Production Design by Colin Wilson

In production design it is the responsibility of this person to bring the movie to life and give you that real experience that you are in a different place. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot in New Zealand. In the Two Towers you see even more of “Middle Earth” as you follow the characters on their own journeys.

Taking from drawings that were done up by the art department production designer Grant Major took these sketches and created what is known as Middle Earth.  Peter Jackson, the director, and his crew searched everyone all across the country to find Fangorn Forest. After scanning through and entire country and discussing it with Grant Major, they agreed to shoot Fangorn not on location but in a big studio set.

With this in mind Grant and his team had a guy named Brian Massey who was the tree builder/designer. Brian was their tree expect and had studied trees for some time. He even gave the crew a little brochure about how trees are and are not. This was their bible for constructing the trees and how they should create them. Drift wood was the roots of tree and real branches were used. Moss was on the ground. Dirt and all was brought in to make it feel like a real forest. Tree trunks were formed and cut up and used steel beams to support them. The trees didn’t extend very tall. It the shots all you see is the ground really, so they only had the trees extend up to the top of the ceiling in the studio right up to the lights.

8 times was how many times Fangorn was created during this trilogy. Brian Massey was always wanting to make it better and he did every time crew members said. Ian McKellen, Gandalf, said that there, “was a smell of dampness and decay it felt like you were in a forest and not in a studio.”