3 ms·

Wow. Such a unique experience. What was the whole process like? Did you see anything on set that was amazing but didn’t make as big of an impact on screen?

Rodeoclash 4y ago
Hmm, probably the level of back story they went into when training us as extras that didn't make its way to the screen somehow. The bulk of the work I did was the night shoots at Helms Deep (actually a quarry just north of Wellington). This is where the elves + Rohan fight the Uruk Hai. When we did a bit of stunt training so we could do the background fighting, they kept telling us how powerful the elves were. How they'd had 1000's of years to practice fighting. You see this a bit with Legolas and the way he slides down the stairs on the shield but the rest of the elves are just fodder. One small anecdote about this, if you go back to the very first media that they started releasing before the movies came out, this video: https://youtu.be/2UDTbQrOGa0?t=63 https://youtu.be/2UDTbQrOGa0?t=63 At the ~1:03 mark you can see two very quick shots, one is Legolas spinning the daggers around at Helms Deep, this made it into the movie (he also screwed this shot up about 8 times, I know this because I was in full costume as an Uruk Hai behind him fighting off a panic attack from overheating by swinging the sword around so much) and the next shot is a bunch of elves running into the spears of Uruk Hai. When we did this shot, it took about a night of work, the original intention was that the elves would run into the ranks of Uruk Hai and just vanish. The Uruk's would be looking around themselves confused then the elves would one by one be popping up and killing the Uruk's. Typing it out, it does seems kind of stupid but it did illustrate the original thinking they had with the elves martial abilities.

3 ms·

Wow. Such a unique experience. What was the whole process like? Did you see anything on set that was amazing but didn’t make as big of an impact on screen?

by dilippkumar 4y ago

Rodeoclash 4y ago
Hmm, probably the level of back story they went into when training us as extras that didn't make its way to the screen somehow. The bulk of the work I did was the night shoots at Helms Deep (actually a quarry just north of Wellington). This is where the elves + Rohan fight the Uruk Hai. When we did a bit of stunt training so we could do the background fighting, they kept telling us how powerful the elves were. How they'd had 1000's of years to practice fighting. You see this a bit with Legolas and the way he slides down the stairs on the shield but the rest of the elves are just fodder. One small anecdote about this, if you go back to the very first media that they started releasing before the movies came out, this video: https://youtu.be/2UDTbQrOGa0?t=63 https://youtu.be/2UDTbQrOGa0?t=63 At the ~1:03 mark you can see two very quick shots, one is Legolas spinning the daggers around at Helms Deep, this made it into the movie (he also screwed this shot up about 8 times, I know this because I was in full costume as an Uruk Hai behind him fighting off a panic attack from overheating by swinging the sword around so much) and the next shot is a bunch of elves running into the spears of Uruk Hai. When we did this shot, it took about a night of work, the original intention was that the elves would run into the ranks of Uruk Hai and just vanish. The Uruk's would be looking around themselves confused then the elves would one by one be popping up and killing the Uruk's. Typing it out, it does seems kind of stupid but it did illustrate the original thinking they had with the elves martial abilities.