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This makes the second day in a row that I've failed to mention that Mitchell and I went to a really interesting lecture at the Museum on Saturday about the special effects in Lord of the Rings. My memory fails at LIFE.
The guy who was giving the lecture, Paul Kirwan, was a compositor. He started by showing us the finished reel, then showed us how different parts of it were made and then put together in order to get the final product. I think the best part was seeing the animations of the creatures' skeletons and musculature at work, which were absolutely fascinating. The sections were the 'crumbling stairs' in the Mines of Moria getting to the bridge of Khazad Dum (specifically Legolas's arrow hitting a goblin, then a pan around to see two other goblins die in the foreground with the Fellowship in the background), the Watcher at the Gate (specifically it whipping Frodo into the air - Elijah did that stunt and you could see, in the raw footage, a bunch of guys hovering around with their arms out to stop him hitting equipment and hurting himself) and the cave troll attack (specifically Aragorn getting thrown into a wall - he starts as CG Aragorn and ends as stuntman!Aragorn.) The worst part was the guy mispronouncing Shia's name (he worked on Transformers as well.) Kirwan was very obviously enamoured of Peter Jackson, but he made him sound like a pretty hard taskmaster. We got to see all the different parts, not just the computer graphics stuff but the actual passes of the miniatures and the actors against blue-screen. Best part? It was free. :D
Green Queen
The guy who was giving the lecture, Paul Kirwan, was a compositor. He started by showing us the finished reel, then showed us how different parts of it were made and then put together in order to get the final product. I think the best part was seeing the animations of the creatures' skeletons and musculature at work, which were absolutely fascinating. The sections were the 'crumbling stairs' in the Mines of Moria getting to the bridge of Khazad Dum (specifically Legolas's arrow hitting a goblin, then a pan around to see two other goblins die in the foreground with the Fellowship in the background), the Watcher at the Gate (specifically it whipping Frodo into the air - Elijah did that stunt and you could see, in the raw footage, a bunch of guys hovering around with their arms out to stop him hitting equipment and hurting himself) and the cave troll attack (specifically Aragorn getting thrown into a wall - he starts as CG Aragorn and ends as stuntman!Aragorn.) The worst part was the guy mispronouncing Shia's name (he worked on Transformers as well.) Kirwan was very obviously enamoured of Peter Jackson, but he made him sound like a pretty hard taskmaster. We got to see all the different parts, not just the computer graphics stuff but the actual passes of the miniatures and the actors against blue-screen. Best part? It was free. :D
Green Queen
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