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Lord of the Rings- We end at the beginning
24 Plays20 days ago
It's our fantasy season finale extravaganza! So much movie, perhaps too much or not enough based on where you stand. We're talking about the trilogy as a whole. And as per usual we are criss-crossing back and forth through it like Sam and Frodo. These movies were a turning point for behind the scenes content that made all our nerdy hearts sing.
Are you ready to join the fellowship? Get your cloaks.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_lord%2520of%2520the%2520rings
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
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Transcript
Introduction to Hot Set
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design. Hello and
00:00:10
Speaker
welcome to our ultimate episode of this massive season of fantasy.
Covering the LOTR Trilogy
00:00:21
Speaker
and welcome to our ultimate episode of this massive season of fantasy Boy, oh boy, oh boy, what a big, packed, bloated episode this is, because it's all three of the Lord of the Rings movies. Oh my god, can you handle it?
00:00:38
Speaker
And I was telling Melinda before we hit record... I like completely forgot how long these movies are. Cause was like, Oh yeah, each one's like a little bit over two hours. It's like, are you out your mind?
00:00:52
Speaker
And I was like, that's actually fair response. I mean, like ah they should be like, I mean, you know what? I love, i love Lord of the Rings. I just want to say that before I'm going to say controversial things, which is like, they probably could be.
00:01:06
Speaker
Obviously, we would lose things, but they are simply our three-hour movies plus. Three plus. So, like, i'm I'm happy with that. It's just so funny that I've completely
LOTR Movie Synopses
00:01:15
Speaker
forgotten it. And we're just talking about the theatrical versions. We're not talking about the extended versions, which I did have ultimate plans to watch. But it turns out that past Ariel lost the extended versions that I used to own. So... They're somewhere.
00:01:31
Speaker
and They're somewhere in the in the ether, but not where I could find them. So I watched the theatrical versions. And today I started watching it about 9.30, 9.40, 9.45. So like it's been a full day of two movies back to back.
00:01:48
Speaker
So we are talking about the Fellowship of the Ring, the Two Towers, and the Return of the King. And quick synopses from IMDb, ah Fellowship of the Ring. a meek hobbit from the Shire and eight companions set out on a journey to destroy the powerful One Ring and save Middle-earth from the Dark Lord Sauron.
00:02:08
Speaker
wo And then we bump duop but dubomp over to the Two Towers. While Frodo and Sam edge closer to Mordor with the help of the shifty Gollum, the divided fellowship makes a stand against Sauron's new ally, Saruman, and his hordes of Isengard.
00:02:25
Speaker
the return of the king. Gandalf and Aragorn lead the world of men against Sauron's army to draw his gaze from Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom with the One Ring. And ah if any of that is spoilers, oh, well, it came out over 20 years ago. i think we're okay. I think um it it would simply be deranged to come to this episode. One simply does not ah expect a spoiler-free episode about Lord the Rings.
00:02:58
Speaker
As you said, over 20 years after the third one came out. Yes, which is so wild because we were teenagers when this was coming out. So this was, we were like prime targeted high age audience. Yeah.
00:03:12
Speaker
And like these were so massive for me because these were coming out, were they like December releases or were they Thanksgiving? But I think they were like Christmas releases. So there was like, oh, it's cold outside. Let's like go inside watch a three hour movie in the theater. yeah Like it was like an event. fireer Yeah, it really was.
Benchmark for Fantasy Films
00:03:32
Speaker
And then there was, I think it's kind of hard for, for, for the children, the children the children to remember a time before like epic, uh, franchise movies of this vein. I mean, obviously yeah there were certain things like the original star Wars trilogy existed and like Indiana Jones existed, but this was like uh,
00:03:56
Speaker
version of that and it wasn't something that a lot of studios were making at that time in this No, this was a benchmark the same way that Star Wars was a benchmark for like sci-fi fantasy. Like this was a proof that you can truly...
00:04:12
Speaker
gather like amazing artists around you and make beautiful, beautiful work. Like, cause the other fantasy scale. Oh yeah. And like the other old, older fantasy movies that we've talked about, like Willow, Willow had beautiful costumes, but it's like a different scale. Right. But like, obviously there was, so there was something going into that where people were like okay, we can do this much. Yeah. But like we didn't have the same scale of world building at all. They had to do that in a very different way. The same way with Excalibur. There was a lot going on with those costumes. But they were not...
00:04:52
Speaker
necessarily looked at the same way because like they were trying to establish that fantasy could be a genre that people want to go see in theaters. It's like epic fantasy. I think it's really telling that in this season, we have a lot of movies from the eighties and we have more current movies, but we don't really have anything in major in the ninety s because it was like fell out of fashion to yeah do this until lord of the rings yeah it that's exactly the right way to say it it was like everything felt too 80s like what are you gonna do you're gonna like tease your hair and labyrinth it all over the place like no that's so 80s and old-fashioned where the puppets Yeah. And it's like fantasy was moving in a different, more modern way.
00:05:40
Speaker
um And then this one was like, no, we're going to do the epic fantasy and we're going to do it hardcore.
Cultural Impact of LOTR
00:05:47
Speaker
And another thing that was like really important about this coming out Was how the filmmakers and everybody at Weta were recording the process and like letting the audience in on that. So it, these movies did not just arrive in December and then it was gone all throughout the year. There were like little things that kept you interested. Like, I don't even remember exactly what I'm talking about, but it's just like, like with my group of friends, we were obsessed with these. So it's like,
00:06:16
Speaker
it It was a huge cultural phenomenon. It was. And it felt like the actors were like on MTV or they were like here or there or like we were seeing little snippets of behind the scenes. Like there were all sorts of things that kept it, kept you the momentum going until the next one would come out. And then you'd be like...
00:06:35
Speaker
I'm sobbing. like It was always a big deal like who was going to sing the credit song like when Enya did May It Be. It was like, ooh, and now there's a music video for May It Be. And that's like coming out around the time that the movie – it just kept going. And it was I surrounded myself with it. And then the soundtracks came out and I would listen to them over and over and over. And like one of the funny things, it's completely like irrelevant other than it's like indication of the cultural phenomenon of Lord of the Rings is. um
00:07:08
Speaker
So, ah you know, I'm a fan of Gilmore Girls. I know. front wall Like a problematic fave. But um there are so many references to Lord of the Rings in Gilmore Girls, which is like.
00:07:23
Speaker
these two things have nothing to do with each other other than like the lead characters in that show are like voracious, like pop culture knowledge, but like, they're not like, they're not fantasy nerds in that they're like well-rounded like people and the the awareness and like cultural relevancy of Lord of the Rings, like penetrated into like other forms of pop culture. Like it was just,
00:07:50
Speaker
huge. Like you can't. Yeah. Overstate it. I don't think. And just like this, the scale, which you mentioned before was just like another part of it that made it so, so big that it was like hard to truly take in how big it was because of like,
00:08:07
Speaker
The fact that they built the – they have a name for it, but I can't remember what it is right now. It's like in the appendices where they're talking about the the um the sets that they built, but they're not fully miniatures. They're like half size. Yeah. Like Helm's Deep and all these other things, but bigatures. Yeah. Yeah, bigotures. They were doing just like, basically every art form was like at a thousand. And it was like so much information coming from so many different departments and so many different places. Like that I still, these are three of my all time favorite movies because I just like, the impact that it had when we were teenagers was so big. And this was the first, Fellowship of the Ring was the first time
00:08:53
Speaker
that I truly understood that I was fascinated by costumes. Because, like, you know, you've seen them before. You've seen Star Wars. You've seen the outfits. You've seen all those things. But, like, the internet was nowhere near what it is now. And, like, I was not in forums. I was not in any of these spaces online where people would be talking about their fandoms.
00:09:15
Speaker
And the costumes and trying to like cosplay before cosplay is what it is now. Or any of that. Like I just before. I feel like before the Lord of the Rings. I was like oh Anne of Green Gables. I love like you know these these dresses. I love like historical costuming was like my my gateway to seeing that. yeah But Lord of the Rings like kicked me through that doorway. Where I was like the detail. Yeah. And I think there was like.
00:09:43
Speaker
there There was a lot of. um openness about how the movie was made how it was filmed and there's certain things that were very interesting technically like how they made the hobbits seem small so like that's a question that people ask after they watch the movie because they're like you know we've met alexia wood he's not three feet tall so like what did you do and so then that and then that becomes a conversation about like well we had you know we had like body doubles. We had forced perspective on the sets. We had this, we had that. And then you're like, Oh, so then there's different costumes for like a stand in or a stunt double who is like a small person or like, how do we, you know, like it,
00:10:28
Speaker
the the way the movie was made invites you to ask questions about how the costumes interacted with the filming. And that gets you interested in, oh my God, that's a job that someone did. so it like draws you into the process of like understanding how did this happen? How was it made? And they were so open about like filming stuff back, you know, behind the scenes and sharing that. That was pretty unusual. But it like, it does like,
00:10:56
Speaker
spark an interest in people, even if that's not something that they were already thinking about. And beyond that, it also sparks kind of like ah a desire to be in a space where you can experience this level of collaborative work. yeah Because like the appendices, if if you listener have not watched those, they there is a playlist on YouTube. If you do not want to buy the extended editions, you can have access to these.
00:11:24
Speaker
Each of the trilogy had like two extra discs that were just appendices. So it was like one, two, three, you know, and um they they cover everything like from from the very beginning through the whole series. And because they were all filmed over like a three year period or something, they were all
Filming in New Zealand
00:11:43
Speaker
filmed at once. Yeah. I think it might have only been a year and a half. A year and a half even. least an actual filming. But it was like a concentrated year and a half where they were filming. And like they were siloed in New Zealand. So all of these people had to basically, not all of them, because there are a lot of people who worked on this art who are from New Zealand. But a lot of the creative team, a lot of the the actors had to pick up their lives from whenever and move essentially to New Zealand for a set specific amount of time.
00:12:12
Speaker
And I feel like this offered such ah just like hearing some of the interviews in the appendices from the actors, it feels like some of them were able to engage with their costumes and their props in a different way than they would normally on a project where they might still collaborate with a designer. But this, because they were in the same place and they had such access to these workshops and to these places that like they could see what was happening. And like, you know, um Ian McKellen talked about how with the design of Gandalf, which
00:12:50
Speaker
I want to talk about that. But like that he was like, yeah, I thought that he should have, you know, mud like spattered. Like specifically he was thinking about the specific type of breakdown his costume should have because he was like Gandalf's always on horseback. So he should have spatters, not just from walking like at the very hem it should go up.
00:13:08
Speaker
And it's like, yay, that's awesome. You had the ability and the space to like think about that and have a conversation with your design team about it and like make that happen. And like Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn, was so into it. And he so looked at and speaks of how this costume was an an integral part of how he would put on his character layer. by layer right That he literally, when they were filming like away from places and they had to stay and there wasn't like a, okay, go back to your trailer for a break, he would go fishing in his ranger costume and he'd like go hiking a little bit in the woods.
00:13:50
Speaker
And so it's like he aged it and he also would repair it. like That was added into the design were like the hand stitches and some of them he did himself. And he was also given a lot of his props so that he could do that to his props as well. Like what a...
00:14:06
Speaker
what a cool environment that is. That's not just this level of engagement is welcome for the design teams to cross over, but also like we are in this moment where yes, we can trust that, that you will actually be responsible for these things because you are so engaged with it. And I think like, um I do think that part of that is the, the holistic process of making this movie. And and actually like filming it on location in like outdoors and not just like on a soundstage somewhere. And obviously, you know, every movie is different. Everything has different needs, but like those, the, the space to like really get into those details, I think is aided by really being in the place and really like being able to walk around in the woods and be like, what is that experience like? And not be like on a,
00:15:06
Speaker
big pile of green foam in like a studio somewhere it's like a whole different experience because you are experiencing your clothes your costume as clothing that you do have to do all this stuff in and it gives you like a different understanding of like how it needs to function or how it feels or like what you know, what it would be like if you didn't, if you slept outside for like six months and were on your own, the only person to fix your clothes is you. You're the only one there. It's like a totally different way of like thinking. And I just love how that different way of thinking engaged every single part of, of the making of these films. And like all of that just always shows to me because I was so obsessed with it back then. And I was like, know Tell me more of these details. Tell me more and more. And like I also went to school for illustration. So the illustrators who are a major heart of this I have art by them, books by them. like i think Just thank you diabolical trio, Philippa, Fran, and Peter, for thinking to record all of these things for the appendices because dear God, what a way to like launch nerddom into space.
00:16:22
Speaker
But I loved one of the details in the in one of the videos that I watched was that they actually like made a so ah rubber stamp. They actually like had a rubber stamp that they could like stamp drawings or schematics or whatever as being approved by Peter Jackson because they were generating so much conceptual art. like So much. And so they're like, we have to keep we literally have to keep track of what is the stuff that actually hit the mark for him.
00:16:50
Speaker
For like one second, i I did a quick look to see if there were any major like concept design books that ever came out about these. I don't know if there were any big ones. But like the amount of stuff that was generated is insane because they will talk about the design process in one of the appendices videos.
00:17:08
Speaker
And they talk about their two stories that I really, really love. And it's how they got Alan Lee and John Howe on board. And like, of course, Alan Lee and John Howe have like talking heads in this. So they're telling their story too.
00:17:20
Speaker
But Alan Lee and John Howe are both two preeminent illustrators for the Tolkien stories. And like most of their careers was spent illustrating Tolkien and like other stuff. And they both have two very distinct styles, which you can separate the movies, the trilogy into Alan Lee and John Howe. John Howe is Mordor. Alan Lee is Hobbiton and the elves. Like that is boom, boom. Yeah. And of course, there's like some mixover. But John Howe has like blunter lines and he's like really good at the angles and the geometric stuff and the the like armor. And then like the swoopy Art Nouveau soft things. Those are more
Visual Style Influences
00:17:58
Speaker
Allenly. But Peter Jackson is telling the story about how he, Philippa, and Fran were like, when they were in their writing process, they had –
00:18:09
Speaker
Alan Lee and John Howe art just posted up all over their studio, their space. And then they were like, what if we could get them on board? So they wrote a letter to Alan Lee and included a copy of Heavenly Creatures. And the letter was basically like, dear sir, we really, really, really like you. like, please. I mean, of course it was more than that, but it was just like a letter that said like, please let us know if you would be interested.
00:18:37
Speaker
And they had an assistant keeping track of the delivery and giving them real time updates of being like, okay, it's 50 miles away. Okay. It's, it's on the street. Someone posted in his garbage can at his home. Yeah. the assistant literally called him and was like, okay, the delivery driver said that they literally handed it off to his hands. And he was like hard to find because he's just a regular guy who isn't like, you know, i don't even know if he really has like an active website.
00:19:03
Speaker
um And they were like back then. Oh, definitely not. And like, they were like, okay, hopefully he'll call us in a couple of days. It took him three and a half hours because he watched Heavenly Creatures. And then I think he watched like another of Peter Jackson's projects and he called them and was like, hey, I'm in. like I just love that he was like, yeah, I would love to And then John Howe's version of the story is that he said, and this is not an exact quote, but the way he says it is so good where he's like, he's also a very, very,
00:19:33
Speaker
different speaker where it's like he says a lot of sarcastic things but he doesn't like promote it in his face so I really enjoy how he tells this where he's like he's very dry where he's like saying basically they called him and they were like you know painting these like big pictures of what was going to happen and he was like yeah basically I just had to wait for them to stop talking for me to say yeah obviously yeah
00:19:56
Speaker
And I was just like, le I'm already on board. But the part that also like blows my mind is that Alan Lee and John Howe had never met each other until they boarded the plane to go to New Zealand. And they both had brought obviously art supplies and they just start whipping stuff out and talking about things and start like cooking it up on the plane Then there's a part of the design part in the appendices where it shows Alan Lee and John Howe just sitting on the hill for Hobbiton. Before, obviously, any of this is built, just sketching what's in their minds. and what they Because they know the subject matter so well. They could just sit there and just like architects just start building.
00:20:33
Speaker
It's a testament because... They're approaching it as if these are like real people building real homes that are really interacting with the actual topography of the place that they are. And once they're like, okay, this is a place that we would like to film the movie. They're like, okay, well, this is what it would look like if probably they built their house here. like Because the the thing that was like a really interesting...
00:20:55
Speaker
takeaway for me from watching some of the behind behind the scenes videos is the way that Peter Jackson was approaching the entire project was as if they were making ah a historical film not a fantasy movie he didn't wasn't like you know, we're, we're inventing this and we're inventing that. He's like, we are recreating the actual history because obviously these stories are real. They are the real history. And so we just need to figure out what these people actually did and had, and like we're using and like thought and felt. And that approach to fantasy is not something that I've not encountered. And it's it's such a cool way. And the two costume designers who are listed in the credits are Nyla Dixon and Richard Taylor. And Richard Taylor is this like creative force for Weta Workshop. And I've always loved him so much because of the way he always says his name is exactly the same way with the appendices. So I always hear his introduction for himself in my head.
00:21:58
Speaker
But Nyla Dixon talks about how – because there there are a few little videos that are never more than 12 minutes talking about the costumes solely. yeah and um But there's like so much stuff that like there is a little bit of crossover. But these are the ones where Nyla Dixon is like specifically involved.
00:22:16
Speaker
She talked about, this is part of the reason I was talking about the two illustrators, is that she talked about um the design for Gandalf and Peter Jackson, probably um Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens as well. But they really liked one specific illustration for Gandalf. And Gandalf, Nyla Dixon said, was one of the most specifically illustrated characters who had a very like archetypal this is what he should look like. Yeah. Illustration. Like a wizard. Imagine a wizard. It is Gandalf. And so joe there's a John Howe illustration that Peter Jackson was like, that's the one that's our Gandalf. So she had to build
00:23:02
Speaker
a real version of that and like get there from that. And that was the same with a lot of things where her first um step was basically to look at the illustrations of Alan Lee, John Howe, read all the materials. And she had to do tons of research and she described it as like Tolkien never like super described costumes or like clothing. Like they're sketched out, but of course it's not like, you know, three pages describing the types of buttons that someone is wearing. Yeah, no, no Yeah. And so she was creating what she could from illustrations that already existed. So she was, you know, working like anybody would in a costume shop.
00:23:44
Speaker
And then she would plug in her designs in different places to flesh out the world's she had a really lovely way of putting it one videos. It was like a lot of the drawings were suggestive, but not specific. And so she was taking, ah i think she phrased it as she was taking drawings of what things could be and figuring out what they were. yeah And I think that that is a really lovely way of putting it because it is a different approach when you're
00:24:17
Speaker
coming to a project that has so much conceptual art that's already been created. So it's just like a different job at that point. Yeah. And it's it's the the collaboration. like I feel like I can't say that word enough for this because it just felt like people were like, this is massive and we have so many beautiful minds put to it and we all can plug in at different places. And like at least the way that it is presented through the appendices, it does not feel as if there were major
00:24:48
Speaker
egos that were like, no, it's going to be this way or nothing else. It was artists coming together to create a historical record of something that once was. And that is just like, what a cool way to come into a project.
00:25:03
Speaker
And like, Nyla Dixon came from a background of doing a lot of things, but one of the things that um I would say prepped her for this was that she did Hercules and Xena, the warrior princess, which they had to have the leather, the leather, the leather, but also the turnaround and all of the different cultures that had to be represented. And like for each episode, it was like a short turnaround for those things.
00:25:26
Speaker
And they had to like the pace, the scale, was very different obviously but it it definitely taught her how to work on a larger faster scale instead of going from small shows like in a small stage situation to the lord of the rings it was like okay this is like a i can understand scale better like um we know just from like any behind the scenes stuff that there were like i loved the shot of her standing in the warehouse with all the racks i love it it's so cute she's like yeah there few frocks in here yeah it is a little bit there's she was very specific there's 19 000 pieces yeah and which is made not just found made made and she talks um in a really like illuminating way about like specifically with the hobbits that like
00:26:24
Speaker
You know, you have Elijah Wood, he's got 10 copies of his clothes. You've got his stand in that person has 10 exact copies of the clothes.
Costume Design Challenges
00:26:35
Speaker
You've got um a body double that person has got 10 copies and you've got a stuntman that person has 10. So you've got 40 like Frodo costumes. And that's just not, that's not like a shirt. That's the entire outfit. Every single item. With the same distressing throughout the story, each step, every, every detail has to be identical. And the scale, like the proportionality of the clothes has to be replicated for the different sized actors that are portraying Frodo in different ways. So then you're also in an interesting technical challenge because,
00:27:10
Speaker
you've got um like a very small person playing Frodo when he needs to be standing next to someone who is taller. Like, so you've got like, you've got to replicate the exact scale of the clothes on people that are different sizes so that it looks like the same outfit on the same body, even though it's four different people.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah. And it's just like, at that point, We're not even, you know, we're we're not having like fun with like a swatch board like fabric anymore. We're not having fun with like colored pencils. where This is a highly technical challenge that this team is carrying off. And that's four hobbits who each have have four body doubles, four hobbits.
00:27:53
Speaker
stand-ins for stunt actors. Like, yeah that's insane. And then you also have all of your other characters who also need to have stunt doubles and stand-ins, et cetera, et cetera. Like, the the technicality of this and the detail is so incredible that it it just, like, blows my mind. And it still does.
00:28:16
Speaker
And it still holds up for me and it will forever. like It's so interesting, though, like watching it now. It's been a few years since I've watched it. And it is like the further, the the more it becomes like a period film in terms of like the production, the more i am aware the graphics. Yeah. There are graphics that have definitely aged because our experiences have aged. The technology keeps changing. There are certain direction choices stand out even more now. There's tons of stuff, but it's like, these do exist for me in this perfect egg of like what they were when I saw them. And then now looking at them,
00:29:01
Speaker
For the costume stuff, there is so it's like Star Wars. There is so much like 90 some odd of these costumes. 90% of these costumes um have so much detail that you have no idea how textured they are unless you're able to see a still or see them in the appendices or any background stuff. Because there is so much work in here that i never caught until I was actually like paying attention. So there are a couple that stand out to me. Are there any specific costumes that like stand out to you that are your more favored costumes or like groups of costumes, cultures, whatever?
00:29:45
Speaker
i mean i I mean, I'll just say, i don't you feel like I mean to even need to like get into the detail of it in this moment, but any any pretty lady in her pretty elf costume is always an automatic like favorite, like just period. I love silk and velvet. like what can What can I say? But this watch in particular, i was really fascinated with the green elven cloaks that everyone in the fellowship gets when they're in Rivendell. And the, um the construction of like what I could see and understand about the weaving was very interesting to me. And I was very aware of like the leaf clasp on the cloaks. And I was like, Oh, these are their best friends forever necklaces that they wear throughout the movie. Like I, it was like,
00:30:37
Speaker
These are the pink ladies jackets. These are we are in the special club. Like the the cloaks, they wear them so much. And which is like understandable. They're extremely practical.
00:30:51
Speaker
But like at the very end of Return of the King, when they go, they think that they that they're just seeing off Bilbo and he's going to like get on the ship and go. Yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker
All four of our Hobbit friends are wearing their cloaks. This is like years after... Yeah, they're representing the fellowship. This is the fellowship. This is the I was there, like I did it, i was part of it, like token. And I think that that's really beautiful. And it was like big they became like my favorite thing in the movie because of that.
00:31:28
Speaker
um And I also really feel ah adamant because I know that like the nine fellowship actors like got like matching tattoos. it should have been that leaf.
00:31:39
Speaker
That should have been the tattoo. And I don't think it was. I think it was a nine, but yeah you know, they didn't ask me, didn't ask what I thought when they were getting these tattoos.
00:31:51
Speaker
But I was really taken with what I could see of the weaving of the fabric because it's like a woolen cloak. It's this very like dusty green, gray, green,
00:32:03
Speaker
But you could see these like swirling patterns like woven into the textile. And I have no idea how you do that because I don't need fabric. But it was really interesting. And I want to see like I want one.
00:32:19
Speaker
in front of me in person to like look at how you create this like swirling pattern when you're like weaving something or if it was made some other way so I was really weirdly fascinated by ah humble elven cloaks on this watch I I love those cloaks like every time there's just like
00:32:41
Speaker
They are perfect because they aren't in the way. They're not too loud. They're not too big. They're not too bright. They're not distracting. They are just this practical tool.
00:32:55
Speaker
That each person has. And then, of course, they have like magical, you know, properties to them. um Mystical, tricky little things going on. But like they are so well designed for this like one language of like this is a gift from the elves and the gift is mostly in... the actual content of the gift and its properties instead of like being loud and, and how it looks like if those leaves had gone any further and had gone into looking like the, um, there's a name for it that I can't remember, but this, the necklace that, um,
00:33:31
Speaker
Oh, the Arwen Evenstar. Yeah, the Evenstar. If it like went into that direction, then it's like now we are distracted because it can't, it can no longer just be this gift that is like helping them on their journey. It becomes this very loud thing that is like competing everything.
00:33:49
Speaker
for recognition with other special tools that have been given to them. And like, I think that that's one of the strengths for me in these movies are the pieces that do that, that kind of disappear. Because like, you look at them up close and you're like, I want to vomit because there's so much beautiful work into it. But when you're watching it on the move, like on the screen, you're not like,
00:34:13
Speaker
Oh my god, oh my god, pause, pause, pause, I need to like get in, unless you're specifically trying to recreate it, or like specifically watching it for that. like ah An example, one of my all-time favorites will always be Aragorn's costume as Strider, yup his ranger costume. Because on screen it looks black, and it's not black. It's a specific green color. and then...
00:34:36
Speaker
You look into it. And of course we talked about like the repairs and all those things, but like they're removable sleeves, like medieval style sleeves that can be whip stitched together so that you can have a hot, hot weather ready and cool weather ready. But you also have smocking in his undersleeves. And it's like beautiful, like cotton, like it's not, or linen, it's probably linen, but it's, um it's,
00:35:03
Speaker
Not like the fanciest thing ever, but the amount of time that it takes to do something like that makes it extremely like valuable. in Yeah, because it's it's very elevated. It's not every ranger would necessarily have this. It's that this was probably given to him by someone who knows who he is.
00:35:20
Speaker
And it's like not meant to call attention to it, but it is meant to show that you are thought of a certain type of way. And it's just like it's kind of like when you think of like Regency busks that have been carved by like a lover. And then you like put that into a corset so nobody's ever going to see it or stays. But like...
00:35:42
Speaker
It's there. It's that kind of a thing where it's like, it's the head of your sleeve. Nobody's really going to see it because you're always going to be wearing this like tunic over it. But I know it's there. know you're wearing it. And it's just like, there's like leather bits that have like these very specific, large stitches over them. Like there's just so much intentionality in there and so much teeny tiny detail work that like I, we've said it before. I've said it a million times.
00:36:11
Speaker
I would love to be able to control ah museum and what they want to put on display. Because could you imagine? That's your career, curator. Sweet, but curator of costumes, like costume design. Because it's like, could you imagine being able to see massive exhibit?
00:36:30
Speaker
i wanty I want all 19,000 pieces. All of them. Every single one. Every single one. Each movie has a different floor. Yeah. because I just, it it just, wo and there there are like beautiful, beautiful costumes that do stand out, but you don't see the detail work in them until it's pointed out. Like in Return of the King, um i think that Nyla Dixon referred to it as Arwen's dying dress, where it's like this crimson velvet. and That one was like such a shock to my eye because
00:37:05
Speaker
She's such a controlled color palette up until that point that is almost exclusively these like icy yeah blue lilac periwinkle lavender.
00:37:17
Speaker
And then all of a sudden it was like this punch of red. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Harley. what's going on? It was very much tying her to mortality. Like we're going to knock this into your face. But then like in um one of the appendices videos, probably for Return the King specifically, um Nyla Dixon like walks you through the embroidery that went on it. And I think that she described that they had multiple embroiderers working on it at once through the night to like meet the deadline. And just like,
00:37:50
Speaker
busting ass to like sew all of these things and I was just like and I can't see it on film it's so crazy but I would know if it wasn't there yeah oh you you would feel it you would feel it intrinsically in your bones you would know like the expression of class within like there's so much because like I think that that sometimes there can be a tendency in fantasy that like everything is like at a level like 10 in terms of like, it's super fancy. It's super shiny. It's super embellished. It's super beautiful. It's super elegant. Whatever the thing is this film, because it is, as we now know, a historical film and not a fantasy film.
Costume and Class Distinctions
00:38:34
Speaker
it has expressions of culture and class within culture. Like, so you can see how the clothes reflect that within like one cultural group of characters.
00:38:49
Speaker
Like she talks about even within like the hobbits, like that Frodo needs to be like a little bit elevated because his family has like more money essentially than like the others. Obviously like he has an employee, Sam, like,
00:39:03
Speaker
He's going to have more money because he's the employer and Sam is the employee. Like, so it's like all of that stuff. And then we're also mixing like class awareness into the design. It's so much. It's so much. And this, this series of, of films really encapsulated for me way back then. Yeah.
00:39:24
Speaker
why i was dissatisfied with other fantasies. Not every single other fantasy, but how there was this overall attitude of doing what you just said, which is approaching fantasy as if it's always at level 10, as if everything is always shiny and clean.
00:39:39
Speaker
And this, because every everything, unless you are an elf, everyone has something off, something aged, something that's a little bit too much. There's so many layers that everybody's wearing. Like even Denethor in um Return of the King is wearing, I didn't know this until I saw it on the appendices, that that actor was wearing like a 10 pound male layer, chain mail. denniaur Is that Mr. Man that tries to light himself on fire? Yes, Mr. Man who eats the tomatoes. yeah ok yeah i
00:40:20
Speaker
i like I love Lord of the Rings. There are a lot of names. Yes, there are. I i was always a massive fantasy epic reader as a kid, so I am okay with the names. um But he Mr. Man who lights himself on fire, ah his costume has this massive layer of chain mail That is communicating something that the audience is not necessarily going to be taking in, which is that he is a character, this version of Denethor, because the the the book version is different.
00:40:53
Speaker
But this version of Denethor is like taking on like stolen valor, like as if he's on the ground fighting. So he's wearing this massive, heavy chainmail thing as a symbol to show that he's somehow putting himself at risk the way that other people are. He's cosplayed. He's absolutely cosplaying. And then on top of that, he has luxurious clothing that's like topped in this cape that has like the softest of furs.
00:41:19
Speaker
And so it's like you as an audience member, you might not catch that, but it is a hundred percent informing how the actor is moving. It's informing how he's being responded to by people who can see it around him who are responding as their character responding to his like,
00:41:37
Speaker
I did not, before these movies came out, think of things in those terms. And I did not think of fantasy costumes as being what these are, which is historical costumes that would have layers, that would have texture, that there is no flat polyester here. Everything that has a texture to it is a sewn fabric or a woven fabric that has that in it. And it's not...
00:42:01
Speaker
just like gold foil quick painted on sorry to like seem like I'm kicking other you know costumers for different projects but it's like friends found dead in a ditch but it just it felt like for a really long time that people making fantasy were like oh well we're just making this for kids so we're gonna make it primary colored and shiny or just this it was a very limited scope of what people were willing to back and what people were willing to imagine It was an opportunity to like really go nuts. Yes. Like...
00:42:37
Speaker
textures and and fabrics and things that and like foils yeah yeah like when we talked about like like when we talked about excalibur with like the disco medieval kind of look like yeah this movie is not doing that because this movie is like well but that didn't exist that was yeah ago so and so it's like i i love the other things that are available but i just like when this kind of kicked open the door sorry busted through the door like aragorn busted through some doors himself like exploded the wall like that bomb at Helden's deep like this just showed me that you can approach something like this from a realistic place that makes it feel like something you can touch and it's not just something that you can imagine it's something that is from a world
00:43:29
Speaker
that is rainy and dirty and dusty. And if you are not experiencing those things, then that's because you are rich. Like, like willow, you know, had all of those elements too, but it also had a smaller scale. And they're also, because of that smaller scale, there couldn't be as many textures as there are in this. It was kind of like, we can't get every fabric in the world because fabric costs money. But we can get colors, you know, like we can go by color palette instead of by, you know, all these different 12,000 different fabrics and like one, like everything's patched together.
00:44:07
Speaker
um i was so like, I was watching this, these three movies and I was really thinking about how Tolkien's like,
00:44:21
Speaker
stories are really, really informed by his experiences of World War I and World War two And it was something that I haven't thought about while watching these movies before. And I was like, because obviously, you know, like 90% of the characters in these movies are men and a hundred percent of the characters in these movies are white. um Just if anyone wasn't sure, ah we know. um But just thinking about how like every character Every man in this movie's reaction to the like impeding fascist doom is like represented like every reaction is a reaction that some character has from yeah the most heroic to the most cowardly, like every single person.
00:45:08
Speaker
way that you could react to this horrific situation is like represented in the men in this movie and that was just like something that I was like yeah I hadn't really ever thought about that in like previous times that I've watched these movies and I think that it is like huge in understanding like oh yeah what these are and i definitely i always to not like I've always kind of watched it that way because I remember when these came out and I was trying to learn more about Tolkien and like I of course watched The Appendices. Did you? Did you? I just like once or twice. so
00:45:51
Speaker
It's funny because like I feel like Tolkien would talk about like, no, no, no, that didn't really like inform this. And it's like, but obviously it did though. like Because the way that he would explain, i think, his Christianity was like, this is not a Christian story, but I am a Christian person. So the the things that I have grown up with... influence the way that I tell story and influence the way that I see things. So that will like bleed through. like yeah How I am telling these stories is how I have been told stories. And so I think it's like that with his experiences and probably some like processing of some stuff, right? Because it's like there's not a single thing that he put to page and not a single thing that people have taken from it was lightly put there. and like seeing... wish...
00:46:34
Speaker
i do wish that there were more women, that there were more women represented, but it is what it is. You know what i'm saying? And like in this version and in the books, there is a very distinct elves have this color skin. And like the casting of this was really, really limited to that, which is why quick ah addressing of the show, which we covered the first season of, um,
00:47:01
Speaker
People were real whiny babies about the rigs of power being diverse. And it's like, how is it going to hurt you to acknowledge that like different parts of a world would have different people that look different, but would be genetically linked to each other? like Yeah. Like, what about the world that we live in has led you to believe that every single person in it looks the same? Like, what we talking about? And on top of that, like, how incredibly boring that, like, the only difference between people is that somebody might be taller and have pointier ears. Like, what are we doing? and know. Also, like, that whole argument is sort of like, so you're admitting that it matters to people. Yeah. like It's just a circular thing that's like, i just say you're dumb so I don't have to try it. Like, what are we doing? And when I was growing up watching these, I knew that there was, to to speak of elves, I knew that there was a difference between the elves, like the Lothlorian elves, the Rivendell, Mirkwood, we didn't.
00:48:01
Speaker
I don't think we saw them. We didn't spend time with them. Yeah, that that was the Hobbit trilogy when we go to Mirkwood. And those are all different elves. yeah so lee Pace is ah Orlando Bloom's dad. The most fabulous elf of them all, Thranduil.
00:48:18
Speaker
um But those elves each come from a different, like a literal different place, I think. Like they're different... Yeah, lines of elves. So it's like having different differences that are more than just what they are wearing is an important evolution in how we tell stories. So the fact that the show took that on was super important. Like, really good and really beautiful because it was like, yeah, they're all different. Like they all have a different culture to them. And especially once they came to Middle Earth, they established a different culture because then they spent like thousands of years in their little nooks and just like did what they did.
00:49:00
Speaker
And um it also... in these movies, seeing the Lothlorian elves versus the Rivendell and their different color palettes and like how the Lothlorian elves are very like celestial. And then the Rivendell are much closer.
00:49:15
Speaker
The Lothlorian elves are like the Ewok elves. They're like the Keebler elves. They're living in a tree. you Little starry Ewoks.
00:49:28
Speaker
The Rivendell elves are probably like ah our backwoods cousins that live in the forest. Oh my god. And then the Mirkwood ones are even more backwoods than that. like don't even We don't even invite them to the function.
00:49:40
Speaker
But it's like the Rivendell felt more autumny. Like they felt more like they are... representing that the world is dying.
00:49:53
Speaker
And I know that we had a conversation a little bit like, or the world that they know is dying. We had a conversation about that and color palettes and costume with the show rings of power, because there was something about that with those elves and like their specific color palettes. But, cause they looked like fallen leaves.
Symbolism in Color Palettes
00:50:09
Speaker
And this one kind of has that like autumnal thing too. And like, this is Hugo weaving plays. Um,
00:50:18
Speaker
Elrond. Elrond, thank you. And Elrond is present in the Rings of Power as is Galadriel. So it's like same guy, just at a different point in his life, a few thousand just a couple thousand years later. Yeah.
00:50:30
Speaker
So I kind of like that connection point of like these warmer color palettes following that character. have a really interesting question for you as someone who is more scholarly with the books. i read Scholarly? I just feel like I'm word vomiting this whole time. like I read the books in like middle school before the movies came out, but I don't think I ever finished the last book. But okay, so Arwen, she's an elf she's old as hell in a beautiful and fabulous way um aragorn he is technically a man if you want to get right down to it he's a numenorean descended uh
00:51:13
Speaker
Yep. but but but Okay. Please continue. How old was he when he met Arwen? Has she known him since he was a child? Because she has been an adult the whole time, right? That they've known each other?
00:51:29
Speaker
and but has he... So I don't remember the specific details, but he's like in his ninety s in these movies. Because it's like a different lifespan understanding. Yeah, he's one of the Dunedine, which are descended from the Numenoreans. And they have a much longer lifespan. And um I think that he, I feel like he was like,
00:51:55
Speaker
And in his 30s. that's like that's like ah her ah meeting him like last Tuesday for her. no Like kind of that's like a Romeo and Juliet situation for her. She's like, I met you yesterday and I am willing to die for you. like I mean, I feel like, oh, wait, no he actually met her when he was 20. Yeah.
00:52:18
Speaker
And then they did not spend all of that time together. They parted and came back together later. So it's also like that question, that very nerdy question of like time yeah is just so different. What is it? Who is she? But it's just so different for the elves. And like, yeah even if it feels like that must have been yesterday for her, did it? Because like, do they feel every year as it passes, you know? And so, but at the same time, they're like so removed that they're like,
00:52:46
Speaker
this thing is going to happen in 300 years. ah Yeah. That's fine. like Like ends in that way. Like the ends have no sense of urgency because they're like, our life is like on like our understanding of life is like the lifetime of an entire forest. So it's just like a different.
00:53:04
Speaker
So, okay. Yeah. I think thinking about that. well' I should feel like, no, I totally get you. And I, cause I always, I think about that too, where it's like, why are the elves so,
00:53:16
Speaker
intermixed even though they've pulled out of this so much from like how involved they used to be but it's like if they care about any of these people then they care about what's happening to those people and they're like recognizing time as it passes in relation to the people that they care about hey yeah yeah yeah yeah like Elrond is Arwen's dad and they're like both adults but I'm like how old was how how does childhood work if you're an elf like what does that mean well also like Elrond and Galadriel like They've been there. They've around. We're friends and know each other. and they were young. They went to high school together. They did. but And they were young when they came to Middle Earth, but they were also already old compared to numbers. And then like thousands of years later, he has a daughter with Galadriel's child. So Galadriel is Arwen's grandmother. are you serious? I am. my God. Yeah.
00:54:13
Speaker
This family tree is like a real Lothlorian tree house. So it's just like, ah costume wise. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
00:54:27
Speaker
I love the like art nouveau of it all, the organic nature of all their costumes, but also how how they were able to differentiate and to like jump past the elves and How they differentiated every culture was so cool. And like to refer to what you said before about class, like within the differentiations of culture, differenti differentiations of stature and like status and using cloth and embellishment to tell those things. And like, so you have like pretty –
00:55:03
Speaker
pretty like basic things without yeah like little diamonds and shiny things put in. And then you could go like bump it up to like massive embroidery and like gold stitches. And i okay.
00:55:16
Speaker
um In Rohan, like we see a lot of different like class representation in Rohan because we've got like peasants whose village is being set on fire You know, like, good luck if you're a peasant and you want to wear a color that's not brown. Like, good luck to you in that endeavor. Never going to happen. And then, like, you have up to, you know, like, the king. And he's in, like, very fine clothes. But they're not, like, crazy. And he's in, like, this sort of, like, Viking lodge house. And it's, like, crazy.
00:55:45
Speaker
on top of the hill and it's like beautiful and like more grand but it's not like insane it's not castle it's like made of wood yeah it's everything has like all these different layers within a cultural bound that all make sense and nothing like stands out like crazy because it would be weird if he was in a a castle because a castle seems like it wouldn't work for what used to be a nomadic culture like this is something that could be rebuilt again somewhere else Probably will have to be after these movies. Yeah. wo bo pomp
00:56:17
Speaker
but So one of the things that Nyla Dixon talks about in these um appendices is how many seamstresses were in the shop. ah And I actually looked at the um at the credits for each of the movies and there are different names because like if you look at fellowship, you don't count 40.
00:56:37
Speaker
ah They say like wardrobe, manufacturer, wardrobe maker, and then there's like onset wardrobe, jeweler, but they're not super detailed job descriptions, but there also are not the 40 listed, but then you go to the um two towers or return of the king and you get more names or a couple different names. So it's like everybody was working on everything and maybe we're just, you know, some people are assigned to this area and some people are assigned to this area and some people are assigned to this area. I do wish that in the appendices we'd had more time
00:57:11
Speaker
in that shop, oh yeah hearing about how, because like Nyla Dixon does talk about some of the organization that has to go into it, but it would be so cool to hear exactly how much, because like this, they were based at a place called stone, stones, tree studios, which used to be a paint factory. So it's like a massive place. Right. And it's not just them. I'm sure there's other workshops. Yeah. But um like, how do you,
00:57:42
Speaker
break down 19,000 and more? Because 19,000 is an awfully round number. reflecting it little bit. They got to 19,000 and they said no more. But it's like, how do you break down you know, this massive project yeah with your team when you're working on three films that are supposed to tell the story of an extended period of time, plus like stuff that happened in the past. And like, you know, how are you supposed to break all these things down? And each movie takes place mostly in a different place, right? Like fellowship mostly we're establishing. So we're mostly in like Hobbiton and Rivendell.
00:58:28
Speaker
And then like, I about mostly, but we spend a lot of time there. That's like the impressions of it, right? It's not like literally the mostly, but it's like the vibe of it is like the established, like the warmth of those places.
00:58:41
Speaker
And then the two towers, we've got Roanne and... um Helm's Deep is like big, big impressions, as well as like everybody running for their lives, like in between yeah places. A lot of walking, like two people walking. Yes. yeah And then like Return of the King, we have a lot of Gondor ah coming in to this influence now. And then we get Corsairs and we get the mountain um army that, you know, forsook their
Critique on Diversity
00:59:10
Speaker
oath. and are now ghosts and they have their own culture inside of the mountain. And like, we just have, we also have, you know, the dwarves here. We've got this there. like ah some like Axis collaborators that are working with Mordor. Yeah, the South and the pirates. Like we have... kind of a lot. Oh, it's it's a lot. And apparently it would have been worse. So like, these are...
00:59:38
Speaker
very, very established in the time in which they were being made. And there were certain conversations that were starting to be had because there was a story that I heard, i think it was like a TikTok or something that I was swiping by where it must be in one of the appendices. But one of the designers was trying to concept design um not the pirates, but the the culture that has the oliphants. Mm-hmm.
01:00:04
Speaker
And the designs that he was doing were pulling from African cultures. Yeah. And like really. looking at where they ended up. I could tell. Yeah. That's what they looked at. So the thing is that he was doing it. And then I think it was Philippa or Fran ran down in his studio and said, knock it off.
01:00:24
Speaker
And so that's the part is that like he was, it was going to be worse. And then it was like, don't do that. But it's still, Okay, people from a brown, like from a non-typically white culture are going to be your default villains. And that is such a choice. I'm like, yeah it is it did not go unseen back then or now. Quite choice.
01:00:52
Speaker
it's quite disappointing. Yes. Have that be part of this. And it's just, it just is part of it. that It just is. And it's like such, such a part of the time. and like, I, that's another reason why I like the show is because it was trying to like evolve how people were designing these things. And like, we don't have to just go with this. Like one is this and one is that like, no.
01:01:20
Speaker
Um, It strikes me as as people just being extremely uncritical of the default choices that they're making. And there's no one there's not really like a voice in the room to be like, hey, that?
01:01:37
Speaker
why that yeah Other than like the this one instance that you pointed out. yeah It's like other than saving us from like the most egregious version of what it could have been. It's sort of like there was no other conversation. Yeah. These were like baby steps. And so there's there's there's a lot in that that I do not have the the brain or the right words to discuss. But like that is a part of this.
01:02:03
Speaker
And like there's we haven't even touched on armor. Yeah. Oh my God. There's yeah so much here. So like Richard Taylor is also listed as a costume designer and Richard of Witter Workshop. um I think, and I can't remember. And I, I didn't watch all of the appendices this time. Yeah.
01:02:27
Speaker
haven't watched all of The Appendices in like 15 years. Yeah, you didn't have like four hours in addition to like 12 hours that it takes to watch all these movies. Yeah. So I do not remember specifically what Richard Taylor's role was because I feel like it crossed into quite a few different things. But I think that i think his costume stuff was the armor.
01:02:50
Speaker
i I thought that he was like, there was like a Chiron that came up at one point in one of the videos that was talking about him as like a lead like designer at Weta. So I'm wondering if he would have maybe been more understood in like a production designer kind of role, but like, because he developed a lot of ideas, it like became like part of costume. Well, I'm wondering if the differentiation was him doing armor because he would have been with the armorers at the workshop.
01:03:21
Speaker
Maybe. like Or if it's like, okay, we'll do the elven stuff and you'll do the Mordor. I wonder exactly what the delineation is there because he is listed specifically with costumes. And so it's like, yeah, he totally is a mentor. He seems like he's kind of like a a jack of all trades and very good at all of them. And like being a lead and being like...
01:03:48
Speaker
An important figure at Weta. So it's like he kind of like knows all of these different departments. But so it's like, I wonder exactly how that split. um But I'm not quite clear on it. But because they were specifically talking about costumes. It was like Nyla.
01:04:04
Speaker
yeah you know like it wasn't he But she was never talking about armor. like So it's like, I i wonder. yeah and there's yeah people but bo There's so much. up So everything that we've said about costumes... If you and I were more armor focused, we could have spent exactly the same amount of time talking about all of the
Unique Armor Designs
01:04:27
Speaker
armor. But I'm not like a crazy armor person. But I do want to say that the armor that was made for this is fantastic. Like it is –
01:04:38
Speaker
Because they're for each culture that we've described, each one has armor that was designed for it except for the hobbits. Like everyone has a different style and a different culture. like And the fact that they're so different, it's like, you know, if I were asked to design a sword, I'd be like, well, I can think of three. Yeah. That's about it. But it's like there's so many different different pieces that it's like when we're talking 19,000 costumes, does that include the armor or no? I'm going to guess no. Yeah. Because like what are what are the full numbers here? This is crazy. And there's like there's armor for horses. oh There's armor for like orcs that where you're like –
01:05:30
Speaker
is all of this armor really real? Is any of it, yeah you know, like, you know, and it has to be like repaired or replaced. Like that has to kind of constantly be a thing because there's so many stunts and so much fighting in this and like so many considerations about weight and heat. And like, if somebody is going to get, you know, hit in this stunt thing, is this spike going to kill somebody like all these different things that, that go into armor design that I just don't know because that's not at all a part of my my realm of things that I've done. no me neither. And so this, if you are super into armor, like, okay, there are two books that I wish that they would release for all three of these movies and that they're basically a continuation of the same thing. But I really wish that there was...
01:06:22
Speaker
something that you could buy and put in your little hands that had the concept art stills of all of the costumes. Just the way that they do it for star Wars. I wish that there was something like that for this and like the armor and ah the weaponry, like all of these things, because,
01:06:41
Speaker
Yes, Hobbiton still stands, which is very cool that you can like go to Hobbiton now. um But a lot of the bigotures, of course, they had to take down. um And there's like, so much stuff that probably still does exist from the Hobbit and and this trilogy. But it's like, this amount of work.
01:07:00
Speaker
This is the thing that is is so interesting too about costume is that like you can put years and years and years of work that is very delicate, very specific. And where does it go? Yeah.
01:07:13
Speaker
What happens to it? Yeah. We have the films and they live there forever. But like we've said, you will never see exactly what it is because you just by the nature of it, like there's there's a point where Nila Dixon is talking about a cape or a cloak that they made for and And um Peter Jackson decided that he didn't want to do the shot the way that he described it when they agreed on that costume. He wanted a full body in motion. So he needed to see the dress that was underneath that cloak.
01:07:43
Speaker
And so they had to whip up a gown for Aowyn. And then Nyla Dixon said, so I saw it in the theaters and this dress that we like had to panic over to like generate it you know, and and create this thing.
01:07:57
Speaker
You'd never see it because it's just a headshot. And she was like, but that, what I loved about how she said it was that you understood that like, she was like sweating over it and like they, they put in so much work and they freaked out over it, but she's watching it she's like, this is, this is one of those things where it's like, you have to go, you can't put your ego in this. correct You can't because like what you're doing is just, you have to think about how you are building for this world. It's not just about you. and I was like, thank you for saying that. And like, yeah,
01:08:26
Speaker
It's hard. But acknowledging that it's hard work. Yeah, it's, it's hard. And it's hard to. It's, it's an interesting place to be in where you have to pour so much of yourself and your talent and your time and your energy and like efforts and working with everyone and like leading a team and like being a good leader. And you have to put all of that into it. And then also,
01:08:52
Speaker
not put your ego into it. Like that's hard. Yeah. It's really hard. And especially for a project like this, where she said that it took her three months to like conceptualize how big this was.
01:09:03
Speaker
And then you're, you're working on this for like, they filmed for like a year and a half, but how long were they working on it? There's yeah an article that I read.
01:09:14
Speaker
it's, It was – let me scroll, scroll, scroll. It was like a ranker.com article and I copied and pasted some of these things. But Peter Owen, who was a hair and makeup designer for this, um he weren't he won an Oscar for his work here. And he um said that if they called me again to do this, I'd say, no, we can't do it. But they did it back then. And he said – It was like organizing World War III. They were shooting in never less than three places simultaneously. we had six weeks to prepare everything, which was ridiculous. And this is just hair and makeup.
01:09:52
Speaker
We had to design the makeup and create more than 100 new wigs and teach everyone how to put them on. But there was no time for panic. We had to make quick decisions and give the director what he wanted. So that's just one department, right? And each department had different lead times because, of course, like different...
01:10:09
Speaker
things, but none of them are going to have like the most beautiful amount of lead time. So it's like, what no one has ever like, Oh my God, we could have had a whole month less of time. We were just, say it was luxurious. We were just chatting. And it so it's like, I really, i really wonder, you know, how, and I'm sure that they do say it appendices. So I'm sure there's somebody out there who can answer this question very easily, but it's like,
01:10:35
Speaker
someone had to figure out how to stagger the different departments and their build times. And then somebody had to hire all of these people, which means that you had to like go through CVs and put out calls and like reach out to somebody that you know, who's an embroiderer, who's a dyer, who's a weaver, who's a this or that or the other thing.
01:10:54
Speaker
And then also being that they were filming in New Zealand Where were they able to get all the things that they needed or did they have to leave?
01:11:06
Speaker
And go to like a different place to do some shopping, you know? Yeah. New Zealand, famously an island, you know? Islands are not known for having every single thing that you need. And it's like here in the US, the continental United States, people who are filming, well, not even just here. ah What was it? Outlander, the the original costume designer for the first and second season.
01:11:30
Speaker
she I think was based in LA. They moved to Scotland because she was married to the showrunner um or the producer, but the person who got it made, um they moved to Scotland.
01:11:42
Speaker
She flew out to San Francisco to go to Britex to buy fabric. Yes. Yes. That's crazy. There's a specific gown in season two.
01:11:53
Speaker
red one? No, it's ah the one when she's in the gardens, the French gardens, and it's like a brown and kind of like mustard yellow floral kind of situation. That was an upholstery fabric that she dug for in the basement of Britex before they shut down their original location and moved to the smaller one. Shout out to Brightex. Brightex.
01:12:16
Speaker
Ooh, wait. But it's like, that's somebody who has access, right? That's somebody who's working in the industry and has the backing. And so it's like Nyla Dixon had backing clearly from Weta, not like endless, but they had, they had support. Yeah. They made 19,000 things. They had some money to spend. they had They had a budget. And so it's like, did you need to fly somewhere to get to be certain things? Because I'm sure that like the workshop, the armorers could like build certain fastenings, right? But it's like... online group of costume people.
01:12:49
Speaker
like i'm in ah an online group of of costume people And there's a ah lot of members that seem to be from Australia and they're constantly asking for help in sourcing materials because yeah like we don't have it. It's not yeah in our country. And like you can't. The thing is that like everybody always I'm not talking about like customers, but like everybody always just kind of like defaults to the Internet. And like costumers do too. And it is a problem for everyone because sometimes it's the the deadline, but it's like people were able to make their deadlines before this stuff existed. But fashion districts and by fashion districts, I mean, fabric districts have changed like post COVID.
01:13:28
Speaker
that They are like almost non-existent compared to what they used to be. I wish that I'd had the opportunity to go to New York before everything So many things were shuttered. But there are like districts in major cities all over the world that are just fabric, textiles, you know, eat things like that.
01:13:44
Speaker
Like part of it is that the textiles aren't even being produced in the first place to then. Yeah. Like there's just been a huge change in what is made fabric wise and part of that is responding to what people are buying and what they're not buying anymore and so it's sort of like this is what is available like it's it's harder and harder to find stuff that doesn't have some kind of like synthetic fiber like integrated into it in some way And that's why it's always really interesting when you hear about a project where it's like they got something woven. They got something specifically made in order for it to be what they wanted it to be or had to dig in a basement at Brightaxe to go find an upholstery fabric that would have enough fabric. Just like enough fabric. like Sure, you know like the internet, has is you can find so many things, but like you're not going to find the dead stock fabric that was manufactured 30 years ago that's still in vaults in that basement.
Sourcing Costume Materials
01:14:43
Speaker
Everybody who works with textiles, unless you know that manufacturer and you have like a relationship with them and you know their stock. you you have to touch things. You have to see how they move with your eyes. Like how is something as liquidy as I need it to be for it to be elven? Is something as, you know, this color, but warm as I need it to be for dwarves? Like what is it? And I can't know unless I see it and touch it and handle it. There's just like so much that that must have like
01:15:19
Speaker
been a ah barrier in New Zealand. But like, not like, oh, port but it's like, but it just that's more work. Yeah. And that's a whole part of it that we don't hear about. And I really wish that we could hear about it. Because like, you know, Nyla Dixon had to basically organize like an army, like she and whoever else or her like shop managers and all, all that had to Break down – were talking about this for like a minute – break down all of the bodies and like how many bodies need to be clothed. How many bodies are going to be an elf here and like a human there? Like, okay, they're a Rivendell elf. Now they're a Lothlorien elf. Now they're, you know, this elf over here.
01:15:58
Speaker
And like, okay, so they need ah armor. They need this. They need that. And like they need this kind of a wig. They need this. They need this. They need this. It's like how – how much work and who's doing it. Because what I love about the appendices is that it really makes you feel this warmth of like the collaborative effort and the passion that is driving it. team.
01:16:19
Speaker
The team and like just how many people are so skilled and so smart and so creative that But i I always want to know more about the nitty gritty. I really do. And so it would be so cool if there were like a couple books that like really went into that. Because the appendices are a gift. Not everybody creates stuff like this. And this was new when we were younger. Like I was not used to movies releasing this much behind the scenes. Yeah, it was really special of them to do that. You know what we need? We need like...
01:16:48
Speaker
um like the the sort of like fad in like books right now is like the oral history of like making this TV show. Yeah. Like we need that for the production teams on these movies. Like we need like an oral history of like the costume production. Yeah. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And we need like a history of like the people that built all the bigotures. And like, i just like, just tell me, I want to know about it. Yeah. Tell me about it, please. And that's another thing that I love about these is that the actors, there are like a few actors who got really, really
01:17:27
Speaker
um engaged behind the scenes. Like Lee Pace in the Hobbit movies, he went into the armory and he made some weapons. um I think that Viggo Mortensen got really into the horses. So he built this like massive relationship with his horse. and like I read that he bought Arwen's horse and gave it to her stunt rider. To the stunt double, yeah. And that's something that's like that you know, like the the actors kind of become like your spokespeople for like the movie and they're the most recognizable.
01:18:02
Speaker
Yeah. No, no question. But like the relationships that they have with the people that are not on screen with them are really Awesome. And that's not something that gets as much attention. Right. I always want to know, like, were the actors friends at the actors hang out? it's like Yeah. sure But like, they were probably really, really close with their key costumer and their makeup artist. And they were trained them to you look like they know how to sword fight. And they went beyond that to like go into the workshop because they were so curious about stuff. So they actually have an understanding of all of the work that went into it, the scale of it, like all of the actors who talk about these. Yes, they do talk about their relationships, but they also talk about the scope and how many people were involved and how amazing all of these people were and how blown away they were by everybody's work. It's not like a kissing ass of like a specific department. It's this understanding that everyone was bringing together.
01:18:53
Speaker
so much work together. And that's the one of the pieces of the collaboration that was like, so like, oh, my God, could you imagine working on a project like this? It was just like, oh, that chasing that dragon. career, quite literally, quite literally. um There are a couple little quotes from this article that I wanted to point out. And I don't know if these are just lifted from the appendices or not, but Nyla Dickinson is questionable. Nyla Dickinson ah was talking about um the actual process of creating the costumes and, and,
01:19:32
Speaker
Specifically the dresses because most of like what they built was for men and so they only had a couple gowns to build and every time they did, they actually got really excited about it because they were like yes, something different. That's not, on you know, being like driven run into the mud and like distressed. Yeah. And so she says, yes, it was very much the relief for the wardrobe department to make some very beautiful dresses. The the folks in the wardrobe department have actually hand-stitched all of the embroidery, hours and hours and hours of work. And these huge sleeves, so she's talking about the death dress for Arwen, the red one. These huge sleeves just drop right back so Arwen's arm will suddenly appear quite naked on screen.
01:20:12
Speaker
who But she says that there's... Oh, yeah. She consistently sings the praises of the film's behind-the-scenes costumers. The amount of people that have worked on every dress, from cutter to dyer to embroiderers, to nights at 4 o'clock in the morning when there would be five people stitching each corner of a dress in order to get it finished on time. I was just like...
01:20:35
Speaker
This is me now. What? And she talked about the hobbits. She said that there were a lot of quirks. So when we think of the hobbits, we think of like 18th century, early 18th century, like kind of Regency-esque, like country wear. Yeah. and um which I thought was really interesting because yeah there's so much medieval inspiration in a lot of the clothes. And I was like, man, these hobbits are so not that. Yeah. They're so different. And it was just like, i feel like it was a perfect choice to communicate how different and how not at war they are, how cozy they are. Yeah. And like, um she said that,
01:21:23
Speaker
ah she added a lot of things to jar the eye like the trouser legs and sleeves being too short, the buttons are too big, and the collars are out of proportion, and the pockets are higher than usual, so when they put their hands in their pockets, it has a very distinctive funny look to it. And so it's like... It's so cute.
01:21:44
Speaker
So cute. So it's just... I mean, there's there's just like so many pieces that they do talk about that are... incredible work that you just will never see on yeah having you ever see um I think when we hang up, I think I'm just going to go watch all the movies again. but I feel like I'm at the point now where I'm just kind of talking in circles. um Yeah, we should.
01:22:10
Speaker
Yeah. Let's
Passion for Fantasy Costuming
01:22:12
Speaker
tie this up in a bow. This is our last episode fantas for our fantasy season. For our fantasy season. I feel like it's a good episode because for me, it's where I started my like love of fantasy costuming and my love of looking for detail and my curiosity for what...
01:22:30
Speaker
actually went in to the process and like wanting to know more about what I think a lot of designers would think of as just like the boring stuff and it's like no no no that's what so many people want to know it's like the nitty-gritty of it yeah and the math yeah like when you do it um professionally it's and it's true for any job like it starts to become normal. Like this is what you do. And it's only whenever I talk to people that like, don't do anything related to what I do that I realize what information I'm taking for granted that people would know that they just don't know. There's no reason for them to know it the same way there's, you know,
01:23:17
Speaker
a million jobs that I know absolutely nothing about what the process and like the training and the day-to-day is. um But it's like, it's nice for
Impact of Behind-the-Scenes Content
01:23:28
Speaker
this. I think this is a really great ending as well. Like you said, because this movie really like pulled the curtain back on like behind the scenes in a way that was like the perfect time because we had like technology to like,
01:23:43
Speaker
really record behind the scenes. We had the like the DVD culture of like having all these special features was like a really big thing. So it was like the perfect way to like deliver it to all of us. And you had this like massive movie. It was hugely successful that everybody was talking about.
01:24:00
Speaker
that like launched a thousand like nerdy ships. And so it was like the most people probably that have ever watched behind the scenes making of stuff is like these movies.
Ephemeral Nature of Film Work
01:24:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:15
Speaker
And so i just, what a beautiful beginning. And ah also just like we talked about so ephemeral that like all of this work went into it. And so much of that work is,
01:24:28
Speaker
wherever it is now. Cue Into the West by Annie Lennox.
Looking Forward to Next Season
01:24:39
Speaker
we have no we have no announcement we haven't even decided what season five is going to be of the podcast we just know that we'll be doing it yeah because this is this is fun for us it's a little bit of like uh mental health care it's uh staying in love with our chosen career and our our paths or you know looking for the love in it. Or like stumbling blindly down the path. Hey-o. So
Conclusion and Gratitude
01:25:10
Speaker
yeah, thanks for listening. Thanks for being with us during this season.
01:25:13
Speaker
yeah and thank you, Melinda. Well, thank you. I'm so ah so glad that we could end it in this world, this age, this middle earth. This middle earth.
01:25:27
Speaker
And we'll let let everybody know what season five is when we figure it out. Heyo. Thanks for listening.