Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Friday, December 29, 2023
The title for this blogpost is a quote from the wizard, Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. It's one of Carl's favorite quotes, since he is something of a wanderer on his bike and in hiking the mountains near Shippensburg. And we did a bit of wandering today!
Today was our long-awaited Lord of the Rings tour including a visit to the WETA studios in Wellington, as well as a visit to some of the sites used in filming the first LOTR movie. We had a fabulous guide by the name of "Wai Wai" who actually looks a little bit like Peter Jackson! He was a hoot! Very entertaining with lots of behind-the-scenes stories of what went on during filming. I think he said he did some technical work on the LOTR films and actually got to be in the "Hobbit" movies (the 2nd triology).
We had two bubbly 20-something ladies (Melissa and Becky) giving us the 50-60 minute tour in the WETA workshop showing us the intricacies of making objects/weapons using molds. Pouring items in plastic and enhancing with weight to give it the right feel/heft and then all the work by the art department to age them appropriately. We also looked at prostheses used in LOTR. In the early days, they used latex, but given that 1 in 5 people have latex allergies, they eventually switched to silicone. It's more lifelike, but it is definitely heavier (for pieces like limbs or full body fat suits)! She said that when filming, folks who were wearing heavy silicone prostheses would go stand in front of industrial fans between takes.
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| Carl & "Gimli" at the WETA workshop |
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| Anne hanging out with Gollum |
WETA makes all sorts of props (lots of weapons) for all kinds of films, including King Kong, Avatar, and some of the Marvel films.
Upon leaving the studio we drove up into Victoria Park, about 900 meters above sea level here in Wellington, to look at a couple of locations that were actually used in the first LOTR film. This was the part of the tour that really turned my crank!
The first site, which required walking down hill a couple of hundred meters and then up a path with lots of roots poking out the ground. Is where they filmed the scene where Pippin, Merry, Frodo, & Sam are chased out of the farmer's field and end up falling down an embankment.
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| Hill the hobbits tumbled down as they were being chased for stealing produce from the farmer's field |
The hill was quite steep, and at the drop off, they put down a rubber mat. In the early days they didn't yet have any stunt doubles, so they hired locals from a martial arts school (folks how know how to tumble) for the scene. After several takes, the person standing in for Frodo, wanted to do a really 'good' tumble so he threw himself down the hill head first (bad idea)! He overshot the mat and continued tumbling a little farther and when he stopped he said "I think I've broken something" - and he had, it was his collarbone! But Peter Jackson liked the line and it stayed in the film. Of course, in the film, the line refers to the carrots in Pippin's pocket.
The next spot our guide took us to, is the background for the scene where Frodo is looking down the road (just after the hobbits have tumbled down the hill and are now looking for mushrooms) and he senses the ringwraith approaching.
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| The tree that you can see behind Frodo when he senses the ringwraith approaching |
Just across the road and down a little incline was a sort of cove in the rock and that's where the hobbits hid while the ringwraith searched for them on the road above. They CGI-d a big tree root on top of the cove/cul de sac. Carl actually went down and posed in the cul de sac (it was too steep for me).
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| Carl - hiding from the ring wraiths |
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| Woods hobbits ran through at night to get to Buckleberry Ferry |
Here's a picture of our guide, Wai Wai:
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| In Victoria Park with our guide Wai Wai |
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