Hi there, I'm Stephanie.

And I'm Lydia.

Come along with us as we explore and learn about the world of Tolkien through deep dives on lore, characters, beat-a-lons, and laugh-a-lons.

We are excited to have you as a new friend on this journey with us. Welcome to Speak Friend and Enter, a Lord of the Rings podcast.

Hello, hello. Hi guys. Alright, so we're here. We're back. And Stephanie is about to redial us with like, the ultimate jealousy-inducing trip. And I get to say that because somehow I like, whiffed it and didn't go on the trip. I had like, other trips accidentally planned. But we're doing it. We're definitely doing it again.

Lydia is a planner and she had amazing trips already planned. And yeah, me and my husband Brian were like, what can we do with this grad school break? And the obvious answer for someone who's just started a Lord of the Rings podcast is, you gotta go to New Zealand.

And you gotta do it. I mean, you were totally right to do it. Because every time I think about New Zealand, I'm like, that thing is farther than the moon.

It's so hard to get to. You can't just go on a normal work break. You gotta go on like a real break. And a fun employment break. So yeah, toodles to you. You did it.

Thank you. We made it. I know the flights are long. Yeah. And you like skip a day going there, but then it feels so trippy coming back because you like take off and land on the same day. So you gain it on the return flight.

How many movies did you watch on the way out? Because those long flights kill me. When you've gone through four movies and you're like, wow, there are still eight hours left. It's wild.

Like I view myself as a pretty good plane sleeper. But even then, like I was like, okay, I'm going to try to sleep as long as I possibly can. And you wake up. Do they red eye you out? Is that how it goes? I think so.

I think it was a red eye out. Yeah. And then you wake up and they're like eight hours left. And you're like, what?

It was wild. But yeah, tons of movies, tons of TV shows, lots of Angry Bird. Okay. Okay. It worked out. Okay. But I am so excited because Lydia and I haven't chatted and shared stories yet. So this is our little chat session where I get to share all the fun little tidbits and facts that I learned about.

No one can see this, but Stephanie is brandishing a notebook at me. It's like eight inches thick. It's covered in peach gel pen. It is peach gel pen. Yes. I'm not, I can't even make fun of you for that because I took all my notes in pink gel pen.

Just makes it more fun. In school. Well, well actually, I take it back. I had three colors. And I had to do that because I was taking notes from math. So it's like, this color is what the teacher is saying. This color is, you know, what, you know, my side notes to myself. And this is the other color that I drawn. But I do know it. Exactly. So I was, I had a lot of pink notebooks.

Honestly, I don't know. I think I'm just going to write exclusively in gel pens now.

It just adds so much color and so much fun. Yeah, I love it. So from the top? From the top. Yes. Okay. So a little bit of context or structure for this. So we started out in Auckland and New Zealand has two main islands. It's the North Island and the South Island. And we slowly kind of drove and then took a ferry from Auckland on the North Island all the way down to Queenstown on the South Island. And so I'm going to talk about kind of the different things that we saw, Lord of the Rings related, all the way from Auckland down to Queenstown and some of the four other take-offs. So out of curiosity, I haven't done any of this geography in my geography. It's very poor. How separated are these islands? Are we talking about the English Channel in between?

Yeah, I think they call it, man, I don't know if they call it a sound, but it does, it looks like it's ocean, but it looks like something that you could definitely ferry across. We ferryed across and like, oh man, I'm going to get this wrong. But it might be like three hour ferry on like a really big ferry boat with lots of cars and stuff. So

there are probably very brave souls to swim that, even though they ought not to. Probably. Because everything in Australia, anything in Australia is like death. It's like the most insane version of the animal. New Zealand is safer though.

So like if you are too scared to go to Australia, but you want like really beautiful landscape and Southern Hemisphere and all that jazz, go to New Zealand, no snakes, no scary spiders.

But oh, that's right, because they're the ones that managed to get away from all those.

All the bad animals left and went to Australia. It's so funny. It was somehow broke off because we were talking about this with our guide. It broke off from, I think like Australia continent long, long, long, long time ago.

Yeah, circa long, long time ago. And drifted kind of further down. And so Australia has a very deserty hot climate, which also I think kind of lended itself, took producing animals that are very sturdy and very awful. Very up-to-million. Every time they read something, they're like, wow, what's it, where does this horrible creature abode? It's in Australia. Yeah, exactly.

So it sounds like. So New Zealand is the safer version. New Zealand is the safer version. And Australia developed all that goodness on its own. But yeah, so we landed in Auckland. And one of the first main things that's outside of Auckland, I think it's about, and please excuse me, I'm going off of my memory.

I have this notebook mainly for Lord of the Rings stuff. So any like hours or other things about New Zealand might be a little iffy, depending on my memory. But I think it was about like an hour and a half, two hour drive to get to the Shire from Auckland. And we are talking about the location that they use for the Lord of the Rings movies, for the Hobbit movies. And this is the one place in New Zealand where the set is kind of up and gorgeous. So we loved it. Lydia, it was so pretty.

I've heard it's totally magical.

It's so magical. So, okay. I love it. A couple of things that I learned about the set when we were there. So they found this spot by Peter Jackson. I didn't know Peter Jackson was from New Zealand. I feel like that's a big miss for me.

Yeah. I think I knew that. So, yeah. And I thought it was really cool that he managed to do all the locations. Obviously, it's a great place for the movie.

Incredible. They have amazing scenery. But I thought it was really cool that he managed to do all those places where he didn't have to pick up and move and leave and live somewhere else for three years. So he just made everyone else.

And I feel like you can really see the genius of him like using New Zealand and him knowing it so well because they said that he used about like over 200 different locations for the Lord of the Rings movies for shots.

Because they would splice like one location that you think, oh, that's one locale. Like a scene from the Shire? Yeah. Like a scene from, well, for example, this is going a little bit past the Shire, but like the scene where they're in Farmer maggots' crop and they like run off the cliff and then they fall, tumble down into the road. They had a place where they had the cornfield. Then they had a place where they had the cornfield and the cliff. And then they had a separate place that they tumble down. And then the road with the hollow that they had to get off was like a separate one. It was genuinely insane to hear about all the locations.

So cool. But the Shire is magical because it really feels like you're there. It's not one of those places where it feels like they spliced a bunch of things. Yeah.

And do you walk through it? Like they drive you up and drop you off at Bad End or how does it work?

So you go to kind of like the Hobbiton Welcome Center. They have ice cream. They have a gift shop, all this good stuff.

They have ice cream. They know their customers. And then you get a ticket for a specific time. And what they'll do is you'll actually get on like a special little Hobbiton bus and they'll bus you over the kind of like main highway into this farm, beautiful ranch. So do you come in on the road that Dandle drives his car down?

You know, I think you do at some point. Okay. There are different like, like I was saying, areas where they spliced things together. But there is this one road that has a really tall or high sides that kind of like Frodo steps out on to meet Gandalf.

And I think that is coming into the Shire. Okay, cool. So they, That's what I'm talking about. Exactly.

Yeah. So they park and then you get out and you walk into the Shire and it's just so cool walking down that road and then it opens. How many houses do they have? Oh, they have so many. Like I was genuinely surprised.

So they were generally filming as if it was a real location because they built so many.

Yeah, they built so many and they have different doors and different sizes. So they actually have some doors that are very small and petite so that they look genuinely Hobbit sized.

And then they have other doors that are full size so that an actor or someone could stand next to them and would look Hobbit sized. Okay. So which is really cool. It's just so magical. It has like, they have a smoke, which I think is like the dry ice coming out of chimneys. They have beautiful gardens. They have gardeners there. Yeah, they must have to keep it up like a lot.

They have to keep it up a lot. Yes. And I didn't realize this, but so the first movie or the first set of movies, Lord of The Rings, they found this locale by Peter Jackson flying over in helicopter and he was looking for a beautiful hill overlooking a lake with kind of like a party tree.

Like a real big... Yeah, I think I heard that when I was watching the, what do we call it? The extended versions they have like the behind the scenes. Yeah, behind the scenes stuff. Because one of the things that they cared the most about was making sure to get the party tree.

So that tree is real. It's not fake or... That tree is real. Yes. It's a magnificent tree. I just can't believe they found the perfect locale. And so yeah, you're going into this beautiful landscape that's real. They did such a good job finding it. And I'm trying to think of all the other

things I love to call it. Do they have the party tree in like that little area at the green?

Do they have a set up for the party? They have the green. Yes. So you can go and they have like a maple and you can sit. They have a swing and a whole bunch of stuff, which is really fun. Oh man, that sounds so fun. It is so cool. And there's this thing that I was going to mention that is totally eschewing me about the Shire, but it was incredible.

And then they have the back half of the Shire, which is raised, right? From when they were... Oh my goodness. Wait, yes. This is what I was going to mention. They have like, here's the good part. Now if you go, if you cross the tracks and you're on the wrong side of town, here's the raising of the Shire.

The raising of the Shire. No, you know what's crazy? Okay. So this is what I was going to mention. They built all of this for the first movies, right? The Lord of the Rings movies and it was beautiful. And then the studio said, we don't want anything that basically people could go to and make money off of left in New Zealand. So tear it down. Why would they say this? Also, I don't know. We hate money and fun. And then also... What's wrong with them?

Why are people stupid? Additionally... I could see the government saying that, but I'm really surprised the studio said that.

And so additionally, they did film... This wasn't the Shire, but they did film on some public land and when you film on public land, they're very strict.

There's a provision. You do have to do your tag every bush and anything that you move, you have to put exactly back where it was before it can't look like anything's changed. So they got rid of everything, including they built the Green Dragon Inn, right? In the Shire. And do you remember in the first movie when Frodo looks, I think it's into Galadriel's mirror and he sees the Green Dragon Inn on fire?

And he sees the raising, yeah. They actually lit it on fire. Yeah, she burned it. Oh, I didn't know. They actually lit it on fire and that's how they got rid of it at the end of the Lord of the Rings movies and they put that in. That's actually a bit wild to me. Very epic. But they then rebuilt it because somebody came to their senses. Did they buy the land and do...

They rebuilt it for the Hobbit movies.

Yeah, so they rebuilt it for the Hobbit movies. Oh gosh, yeah. My favorite thing came out of the Hobbit movies, which is The Shires. And so something so interesting, so they rebuilt it for the Hobbit movies, but then the farmer, so the farmer still owns the land that they've been filming on. Dude, if I was a farmer, I'd be like, yes, build it and I'll take 2% of revenues. It'd be such an easy decision.

He went to the studio and he said, hey, is there some business deal that we can strike so that we can keep the set here and we can have this business. So he owns the land, the studio owns the set and they've set up this company to have tourists come. Yeah, that makes sense.

Good. That's what they should have done for me getting. I was also really salty that they didn't figure out some sort of get up for Eterus. I would have loved to go to Eterus. Lydia. The fact that that does not insist. I mean, maybe you'll tell me better, but.

Lydia, it was so that was on one of our tours later on. Oh, I feel bad. I want to skip to it, but like, we'll get there eventually by stunning. Okay, yeah, so The Shires, so amazing. Let's see if they had any other like fun stories. Okay, so something that I thought was so interesting is they needed roads to get to this like random spot on this guy's ranch. And so they asked the army, the New Zealand army, they're like, you need experience building roads. You want to build some roads for us?

Give us our like, trainee boot camp cadets to come build roads for us.

And if you're in, if you build the roads for us, you can be in the movie. Awesome.

So where were they in the movie? They were the orcs.

They dressed up. Awesome. The military or these army dudes, these really young army guys as orcs. And apparently I forget. I don't think this was in like the raising or the shy or anything shy related, but they

did help with the roads. This is genius. So like, how can we get free labor? How can we get free extras? How can we do all these scenes? How can we win favor with the army?

And so apparently I don't know what scene they were filming, but they had them as orc extras and they were getting so excited and so like rambunctious and like into the scenes. They were, they kept asking like, did we win? Did we win? And Peter was like, awesome. No, you don't.

You don't win. You're the orcs.

But they were apparently really into the being the extra orcs. They loved it. But yeah, so many cool things. Let's see.

So they had. And this is the benefit of doing something local. Like, I'm sure New Zealand is a relatively small place where like, I, I, I, I, in terms of countries that must feel like a small town country because he was able to just like call up Mr. Army and say, Hey, general, would you like to be in my movie? I'd like to have them build some roads. Yeah. And I love that. It feels like it's a testimony to how much you can get done just by calling people up.

Yeah, it was really, I mean, incredible, incredible. I'm trying to think of some other funny things from, Oh, talking about like free labor. So apparently that tree on top of bag end, um, I believe was a real tree in the Lord of the Rings movies, but by the time they came back for the hobbit, it had kind of withered and died. And so Peter Jackson was like, no, obviously that tree needs to be like spot on.

So they, they bought a series of leaves to put on said tree to make it look like beautiful. And glowy and they ordered a box of 10,000. Yeah. I think like thousands of leaves that were supposed to come in to look very summery and natural to put on the tree. And they came in and they weren't the right color.

And so they got free. I think it was college student labor to come in and a hand paint the leaves for this tree so that they would look flawless in the hobbit. And this was for the hobbit. Oh, that's funny.

So wild.

Um, so just so much attention to detail. You would have had to keep me away from that. I'd be like, yes, I wanted to do it, but I'm actually really bad at painting. So it'd be like every leaf is good. Except for my leaf. My leaf is like nasty colored.

I would just kind of mire the dedication because Peter Jackson's like, no, everything. That's incredible. The coloring is wrong. We need to make sure every, every leaf looks right.

It's interesting to me that it's hard. It's always hard for me to understand which problems you would tackle a CGI and which ones you want. I know. And in this case, I'm wondering like, I'll have to look this up. I think, I think a lot of motion is something that's visible and highlight and something that has a lot of light effect on it. So obviously this is going to be seen in daylight, right? And so in order to make it look real, it's just better to get the physical proptom and paint it. But it's an interesting thing that I feel like a lazier director would say, ah, we'll just CGI it.

It's, it's, it's really impressive how much physical work they did.

And they did less physical work, I think for the Hobbit. I could be wrong, but a little bit less. And I feel like it is noticeable. The difference. So yeah. So I'm really happy with like the, especially with Lord of the Rings, but like it's, it's, I hope that we see a return to that level of physical work because I just CGI is still not there.

Um, I know. I definitely prefer the physical work, but you really get a sense of the attention to detail on like the effort it took. It's wild. Massive effort. Um, okay. A couple other funny little facts that I, I heard. So Bilbo's party, I think Peter Jackson didn't want everyone to be totally wasted. So I think the first drink was like alcoholic, but he put everything else was non-alcoholic, but he didn't tell the actors. Awesome. So you get like a very, I guess placebo effect, uh, drunk acting because they were filming that for multiple nights in a row. Oh yeah.

They'd be totally wasted. They'd be totally wasted. Um, so that was funny. So do you know how long they spent filming the Shire in its totality? Cause that's something I, I feel like it would be interesting to know.

It's so interesting because they filmed the outside there, but a lot of the inside shots were still shot at like studios. So I'm not a hundred percent sure how many days, which is also wild.

I don't know how many days once they built it, they actually were shooting the outside shots because I feel like once you have the set, um, it could go pretty quickly.

And yeah, and I think it does. Um, I don't know the numbers. I, I'm trying to remember. I think there's a section of the behind the scenes, which I haven't seen in a couple of years. So this is all very faulty, very faulty quotes. Um, I think there's a section where they discuss the, the film, like the scene filming schedule.

Oh yeah. And it's like so, and it's a very complicated problem to optimize. So it's like, I need this director here and I need these people. And then we can bunch these scenes together and either bunch by actor or you can bunch by location. Um, they're not really bunching by places.

You're not doing anything chronologically. Um, and then I saw one scene that stood out to me. That was really funny. Last time I watched where it's like Peter Jackson and he's sitting in his like chair, you know, in his like Carter shorts or whatever it was, he wore the entire time. Um, and he had three cameras that he was directing at the same time. Oh my gosh. And that is a level of, I, I looked at that and thought, Oh wow, that guy is like really stilled. Um, he can multitasking isn't that real, but like he can manage to switch between these fast enough to give it good direction.

And be so detailed in it. Yeah. And I thought that was very interesting because, you know, it was a casual display of still, I felt. Um, and then they, so they had him running a bunch of cameras and then they have, you know, their little sub directors running off and doing independent work. Um, so yeah, it was the shooting schedules are very interesting thing to me because it's cool to think, all right, well, maybe the Shire is 20 minutes of this movie, but how many days is that?

You know, you know, it's funny. Let me look because I think someone mentioned this on the tour, one of the tours we were on. Okay. They said, and this wasn't the Shire, but they said 468 days of consecutive filming, I think for the Lord of the Rings trilogy,

which is, and they were trying to do all of the films at the same time. That's exhausting. Yeah. Like that's intense. So intense. Um, anyways, so in awe of that, um, trying to think anything else. Oh, the Shire also, I think has some of the best examples of forced perspective in the movies. So like Frodo riding next to Gandalf on the wagon, apparently. Yeah. His seat is like far behind us, right? Ten feet apart.

Ten feet apart. Um, the scene where Frodo comes in to find the ring and Gandalf is sitting at the fireplace. So they have an actor coming on one side of him. That's not Frodo.

Who's more petite. That's blurred out. And then Frodo comes beside him.

The Elijah Wood actor on the other side looking more properly sized. And the table would rotate with the camera to make sure that it all looks smooth and even to have, yeah, to have that shot.

So talk about the intense shooting schedule and then talk about adding that kind of nonsense on top of it. Like the amount of detail. I'd forgotten about the, uh, the size and the, the like, what did you call it? The first perspective.

Thank you. Incredible. Well, we had multiple little tidbits that they shared with us about that. It really, I'm sure they use this in other movies and I'm just totally oblivious. They do.

Um, they do not to the level of what the range of stories I understand. Diagon Alley. Diagon Alley set has some forced perspective. Um, cause I went to that set and we saw like the pieces of it and all.

That's so cool. I think it's just the main alley is mostly got some of that. Uh, it was very weird to look at. It was very weird to stand near it and to see it. Um, so acting in it must be, I think that's another level of still too. Like you're pretending that you're right next to this guy. So you have to look in the right direction. You have to speak as if they're next to you. It's, it's very interesting.

How to interact. I mean, blue screen takes this or a green screen takes this to a whole nother level where it's

like, how do you interact with it? Probably an even harder level. Yeah. Just insane. Yeah. I had, um, sometimes my brother, Ben, he likes to do like little parody movies, a little parody films. And, uh, so I was in one of his and it was so difficult not to look at the camera. I'd just be doing the theme and then I turned around and the up staring right in the camera again, as if by magic. So it is funny to think about like the little skills you have to have as an actor.

Just don't look at the camera. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Task impossible mission. Yeah. Mission level impossible. Um, I was very bad at it.

Um, but yeah, I don't know. It's really, really hard to act with somebody that's like at a weird distance or weird perspective to you and not be distracted by the perspective of the scene. That'd be hard.

It would be hard. I really admire the actors in this. I think they did a great job as well. Um, I think acting and fantasy has got to be tough. Right. Especially like we were saying as Marcy G. You

have to take it seriously to like portray it well. Yeah. Um, did they, um, did they let you go in?

Um, any of the, I was just about to mention this. Okay. So another little feature I wanted to talk about. So most of the sets that they used in the Hobbit were outside, but the, I love this farmer. I forget his name. The guy who owns the land. Amazing. But he went to the, he went and he was like, Hey, people, people really want to go inside.

And so I think He actually spent the money. He knows what the people want. He knows what the people want. He's trying to deliver for the people, but, um, I think he actually spent the money to build two, uh, hobbit holes that you can actually go inside. They're fully furnished. They have a fireplace on.

They have like a kitchen, little dining room, little bedroom. It is so cute. And it is to have a stale. Like do you have to crouch or close it? As if you were a hobbit.

I feel like it's a little bit in between because we were able to walk through and we didn't hit our heads or anything, but you feel a little bit like you're crouching. You know what I mean?

Okay. So I feel like they said we want people, people to be able to walk in comfortably, but we want it to be a tad petite. So they feel like it's a hobbit hole.

That, that, that claustrophobic feeling.

Well, hopefully not too claustrophobic, more like the charming, hobbit cozy vibe, but it was so cute. Honestly, I was, it was a touch of only a touch Lydia. Um, but it was so cute. I would tell, I would live in a hobbit hole in a heartbeat. It was amazing.

Well, now you know, when you buy a house, get some land, get a hill, or didn't live under it. Yeah. They had it right. Um, and then the green dragon in, they rebuilt that. And what's fascinating is they didn't actually have, they said they didn't have anything to go off of in terms of the interior design and decor. So they had to rewatch when they rebuilt it.

I don't know what happened. I don't know if they just like, went for decorating it. Yeah, they lost the blueprints. I don't know, but they had a big rush and they're like, somebody get this done tomorrow. And they just didn't bother.

And so they went through the movies and they had to like pause it at different scenes to figure out like, Oh, okay. So they had the bar over here and they had

tables over here and they had like, how did they have it for the, for the Lord of the Rings movie so that they could rebuild it? But that's super cool.

It's genuinely amazing. Do they let you go into that one and like order a drink?

Yeah, you ordered a drink. You ordered some food. There was a fire and that we sat in front of it.

It was so cozy. It's February in New Zealand, which is summer-ish there.

It was a beautiful time to go. If anyone wants to go, I recommend. Um, we did hear that the best time to go on the tour is in the morning, if you can, because then no one is in your photos because you're the first group. And you get beautiful lighting. We went towards the end of the day, like around five and I actually think the lighting was stunning because the sun was setting. It was really soft and pretty. There were some people in the photos, but we would just wait and we could get everything that we needed.

So, yeah, you know what they should do? They should mandate that everyone who comes in has to dress up.

Girl, I brought my hot panty slippers. Beautiful. But like everyone, like you wouldn't even care at that point. Everyone's got like some curly wig and a cloak. Oh my goodness. How fabulous. Or a waistcoat, I guess. That would make my day. It would make my day.

Um, honestly, if they said we're going to flesh out these hobbills and people could like move into this neighborhood, but you have to dress like that on the reg, I think they would be takers. Not a problem. I would do that. Not a problem. I think I would be tempted.

I don't know. I don't know if the curly wig would look great, but I could probably make, I could make sacrifices. Curly stuff would work. Yeah. Anyways, it was just so fabulous. I highly recommend this is probably one of the top tops for Lord of the Rings stuff that we saw in New Zealand with the actual set. But so after that, I would say the next kind of big spot that we went to for Lord of the Rings stuff.

And I'm just making sure that I have this right. I think we then went to Mount Doom and did a helicopter ride around that mountain. I'm going to double check what the name is because we would say Mount Doom to people and they would giggle at us because it obviously has like a real name in New Zealand.

It is also really funny to me that Tolten thought, yes, I'm going to name everything in my, in my world. It's going to be this and that is going to be intense etymology. And what should the mountain that my dark Lord uses be called? Ah, yes, Mount Doom. Like the naming for Mount Doom just seems to be on a different level. It doesn't quite have the same subtlety, does it?

It sure does not. It's so funny. But it was genuinely beautiful there. It was okay. So the official name and I think this is in Mulry. So Mount Ngaruhu, Ngaruhu is the name of the volcano that they used as for Mount Doom. And is it a volcano?

It is. It's apparently New Zealand is just scattered with volcanoes. It is a hotspot literally for volcanic activity. And this Mount, this Mount Doom, I'll say Mount Doom is near Lake Taupo, which is the biggest lake in New Zealand.

And it was the site, it was the volcanic crater for one of the largest eruptions in history. The lake was. The lake was. And now it's huge. It's the lake is like the size of Singapore, they said. Wow, get right to Singapore.

This lake and it's surrounded by these mountains that are volcanic. And did you do any hiking up in that area? So we mainly just did the helicopter, but you can definitely go up to, I think it takes many hours to get up to this one plateau and then you can kind of hike up from there. But it was really beautiful. I think it was just one of those things that was like so stunningly scenic. You feel like you're in the movies as you're just flying over this beautiful mountain. Were you able to look in and see the lava?

We didn't see lava inside of it. Let me double check and see if there was lava. Let's see, Montoya. Is it current?

I asked because I saw lava for the first time in Hawaii like a year or two ago. Yes. And it was kind of life changing. I don't know what I thought it looked like, but it was very interesting. And we were there at night so you could really see it blowing and it was a top five on my list of natural phenomena. Like seeing the total eclipse is definitely number one and probably seeing that lava is number two.

Honestly, I remember, I also remember this was Hawaii years ago seeing like lava flowing off the cliff into the ocean. And it was wild.

I didn't see it and apparently it is active. does have lava, but we did not like see it inside.

Yeah, I think they had to be like semi erupting. Yeah, yeah. So when I was in Hawaii, the volcano was like particularly active. I don't know if it was.

Hawaii is crazy with its volcano. So it was cool. It was, yeah. Amazing. But yes, I would highly recommend. It was very beautiful. That was definitely if you like scenic vibes. And I think I said that was helicopter, but that was actually float plane. There's a float plane on like Topo.

What's the difference? What is this? The float plane you take off. It's a little plane that takes off on the water. Oh, it's a sea plane. Which is kind of fun.

It's a sea plane. Oh, cool. Cool.

So that's really amazing. If you're into seeing Mount Doom from above, that was really beautiful. Or like, Mugen, you can go to that plateau and kind of kind of hike around to get pretty pics there too.

Well, if you do the hike, then you can get to do some.

You can reenact some special scenes. Yes, exactly. I love it. No, Mr. Frodo. Do you remember the taste of strawberry? I don't know, Sam. Exactly. OK, well, that was incredible. And then I will say, I think the next the next stop that we did for Lord of the Rings stuff on the North Island was Wellington. And Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and has a lot of stuff.

Primarily. Is this where the actual studio was?

They have a studio where they did some filming, which is amazing. They also have what a workshop, which is so fun. So we went on a tour of what a workshop that did all the armory and the prosthetics and all of the like physical kind of creations that they use during the movies. And it was so inspiring. We got to look at some hobbit feet. We got to see some weapons.

Did it bring out your crafty side? Did you think to yourself, yes, I could do craft instead of collect craft?

Oh, my gosh. Honestly, it made me want to be an artist because they seem like such a cool place to work. And so many epic movies that they've worked on, like even beyond Lord of the Rings. But I think Lord of the Rings really put them on the map. You come in and you see a gigantic version of Lertz, the the oracai that shoots Borneamir.

Yeah, yeah. And we learned a ton about prosthetics for the actors and what that entails to get a cast of someone's face. It takes about an hour and a half to two hours of them, like fully encased with two like openings for their nose nostrils. And they're just sitting there in like this rubber getting getting cast waiting for it to dry. And then what they do is they come up with thousands of different sketches of an idea, let's say for like Lertz, the Lertz, the oracai. They would come up with a bunch of different sketches and then they would go by those for with the movie director and they would say, OK, we like this one. And then they would have someone carve in, you know, 3D the sketch onto this plastered face and then they do a prosthetic of that. And then they superimpose the mold of the actor's face onto the prosthetic of their sculpture for the character. And that's how they get the prosthetic that then the actor puts on. And then it's in the so it's painted.

But it's it's genuinely wild. And with Lertz, they said that he would actually come in because he had to do a full body cast. He would come in every night, every time the night before he shot, and he would sleep like a full eight hours on the table. And they would slowly like glue and put everything on him full body so that.

Sorry, sorry. I just so that when he woke up, he was full orc.

He was full orc. And he was ready to film at like six a.m.

How does he sleep while people are doing this thing?

He can't be well. It can't be well. I'm not a sacrifice. Yeah. So this full body prosthetic that they would have to put on this dude.

Why was it a full body? I'm trying to remember him. Like I have an image in my mind, but I don't remember him being mostly naked. He's I don't know. I feel like it was he was wearing armor. So in my mind, but no, he's not like a proper like Curris and like I guess you would call it like a skirt. Yeah, he has stuff on the top. But it's the arms, I guess. And so maybe to make everything blend in, you have to do a full body.

I don't know. Dang, that's obviously a factor was a hefty person. But it's just insane to me. Maybe some of you think some of it could be paint rather than prosthetics. Or do you think they actually put prosthetics like for veins and everything?

All I think they might have done something. I don't know. I think they might have done something for his. That's a great question. I mean, I just saw now that there's quite a bit of five showing. Yeah. So that explains some of the more full body stuff. What I'm wondering is if they had to do full body because of the texture of the skin.

Yeah, maybe it definitely has a sort of gnarly aspect to it. They would also do the same vibe for like dentures or teeth prosthetics. They would take a lot of your teeth and then they would take a mold of whatever this character's teeth would probably look like. And then superimpose those together and then pop that in there.

Yeah. Well, I've done that. I know how bad it is.

It's awful, but it's really cool because we learned about. So I think it's Richard and Tony are the people who founded what a workshop. Really fun, artistic people. And I think Richard said that Lurch was his favorite Lord of the Rings thing that they created. Like you just thought it looked incredible on that.

Yeah, it is incredible. So I'm very impressed by that. That is so interesting that I would come in the night before and just be like, and I will sleep on this cold slab and

you will turn me into an orc. I just can't believe the dedication. Like I know it's insane. And then they said for some of the other orcs they had. So certain orcs or orci would have specific armor, specific prosthetics. But then they also had like very basic like orc face or like or armor that they would use for like the bigger things.

They just put it on any extra and they could put it on any extra and it would work.

But generally crazy. And then one of my favorite things that we learned there is they had this incredible Balrog head, which they had on the wall. And we were like, oh, that's so cool. Did you make that? Is that in the movie visuals at all? And they said, no, this was made for Ian, who is playing Gandalf because he's a very method actor. And they were going to have him speaking his lines to the Balrog to a tennis ball. In the studio. He needed more.

And he said, I'm not doing that. I need I need something physical. Like I'm I'm an actor. I need to react to something. And so they made him this ginormous Balrog head that's like not.

And so then they had some poor man moving the steam up on the end of a pole. And he and he and he and he and he came in his lines to it for for that scene with the Balrog.

I mean, he I feel like he is justified in saying things like that, one, because he probably knows how he like works best. But two, I think we have seen. I mean, I'm going to throw Star Wars under the bus.

Episodes one through three. We've seen when they did a little bit too heavy handed with the green screen and they don't provide like it is not enough for somebody to look at a tennis ball and deliver their lines, you can tell which scenes they're doing that in. And I think the actress complained quite a bit about it. So yeah, I I also would not feel very inspired in that situation. A little bit too much imagination required. It's cool that they made it, though. And so they just have it like mounted on the

wall like a great trophy on the wall. And they have so many cool weapons. You walk in, you see Soran's whole get up from like helmet all the way down. You see like stuff for Gollum, which is really cool.

They have so this is from the Hobbit, the Goblin King face, basically, is with like these little robotic handles and you can move around the rubber the rubber face of the Goblin King. It's so grody, but it's so cool. So yeah, what a workshop was insane.

Loved it. That's really cool. And then also in Wellington, like I said, you said they have the studio. They have the stadium where Peter Jackson went and recorded people at a cricket match to try to give the or a cry.

And I heard that story. The deeper sounds in the stadiums in Wellington. Let's see. Oh, we went to the Roxy Theatre where they have the Oscar for Return of the King displayed. So you can go see that there, which was really cool. I had forgotten that. Yeah, I'm not like well caught up on like movie movie awards and stuff. So I forgot. Oh, yeah. Osters are a thing, but they won like a million.

The Rings did so well. Right. And they take one like every category. So many different categories. I think it was from like visuals to even just like, yeah, like the music.

I know they got a music one. Yeah, music. Because what a what a one one. I think Richard one one and he wanted it to say what a workshop rather than his name or something, but they said it can only be to one person.

And so he didn't you didn't get it inscribed because he wanted it to be for everybody, which was sweet. And then let's see anything else. Oh, it was kind of fun. Our driver, he worked. He said almost everyone, if you're a certain age, worked in some way on the Lord of the Rings movies. He was a currency hedger. And so he used to go and have chats with Peter Jackson about the cost of the movies. And how much it would cost in, you know, like USD versus what is the head chair, so this is just somebody who is I don't know, you do finance. What is it?

So currency hedging. So basically saying we're going to try to lock in a certain currency exchange rate so that the if the currency value of exactly shoots up overnight, you'll still be able to afford making these movies.

There's some sort of weird vain team type sort of thing. Money is very it's very monopoly to me sometimes. Yeah, no, I feel that way too. It's wild. OK, interesting. I had also heard that like it was such a like it was such a big deal and such a small country that everyone did something with it.

And I love that. I love it. And yeah, it was just so fun. Wellington, Weta Workshop, highly recommend. It was amazing. OK, the next thing that I had on my list was Ediris, Lydia. So this was on South Island. We took the ferry, we drove down and then we did this tour taking us out to Mount Sunday, I think it's called where they did Ediris. Yeah, it was stunning.

Like it's on this basis. Like this is other than the Shire, I feel like this was one of those places where just that sweep that you get when you're first are introduced to Rojhan and Ediris and

like I know exactly what you're saying, you're talking about like that whole view and that mountain sitting there is just naturally there. And the set like the Great Hall is no longer there. But you can see these like metal spikes sticking up on the top of the mountain where they like tied in the foundation. It took them eight months during the winter.

During the winter to build that Ediris. They were they were out there in the cold. This is in it's kind of in a ranching land. So you have sheep, you have cows, like ranchers were like, sure, you can come you can come film, but it's like not much is out there.

It's just, you know, these planes and but the view from that mountain is just so beautiful. They have this stream going by. You can like drink from it. It's so clear. Yeah. And one of my favorite little tidbits from this, it was just amazing.

First of all, so everyone should go. But secondly, one of my favorite tidbits is the wind was so strong when they were filming that that scene where Aowyn standing on the porch and the flag rips off was actually accidental.

And they decided they decided to keep it in. And I thought that was wild because watching the movie, I always thought that was such an epic symbolism for like a deteriorating Rohan.

You know what I mean? So the flag rips off and flies away. And I'm assuming that didn't land at Eragorn's feet.

My guess is they must have done something. They probably dropped the flag. Additionally. Yeah. Yeah. OK. But the scene. They definitely knew when to make the most of a good moment.

Oh, that was that was epic. Yeah. Yeah. And so I agree. It's a very touching moment. It's such a touching moment because you get the sense this kingdom is deteriorating and it needs help. Right. And that's such a beautiful metaphor, I feel like for that.

But I love it. So it was very windy. It was chilly and they had tons of dedication to build that set up there and make it look the way it did. But just so beautiful, like the views were stunning.

But when you went, it was sunny and charming.

It was sunny and charming. And it definitely still had the stunning view. But none of the the wind that would rip the flag off the pole.

Well, it's sad that they couldn't keep that set. I think that would also have been a really cool set. I know.

I would have loved that, too. I think that's on private land as well. But I don't know.

Again, that person would have cut a deal. Like, who would they could have?

Yeah, potentially. I would have. I also had some funny stories from from there kind of talking about the people on the ranches. So apparently there was this one rancher who they had all been told basically to kind of stay away from the set. But this journalist woman was like, I want to go and get a picture of the set that they're building for the movies. Can you take me? Because apparently the farmers and ranchers there all have these little personal helicopters that they used to like survey their herds because the land is so immense. And it's I don't know, apparently the thing to do.

So horses aren't enough. Golf carts aren't enough.

ATVs aren't enough. Helicopters only. They don't want to live life. And so she got him. She convinced him to go and they took an epic picture of Eddarest the set. But because of that, the studio sued him.

And so he was going through some legal, some legal stuff. And at that same time, they were filming. So they were filming there and the horses got out. All of the horses that they were using, I guess, for like the writers of Roeheim got out.

He looked at their horses and he rubbed his hands together and said, wow, some mighty fine horses you got there would be a shame if they got out. You lost. Oh, yeah, exactly.

And so Peter Jackson was like, oh, my gosh, we got a film tomorrow. Like we only have a few days here. We need this horse. This tight. He was like, who can I call?

And so he calls the ranch man and he hung up on him the first time and then he called him back and it was like, please don't hang up. And he said, you know, we're in a situation. Our horses got loose. We don't have anybody who's, you know, like qualified to round them up, go search for him. And so whoever was qualified to put them away, obviously wasn't. Exactly. And so the guy is like, I'll call you back.

And then he calls him back and he says, OK, I'll do it. If you drop the lawsuit and like pay me like 50 grand. Peter Jackson was like, the fastest. Show in the world.

Let's do it. So apparently the rancher was able to get an awesome photo of Ediris and was able to get the horses back and be the hero in that scene.

But he is the hero. Wild. Also, while we were there, so it was so fun. I was chatting with some people on the bus who are really big Lord of the Rings fans. And one of them was a linguist professor in Berlin.

And she did some studies on, oh, I'm going to get this wrong. But basically organic languages versus like inorganic languages. And languages like Elvish or Orcish or Klingon would be called like inorganic or not. Yeah, they've been constructed. They're constructed languages.

Yes, exactly. And so she said she did a survey, like a clinical test to see out of these constructed languages, what languages people enjoyed listening to or yeah, hearing the sounds of. And she said that people all around loved Elvish. She said Orcish actually wasn't so bad.

It was in the middle. People when they heard it, not being spoken by someone who was like, like with a really deep, really, really croaky voice. They actually didn't mind the pronunciation and the pieces of it. They said people who spoke Cantonese especially, especially liked it. But they said Klingon nobody liked.

You know what? I have not seen very much Star Trek. So I actually don't have a single light. I don't have a note, like a marker in my head for what Klingon sounds like. Do you?

A little bit just from like watching funny TV shows like Big Bang Theory and stuff.

But it's very, very, very, very, very, very curious. Yeah. So I thought that was so funny. I love that the Cantonese were like, oh, yes, our other dialect. We too speak Orcish.

So funny that that was like particularly for Cantonese speakers. We like, we kind of like it. But I thought that was so cool. And then we had, oh, I heard this other story, which was wild.

So the black writers. Very epic, very, I always thought very menacing, but it was so funny because Peter Jackson, when he was filming some of their scenes in Nazgul, he was like, why are they breathing? They can't breathe. Like they were. They were breathing.

Oh my gosh, they have to hold still. They were running the scenes because

they were breathing and he was like, they're supposed to be in these race. Like they have to seem otherworldly. Like they can't be breathing.

You have to not breathe while you're writing. I'm so nervous. So what they did to start is they had a snorkel.

And they had it pointing backwards. So they had like the air coming from behind them to like a snorkel mask. And it was super uncomfortable, but that was just so that they wouldn't see, I don't know, like the breath coming.

Oh, I see. Because it could be cold enough. I was wondering like why the snorkel. Okay. So it's not about the chest moving. It's something about like their air.

I think it was the air either.

The covering was moving. They were breathing or the evaporation. And she's like, why are they breathing? So they had to do a snorkel mask. And then I think they eventually shifted it over.

I don't know if they transitioned to a different type of mask. Amazing. But I just thought that was wild.

They just transitioned to don't breathe for the next 10 minutes. Exactly. Like, okay. We'll try to do that. Walk on camera. No, no breathing. And then we'll tell you when you can breathe.

So crazy. Oh, that's funny. I just thought that was wild.

When you were talking about the horses, I was reminded of a story I've heard. Which I assume is true, but it's all hearsay to me. Yeah, exactly. So I heard that they put out a casting call. And they were like, yo, we need some horses real bad. For like AMA's Aerolindus.

And like that group. And so they said, casting call, if you are in a question and you have a horse, be here or be square. Sit, say I'm sharp. And a bunch of girls showed up. Yes. I felt like, yes, perfect.

We will beard you and then we'll be ready to go. So like pretty much everyone in that scene, except for like a few people, they tried to do as many dudes as they could to be like the first row. But I'm pretty sure everyone in that scene, it's a woman and it's Elsa.

It's so funny. Because they said you can tell where like people look kind of more petite when they're on the horses. And then when they jump off, you're like, oh, suddenly that's a burly man. They looked more petite on the horse.

So yeah, I loved it. So I thought about that. I remember that story last time I watched it. I love that story.

I think that's hilarious. I just thought the idea was just like, come here and breed your horse. And then they like didn't remember, oh yes, everyone is horse girls. Including the ultimate horse girl, Aragorn. The ultimate horse girl.

Oh my gosh, I love it. Yeah, I know. I mean, I read those. I read Heartland and like what were some of the pony books as a kid.

I was obsessed with horses. Black beauty, black stallion. Black stallion. There's that side series about the red horse. I love it. What's his name? Fire stallion or something. The classic boy washes up on shore with stallion. I would have come with my pony.

I would have done it. I know. Anyways, so Edduras is amazing. Would highly recommend. Definitely do that on South Island. And then let's see. Okay, so then we went down to Queen's Town and that's kind of where our adventure ended. But there was so much cool stuff in Queen's Town. They had, let's see, I'm looking at my last, oh, this is the one where we went in the helicopter and we went up to the glacier.

The glacier where they're like hiking in the snow and I think Frodo like falls and drops the ring and Boromir like picks it up and is like, oh, this work for this small thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you're talking about. So that's the glacier that the helicopter is able to take you to and you're able to walk in the snow, which is really epic. Then also we heard another instance of first perspective. The shot where the ring is in the snow and then you can see like the fellowship kind of small behind them. The size of the ring was actually like the size of a tire. Peter. They made an enormous ring. He wanted it to look huge on the screen. He wanted it.

Sorry, the size of a car tire? A car tire. What? He wanted the perspective. I do not understand how cameras work. I don't know. How can you fit that on your camera? I don't know.

But he wanted the perspective of the ring to look really ginormous so that the people in the background.

Yeah, I know exactly what scene you're talking about.

So the people in the background looked minuscule and powerless. He was like, I want this like really strong comparison.

I'm assuming they just like painted it to make it look like it was like, surely they did not forge something that big.

I don't know. But I just thought that was insane. Insane that there's so many instances of these like outsized things in the movies. And I have no clue. I just think it looks amazing.

Yeah, it's incredible. When you said, oh yeah, and then we went to that snowy place, I immediately like launched myself back to, oh yes, that snowy place from the Silmarillion that has the really cool name.

And I just tried to doodle in. I cannot remember the name. It's like Helicrox. Yes, yes. What is the name of that place? Oh man. Oh, here it is. Helcorax.

Oh, that is such a good name. Yeah. I'm sure I'm not saying it right. It just sounds like the place that you'll probably die.

It sounds terrible. It sounds like a place where a lot of elves died. Or worse, got cold. I understand.

That is the same as dying for me. I hate the cold.

I know. So yeah, as when you said that, I was like, oh yeah, of course they filmed the Helcorax there. And then I was like, wait, no, not yet.

Not quite that one. But yeah, it was really, really cool. Awesome. Let's see, Queenstown, they also had some of the outside shots for Isengard so you can see some of that there. They have Lothlorean and Fangorn forests. Apparently, when the orcs were running through that forest in the second move or end of the first movie, there's tons of stumps. There's tons of roots.

There's tons of stuff in the forest. So people were falling to the left and right. People were tripping left and right. So they had to have people behind the trees. They were like, left, right, step.

So if people knew, and he said in some of the instances, people are actually walking and they just sped up the footage because people were struggling so hard with their orc costumes and were like tripping over things. I believe that that would be so hard. It was so hard to run in that forest. We tried.

I love the guys hiding behind the trees, so that is straight up amazing. Left, right, step, log. Who did they get to do that? Your job now is for the next eight hours to stand behind the tree and if you hear anybody say this word. Make sure he doesn't fall. Yeah, exactly.

So hilarious. And then let's see what else. Oh, they filmed some stuff for the Hobbit like B. Orn's Cabin there and get this. Peter Jackson apparently was going to keep B. Orn's Cabin up to be some kind of tourist attraction similar to the Shire. But then people were starting to drive by because the road wasn't super far away and take pictures and he got so upset about it. He said, never mind, tear the whole thing down. Supposedly that's the story that we could have had another set situation.

Is Peter Jackson a picture hater? Is that why he sued the farmer? I don't know. And I was assuming that's the studio.

I guess he doesn't love spoilers. That might be it. That might be it. That's really funny. Yeah. Oh my goodness. There were just so many cool things. Let's see. So yeah, La Florian, Fangorn, Bjorn, they had Isengard. They did some of the Mordor scenes there, which is really interesting.

And some of the locales. Where did they come from? Moria? Man. Would that be most of CGI, like some indoor stuff?

I feel like it's got to be. I know for Helms Deep, they did a real mountain range for the outside. And then they used a quarry actually for like the up close stone scenes. They built the set in a quarry.

I don't know for Moria. I feel like maybe something similar where you have the rock for the up close scenes, like maybe in a live location and then. Maybe in some kind of mine. Yeah. And then somewhere the rest has got to be CGI. I feel like it's just incredible.

Obviously like the great hall for sure. A bunch of stuff. But yeah, interesting. I'll have to look that up.

But anyways, genuinely incredible trip. I'm trying to think if there is anything else that was just.

Well, I want to know of all these amazing things. What was not amazing? Tell me, what are the downsides of New Zealand? The downsides? Or is it only perfect sunshine, not Australia?

It's beautiful. I love New Zealand. I would definitely go. No regrets. I think just from like a Lord of the Rings perspective, I would love a set everywhere, which I know is not sustainable for the country.

Because other things have to be filmed.

Obviously, other things have to be filmed and they don't want the set of all the different movies staying up forever. So I get it. But even still, you can go and see so many cool locations. Oh, I forgot they have like a little monument where Rivendell was filmed. It's like the arch that they walk out of when they're going to more to, yeah, off to Mordor.

Every time I see Rivendell, I think to myself, when I have my billions of dollars, this is the house I'm building.

Yeah. It's so cool. It's so pretty. I think that's like the main place that people want to live when I think of Middle Earth, like stunning.

Even better than a foray. You can just go to like a Norwegian Fjord and set up shop there. Like that's how I felt like Norway was. It felt like such a like fairy tale place with all these amazing streams running down the mountains. And the only flaw is that it's freaking cold in Norway. So this whole Elven architecture with no doors and no insulation would not work for me. You need some kind of magic

bubble that keeps it at a consistent 70 degree.

Exactly. Yeah. So, oh my goodness. I don't know. I'm sure there's a perfect place to build Rivendell. And when I have my stads and stads of money, I'll tell you where it is. Yes.

Oh, also, and maybe we can put this on the end. I actually haven't chatted with you about this yet, Lydia, but I went throughout the country. And as I was chatting with people who were Lord of the Rings fans, I said, tell me where you're from and tell me your favorite Lord of the Rings movie. And so I got a sample of probably like 10 or so. So people telling me what their favorite Lord of the Rings movie was. And so should I guess?

I would have to go through. I would have to go. Honestly, I was so surprised because I would say the two winners were definitely Fellowship and Two Towers. Really? Okay. I thought Return of the King, that's my partner's Bryce favorite, would be more heavily represented. It was not. We did get one person say a Hobbit movie, which really surprised me.

That's a bold move. I am shit. I am shit-less. Yes. So we'll see. I don't know if those are going to be potentially edited to the end of this one, or we can put together in a separate little compilation.

But I do have a bunch of awesome people who shared their opinions on the movies with me. So hopefully we can incorporate that. Yeah, that's cute. So everywhere you went, you just like got on a tour. There was a bunch of other people having fun. That really does sound like a party.

Honestly, it was amazing. Yeah. So we took our own car for most of the transportation and travel, but then we would book a Lord of the Rings tour to Ediris, or book a Lord of the Rings tour to what a workshop in Wellington. And it's like only fun people go to those scenes.

Yes.

They were the best. So it is so fun to get to see other fans and hear the stories that they know and all of that good stuff. So it was incredible. Highly recommend if you're a Lord of the Rings fan, or just an outdoorsy, want to look at beautiful scenery fan, go to New Zealand.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I will be prepared to go with you at some point. I love that. We'll make a plan for it. Many moons in advance, and it can't be January. Apparently, that's when all my ski trips happen.

Go skiing in New Zealand? Well, no, that's the wrong season. I'm sorry. Is it the wrong season?

Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. I will. But I would like to do the horseback tour. I would love that. Yeah. I think when we go back, cross your fingers to that one. Let's do that. Let's do it. Okay.

It's on the books. Everyone hopefully plan your trip to New Zealand after hearing this episode, but it was fabulous.

Or just seize with Chelsea. That's fine too. Yes, it was so much fun. That's where I'm at. Well, thanks for all the tidbits. I love that.

Of course. Thank you so much, guys. And we'll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

Yep, next time.