hobbiton...
...and a dawning realization that, “Is this gonna be it? Is this as good as it gets?"
MAN: Action!
SERKIS: The dawn shots and the dusk shots have been fantastic.
And we did one the other night and--
People coming home from the fields.
The Green Dragon door should open, people are making their way back along that path.
All the supporting artists have become fully into character...
...and they're gonna find it hard to leave, I suspect...
...when they go back to their normal lives.
It's rather sad. But we've decided we'd have this party on the last day...
...just to celebrate and put the Green Dragon to good use.
So cheers. Mm.
GANDALF: This way, you fools!
THORIN: Come on, move!
[WARGS HOWLING]
JACKSON: We wanted to use this location...
...primarily because it's a chase.
The dynamics of everyone running, weaving in and out of rocks...
...with helicopter shots zooming over the top...
...and Wargs coming through the rock formations.
We just thought that would give us a dynamic kind of energy...
...and be the right landscape for this.
BROPHY: it looks very otherworldly.
Perfect for running. You go from one rock formation, and you sprint...
...between that rock formation and the next one.
And it seemed to be just a series of 100-meter sprints.
JACKSON: We've got you guys, we got all the stunt doubles here.
We can go whichever way we want.
So we're here, I figured we'll just use people until they start falling over...
...and then we'll bring the next lot on in.
And, um, ha, ha...
MAN: Action!
KIRCHER: We did a lot of running on Strath Taieri.
And that was part of, again, scene 88, which has become famous.
The ongoing scene 88 was never-ending.
MAN 1: Come on. MAN 2: Run.
Oh, my gosh. Scene 88, we ran and we ran and we ran.
Up mountains, through streams, we ran and ran and ran.
- Not only Dwarves can fight. - We can run.
And we ran some more from Wargs.
A long way. Probably the length of the country. Ha-ha-ha. I don't know.
We need you to be powering like an Olympic athlete.
That scene went on forever.
Go, run.
JACKSON: Run. Look back over your shoulder. Run.
FREEMAN: Jesus Christ, it was tedious.
First days, okay. But it just seemed to go on and on and on.
Quick! Your lives depend on it.
JACKSON: Down you come. Keep moving.
MAN 1: And cut. MAN 2: Cut.
MAN 3: We're just gonna find out what we're doing next.
- I guess it's gonna be running. MAN 4: Oh, really?
MAN: Action!
[ALL GRUNTING AND SHOUTING]
I've got a singlet, "Middle-earth Fun Run, proudly sponsored by scene 88."
Scene 88 became like a full-length feature in itself.
And took as long to make as some films.
I think there was another movie somewhere called Warg, which is scene 88.
Brain Warg, Warg dead.
Heavenly Wargs. Warg creatures.
And the list goes on.
If you said, “Jed, do you wanna do 10 push-ups?"
He'd go, "I'd love to." He'll do 10 push-ups. And he loves being active and moving around.
So he became like our canary in the mine.
I remember Jed bent over, he looked at me and he goes:
"I don't know if I can do another take." Ha, ha. I thought for Jed to say that...
...then we must be pretty close to, you know, calling it quits.
But then we did do another take, and we did another couple, another couple.
Peter likes to do one more for safety or one more for light.
And we were very safe on that day.
JACKSON: Whoa. Oh, careful.
Hard work on difficult terrain. You have to watch your step.
Come on.
McKELLEN: And sometimes when Gandalf is striding over the tussocks...
...leading the Dwarves, even running, it may not be me...
...because we need to distinguish between the heights of Dwarves and Wizards.
Therefore, you have to have a Big Paul.
Big Paul used to be a policeman. Still is a policeman.
He was spotted on the street...
...because how could he not be?
He's nearly 7 feet tall.
JACKSON: Top of the hat, please. Top of the hat. Pull his hat.
WOMAN: Nobody can reach, Pete.
Turned out to be a very difficult sequence to shoot. There was a lot of shots...
...and it had to be split between main unit and second unit.
You know, it required previs that we did beforehand...
...so we had to do some quite tricky camera moves to put the Wargs in it.
Pete's brief was he wanted...
...a large-scale cat-and-mouse chase across a landscape.
The Dwarves are kind of being smart in using gullies and hiding behind rocks.
And these Wargs are kind of tearing across the landscape looking for them.
Fran actually called them on this, and goes, "They're dogs, predators.
They'll just smell them and find them."
So they introduced Radagast.
So he's actually trying to lead them away.
You know, other Wargs show up and he has to turn, and he actually...
...inadvertently ends up bringing them across the trail of the Dwarves.
It was what I call a jigsaw puzzle scene...
...where you're just shooting a little piece here and there over a long period of time.
The chase starts in one environment and it moves through another...
...and it ends in a third environment.
And these were, you know, hundreds of miles apart...
...these different locations.
For the actors, it's like, "Hey, we gotta do more running for scene 88, guys.“
Then a week or two later, “We gotta do more running for scene 88."
That kind of went on and on.
I'd never had the time or the energy to go back and look, but maybe one day I will...
...to see how many times it actually appeared on a call sheet.
Particularly second unit's call sheet.
[ALL CHATTERING]
SERKIS: As we pan off from Wargs here.
Coming in to here, rise up above, and Wargs are running in the distance.
WONG: We were helicoptered on top of peaks and mountains, nowhere.
And it'd be, "What we're gonna do is we're gonna fly over you...
...and you're gonna run as far as you can."
And there'd be days and days and days of that.
We've got running for the next 10 days or so.
Hopefully the helicopters and the mountains will make up for this weather.
Do some warming up, boys, so you don't go straight into it cold.
Run, run, run.
MAN: Action!
Cut there. Cut there.
Whoo! Well...
...that's our thousandth shot on second unit.
That's our thousandth shot, everyone.
[ALL CHEERING]
One thousand shots, and we've just done an 11-minute take.
It was a bit of an experimental vibe...
...coming all the way down from Strath Taieri rocks to base camp.
And it was a thing of beauty.
And here we all are, and we're gonna go and celebrate.
FREEMAN: I like location, but I--
It's not my favorite part of the job.
It's not my favorite part. I like being in a studio, actually.
And I think I may be the only person who thinks that.
So I don't really shout about it.
Because-- If everyone else is like:
"We're outdoors. What are you talking about?"
At one point, we were strewn out across the landscape...
...and I saw all the Dwarves lined up, and Martin and--
The Hobbit.
Couldn't help but feel there was kind of a brotherhood.
That is something that will live with me for a long time because that was us.
There was the Hobbit, there was the 13 Dwarves together.
I'm like, "Yeah, but, you know, we're ******* running around again," you know.
From imaginary Wargs.
As opposed to real Wargs.
Which they didn't-- They didn't even get those in.
We had to imagine the ******* Wargs.
DORI: Where's Gandalf?
He's abandoned us.
Stand your ground!
This way, you fools!
THORIN: Come on, move!
Seven months later-- Six months later, I think we shot the pick-up back at the studio.
MAN: And he's quite harshly lit on the side there too.
- No worries. Right up my alley. - And, um...
[LAUGHING]
This way, you fools!
That's funny. That's very funny.
[ALL LAUGHING]
In a bad way.
This way, you fools!
And you can have your hand on the rock too.
THORIN [ON SCREEN]: Gandalf! MCKELLEN: "Fly, you fools!"
No. "This way, you fools."
-"This way, you fools." - Yeah.
MAN: “Fly, you fools" is from the wrong movie.
- We've done that. - Yes, we've done it.
- Done that one 12 years ago. - Oh.
JACKSON: Okay. Here we go.
And action.
This way, you fools!
It was supposed to be, literally, a kind of part of the prologue...
...very small kind of vignette.
Erebor. You've come out from Erebor, but the Orcs have taken over.
So you are leading the Dwarf army into Moria.
If I remember rightly, I read in the script, a few lines...
This was this laughable idea that we were gonna shoot that in...
...I think two days.
It took 10.
[CHUCKLES]
MAN: Three, two, one, action!
Keep pushing forward! Push down the hill!
SERKIS: it was amazing piece to put together, actually.
I really, really enjoyed that.
I mean, just mayhem, fighting, crazy, crazy, crazy fighting.
ARMITAGE: It's an absolute slaughter.
We really tried to achieve that...
...that they're so overwhelmed with Orcs that it's a bloodbath.
MAN: That looks so good.
Absolute carnage.
RIVERS: Most battles, everyone ends up on a flat field.
Pete wanted it on that really interesting Mt. Hollin terrain.
[GROWLS]
You know, he wanted just this brutal kind of skirmish.
Pete decided that it would be nice to use the same location...
...in which we see the Fellowship running out of Moria.
A very striking environment, a limestone mountain...
...with very distinctive rock shapes.
It was like a giant concrete pimple in the middle of the studio.
So it was this sort of domey, rocky mound that was the battle area.
[GRUNTING AND SHOUTING]
BOSWELL: We actually purposely made it so people couldn't swing their weapons.
They used different parts of their weapons to fight. It was so congested.
MAN 1: What are we on? MAN 2: It's on concrete.
- Really? - Yeah, really.
So I just make sure somebody's under me.
Hopefully one of these sealers, mate.
[LAUGHING]
Scale became quite an issue. Because you've got Orcs and Dwarves.
And Dwarves are usually smaller than Orcs.
So there was a lot of full-sized stuntmen doing a lot of the principal fighting.
But also quite a few of the scale doubles.
WOMAN: How are you feeling, girls? - Hairy.
- Yeah. We're a bunch of sexy ladies. - Yeah.
I don't know how guys can grow a beard.
My husband will never look at me the same.
MAN 1: Look. MAN 2: Seriously. No way.
Because when Dwarves start painting their nails, it gets weird.
They actually did an excellent job, and they loved it anyway...
...because a lot of times they're waiting just to get into a fight. Heh.
I was hoping to die as soon as possible, so you just get to lay down.
It was really funny because once they fell down, they found it very hard to get up.
I'm kind of a bit like a turtle at the moment.
I can't really get up properly.
So I'll just chill out here.
This guy has been working his socks off.
He's been here since yesterday.
And he's so Method, I can't tell you.
He won't go to lunch, he won't, um-- You know.
He came in, lay down, did his thing.
He's not complained once.
I mean, I think it's all gone to his head, really.
This armor was actually designed originally...
...for the Battle of the Five Armies. We had been designing...
...and starting to manufacture these characters.
But the story idea of the Battle of Moria came to the fore...
...and Pete was enjoying these suits of armor so much...
...and we would just come up with new suits of armor...
...for the battles yet to happen.
The neat thing is that because of their proportions...
...we could make them almost tank-like.
Aside from the Goblins, the Dwarves in armor is the worst.
The hottest, heaviest.
They can barely move, and you can't see.
You got these little slots for-- You know, to see through.
And a lot of times the camera would just be moving back and forth...
...finding random cool shots that worked...
...and they would just keep going.
They would just keep going. The guys'd just keep repeating stuff.
And finally when they call "cut," it's like, phew.
And cut.
[GRUNTING]
Wow. I'm really old.
I'm so old.
What is that? Oh, heh, heh.
WILSON: We got out there, obviously, it's supposed to be a battle.
So we started off the day...
...a few spritzes of blood here and there, you know.
And then we got the, "More blood."
It's like this is the-- The echoey voice came from afar.
MAN: Blood, guts. Blood everywhere.
A few more, "No, more blood."
So it was, "Oh, okay, I'll get a little cup and throw that."
"More blood." So literally in the end, there were these drums of blood...
...being thrown over this giant pimple...
...that just began running blood all down it everywhere.
[LAUGHING]
SERKIS: As each shot kind of went by...
...the floor got covered in more and more blood...
...and more and more blood.
To the point where everyone was sticking to the floor.
It was like this bloody battlefield.
It just looked horrendous.
Ladies and gents, we'll be back at Moria Gate tomorrow.
Battle of Moria became Second Unit's own private hell, I think.
It definitely became bigger than anyone expected.
BOSWELL: Turned out like our scene 88.
Every time you say "gates of Moria" to the stunt guys...
...they all cringe, "Oh, no! Oh, no!"
B marker.
MAN: Action!
- Action! MAN: Action!
Advance down the hill, Orcs!
If you're having trouble breathing, just put your hand up.
And we'll come and get you.
MAN: Action!
[GRUNTING]
- Reset, reset. MAN: Action!
And cut!
MAN 1: Catch it. MAN 2: Okay, baby.
ALL: Oh! MAN 3: I'm out of here. Yeah.
MAN 4: That was nice. MAN 5: Yeah.
[GRUNTING]
- Boom, that was a great hit, that one. - Yeah.
We really wanted to go for a sense of really dirty, messy street fighting.
Well, how do you feel about having two people jump on your back for that foot stab?
Two people? Yep.
[GRUNTING]
McTAVISH: I mean, that's-- That last two beats...
...they're supposed to be severing his jugular. JACKSON: Right.
- And then burying it in his chest. - Right, right, right.
So that's the intention.
- As you do. - As you do.
What are you doing?
What am I doing? I'm doing the Battle of Moria.
Why do you have this big tufty on your head?
My big tufty on my head is because I'm younger.
This is the younger Dwalin.
So Dwalin wasn't bald when he was younger.
He lost his hair through stress. I was interviewed by my own daughter.
She asked some pretty good questions, if I remember rightly.
Why are you fighting the Battle of Moria?
Uh, that is a very good question, Anna.
The Battle of Moria is in a sort of flashback in the film...
...to when we were desperately fighting to stay alive...
...and we were nearly losing the battle.
And then Thorin turns the tide of the battle...
...and we rally and we defeat the Orcs.
[THORIN SHOUTING IN DWARVISH]
I remember having a big shield.
[GRUNTING]
Every single time, I managed to bounce this shield off of an Orc...
...and hit myself in the face.
And one take, I actually smashed myself in the lip...
...and kind of put my teeth through my bottom lip.
And I remember Andy coming up and going-- And sort of calling Tammy over and saying:
"You know, the makeup's changed. The makeup's changed."
And Tammy was like, “No, no, no. He's just bit half of his face off."
I didn't need any Orcs to take me out.
I was doing a good job of hitting myself in the face.
[GRUNTING]
Some of the scale doubles we used played their parts as their younger selves.
So Mark, as Thorin, played a younger Thorin.
As did Stephen as Balin and also Gareth as Dwalin.
So they went through the whole rigmarole of getting into prosthetics.
Yeah, see you out there, big boy.
Mark was used quite a lot for the actual fight sequence itself.
He learned the sequence completely.
As you're doing it now, just flick it across your body.
T Shh'.!
Flick it, grab the-- Yeah. Barn.
Bwoosh.
WOMAN: Action!
[GRUNTING]
Ran out of gas at the end, though, I have to say.
I swung the sword, and the weight of the sword took me over.
WOMAN: I thought it was great acting.
It was great acting. I'm actually fine.
It's Method.
MAN: That's it.
ATKIN: Just a pleasure to be able to put together those fight scenes...
...and be really proud of the end product.
This is the birth of the legend of Thorin Oakenshield that we're shooting.
It's what we call the Oakenshield moment.
- Three, and then four, boom, five, boom, six. - Three, four, five. Unh!
WOMAN: Action!
[GRUNTING]
ARMITAGE: I think it's quite important to show the character...
...perhaps at his peak, in his defining moment because that's really what it is.
Where he earned his name, for his prowess and his bravery.
So it was great to get the chance to play that.
[YELLS]
SERKIS: And then seeing Thorin Oakenshield being born.
You know, striding up the hill. This heroic shot of him...
...striding up the hill with his oaken shield, ready to take it all on.
[THORIN SHOUTING IN DWARVISH]
[ALL YELLING]
I really like your kilt.
Thank you. Yes.
Yes, you're wearing a kilt as well.
- It's nice that-- - But we don't have the same kilt.
No, no. No, that would be silly, wouldn't it?
Do you think we buy our kilts at the same shop?
- Yes. - We do, okay.
Yeah. Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure being interviewed by you.
- Thank you so much. - Hee, hee, hee.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
THORIN: We'll take it as a sign.
A good omen.
BILBO: You're right.
I do believe the worst is behind us.
Something we do on every film we make is to build in what we call pickup shooting...
...which is basically two, three, four weeks of additional shooting...
...at the end of the main shoot of the movie.
There's a lot you don't know about the story until you see the film for the first time.
We could have an Orc ﬂying through the air up in this shot here.
OLSSEN: And once you see it all put together, you know, things become obvious...
...about what's needed to clarify the story and make it work better.
Pickups are very much the process of crafting the finished film.
It's never really reshooting scenes that you didn't get right the first time.
It's usually actually inserting extra emotional beats into preexisting scenes.
And now you can fill in that card.
JACKSON: Thank you.
There's things like Bilbo trying to save Thorin's life when the Wargs attack.
We never had that in our original shoot.
By the end of the first film, you needed to feel that Bilbo was one of them...
...and is actually, in his own way, extremely brave.
It's gonna be kind of vulnerable and endearing the way this little Hobbit...
...just throws himself in there and risks his life to try to save Thorin.
So having Thorin taking on Azog by himself is great...
...but once he gets knocked to the ground...
...we wanted Bilbo to stand up and find his courage to be that little Hobbit...
...who is able to step forward with a sword and tackle the Orcs.
Do the classic sort of thing, which is like a one, a two and on the third, it comes...
Thorin has more cause than most to hate Orcs.
HENNAH: Often, the cutting process is taking place at the same time as the pickup shoot.
So you're only finding out today what you need tomorrow.
Just whack him in here for the time being.
So we've got two weeks to shoot all our pickups and we're spread out over four stages.
And we're bouncing between each one of them or maybe even two sets in a day.
HENNAH: As a rule, you're not building a whole set...
...you're building a piece of set that is sufficient to shoot one close-up...
...of a piece of dialogue that may be needed.
ELROND: Have you forgotten?
A strain of madness runs deep in that family.
His grandfather lost his mind. His father succumbed to the same sickness.
Can you swear Thorin Oakenshield...
...will not also fall?
JACKSON: Great. We can cut that script. Thank you very much.
Shh.
We're not allowed to ride the bikes in the studio. Shh.
Second unit wrapped and there were still some pickups that Peter still wanted to get...
...so they asked me to direct the splinter unit.
We're on our fifth set up for today, picking up lots of little pieces.
A movie is never shot until it's shot.
You got the staff and the weight forms and it goes:
And splinter unit, we are there to do a lot of shots that Peter don't have time to do.
And it's a lot of shots that involve sometimes action.
So stunts or sometimes just insert of picking up a sword or...
The biggest part of our day today was getting Terry Notary as the new Orc to the film, Yazneg.
It's the last week of shooting and Peter has asked me to play Yazneg.
Go on!
And Terry was given, I think it was something like nine Orcish phrases...
...that we needed to record.
And he got them that morning.
80...
Everyone needs a little help sometimes. Even Orcs.
And it was like, "Hey, there's new lines. Oh, great. They're in Black Speech. Oh, greater."
- Tolkien, baby. - Tolkien, baby.
[SPEAKING ORCISH]
RIVERS: So it's fun to be shooting on Weathertop again.
I remember the first day we shot on Weathertop was actually Viggo Mortensen's...
...first day of shoot and as Aragorn fighting the Ringwraiths.
MAN: And action!
RIVERS: it was a long, long time ago now.
[SINGING OPERATICALLY]
[ALL CHUCKLING]
MAN: Jeez.
All right.
All right. Standing back. Shoot and three, two, one. Action.
[ALL SCREAMING]
DORI: We're dead! We're dead!
Cut!
Mark, you'll be on much of the wire and you'll basically just be kind of holding his leg-.
Why don't you shout?
- Because-- - Why don't you ******* shout?
[ALL LAUGHING]
We're doing your ******* close-up-
Shut the **** up. Take the wire out. Have a cold glass of water, chill down.
If not, you won't be up for your stunt this afternoon.
Mark always gave me a lot of trouble but I gave him a hard back.
Adam, you should be there, grabbing his foot, and we'll do his ******* close-up.
- You all right? -It will be cut from the movie anyway. So...
- Here we are. That's your nose. - Lovely.
OLSSEN: Peter usually does a cameo in all of his films.
And he left his one for the first movie till the last minute.
I've either gotta be an Elf, which I really am not that cut out to be an Elf.
The only other options are a Hobbit or a Dwarf.
And I never got to be a Hobbit, so I've run out of choices now.
That's another sense in which this is a home movie.
Often people who work behind the camera do get their moment in front of it.
Caro called up and said Peter had suggested I do this this morning.
So yeah. Sounded good.
I kind of do it now because everyone expects me to do it.
I get asked about it, so I kind of think the day I say, "I didn't bother doing a cameo"...
...it somehow feels like I don't care about the movie or something.
I kind of find myself having to do these cameos now.
[ALL LAUGHING]
[ALL CHEERING]
I'm taking one for the team here, I tell you.
And then we'll go into the sword pulling.
I mean, if you just start that action it'll give us a cut into what will be done.
- And testing. - Thank you.
I've gotta get my direction from Peter, if you could send Peter in.
- Who is this? - I'm a little wanker.
WOMAN: He's a stand-in. - That little wanker is taking some time off.
- Did you? Jesus. That's like Kiran. - We've got a real man now.
I was directing the splinter unit when Peter and Jabez do their cameos as Dwarven refugees.
It's complicated directing the director of the film in his own film.
You wanna be tracking with me for a while.
We were thinking we'd spend a lot of time on you.
If you get some Richard that's fine.
I mean, Richard is not so important.
Pete's a wonderful performer and he gives it a lot of energy.
But sometimes he purposefully manages to find ways to hog the screen time.
- If you could look more worried. - More worried?
- But carefree. - Carefree but worried.
- Yeah. - Okay.
All right. Thank you very much. Go away. Thank you.
[ALL LAUGHING]
- Camera set. MAN: Action.
Quickly! Run for your lives!
Not only does he have a limp but he actually turns towards camera...
...and stays looking past camera, then reveals Thorin.
JACKSON: There's Richard pushing me out a bit too quickly.
You ought to linger on me a bit longer.
MAN 1: Linger longer? MAN 2: Yeah.
Come on.
There's a mischief to him, which I have not seen in other directors...
...which I think is maybe what defines him a wee bit from other directors.
WOMAN: Pete, stop it.
[SNARLING]
[ALL LAUGHING]
We were hoping for a bigger fright, Victoria.
Oh, sorry. I've worked in the movies too long.
JACKSON [WHISPERING]: Gandalf's asleep.
MAN: Poke him in the ear. - And action.
JACKSON: Action.
[ALL CHUCKLING]
Peter, I always called the 12-year-old with the beard.
Because he is just doing what he wanted to do pre-beard. You know what I mean?
And probably with no difference. He's just got more toys. You know what I mean?
Don't wanna end up the back here.
There's room on my horse for two.
Two little boys had two little toys
Each had a wooden horse
[HUMMING]
There is room on my horse for two
Would you like to be wetted down now?
[JACKSON LAUGHS]
- That's what I'd say. Quick, get the hose. - Get the hose out.
It was fun. It was relaxed.
It was collaborative. It's a long shoot but it was enjoyable.
Every single day was kind of fun.
You can go just as fast with two.
I can go just as fast with two
[WHISTLING]
We shot for 266 days.
And, you know, it's a big piece of your life that you spend making these films.
The end was in sight and so I just wanted to make sure that we ended on an up note, really.
You're not a volunteer, you're conscripted.
- Where do you want me? - Anywhere you want to make...
...yourself comfortable.
JACKSON: I loved everyone that I worked with.
We had a great cast, great crew and we were in a kind of a giddy mood.
MAN: Go on action too.
MAN: Okay, all right.
WOMAN: Let's do it.
- The last sun. MAN: The last sun.
So we are on the last day of shoot and we're shooting the last scene of film one.
We have a very emotional scene where Thorin realizes that Bilbo is a hero.
And they turn around and they look to their future, which is Erebor.
Only a few more hours to go, guys...
...and you never have to wear these fat suits again till next year.
Last day of pickups. Very exciting.
It was the actual last shot in the movie, it's a really nice way for everyone to finish.
And you kind of have all gone on this journey, not just the characters in the movie.
We'd all gone on this journey and come to this really nice, hopeful ending.
Everyone was in a very joyful mood that day.
[LAUGHING] Yay!
- How many set ups left after this? - Well, we've got this one.
Go napping all year.
Production manager has Gandalf's staff. I'm a bit worried.
She might steal it. I got my eyes on her.
Shh.
FREEMAN: She's doing balls just like Columbia. MAN: Yeah.
Like a flaming torch.
HENNAH: What's interesting is that on these huge shoots with way, way more people...
...the camaraderie doesn't develop over 6 weeks or 10 weeks...
...it develops over 262 days.
MAN: Just go back into the hug for me, please.
Just hold that for a moment.
- You want a little ding under there? - Okay.
HENNAH: Finally reaches a point where it feels comfortable with your brothers and sisters.
You cannot get as close as we've all got on a film like this.
Whether people like each other or not, the emotions are still there.
It was a very happy environment on set.
Generally it always was, but everyone was pretty happy to have made it to the end.
Especially the cast.
- Glad we made it. MAN: Getting really cold.
This is it. Last shot. 2012.
The Hobbit was our life for two years. It was very, very long.
Thank you.
So when the shoot come to an end...
...you've got all that excitement but it's sadness as well.
YORKE: You look around and think, "We got here."
We're all still here. We're all standing. It's a great feeling.
- Thank you. - You too, man.
Gee, it's too much.
The dynamic on this film, I think has been quite, I hope, quite egalitarian among the cast.
I mean, the crew are scum, so we don't treat them well.
- Yeah, definitely. - I hope I see you gain.
That probably won't happen.
Don't delude. I mean, it's unfair. It's unfair. Just cut-- No, I won't call you.
Drinks are only for the cast and crew, okay? You are now moribund.
FREEMAN: But among the actors it's been quite equal, I hope.
That much testosterone and that much male ego around the place...
...it would be very, very easy to get frayed with each other but we haven't.
It's been really, really good.
[GRUNTING]
WOMAN: My God, that's so funny.
Literally, I suggest you use the peak of Ian's hat...
...plus another three or four inches to be where you look.
Don't look Ian in the eye. Just above his head.
Never look him in the eye.
JACKSON: Above his head. He's on his contract.
He doesn't wanna make any eye contact with anyone.
McKELLEN: Thank you, Peter.
Shall we give it a go? So it's...
WOMAN: Bye now. Thank you. MAN: Love you.
- All right. Here we go. MAN: Okay.
MAN: Okay.
HAMBLETON: That was an amazing day.
Towards the end, we realized that a lot of people were gathering in the studio space...
...other members of the crew and production team.
So it was an important, almost sacred moment, the final shot.
YORKE: I think there was hundreds of people hidden...
...behind Peter's tent watching the monitors.
You couldn't move. Everyone standing, waiting.
JACKSON: The last thing we had to do when we were done with the shot, end of the movie...
...end of the shooting and the Dwarves came up to me.
They said they wanted to do something special for Martin.
I was aware of the fact that we hadn't really done anything...
...where we just kind of had somebody on.
- Has nobody told you what we're doing? - No, nobody's told me.
We set this thing where we had a code from Peter and that it was the last take.
Because Peter was always saying, "Just one more for luck."
Let's just do one last for luck.
Should we just do one more for luck, Richard? That's great.
Just do one last one for luck. One last for luck. Let's do it.
I said instead of that, without telling anyone, "Can we just do one more for extra luck?"
One more for extra luck.
So the code is extra luck.
When you hear that you know that this is the one we're gonna do it on.
So I thought it would be really nice, without telling Martin, to give him a bit of a send off...
...and say thank you for doing such an amazing job being a Hobbit.
All right, here we go. I guess we call this one more for extra luck.
JACKSON: Ready, steady. Here we go and action.
And we played the whole sequence out so Thorin, Richard, went up and hugged Bilbo.
THORIN: Did I not say you were a burden?
That you would not survive in the Wild?
That you had no place amongst us?
I have never been so wrong in all my life.
Party group hug!
HAMBLETON: And it was a fantastic moment.
And then Peter came up on the set and we all embraced.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
[ALL CHEERING]
MAN 1: Well done, Pete.
MAN 2: Well done.
MAN 3: Well done, mate. Well done.
- Oh, you guys have been amazing. MAN 4: Cheers, Pete.
I must admit when I had my little experience as a Dwarf, I absolutely hated it.
Very uncomfortable and hot. So I don't know how you guys did it.
MAN 5: Thank you.
HAMBLETON: So a lot of hilarity broke out.
And it was a really lovely celebratory way to express the last shot.
It's been such a huge journey for myself and all my brothers.
And we are brothers, all the Dwarves.
It'll be a part of my life that I'll never forget.
MAN: Galadriel, well done. God, you've had to put up with some shit.
It's going. It's going. I'm taking it off. I'm taking it off.
[ALL CLAPPING AND CHEERING]
You know, to top it all off, the entire crew is there...
...and we are given some absolute treasures.
So we were given a reverential remembrance of a piece of equipment that is important to us.
I was given my boar spear, which I loved.
- Just what you always wanted. - I love that.
-It's the sling shot. - I think it might be.
Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
JACKSON: And this is a very, very special gift.
- Lego Bifur. - Lego Bifur.
One of the most exciting things for me was Lego Bifur.
The hottest two Dwarves on the planet.
It's so huge.
McTAVISH: And I showed it to my daughter when I got home...
...but she's not allowed to play with it.
It's mine.
We all got our back of these chairs with our name on it.
All I need now is a chair to go with it.
MAN: I'm sorry.
To the leader of our company, Thorin Oakenshield.
Thorin got given Orcrist which is that special sword...
...that Thorin has for battling all of the goblins.
Apart from wanting to say thank you to Pete in front of Phil...
...I just wanna say I've never seen a crew work as hard as you guys have.
And I apologize for being so grumpy all the time.
I've never seen anything like it...
...and I can't wait to come back next year and see you all again. So thank you.
We've all been working long and hard on a movie called The Hobbit.
And here he is.
MAN: Jesus Christ.
Is that Kiran?
[ALL LAUGH]
MAN: You wish.
This has been my home for 18 months and if I've gotta be away from home...
...which I have, that's contractual...
...I couldn't imagine anywhere that would make me feel more welcome...
...and more warm with a lot of people, cast and crew, production.
And that's a hard gig when we're on the other side of the world.
So thank you so, so much. I've had a real blast with my fellow actors.
As Richard said, the crew has been ******* outstanding.
And I get this.
So thank you so, so much and thanks for the Holy Trinity.
We've had an incredible cast and now we have to say goodbye to somebody...
...who is, I think, one of the world's most beloved and fantastic actors.
Ian.
When I first met Peter in London with Fran...
...you know, it did cross my mind that they were a little bit Hobbity.
And then when we came to do this second lot of films...
...I thought, "Well, no, because he's not a Hobbit, he's a Dwarf."
But actually the truth is that he's a wizard.
And the greatest wizard of them all.
And working with you, Peter, and everybody here...
...and completing these films is better than winning a gold medal at the Olympics.
THRANDUIL: Where does your journey end?
MAN: if you can't see me, I can't see you.
I want everyone to represent.
Okay, here we go. And now.
Awesome, thank you. All done.
[ALL CLAPPING AND CHEERING]
That is not the end.
That is not the end by a long ways.
It's the last day, but it's not the last day, you know.
So it's hard to know...
...where the emotions are at then.
- We're here next year-- - Get into a harness.
For several months, so-- You know.
Between now and then, we'll just be drinking. That's it.
- Still more time with these idiots. Yeah. MAN: You guys-- Ha, ha.
It is a slow goodbye.
We wrap and then we do pickups, and there's the premiere...
...but each day, it gets less and less, you know. There's less and less to do.
And I think, you know--
I think I'll miss the people.
[CHUCKLES]
Aw...
Getting through principal photography and then the pickups in the first film certainly--
You know, you feel like you--
[JACKSON CHUCKLES]
You're not at the top of the mountain yet, but at least the peak's in sight.
You've got oxygen, a bit of food. You think you can actually get there now.
I don't remember the first day. It was before my 21st birthday.
Every film was a challenge to craft it...
...and so by the time we're done with our photography...
...we've shot, you know, essentially three movies, plus the pickups of the first film.
You really-- All your focus and attention just goes onto that first film at that point.
OLSSEN: It's always good to get out of the shoot and get into the cutting room...
...and get the director there and start focusing just on the editing.
[YELLING AND GRUNTING]
JACKSON: Dean is making his own sound effects.
MAN: Yeah.
It saves the sound guy a week. If all the actors do that...
-...we would save so much time. - Well, quite a few actors do do it.
You don't really think too much about the fact you've got two more.
There's so much at stake now to get that first film out the door...
...and to make it as good a film as you can possibly, you know, make.
There's too many. We can't fight them.
Only one thing will save us, daylight!
JACKSON: What do you think, Fran? FRAN: An improvement.
JACKSON: Good.
Premiere. A week to go until the premiere.
Seven days, it said on The Embassy when we went there.
If we snuck in there, put up a sign saying "10 days"...
MAN: Yeah, yeah. -...we might be able to buy ourselves...
...a few extra days, which would be quite good.
The clock is ticking.
[TROLL GROANS AND SOUND EFFECTS]
SAINDON: Digitally...
...we started off 800-shot movie, really.
That's what the original idea was for the movie...
...and we went up to about 2400 shots.
So the movie crew, just from day to day...
If I was younger, more new to this game...
...I might have been more terrified.
Because the task that we had set to us was huge.
The number of shots we delivered in the time frame...
...that we've delivered them has been phenomenal.
WETA was working around the clock...
...thousands of technicians, trying to get these shots in.
Little Goblins I've added here. Awesome stuff.
Pete wasn't liking this or that.
LEVINSON: This last shot that we had to--
We were chasing is a shot of the dragon.
That was a huge shot. It was a big, long shot.
We were pulling through millions of gold coins...
...and revealing Smaug in close-up detail...
...and an eye that we had not yet seen before in the film.
We did all-nighter after all-nighter on that last shot.
It was the last shot we worked on. It was down to the wire.
I just had to jump in and do it myself because we had no time.
I think it's working okay now.
We delivered that last shot the day of the premiere, essentially.
As long as we've got some petrol in the car and we can drive the movie...
...to The Embassy on time, we're okay.
[ALL LAUGHING]
MAN: Good morning.
[PEOPLE CHATTERING AND CLAMORING]
We launched a premiere in style, with half a kilometer of red carpet...
...and tens of thousands of fans lining the red carpet.
[ALL CHEERING]
- I hope you enjoy it, guys. - Thank you.
I didn't think that many people were interested...
...but when you're walking down the red carpet, people were just screaming and so excited.
WOMAN: Thank you.
And we got-- Only have two more to go. Ha-ha-ha!
Unfortunately I fell asleep at the premiere from all the all-nighters, heh, heh, before.
[PEOPLE CHEERING]
JACKSON: It's one thing...
...to be working on a project that no one's ever seen...
...and you don't know what anyone's-- How anyone's gonna react.
Once that first movie's out there, it's doing okay, people are enjoying it...
...you kind of get a lot more excited about the second and third.
You're thinking of ways you can improve it. All right, shall we shoot? I mean--
I'm really excited about The Desolation of Smaug.
It's the middle film, which is often the hardest film to write.
But actually, in this instance, it hasn't been.
It's been great.
- You get to meet all these new characters. - Shh.
Welcome. Welcome.
The question of how many of those you can eat--
- And keep down, that's the key. - Yeah. And then afterwards--
That was probably one of the least pleasant scenes I've ever had to do.
- It's disgusting trouble. - Yes.
Look at him, with his little pointy crown.
BLOOM: It's a good look, Dad. - Thanks, son.
BLOOM: Okay.
I've done a fantastic amount of Orc slaying again. Let's do this.
MAN: Action!
BLOOM: I've lost count, but it works out really well.
BLOOM: Oh! Whoa!
A bit of Elf/Orc love?
[YELLS THEN LAUGHS]
LILLY: We were killing Orcs and chasing after Dwarves and--
Just generally looking badass.
We were hacking and slashing to make up for the Elves with their fancy moves.
We need to get some of our-- Get some Dwarf style in there-- Wah!
Not a sight that you see every day, is it?
[ALL GROANING]
I've been eating these mushrooms and I'm hallucinating.
I feel like I'm...
- You're on the wrong set, old bean. FREEMAN: Are you ******* serious?
I've been there, I've been...
[ALL LAUGHING]
I am concentrating in this film. It's just there's a lot of bears and Wargs and Orcs.
This is a very heavy book.
MAN: Hold on, guys!
Aah, it's gonna go!
WOMAN: Reset.
- Look at his little face. WOMAN: Reset.
We completed a 70-meter circuit in just over 20 seconds. it was just mayhem.
[ALL CHEER]
We get to the mountain. We get to our goal.
Right where this rock is...
...just imagine a huge foot either side and a statue that rises up...
...and everyone is searching for the secret entrance.
- There must be a way. MAN: Shake.
Was that an earthquake?
BALIN: That, my lad...
...was a dragon.
The Smaug that I worked with...
...was a tennis ball on the end of a stick with an angry face drawn on it.
I just kept thinking of Benedict Cumberbatch's face.
Not good because it's not gonna look like Benedict Cumberbatch, ha-ha-ha!
There will be nudity. This is not your usual ADR session. Uh...
Smaug likes to slither about in and amongst lamb wool. And I wonder why I get into trouble.
[GROWLING]
JACKSON: I mean, there's a lot more work to do on both the second and the third.
The second's obviously coming up pretty soon after people see this...
...but the third is another year away.
It sort of becomes a bit more fun actually than it does...
...when you go back two years and you haven't shot a thing.
Because you are now aware that there's so many people...
...looking forward to the second movie.
Which is a pressure, but it's also--
It's a motivator. It sort of energizes you...
...to really wanna make that second and third film as good as they can possibly be.
You wouldn't wanna wake up to that in the morning, would you?
[ALL CHUCKLING]
MAN: Quick. Quicker!
[YELLS]
MAN: Very good.
Whatever comes, stay on the path.
Don't leave the path.
Wait, Gandalf. It might be a trap.
I thought I was rather good in that.
[PEOPLE LAUGHING]