Production Companies New Line Cinema, WingNut Films, Lord Dritte Productions Deutschland Filmproduktion GmbH & Co. KG (in association with), The Saul Zaentz Company (licensor) (d/b/a Tolkien Enterprises)
The visual effects team behind The Lord of the Rings motion pictures was honored with Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects for both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers.
The challenge for The Return of the King was to capture the same intimate focus as did the physical/live action photography on a far larger canvas. The Weta Digital team would create numerous new creatures -- an increased profusion of Műmakil, Fell Beasts and Wargs, glimpsed in the first film, as well as Shelob, the lethal giant spider that traps Frodo in her web -- and continue to chart the arc of Gollum, the pivotal character performed by Andy Serkis and captured digitally by Weta’s visual effects artists. Weta’s proprietary software, Massive, has also continued to evolve to take on the exponentially greater forces taking part in the Battle of Pelennor Fields.
Like every other aspect of The Lord of the Rings production, the visual effects process worked in concert with live action to strike a visual harmony in every shot of the film, be it raw or a composite of numerous effects, from miniature to matte to Massive. Jackson, director of photography Lesnie, visual effects cinematographer Brian Van't Hul, and each member of his team were committed to raising the bar on every aspect of the production. "That spirit has been true across the entire production, from the acting to the visual effects and editing teams, the music, everything," says Jackson. "We just want to deliver what is truly the best of these three films."
"I think we’ve definitely benefited from having the same creative think tank on the team because we developed a practical shorthand between each of us," comments co-producer Rick Porras. Porras also notes that even in the final stage of the final film, cast and crew alike continued to carry Tolkien’s book with them, constantly returning to the source for inspiration or details. "Nobody is losing sight of where it all came from. None of us wants to drop the ball in the 11th hour or not deliver on the promise that was made when people saw the first film. And I don’t think we have."
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