It was made for £3000. The actors/actresses, editors, makeup artists, producers, director and everyone else involved in the making of this film worked for free, out of their love for Lord of the Rings. Chris Bouchard was the director and producer of this film. It can only be viewed on the internet, and it is a non profit film. It is a short film of 38 minutes and it was in May 2009. The 3 main reasons that this was able to be filmed on a low budget, but with the appearance of a high budgeted film is: technology, commitment and artistry. With out the development of technology and the beauty of artistry, Matte screens and Rotoscoping would not be possible, there for forcing them to film it ‘live’- which would be expensive and time consuming. The commitment and dedication of the crew who put them selves out to do this project, for no money, but they still managed to keep the morel and quality high. As it is only viewable over the internet, it has travelled round the world quickly, by November the same year it had been viewed in New Zealand, Brazil, Switzerland and Israel. It has since been viewed in many more countries globally.
Behind the scene
- It took ages to cast.
- The makeup took around 1-1.5 hours per shoot.
- As the project became more heard about, more volunteers came to lend a hand or expertise.
- It took 10 days to train for the choreographed main fight scene. In which there were 45 actors/actresses involved.
- They used basic household cosmetics to do the special effects and makeup. The materials for the Ork head masks were all bought from the local chemist.
- The Ork head mask was a whole piece, and thus made it difficult to move their mouth or to frown etc. consequently before each take, they had to touch up the masks with makeup.
- The fighting props had to be safe, for example the Ork machetes and blades were made out of wood and were painted to look like metal.
Visual Effects
- Stephen Menzel was one of the main artists, and Adam Thomas was the chief composite artist.
- The still shots of landscapes were matte paintings, for instance when Aragorn was climbing to the top of the hill, and there was a statue- the statue was a matte painting super imposed. Also when the camera has a tracking, aerial shot of the whole forest- this is a matte painting- it was not actually filmed there as this alone would have exceeded their low budget.
- All the matte paintings and shots went through special effects at least 7-8 times to get the effect that Chris desired. For instance the above forest shot was passed through 25 times before he was happy with it.
- Another technique they used to get the middle earth look on a low budget was Rotoscoping. This enabled them to film somewhere simple, like Chris’ flat roof, but make it look more epic. This is done in a similar way to green screening, as the background (a matte painting with atmosphere added) is added during the editing stage rather than in the filming.
- Rotoscoping was also used to correct the errors on the Orks face. It was able to take away and disguise the crease and faulty lines.
- Chris contacted the person from Lord of the Rings who created the Gollum character, asking if they could use the original design. The creator agreed and the ‘Hunt for Gollum’ special effects team went about making a model replica using the computer model given to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment