Moving Images, Understanding Media

314 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

Now that the actors are ready to inhabit these worlds that have been

prepared for them, the production schedule will be used to put into place the

work of all the departments. Has the budget been properly prepared? Will

shooting remain on schedule? Will the food on set be good? Will the diff erent

elements that make up the world on the screen be properly balanced to tell the

story well? One of the most all-encompassing examples of the ways in which

the wide variety of motion picture production tasks and techniques can come

together is on the award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy of fi lms.

For this series of fi lms, director Peter Jackson supervised the operation of

a production in which a vast array of tasks had to be coordinated: production

design and construction; costumes and makeup; optical eff ects, including

scale model work; special eff ects and stunts; and the supervision of principal

photography that occurred over an enormous range of natural settings with a

cast of many actors and extras. In order to be able to accomplish the enormous

challenges of undertaking such a production, initial shooting for all three

movies was completed in an extended block of principal photography. Later,

Jackson worked with a diff erent editor on each of the movies to complete

post-production manageably. However, despite the meticulous preparation

involved in producing these features, extensive re-shoots had to be completed

for these fi lms because a great deal of the work of editing involves discovering

new storytelling solutions and capitalizing on accidents and unplanned

breakthroughs during production and post-production.

Putting It All Back Together

Early on during pre-production, each department draft s a breakdown of the

script in order to itemize and organize the tasks that they need to accomplish.

During the entire production process, the elements necessary to produce

Figure 8-32 Peter Jackson

directing Sean Astin as Sam

Gamgee in The Lord of

the Rings: The Return of

the King. (Courtesy New Line

Cinema/Photofest)

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