#if you don't know what a weta is go look it up

[gwaedhannen]

[Excerpt 6 from Sorrow Beyond Words: Collected Testimony of the War of Wrath, 4th Edition; edited by Elrond Peredhel.]

“It—it would have been easier, I think, if the rest of Beleriand was as dead as Anfauglith. Not just easier to march through. I don’t miss the mosquito-wetas. But—it’s one thing to march through a choking wasteland when you know there’s no refilling your canteen 'til you get to the other side. It’s another thing entirely to walk through thirty leagues of verdant wetlands and every single spring and lake you find is so clear you can see all the skeletons at the bottom. Every fucking time you get your hopes up that maybe, maybe, this one will be drinkable—but—but…

“Not all the skeletons were at the bottom. Some of them still almost looked like people, too.

“No food, either. Fruit trees? Pah. Every apple that isn’t rotten is full of worms and wasps. Herbs? Poison. Roots? Also poison. Game? You fucking guessed it, poison. Or viruses, whatever. Sorry that we never really had the leisure time to reinvent microscopic biology here.

“It, well—it wasn’t entirely ruined, I guess? He left Hithlum mostly untarnished to keep the Easterlings a little happy. Heh, not happy enough apparently to stop most of them from jumping to Elros’s banner the moment they could. Nan Dungortheb was as much a pain in his arse as it had been in ours, especially once Mindeb gave up holding it back. We think the spiders ate a Balrog, actually. Good for them. He never touched the ruins of the Havens either. Guess he liked the statement that sent better than more despoiling.

“But, uh, in some ways that was more disheartening. The little bits which were still standing, or seemed to still be standing. There were still lots of too-clear pools. But you’d come across the ruins of a homestead with the garden only overgrown with normal weeds, or an orchard where the fruit still smells fine; and then you’d look twenty feet away and see what's left of the former inhabitants and another fucking field of razorwheat and another cloud of hornets that want to lay eggs in your eyes and a pool that only isn’t clear because Glaurung shit in it eighty years ago. That’s worse, if you were wondering.”

[novelmonger]

Some highlights from the Director/Writer Commentary of The Return of the King with Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh:

As they mentioned in TTT, they were originally going to put the Smeagol vs. Deagol fight as a flashback during the Dead Marshes. Before they decided to use it to open RotK, their placeholder idea for a scene to open RotK was to do a sped-up helicopter shot from the Paths of the Dead, across the plains of Edoras, to the Golden Hall where Aragorn wakes up from a nightmare (and then goes and talks to Eowyn). Very glad they went the direction they did!

In the final shot they used when Smeagol takes the Ring out of Deagol's hand, the actor playing Deagol actually blinked, but they liked Andy Serkis' performance so much, they had Weta go in and freeze Deagol's eyes so they could use the shot XD

You know, I forget sometimes that they didn't even have Saruman in the theatrical cut at all. Boggles the mind.

In the scene where Aragorn comes out of the Golden Hall and goes to stand next to Legolas, who's looking out at the night...Viggo and Orlando weren't in the country at the same time, so they shot them separately and then put them together @_@

You know, I never thought about this before, but when Gandalf touches Pippin's face, they had to make sure his hands looked extra big! So they used an actor called Big Paul, who had the biggest hands they could find, and Ian McKellen directed him for how to move his hands in the shot XD And Big Paul is the Rohan guard who gets shoved aside when Merry and Aragorn rush up to the top of the wall to watch Gandalf and Pippin leave!

THEY SHOT A SCENE OF LEGOLAS TALKING TO TREEBEARD ABOUT THE ELVES LEAVING MIDDLE-EARTH?!?!?!?!?!?! :O Originally, it was going to link the Isengard scenes to the scene of Arwen and the other Rivendell Elves going through the forest, but then because of all the Edoras stuff in between, the connection was lost. They also said something about Legolas reciting a poem! And joked again about putting it into the 25th anniversary edition. THAT TIME IS COMING UP, PETER JACKSON!!!! I WANNA SEE THIS SCENE!!!!!!

a;lkdsjs;kdfljds;fjl NOW THEY'RE JUST TEASING US. They talked about a "library scene" during the whole sequence where Arwen goes back to Rivendell and confronts Elrond about how he saw her son, etc. They wouldn't say what happened in the "library scene," but talked about how they should include that in the 25th anniversary edition too. a;ldkfjs;dkfljsd;kfljdslfk

The people on set who had a crush on Sean Bean were called "Beanstalkers"! XD That's the best; every fan to this day ought to call themselves that!

Similarly to the scene with Legolas and Aragorn, the little bit with Legolas and Gimli as everyone's getting ready to leave Edoras was filmed separately because Orlando and John weren't in the country at the same time. So they filmed Legolas' shots with Brett, John's scale double, then filmed John's shots later, filming both of them against greenscreen. Then they took some unused footage from the Edoras set and put it in the background. It just boggles my mind how many of these cobbled-together scenes there are, because it feels so much like all the characters are together in the real location!

RED ALERT RED ALERT THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!! They mentioned Beregond!!!! 8D When talking about why they put in the scene where Pippin and Faramir talk (when Faramir says the uniform Pippin's wearing was made for him when he was a child), in order to forge the connection between them that will ultimately lead to Pippin saving Faramir's life, they talked briefly about Beregond! They describe him taking Pippin under his wing, showing him about the city, and called the relationship between them "quite sweet" :3

Another little connection between Pippin and Faramir I don't think I've ever thought about before, that apparently Billy Boyd thought about when doing these scenes, is that Pippin is the only son of the Thain of the Shire, so there may have been a certain amount of pressure and expectation on him. Obviously, he's so young and probably didn't spend too much time worrying about that while scampering about the Shire, but maybe that's something he thinks about while watching the way Faramir and Denethor interact. Maybe a contrast to the way he would interact with his own father, maybe a reminder of the way he would be scolded? Hard to say, but it's interesting to think about.

Uuuuuuughghghg, so frustrating to listen to them talking about the scene on the steps where Frodo sends Sam away DX No matter how many times and how many different ways they explain why they did it, the explanations never quite make sense to me. "We needed there to be more tension." WHY WAS IT NOT TENSE ENOUGH THAT THEY WERE GOING INTO THE LAIR OF A HUGE EVIL SPIDER?! "There wasn't really anything happening on the steps otherwise." YEAH, BECAUSE YOU PUT THE WHOLE CONVERSATION ABOUT STORIES IN THE PREVIOUS MOVIE! Also, why not just cut from one or two shots of them climbing this awful staircase to a shot of them entering the cave? "There needed to be a payoff for Gollum's scheming." WHY WAS GOLLUM BETRAYING THEM TO SHELOB NOT ENOUGH OF A PAYOFF?! "We knew InStInCtIvElY that Frodo needed to enter the cave alone." WHY? WHY?! I've never understood that. They get separated eventually in the book, so why not just ramp up the tension of that in the movie, instead of making the characters so OOC? "We knew it would shock readers of the book, and if we'd changed that, what else might we have changed?" You know...I really, really love these movies, and I appreciate what these three were able to accomplish so much...but sometimes I kind of hate them too -_-

The horses didn't want to walk down the hill on the cobbled streets of Minas Tirith, because their steel shoes were so slippery on the stones. So they all had to be re-shod with rubber shoes. What were horseshoes made of back in ye olden days, though? Iron? Did people run into the same problems back then?

I never really noticed this before, but Aragorn never wears Anduril on his belt! He straps it to his horse, and every time you see him with it, he's just holding the naked blade. This is because they made Anduril so long it was really hard for him to wear it from his belt or to pull it out of the scabbard in a natural way XD

The aerial shot of all the Rohirrim leaving Dunharrow was originally shot to show Gandalf's cart heading into the Shire, but since they didn't use it for that, they repurposed it for RotK!

To get Elijah Wood to foam at the mouth when he's stung by Shelob, they gave him two Alka-Seltzer tablets to put in his mouth and work up some foam with his saliva. I've always wondered how they do that sort of thing in movies, but no one's bothered to explain until now....

Sean Astin's audition scene was holding Frodo after Shelob ;A; Apparently, they (or at least Philippa Boyens) were a little skeptical that an American actor would be able to do Sam's character right, but actually a lot of the English actors who auditioned for the role had a hard time with the Shelob aftermath scene, but Sean nailed it :')

Other than the close-ups, they used a dummy for Faramir on the pyre most of the time. Now I'm just imagining John Noble crouching on top of the pyre, cradling a dummy XD

The first Orc that Aragorn kills on Pelennor fields is played by his son Henry! XD

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME. They actually filmed Sam pushing past the sort of psychic barrier of the Watchers at the gate of Cirith Ungol, but they didn't put it into the extended edition! I love that part. Like...I'm not even sure why, but I've always thought that was such a cool little detail, and I've always been a bit bummed it wasn't in the movie, though I was thrilled to see the actual Watchers at least there as a sort of homage. And all along, they'd actually filmed something for that after all and I never knew! :O

You know, I never thought about it before, but it makes sense that they had to replace the sky digitally in a lot of scenes in Mordor, because of course when they filmed it, the sky wasn't always completely cloudy, but Mordor needs to have a complete cloud cover at all times.

When Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens first saw the footage of Sam carrying Frodo up Mt. Doom, they sent a fax (lolol 1999/2000 technology) to Sean and Elijah. They made the first page look all formal and official, and then on the second page it just said, "You made us cry." :')

Andy Serkis refused to have Gollum stand on two feet until the scene in the Crack of Doom. There were a few times that PJ directed him to lurch onto his feet or something, but Andy wouldn't do it. He wanted to show the difference in Gollum physically when he has the Ring again. What a cool detail!

Originally, the whole part where Frodo's hanging off the ledge and Sam is begging him to reach for him happens after the Ring is destroyed. It's really interesting to consider the slight nuances of how different that would be. The final version makes it almost seem like the Ring is still calling to Frodo, like he wants to fall into the lava and join it, whereas originally it was more like "I've lost the Ring and now I have nothing left to live for."

PJ made a sweet comment in the scene where everyone bows to the four hobbits: "This is a moment where there's always a huge sniffle in the audience when the movie's going, and it's usually me." XD

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! They shot scenes of what happens to the other characters when the hobbits return to the Shire! There is footage out there somewhere of what Legolas and Gimli do, what happens with Faramir and Eowyn!!!! ;aldkfjsd;fkldslfkjd 25th anniversary edition LET'S GOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

[muse-write]

🥔 po-tay-toes: one of the hobbits invited you for a meal; who are dining with? Which of the seven meals are you enjoying?

🍃 leaves of lórien: what gift would you most like to receive?

🌟starlight: you're allowed to live in one of the Elf Kingdoms of Middle Earth, which one are you picking?

🧂 best salt in all the shire: which small joys do you most look forward to? (particular tea, using a perfume, rereading a book, etc.)

☕ may I tempt you with a cup of chamomile?: What is your favourite hot beverage?

🌳 fangorn forest: Which of Tolkien's creechurs is your favourite?

🕷 creepy crawlies: which of tolkien's creatures do you think is the most frightening?

🔥 barbecue: who is the worst antagonist?

🗝 lost heirloom: which heirloom/object in the films or novels would you like to learn more about?

🍲eowyn's home cooking: which other way could the ring be destroyed? (funny answers only)

📕 the red book of westmarch : what is your favourite quote(s)?

👑the silver crown: the war is won, the world is saved, the king has been crowned. Who are you partying with at the coronation?

🏔 the misty mountains: the pass is treacherous, which two characters are you taking with you to make it over the mountains?

🌋 mount doom: what middle earth take are you throwing into the fire?

⚙ technology: everything is exactly the same but you can give one character a modern invention. Who is it and what are you giving them?

⛵valinor: we're approaching the end of this game, is there a take/opinion you absolutely want to share?

🦗 weta: you're allowed to take one prop (or the canon useful version) home with you from the set, what are you taking?

☀ when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer: either share a piece of good news or something you're looking forward to.

There, a nice short ask for you! ^_^

🥔 I'm dining with Frodo (and maybe Sam if he's around, because you know he'd be a great cook). I feel like we'd have plenty of things to discuss and we could discuss history and Elvish stories and make up poetry and sing songs. Yep, I'm daydreaming about this now.

🍃I don't think it's a surprise to say I want a sword. Imagine going off from Lothlorien on your quest and getting a First-or-Second Age sword from Galadriel herself! Although I would also be partial to receiving a vial of Earendil's light.

🌟What do you think? (Rivendell, it's Rivendell and always will be, I want to live in Rivendell so bad.)

🧂 listening to a good audiobook on the way to work (a thirty minute drive either way gives me a lot of time to get absorbed into a story). recently a good small joy for me has been playing LotRO at the end of the day. Also watching The Chosen on Sundays with my dad. I have a couple of hair clips and earrings I like that I think look really pretty on me and they make me feel fancy, so I've enjoyed that.

☕ I like coffee--I do enjoy tea, but I'm really picky because sometimes it really just tastes like hot water with a hint of leaf. I like flavor (so no black coffee for me, I have to have cream and sugar).

🌳Depends on what "creechurs/creatures(?)" means; if humanoid creatures, then the Elves are my favorite. If not, then...I like Huan. Talking dogs from Valinor just sound cool.

🕷The first orcs--the sheer body horror of twisted Elves having been tortured and corrupted into a form so adverse to what Eru Iluvatar created them to be is wonderfully terrifying. I enjoy those takes that rely on them being more or less like normal Elves, but just...to the left. Evil. Against anything good and warded off by beauty, the exact opposite to what Elves have been established to love. (Despite my misgivings about RoP, I really like what they did with Adar, he was a good idea.)

🔥?? Not sure. Feanor, maybe, just because it's unclear whether he's an antagonist or not. I think Sauron could have been more present in The Lord of the Rings, but Tolkien had a reason for not really showing him, so I can't call that 'bad' either. I've never really cared much for the 'antagonists' in Tolkien's works, simply because he's not that concerned with them as characters other than representations of evil corrupting good.

🗝 Maybe the Elfstone? I like the idea of this relic from the First Age being passed down to the Kings of Gondor in the Third Age, and I'd like to know what happened to it afterward. Also the maker of it is ambiguous, so it has a mysterious past.

🍲Glorfindel takes it back to Valinor and they throw it in the Void. It either becomes nothing or Feanor and his sons keep it out of reach of Morgoth until the Dagor Dagorath.

📕 There are....so many. But the one I thought of first was: “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

The one I thought of second was: "And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness."

👑 The hobbits would be great partiers!

🏔️ Aragorn would be a great companion—he’s climbed many mountains in his day. Maybe also Arwen, I just have a feeling she’d be a good traveling companion in hard times. She doesn’t appear much in the book but I get the sense that she’d be a loyal friend who looks after everyone.

🌋 There are so many bad takes I don’t even know. Character-wise? Russington. I can see the appeal, I get why people ship them, but also they are cousins. Actual Middle-earth centric? Maybe that the Valar are horrendous at their jobs and meddled too much/didn’t do enough. The Valar were working for the good of Middle-earth and, more importantly, to fulfill the plans of Eru Iluvatar, which I think is extremely importsnt to look at from Tolkien’s Christian POV. Of course people do have some valid criticisms, and fans can think whatever they want, I just think that sometimes I see people missing what Tolkien was trying to do (it’s something that took me years to come to terms with as well).

⚙️ I’d give Elrond medical science and bring HollersandHolmes’ AU to reality.

⛵ I don’t think so…

🦗 I’d take Legolas’ pair of knives. I’ve wanted them since I first watched the movies. They’re so elegant, so Elvish!

☀️ I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone this year and trying to be such a more social person! I’m more confident than I was this time last year!

[amdirfiren]

@dunadaneth​ said:  write a meta about alwen's house!!!!

[ Alwen’s house is one of my favorite things because it’s one place where her personality is on full display, and I haven’t had really any threads set there directly.

For the house itself, it sits on the fifth tier, nestled in a quiet corner, looking something like this: [x]. Othiel, Alwen’s aunt, bought it herself with her own wealth after her husband, Berendir, abandoned his family for his mistress in Lossarnach. It is a small house, a home for a mother and her son, but it is cozy, and it had space enough for the two of them. There is a small garden outside, to the right of the house, and while Othiel always wanted to plant things there, she never really did, and so it just remained as a plot of grass for her son and niece to have picnics. Inside, Othiel continued her weaving, using the spacious living room to lay out her fabrics and tapestries.

When his mother died, Bregoldir let the home sit, unable to do much of anything with it as a soldier who was needed at the front lines. It was not until he opened the house to his cousin, taking her under his care when her father died, that it became a home again.

Bregoldir essentially gave Alwen free reign of the house, letting her decorate and restyle it as she chose, and while most of it stayed the same, she did update some things. The kitchen was left alone, for the most part, only having a growing number of drying herbs and potted plants accumulate within it. In the living room, Bregoldir gifted Alwen with a full apothecary cabinet for her birthday while she was studying to become a healer. The cousins also kept the last tapestry that Othiel was working on before she died--it is unfinished, still hanging on the loom, and it sits as a testament to her.

Up the stairs to the second story, there is a large tapestry that details Alwen’s family lineage. Othiel completed it when Alwen was two years old when she realized her brother would not remarry and that her niece would be an only child. There are a few other tapestries hanging up on the walls, some of her aunt’s favorite personal pieces that they could not bear to take down.

The first bedroom is Bregoldir’s and it is sparse. He spends most of his time with the army, with soldiers in the barracks, and so he is not fussed about the shape his bedroom at home is left in. There is a stand for his armor, but there is little else there.

Next to that is a bathroom with a large tub, but again, little else.

Alwen took Othiel’s old room, the largest room, and while it is a little too big for her needs, she is still grateful that she has it. The bed is large and warm, the dresser more than wide enough to hold all her things. There is a large chest stashed in the corner, full of old things that Alwen had no other place for, things from her childhood or scraps and spare fabric from her aunt’s collection.

And the garden outside has finally found use--it grows several of the most needed herbs that Alwen uses in the Houses of Healing, as well as a few berry bushes for her own needs. There is a bench along the garden wall and it is Alwen’s favorite place to sit in the sunlight and read, or simply enjoy the quiet of the outdoors.

[peachdoodledump]

Penny for your thoughts: K- Kwazini headcannons? 😦

OOOH I LOVE THIS QUESTION

Paani likes to teach Kwazii about recipes he knows and Kwazii goes "looks easy enough" but then proceeds to fail. Paani does not laugh at him for that and patiently teaches him how to properly cook that specific recipe

Kwazii has once introduced Paani to the video games that Tweak plays and Kwazii tells him that "it's alright to be bad at it first time," then proceeds to lose every match with Paani. Paani ends up teaching Kwazii the strategies instead

They both like to invite each other with water-related activities and Kwazii has invited Paani once to drive one of the gups underwater. When a novice driver takes a gup, it usually doesn't end well. And it didn't. So, Kwazii starts another driving lesson

They both like to show each other's collections: Kwazii's treasure chest and Paani's water sample collection

They like to exchange stories when they're not busy saving animals or researching. Paani has once been in that table in the Octopod (where the members just huddle around and talk about what happened on their missions) and talked about his adventures. Kwazii usually chimes in with "was it a sea monster?!"

Paani does not ridicule Kwazii when his theories are far-fetched. He doesn't say stuff like "you don't actually believe that, do you?" Instead, he innocently corrects him. But, he does get stressed at times when Kwazii doesn't listen. (Much like how Kwazii gets stressed when Paani doesn't listen LMAO)

There's definitely a one time that Paani has called Kwazii on his Octo-Watch in the middle of the night just to show him a critter he found or something strange going on with the water levels. This often leads to Kwazii groggily answering with half-lidded eyes and ends up sleeping on call while Paani's still talking

The two of them don't intentionally cause chaos. They're really just chaos magnets that Captain Barnacles sometimes has to make one of the Octonauts accompany them just to ensure things don't go out of hand (like in the giant weta episode)

They mention each other even if they're not together. Kwazii would be like "If Paani were here, he'd be tellin' us what salinity this lake has!" and Paani would be "Now, what would Kwazii do in this situation?"

They like to show each other the pictures they took during their missions

Paani is knowledgeable with a LOT of things and info-dumps them on Kwazii. Kwazii often reacts like what he does with Tracker but instead of "you've got your nose on that book, again?" He says "you've got your tail on that sample, again?"

Kwazii has offered to teach Paani how to swordfight in his room but Captain Barnacles, knowing how well that would go, tries to stop them from breaking Kwazii's shelves

They're both pretty good singers but Kwazii just hears Paani hum bird songs

Kwazii has once tried to have friendly rivalry with Paani like he had with Cap Barnacles but Paani doesn't pick up on this and ends up just saying "Okay, you go first," intead of saying "No. I'll go first," like what Kwazii expects him to say

There was definitely a time that they unintentionally mirrored each other's actions and they freaked themselves out when they realized it

Paani: "Well, I'll be my own uncle." Kwazii: "That's usually my line."

SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS TURNED OUT KSJRHEHSH I just kept getting scenarios in my head when it involves the two of them AKRNEHE

[aroturier]

I Want To Start Something:

Who here is also a fan of Peter Jackson, Of Wingnut and New Line and WETA? Jackson is always looking for new subjects for his next project.

Kuroshitsuji the manga will not go on forever. Eventually the buzz for it will die. While it is still alive and there is material around to see what the excitement is about, somebody PLEASE, put a good word in Peter Jackson's ear.

Take a look at the second hobbit movie if you need convincing. Watch Legolas and the she-elf fight in the barrels down the river scenes and tell me they don't remind you of someone who makes warfare look like a ballet. If Jackson's people and WETA can animate and choreograph a believable Legolas, then by god, they have the expertise, talent, technical skills, as well as the bankable reputation and respect for the original material and for the fanbase to create a believable Sebastian and Death Gods. We need them. They don't know it yet, but they need us.

So let it begin: start it. Talk it up. Find the appropriate Discords. Find someone who knows someone who knows the right ear and can whisper it: Peter Jackson needs to make the difinitive live action Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler fillum. So say I.

Who is with me?

[monstersandmaw]

This is a completely random question and you don't have to answer it at all but I was curious. If you could have your time over again or start over again what would you do for your career?

I don't mind you asking, Anon :).

I would like to think I could have dug my heels in way back at school, and told my parents I wanted to pursue a career in acting and ended up at RADA or somewhere. I always loved the chameleon nature of it, of becoming someone else, and I was in a few school plays, but because of the other subjects and responsibilities on me at the time, I wasn't taken seriously and I wasn't allowed to do drama at GCSE so I just went down other paths. I also wanted to do art but it wouldn't fit in my timetable, and I wanted to build props like Weta Workshops etc. Then, a bit later, I wanted to do marine biology, but sciences had always been weaker for me in terms of grades despite how much I enjoyed them, so I let myself be funnelled down the arts route because I got really good grades. I didn't enjoy them particularly, and University confirmed that I'm not cut out for academia.

If you're looking for advice out of this, it's to stick wholeheartedly to your guns if you have a passion, and do what you love. Edit: also, do not let people silence your voice or make you feel like you're not worthy of what you want. I didn't stick to what I wanted, and I've been miserable and full of guilt ever since. Yes, I know people say it's never too late to do what you love, and it's true, but I just don't have the energy to try any more, so don't feel obliged to send chirpy additions about going for it now, please.

[penwieldingdreamer]

First Meetings

So, now that I have been stuck at home due to my mother's positive Covid test and watching The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for 6 days straight, inspiration struck again, thank god 🙏😅 The new center of this -maybe- series will be Lee Pace. Of course this is only a fantasy and everything only came from my imagination but with a pinch of real events happening, still it's going to be in an alternative universe.

Thanks for being my beta @fortheloveoffanfic

Hope you guys will like it. Let me know what you thought and if you like to be tagged in upcoming drabbles I have palned and will hopefully be able to continue now again.

Summary: You work as part of the Mae-Up and Hair Crew on set of the Hobbit Trilogy, where you meet many interesting people, but one has gotten more of your attention than you would have thought.

Warnings: none, except for a very long drabble 😅

Words: 1722

You had been part of the crew ever since Peter Jackson had started working on the Hobbit trilogy in 2011 and met everyone that had been essential to the movies on and off screen. Apparently Fran had seen your work first hand when you were at a competition for make - up artists and she was impressed by the end results. You hadn't won any of the prizes but you were only one against one hundred others and yet she wanted you to be part of the second historic movie trilogy PJ did in his life.

The first people you had met were of course the dwarves and Martin who was Bilbo in the movie. They all were fun to be around, especially Dean and Aiden, as well as James Nesbitt who would always greet you with jokes or a song, giving you something to look forward to during those nearly endless days of filming.

And then, at the ending of shooting the first movie of the trilogy Philippa came up to you, a very tall man following behind her. You had just gotten done with James' make-up and wanted some fresh air, with all the fumes inside the trailer you sometimes thought you might get sick, so you sat outside, watching the pair walk over to you.

"Y/N," she said in greeting, a smile breaking out on her face. "May I introduce you to our newest cast members. Lee is going to be Elvenking Thranduil and he's in need of your service." Pippa, as you called her, had always had a way with people and she was next to Fran and Pete the only one of your bosses you could be yourself with and even call family away from your own. In your former jobs you had only been the one for the make-up, the one being ordered around and not even been able to give an opinion to change should something not look right on the person. But here, you were part of the crew and they would listen to you.

"It's nice to meet you." You said, holding out your hand for the actor to shake. With a smile in return he grabbed it and you had to concentrate not to let your reaction show on your face. Holy shit, his hands were huge compared to your smaller ones.

Only your boss's voice pulled you back to the task at hand. "So, Lee needs to get into his wig and ears and we'd like to try the crowns with the wardrobe department. Let's say meeting in an hour and a half over at costumes?"

"Oh, uh, sure." you mumbled, hastily disentangling your hand from his. "I'll send him right over when I'm done."

Pippa grinned at you. "Why don't you come over, too? We wouldn't want there to be a repeat of Elrond's circlet like the last time."

A soft sigh escaped your lips, nodding your head you stepped up onto the small stairs outside the trailer. "I'll bring him over then and make sure the wig will be in one piece once you guys are done."

"Great, I'll see you guys later!" she said, clapping her hands and walking off, leaving you with the giant in human form standing in front of you.

Once he made sure she was out of ear shot, Lee turned back to you, a smile plastered onto his face. "Do I want to know what happened to that wig?"

"I don't think you want to know, it was a mess and the guys making the wigs were so angry because the circlet Hugo was wearing in the fitting got caught on the strands and ripped it in half. They had to do it all over again."

Nodding his head, the actor entered the trailer behind her. You told him to take the empty chair next to Richard, who was getting ready for his scenes and he took the time to watch you flit around in your workplace. Everything was chaotic and still in order all the same. When you had come back to your place, the prosthetic ears and wig in hand, Lee grinned at you, his dark blue eyes shining with mirth. "Well, we wouldn't want another repeat for the King of Woodland Elves."

"At least you're already in character, then." Richard mumbled next to him with a laugh trying not to interrupt the woman doing his make-up for the day, listening to the words leaving his co-stars mouth.

Watching the actor, who was Thorin in the movie series, he laughed. "I just need to get my crown and wardrobe and I'll be good to go, everything else is already perfect."

Ruckus laughter floated through the trailer and you couldn't help but admire the shape of his face. Before you could stop yourself, you had already mumbled a 'yes, perfect' and Lee's eyes turned back to you. You felt the blush creeping over your face, swiftly grabbing a comb and a few clips to prepare his own hair for the wig cap you were going to be putting on under. All had seen the flush spread out on your skin and Martin who was getting up from his chair next to you send you wink. That was a great way to make a first impression on the day of meeting a new part of the movie series. You were scolding yourself inside, making sure to only talk to Lee when he was asking something, otherwise keeping your mouth shut.

"Okay let's see the green coat again with the silver overcoat. Y/N, be a dear and bring me that one please." Ann Maskrey, one of the costume designers asked you, while Pete and Pippa watched Lee getting dressed in the green coat. You walked over to the wardrobe and took the first silver coat. "No, not that one, the one with the deep orange silk on the inside." So you took the correct one on the second try and held it out for Lee to put on. He grinned down at you, pulling the coat over his shoulders and straightening himself. It would be easier if he wasn't such a giant, but he was a handsome giant.

"Right then, that looks good. Let's try it with the smaller branch crown."

You sighed, hoping there wasn't going to be another wig fiasco when you helped putting the crown on. Weta had done an amazing job designing all the pieces for the movies, for all movies they worked on, but sometimes these things were a bitch to work with. Your comb and pins at the ready, he sat down on the chair, pulling the knee-high boots on over the leggings he wore underneath.

"I'm going to be gentle but if I should hurt you with the pin please let me know." you told him, lightly pinning the crown to the wig so it wouldn't fall off.

Lee had closed his eyes, hiding the bright blue contacts he wore for his role. "I can take my fair bit of pain, but if it's intolerable, I'll let you know. So far I can't complain about these gentle hands."

By the time they had taken pictures and you had finally calmed down again so the flush that had started to spread over your face and neck at the close proximity to Lee was controlled again, Ann had asked you to take off one crown and exchange it for the larger branch crown with red leaves.

"I think this is going to be a lot more striking for King Thranduil then the other one."

So you repeated the process, gently combing the wig while Lee sat on the chair, chewing his gum and closing his eyes. He even held the hairpins in his hand because he saw you struggle to get them out of the confines of your little bag. When he moved it closer to you to work with your finger touched his and if you didn't know better there was a tiny spark from that brush of skin.

Finishing up, you grabbed the unused pins from his hand and told him you were done, giving the tall actor a light tap on his shoulder. Just as he walked over to the small area where they viewed him in his costumes, the door opened and Martin and James walked inside.

"Sorry, you guys but we had a small, unfortunate accident." the Irish actor apologized, showing the burst seams on his pants. "We were doing our stunts and well."

Martin grinned, walking over to you and throwing his arm around your shoulders. "We also wanted to see what all the fuss was about that haughty elf king."

Giggling, you looked over at Lee who grinned at his co-stars and repeated the walk he did before.

"Just so you know, if I were a female dwarf, I'd tap that elf ass." James whispered into your left ear, your once controlled blush intensifying again while the blond actor nodded his head enthusiastically.

"He's a perfect elf, you know. Broad shoulder, tall, elegant, striking eyes. The hair." Martin spoke so only you and the dwarf actor could hear.

"The long legs." James added, nodding his head over to the American actor who strutted along the area, having thrown off the overcoat.

"That smouldering look." the Brit continued before you held up your hands.

"Enough, you." You hissed so no one would know what you had been talking about, but you knew they were only trying to rile you up. Yes, Lee was attractive, hell, he was gorgeous and Pippa and Pete did an amazing job casting him, but you knew him for less than a day. He could be a total asshole when he didn't have people to impress for his first day on set. "You guys should get to Lucy or Sam so they can stitch up those holes."

"Well, I'm going to tell you this, one day you'll end up with a guy like that and you'll remember what I told you. You deserve the best in your life, luv." James told you proudly, pulling you closer into a one armed hug. He was brother and father to you in one person and you knew that his words were going to bite you in your ass.

They always did.

Taglist(I wasn't sure who to tag, also who might want to read it, so please let me know if you don't want to see mor of this in your notifications)

@fortheloveoffanfic @ladyreapermc @toomanystoriessolittletime @meetmeinthematinee @omg-imagine @fanficsrusz @eevee-of-rivia @fics-not-tragedies @omgkatinka @fuck-yeah-hope @wholelottatiffy @axshadows​ @a-really-bi-girl @madbaddic7ed @maggiemoo1892 @pinkzsugar @agniavateira @mary-ann84 and everyone who might want to read this.

[erindrifter]

Alright, here we go.

My roommate and I just watched Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.

It's bad. On EVERY level of moviemaking.

Actors: not good performances.

Music: generic.

Plot: messy and dumb.

Visual effects: not very good.

Overall: don't watch this movie, it's honestly on par with Artemis Fowl as "most painful movie to watch", and Artemis Fowl made me remake the entire scale.

Anyways, let's talk about visual effects! This movie doesn't have good ones. Most people would attribute this to the VFX production houses, but that's not really the case, and I have proof. Most of these VFX companies worked on other stuff, such as: Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian, The Boys, various superhero movies such as the Snyder Cut and Venom 2. One of them is even WETA Digital, which did most effects for Lord of the Rings!

So, the effects houses are good, there is definitive proof of that. (For those who may not know, every show up there is known for spectacular visual effects). So, what happened? The Director happened.

The thing about working with visual effects is that the filming of the scene is STILL VERY IMPORTANT! As examples, I'm going to point out 2 specific scenes:

Riding the Hippocampus

My theory for this is that the director set up what basically amounts to a green screen bullriding thing, put the three actors on it, and said "Pretend you're on a horse! It'll be fine, it's a wide shot, nobody will think much on it!" Then gave that footage and a helicopter shot of the water to the VFX people.

So, what the effects crew had to do is create the hippocampus, animate it, make the physics simulation of the water, put in the actors, and color grade everything so it matches. Look at the sides of the water thrown around, it smooths unnaturally before hitting the simulation, because it's fake water being put onto real water.

What the director SHOULD have done is put 3 stunt doubles on a jet ski and sent them out, so the effects team just have to put in the hippocampus and probably move around the actors, the water is already being thrown around in the shot itself.

Luke being held by Kronos

Do you notice how Luke and the hand don't seem to QUITE be matching up? Well, what probably happened is that the director put the actor in front of a green screen and said "pretend a giant is about to eat you" (spoiler alert. Don't watch this movie anyways.)

This is a good method, except there is ONE mistake that throws the whole thing off: Luke's black shirt.

See, in visual effects, if you have CGI interacting with real elements, you need them to move correctly. That's why motion capture suits usually have those triangles on them. If the software doesn't do good enough, then the animators can use the triangles to match them up. In absence of triangles, they can use patterns on the clothing if they have to.

But that's a plain black shirt. There's NOTHING to track to. So, the animators have to guess as best they can, and that usually doesn't end up with picture-perfect tracking.

Long story short, the visual effects in this movie are NOT the fault of the VFX production houses (alone) but also the fault of the director not setting up the filming properly. It's very important to keep that in mind if you're working with visual effects. It's ALWAYS better to plan ahead and film what is needed for the shot.

[novelmonger]

After a long delay (brought on by distractions as well as scurrying around with moving preparations), I finally got around to watching The Two Towers with the Design Team audio commentary, with Richard Taylor, Tania Rodger, Grant Major, Alan Lee, John Howe, Dan Hennah, and Chris Hennah.

Here are some new tidbits of information I've gleaned from it:

Richard Taylor's least favorite prosthetic work of the trilogy is that opening shot in TTT when Frodo starts awake and you can see his ear. Richard doesn't think the color-matching was done very well - but in their defense, I literally never noticed it in all the dozens of times I've watched this movie XD

When filming on location up in the mountains for Emyn Muil, people would go to lunch on ski lifts because there were ski resorts in the valleys XD

I never picked up on this (oops!), but the idea was that, though the Uruk-Hai were bred to be hardier and stronger than regular Orcs, the unnatural process of creating them meant that they age and deteriorate faster than regular Orcs. So when they're in the sunlight, their skin gets blotchy, their eyes get cataracts, and their hair starts turning grey.

When they burned the village in Rohan, they accidentally burnt one of their fake dead horses, which cost $2,000 to make. Also, there was one shot (which didn't get used) where the fire from one of the buildings suddenly shot out towards the camera, and the cameramen had to flee for their lives!

They specifically called for extras who actually knew how to chop down trees for the scene where the Orcs are cutting firewood at the edge of Fangorn. They ended up with a couple guys who were champion woodcutters - which I didn't know was a thing!

Richard Taylor said that if he could go back and redo one thing for TTT, it would be to redo the contact lenses for Snaga, because they ran out of time to make any themselves and had to just use commercial ones, and he didn't think they looked subtle enough. It's okay, Richard, I don't think anybody's noticed!

The way they made the inside of the Orcs' mouths black (because Orc blood is supposed to be black, so the reasoning is that no part of their bodies would be reddish or pinkish) was that they had a licorice-based mouthwash they would make every Orc actor swish around in their mouth before each take to blacken the inside of the mouth. And they would have to be careful not to get too much of it on their teeth, or the teeth would all get black too @_@

In the scene where the Three Hunters meet Eomer for the first time, they didn't want Karl Urban to wear the metal hero's helmet they'd made, since he had to dismount a horse. So the helmet he's wearing is made of urethane, but is designed and painted so well it looks like metal. The same goes for the horses' armor, because even leather will irritate a horse's skin when it's not accustomed to wearing anything on its face.

Richard Taylor points out that Gollum's hair is actually one of the most important elements of his design, because without it, he would just look like an alien. The straggles of hair humanizes him and helps us believe that he was once not so different from a Hobbit.

Weta hung a maquette of the fell beast from the sprinkler system, until one time the building was getting an inspection and they had to take it down ^^'

There were 350 sets planned for the whole shoot, though in practice, of course, they ended up doing a lot more work than that, what with rearranging certain sets like the Fangorn ones to make the locations seem bigger than the space they were actually filmed in.

A year before they started shooting anything at the Edoras location, they contacted local farmers and asked them to grow wheat for them, so they would have enough to thatch all the buildings. Because some of the wheat still had seeds, some of them started sprouting during the shooting. I haven't seen it, but apparently there's one shot where you can see a bit of green growing on one of the roofs - unintentional, but it adds an extra element of authenticity to the scene.

They built the indoor stable set close to the mountain where they built Edoras, thinking that surely there would be at least a day or two where the weather wouldn't permit them to shoot at Edoras. But there was no inclement weather the whole time they were shooting there, so they didn't end up needing the stables after all. So they had to break down the stable set and take it all back to Wellington to use later.

To make the rabbits that Gollum hunts, they got rabbit skins and stuffed them with something like gelatin or Turkish delight, so Andy Serkis could get at it with his teeth through a hole in the skin and pull it out like he's eating the guts. I don't think I ever really thought about it before, but I guess I always sort of assumed Andy Serkis was just miming it and they filled it in with CG or something.

They hired a traditional saddle-maker to originally make about 25 saddles for the main actors, thinking they would only need him for that and then let him go. But he ended up working for them full-time to make all the saddles, work on repairs, etc.!

Helm's Deep was the first drawing Alan Lee worked on for the movies, and it was also the first miniature they made.

For Treebeard's leaves, they had to outsource leaves from China to get the right look and shape, but then they weren't the right color, and they couldn't afford to have the factory in China paint them. So there was one guy who spent months hand-painting all the leaves that would go onto Treebeard's body @_@ This is the kind of above-and-beyond work that makes LotR so incredible, I think.

The Forbidden Pool wasn't supposed to be so murky; they designed the bottom of the pool with all of these rocks painted to make it look deeper than it actually was. They had trouble with the water foaming, because there are detergents in paint, so whenever you have water running over a painted surface, you run the risk of the water foaming up. But they ran out of time to figure out how to get the water to flow clean so you could actually see into the bottom :'(

Richard Taylor's least favorite piece of armor was the extra shoulder guards they gave Legolas for Helm's Deep. They wanted to show him also adding some extra armor like the others, but also wanted him to be immediately recognizable in wide shots. Richard Taylor thinks they compromised too much - they should have committed to either more or less. Personally? I never even noticed it was any different ^^'

They were struggling to get the Elf extras to march in time with each other, but what they discovered was that if they told them all to hold their bows exactly upright, the concentration it took to keep the bows in position actually helped them all march in sync with each other! Funny how little things like that work with our brains.

If I understood correctly, that one Uruk at Helm's Deep who screams with a really wide mouth in a close-up is actually an animatronic?! It was the first thing they built and shot for the demo they showed New Line to convince them they could make this project, but actually the last thing they shot for the final version of the movie.

The Uruk crossbows were made from timber that was leftover from some repairs in the workshop XD

Okay, here's a bit of lore that never really comes out in the movie: The berserkers, the Uruks who are first off the ladders (or like the suicide bomber guy carrying the torch to the wall), were designed with the thought that their helmets are filled with human blood before being forced onto their heads, so they'll be filled with bloodlust and be fiercer when they fight.

The greens department was too good at their job! Sometimes, they would dress the set with all the rocks and bits of grass and other things like that to be ready for the shoot, and it would look so natural that when other crewmembers would come in to set up, they would park their trucks and equipment on a part of the set that had been painstakingly dressed for filming!

There was a Gore and Injury team that was responsible for all of the makeup for blood and that kind of thing, and they were all very proud of their jobs. The truck they used to cart all of their buckets of fake blood and slime used to be a fruit and vegetable truck, and it still had the logo on the side that said "Fruity" XD

"We ended up making blood in huge quantities." - excellent out-of-context quote XD

(I feel like I've heard parts of this, but not all of it.) The first battering ram they made for Helm's Deep was way too heavy for stunt guys wearing full armor and also trying to act. But the second battering ram they made was too light! So with the third attempt, they made it lighter with a hollow middle where they could put sandbags to adjust the weight to get it just right. But the sandbags would move around as the ram was lifted, so they had to put barriers ("bulkheads" I think was the word used) inside to keep the sandbags from all bunching up at one end or the other.

Richard Taylor observed that actors and stunt people are actually more dangerous with the rubbery stunt weapons than they are with the real, "hero" weapons. With the sword made out of real metal with a sharp edge, they're cognizant of how dangerous it is, so they're more careful with it. But if you give someone a rubber sword, they'll whack the living daylights out of everybody XD

One of the challenges of using a miniature for the flooding of Isengard is that water doesn't scale very well. Because of water's surface tension and other physics factors, if you shoot water flooding a miniature, it will be immediately obvious that the water is too "big" for the objects it's flooding. So, ironically, they had to put a digital layer of water over the real water they filmed to make it look more realistic.

I can't remember if this was mentioned in the Director/Writer commentary or not, but back when LotR was originally envisioned as two movies, Peter Jackson wanted a dramatic moment with Frodo to end the first movie, and so for a time they floated the idea of one of the Nazgul on a fell beast coming to Amon Hen when Frodo puts the Ring on. John Howe talks about this, and how it's actually not as far from the book as you might originally think, since in the book, Frodo puts on the Ring on the Seat of Seeing and catches a glimpse of some flying creature heading his way. In the book, he takes the Ring off in time so the creature doesn't actually find him, but the idea was to have the Nazgul arrive in the movie. Thankfully, that didn't end up being necessary because they were able to make three movies.

The scene after the battle of Helm's Deep where Legolas and Gimli meet up and figure out who won the competition was John Rhys-Davies' first day on set??? He wasn't used to the prosthetics on his face yet, so he'd sweated a lot and it had become detached and left a weird wrinkle in his forehead. So they had Gino Acevedo, one of the prosthetics people, lying hidden amongst the orc corpses, holding onto a string or something attached to the prosthetic, pulling on it to try to keep it taut against John's forehead. I watch the scene, and I can't even imagine that happening off-screen @_@

In the Flotsam and Jetsam scene, the props guy came up to Dan Hennah before shooting was supposed to start, frantic because the apples weren't floating. Dan was like, "What? No, apples float!" but the guy tossed an apple into the water and it sank. So they hastily tried to come up with a solution, thinking they'd have to core a bunch of apples and stuff them with polyurethane to get them to float. But Dan was still positive that apples floated. So then he grabbed an apple and tossed it into the water...and it floated. And so did the next one, and the next. Eventually, they figured out what the problem was: There were some wax apples among the props that were so lifelike that the prop guy thought they were real apples, but the wax ones were heavy enough that they sank. So they could just use real apples in the scene. But they did have to stuff the turkey with polyurethane so it would float.

They ended up making 139 different versions of Frodo and Sam's packs @_@ They had to make different packs for different stages of the journey, because of weathering and eventually them carrying less and less in the packs as they get to Mordor. Then they had to make twice as many, because they also needed scaled-down versions for the scale doubles.