(The following article appeared in NikkeiWest on December 10, 2003)

My Journey to Middle-earth

by Sunny Hara

Lord of the Rings

 
I'd heard about the famous author and linguist Tolkien, but for some reason never read any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, nor the first book, The Hobbit. Suddenly I found myself in New Zealand in Middle-earth as it is called in the books and it certainly was a journey of a lifetime.
 
My daughter Lauren Morimoto is a Digital Rotoscope Paint Artist. I'm still not quite sure exactly how to describe what she does, except that she does computer work altering the previously filmed images. It's called post-production because all the production filming has been done by the time the Rotoscope Department comes into play. They create, add, remove or alter the images taken during filming.
 
The actors are called "cast" and the others are called "crew." If you can wade through all the credits at the end of the movie til they list the Post-production crew you'll see her name on the screen. They usually list the crew on each movie website, too.

The Call to Middle-earth

 
Lauren first went to New Zealand in 2002 to work for WETA Digital for the second movie in the trilogy. She came home for about 6 months, and then returned early summer in 2003 to New Zealand to work on the last movie. Post-production work is quite grueling because they are under hard deadlines and the work is incredibly intricate and exacting.
 
Lauren decided that since this was the last of the three movies, I needed to come visit New Zealand at the tail end of her stay there. It was a lucky thing because they tried to extend her contract another two weeks, but she had already bought the tickets and I became her reason to not extend her work period there.

New Zealand

 
New Zealand, or Middle-earth in the Lord of the Rings movies, is even more beautiful than the scenes in the movies. WETA is based in Wellington where they did some of the filming. We went to Mt. Victoria, a beautiful park in Wellington within a walking distance from Lauren's house, where WETA did some of the filming, and for me, stepping into the forest there was quite an experience.
 
Because of the hilly terrain, it was easy to see how filming could have been possible in the middle of a metropolitan area.
Wellington is basically small, but the area is jutted with places carved out by the ocean, and because there is so much rain, everywhere there is lush green growth and trees. But for some reason every time Lauren and I went out to sightsee, it was sunny and clear although very windy, the weather cooperated with us as if bestowing us with some kind of Middle-earth blessing.
 
New Zealand is actually two islands and Wellington is situated at the bottom of the top island. It is windy, I'm guessing because the water separating the two islands is actually the sea. The land everywhere is hilly and steep, and houses are perched somehow on the steep slopes of the land. Lauren's first house had an outdoor elevator to get down to it from the road above it.

The WETA Workshop Tour

 
WETA is relaxed compared to LucasFilms. I could not even visit Lauren while she was working at Industrial Light & Magic in San Rafael, CA because of the security systems they have in place. At WETA I was allowed to go into the offices and was given a private tour of WETA Workshop by the Senior Prosthetics Supervisor named Gino. There they created the armor, costumes, body prosthetics, and everything else in the movie.
 
Being a costumer myself, it was fascinating to get the "in" story of how they created the garments, and the lengths they went to in order to make things look and move as they should. The armor was plastic but even at arms length, I could not tell until I touched it and it was not cold. They solved the weight problem by sewing the armor plates onto heavy but soft leather.

The Wonders of Plastic

 
The chain maille armor that historically is made of thick metal wire circles looped or "knitted" together was made of plastic that was later coated with different colored plastic in some kind of tumbling process. The men or creatures who needed armor but were further away from the cameras had chain maille armor that actually was made of braided rope that was knitted and then a metallic coating was applied with heat to give it the appearance of metal.
 
Treebeard, the animated tree creature is only about 8 feet tall, and for the most part was plastic. His movements were done by puppeteers, and Gino told us that they decided it looked too much like a puppet, so his facial movements were digitally redone in post-production and the puppeteers were not at all happy about that. Parts of him were actually real branches and leaves, complete with a real (dead) snail or two.
 
I was amazed at what they could create with plastics. While we were there they were working on a display with Gollum on a rock base, and it was eery looking at his eyes, because it was so realistic, his eyes looked moist. They let me touch him. I did a little shiver when I touched him because he was soft.
 

The Wall of Weapons

 
There was a wall of weapons, and Gino casually took one down and handed it to me. It was Sting, the dagger that Frodo carried in the Movie. It was the dagger that glowed when Orcs were nearby. I couldn't believe it. I just stared at it. I felt like Frodo looking at it for the first time.
 
Then he handed me Gandolf's sword, and then Aragon's sword. I almost dropped it because of it's weight. I think I died and went to heaven. Do Buddhists have heaven? they must, because I was there for a moment.
 
Later after I'd recovered and he'd returned the items to the display he handed me Gimli's helmet... I looked inside and there was a band around the inside with a celtic design on it. Now everytime I see Gimli, I know what's inside his helmet, and now you do too. That was the extent of the authenticity they practiced in the making of the costumes and props.
 
Along one side of one of the rooms at WETA Workshop was the head molds of some of the characters, including Gimli's face. I fondled King Theoden's armor which was standing in a room with his horse armor. Really beautiful stuff, and amazing in that it looked like old metal.

No Photos Allowed

 
We were disappointed but not surprised that visitors were not allowed to take any photos in the work area except for one photo Gino took with our cameras. Later I discovered that on the accompanying DVD's of the movies, there are snippets of WETA Workshops rooms and other information.
 
It was interesting seeing huge, almost room sized blocks of styrofoam that they used to make the structures and the creatures which ended up carved, painted or coated to look like actual places or creatures in miniature. While I was there they were creating two giant FellBeasts that were going to be placed on top of the two theatres in Wellington for the world premier of the last movie in the trilogy.
 
Gino told us much of the things used in the movie were destroyed lest they end up on Ebay or somewhere like that. I was sad to hear about that, but I could understand they needed to maintain some control over all those things.

The Secret Society

 
I'm looking forward to seeing this last movie now that I've seen some of the country where it was filmed. It was fascinating seeing so much of the inner workings at WETA Workshop and at WETA Digital where Lauren worked. Finally I was able to meet Lauren's friends I'd heard about the last few years and actually seeing where all the digital computer work was done.
 
Now I feel as if I am part of some privileged secret Middle-earth society.
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Lauren Morimoto is listed in the movie credits for "Lord of the Rings, Return of the King" under Post-production Digital Animation, for WETA Digital as a Digital RotoScope Paint Artist.


Copyright © 2003 Sunny Hara

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