Interesting Facts About Film : The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Part 1)

Part 1

•        Stuart Townsend was originally cast as Aragorn, but was replaced by Viggo Mortensen after four days of shooting because Peter Jackson realized that an older actor was needed. 

•        Ian Holm, who plays Bilbo Baggins, was the voice of Frodo Baggins in the 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of "The Lord of The Rings". 

• Sean Astin's father, John Astin, auditioned for the role of Gandalf. 

• Eight of the nine members of the Fellowship got a small tattoo of the word "nine" spelled out in Tengwar, which is the Elvish script created by Tolkien. They got it at a tattoo parlor in Wellington, New Zealand, to commemorate the experience of the movie. The ninth member, John Rhys-Davies, declined and sent his stunt double in his place. Elijah Wood's tattoo is on his lower stomach. Sean Astin and Billy Boyd have the tattoo on their ankles (to commemorate all those hours in the hobbit feet). Orlando Bloom, who plays the archer elf Legolas, has his on his forearm. His tattoo is visible during a fight scene in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Ian McKellen's is on his shoulder. Dominic Monaghan's is on his shoulder. And the eighth member, Sean Bean, has his tattoo on his right shoulder. Viggo Mortensen has his tattoo on his left shoulder. It is visible on some pictures from the movie Eastern Promises 

•      Producer Tim Sanders left the project after principal photography had commenced. 

• Elijah Wood dressed up in breeches and a flowing shirt and went out into the hills to shoot his audition tape. His friend George Huang, directed the video. 

•          Although David Bowie was said to be keen on playing Elf Lord Elrond, the part went instead to Hugo Weaving. 

• Daniel Day-Lewis turned down the role of Aragorn. 

• Howard Shore used the music of Richard Wagner as his primary influence for the films' musical scores. 

•          New Line insisted on a prologue of two minutes. What they got was one that lasts for seven and a half. 

•

• The bridge in Hobbiton was built by the New Zealand army out of polystyrene. 

• There were supposed to be 144 Hobbits at Bilbo Baggins's party. Due to budgetary constraints, there are actually only 100. 

• Bilbo Baggins's birthday cake has 111 candles on it and they eventually set fire to the polystyrene cake. 

• Two sets of Bag End, Bilbo Baggins's home, were built. One to accommodate the Hobbits, the other 33% smaller for the full size Ian McKellen, right down to smaller versions of the books on the bookshelves. 

• One of the stuntmen dislocated a shoulder in the scene where the Hobbits tumble down off the road to escape one of the Ringwraiths. This was also the very first day of shooting. 

• Some of the customers in the Prancing Pony are walking around on stilts to emphasize the height disparity with the Hobbits. 

•

•  The big trees in Lothlorien forest are made of rubber. 

•          The climactic fight scene was shot in the middle of a heatwave, with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees. Many of the actors playing the Uruk'hais had to be carried off the set with heat exhaustion. 

• Legolas's arrows in the final battle are computer generated. It would have been physically impossible for even the most gifted archer to fire off so many arrows so quickly. 

• Security was tight on the set: at least 3 people were arrested for attempted break-ins. 

• The Tolkien estate was never in favor of Peter Jackson's film adaptation but seeing as J.R.R. Tolkien signed the rights away in 1968 for $15,000, there was nothing they could do about it. Tolkien's grandson Simon came out in support of the production and was disowned by his relatives. Tolkien's son Christopher Tolkien later retracted any opposition. 

• It is estimated that filming of the trilogy pumped about $200,000,000 into the New Zealand economy. The New Zealand government even created a Minister for Lord of the Rings, whose remit was to exploit all the economic opportunities the films represented. 

• Fans were offered the chance to have their names in the special edition's hugely lengthy closing credits for $39.95. 

• Although the film received a PG rating in the UK, it was with a disclaimer that some scenes might be unsuitable for young children. After Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, it was only the third film to receive such a disclaimer. 

• The film stayed in the US top ten grossing films for 13 weeks. 

• In August 2002 the DVD/ video release set a UK record when it chalked up sales of 2.4 million. 

• Hobbiton was made a year before production began to make it look like it was a natural, lived-in place, complete with real vegetable patches. The greens department regulated the length of the grass by having sheep eat it. 

• The large tree that stands above Bag End was built especially by the production department. Every leaf had to be manually attached. 

• 1800 Hobbit feet were made for the production. 

• 29 Ring Wraith costumes were made in total. 

•          While the rest of the Fellowship struggle through snow drifts, Legolas walks on the top of the snow. This is in line with the information given in the novel, because Elves are so light-weighted that they are able to walk on top of snow. 

• The illuminated door that leads to the Mines of Moria was painted with the same substance that cats' eyes and road signs are made of. 

• Galadriel's home at Lothlorien was the largest miniature set built for the trilogy. 

• Large amounts of hair had to be imported into New Zealand for all the wigs. They found some women in Russia who were cutting their hair and selling it to film-makers. 

• The New Zealand government brokered a new tax deal when New Line threatened to pull the production. 

• Although Bilbo Baggins's opening scenes are in Hobbiton, Ian Holm never actually worked on the location. His scenes were all done against blue screen. 

• The nocturnal screams of possums were used for the screeches made by the Orcs in the mines of Moria. 

• The main sound elements for the cave troll were a walrus, a tiger and a horse. 

• 
  
• The scripts were essentially being rewritten every day of the 15 month shoot, most of which with the added input from the actors who were all now heavily involved with their characters. 

•  The shots that were too visually complex to be conveyed on a storyboard were rendered digitally on a computer in a stage known as pre-visualisation. Peter Jackson received a lot of pointers on this from George Lucas and his Star Wars producer Rick McCallum at Skywalker Ranch. When he returned to New Zealand, he hired a lot of recent digital artist graduates to help him create his previz concepts. 

• The total crew amounted to over 3,000 people of which approximately over 300 were in the art department alone. 

• The Weta Workshop produced 58 miniatures which were so large and detailed they were nicknamed "bigatures". 

• The design for the Hobbits's feet took over a year to perfect. Over 1800 feet were produced for the 4 lead Hobbits alone, and each pair would take about an hour and a half to be put on over the actors' real feet. 

• A scene involving the Fellowship escaping the Uruk'hai via some river rapids had to be abandoned as extreme flooding in the Queenstown area had washed the set away. 

• John Howe, brought in to work on the production because of his longstanding reputation as being one of the great artists of J.R.R. Tolkien's work, was given the task of designing the Moria Orcs himself. 

• About 28 separate Hobbit holes had to be built for the Shire. Each one had to be different. 

• It's common practice with a high budget feature film to have more than one unit shooting at any one time, usually two or three. With "The Lord of the Rings", there were occasions when there would be between five and seven units shooting at any given time. 

• There are 47 chimneys in the Hobbiton location. 

• Usually on a feature film, when the director comes to view the dailies, there's about 20-25 minutes of footage to be seen. Because of the number of different units out filming at any one time, the dailies for "The Fellowship of the Ring" were about 3-4 hours long, ie, the length of the finished film. 

• Composers are usually involved with films for about six to eight weeks. By the time this film was released, Howard Shore's involvement was stretching back for two years. 

• For the musical background to the chase in the mines of Moria, Howard Shore wanted some heavy chanting, so he cast a Maori choir. 

• The overall budget for all 3 films was $300 million. Add another $200 million for the publicity and marketing of all 3. 

•     During filming, most of the members of the Fellowship took up surfing in New Zealand in their spare time. Among them was Viggo Mortensen, who wiped out terribly one day, and bruised one whole side of his face. The next day, makeup tried to mask the bruising and swelling, but were unsuccessful. Instead, Peter Jackson opted to film Mortenson from one side for the entire scene. In the scene in the Mines of Moria when they find the grave of Gimli's relative, Aragorn is only seen from one side in the whole scene. 

• Peter Jackson originally contemplated having the character of Tom Bombadil, a character that was in the book but never made it to the movie, incorporated into a cameo scene in which the Hobbits are walking through the forest and see a man with a feathered cap dart through the trees, then they hear Tom singing and begin running through the forest, but ran out of time to film it. 

• Orlando Bloom originally auditioned for the part of Faramir. He was called back and subsequently cast, instead, as Legolas. 

• New Zealand's army was cast as extras for large battle scenes in the film, but was forced to back out due to having to serve as peacekeepers in East Timor. 

• When the trailer was released on Internet on 7 April 2001, it was downloaded 1.6 million times in the first 24 hours. 

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King were filmed simultaneously. The back-to-back shoot lasted a record-equaling 274 days, in 16 months - exactly the same time as taken for the principal photography of Apocalypse Now. 

• Tom Baker was a candidate for the role of Gandalf after his brief, but praised, cameo as the dying elven king in Dungeons & Dragons. 

• The water used on the Rivendell set was brought in and contained chlorine. The entire water system had to be water-proof so that the chlorinated water would not leaked into the ground and contaminate natural water. After shooting was finished, the water used was collected back. 

• When Christopher Lee and J.R.R. Tolkien were in correspondence, Tolkien gave Lee his blessing to play Gandalf if there ever was a film version of Lord of the Rings. Years later, Lee campaigned for the part of Gandalf in this production, but was offered the part of Saruman instead. Lee, who wanted to participate in the project anyway he could, accepted the role of Saruman. 

• Christopher Lee reads "The Lord of the Rings" once a year and has done so since the year it was published, and is the only member of the cast and crew ever to have met J.R.R. Tolkien. 

• Sam Neill was considered for the role of Gandalf. 

• During the fight between Lurtz and Aragorn, Viggo Mortensen successfully parried the dagger thrown at him on his first attempt. 

• For high-tech tasks, a computer program called MASSIVE made armies of CG orcs, elves, and humans. These digital creations could 'think' and battle independently - identifying friend or foe - thanks to individual fields of vision. Peter Jackson's team could click on one creature in a crowd scene of 20,000 and see through his "eyes". Different species even boast unique fighting styles

         

        End of Part 1.
Continue will be comming soon...