‘Fellowship’ is about to turn 20!
Amongst the many VFX highlights of The Lord of the Rings films–Massive, virtual cameras, Gollum–one of my favorite kinds of effects in the movies involved the forced perspective and ‘scale’ work, where different-sized characters played by ‘human-sized’ actors needed to appear on screen together.
In this VFX breakdown posted by Weta Digital, which showcases Gandalf’s arrival at Bag End in The Fellowship of the Ring, we see how the scale work was achieved by matching an on-set shoot to a bluescreen shoot. It’s such a fun scene, and such a fun approach to filmmaking. I had almost forgotten that first arrival into Bilbo’s home plays as a oner, serving to never give away the ‘trick’.
Fellowship is now about to celebrate its 20th anniversary, and this clip reminds me of both the old-school and new-school innovations mastered by Peter Jackson and Weta Digital and all the filmmakers at the time.
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