In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, cinematic eye candies like gigantic ents, epic battles, and immense landscapes unleashed the story's massive scale and truly brought Middle Earth to life. Most of these spectacular effects were rendered using tools that moviegoers are well aware of -- computer-generated imagery (CGI) and blue screens, for example. But there was one trick that left many viewers scratching their heads, wondering how it was done: director Peter Jackson managed to transform grown men into dwarfs and hobbits.
When asked about the methodology behind this movie magic, Jackson was more than happy to divulge the secrets:
That's right, the same technique that allows a young girl to be as tall as the Eiffel Tower or a man to eat a NASA space shuttle was also used to shrink actor Elijah Wood by two feet. In addition, As Not Exactly Rocket Science explains, forced perspective is also utilized by male bowerbirds to attract mates.
But forced perspective wasn't the only trick Jackson employed in the quest to turn men into hobbits; he pulled everything out of the bag. In some shots, the hobbit actors simply knelt down or donned costumes that were two sizes too large. For other shots, the human-sized and hobbit-sized characters were filmed in separate takes, then the scenes were transposed together at different scales. Jackson also went so far as to have Bag End -- Bilbo's home -- constructed in large and small sizes.
When asked about the methodology behind this movie magic, Jackson was more than happy to divulge the secrets:
...we're doing a lot of bluescreen work where we can composite [the hobbits] onto scenes at a smaller size. We're also using a lot of old fashioned techniques like forced perspective, which is a technique that you simply put the hobbit actor a bit further away from the camera than the human-sized actor, and therefore the hobbits appear to be smaller... [But] we've also made that more complex by being able to move the camera with forced perspective shots, which people have traditionally not been able to do.
That's right, the same technique that allows a young girl to be as tall as the Eiffel Tower or a man to eat a NASA space shuttle was also used to shrink actor Elijah Wood by two feet. In addition, As Not Exactly Rocket Science explains, forced perspective is also utilized by male bowerbirds to attract mates.
"But forced perspective wasn't the only trick Jackson employed in the quest to turn men into hobbits; he pulled everything out of the bag. In some shots, the hobbit actors simply knelt down or donned costumes that were two sizes too large. For other shots, the human-sized and hobbit-sized characters were filmed in separate takes, then the scenes were transposed together at different scales. Jackson also went so far as to have Bag End -- Bilbo's home -- constructed in large and small sizes.
Indeed, Peter Jackson went to great lengths to produce the "small," yet amazing on-screen results.
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