Chapter 345: I Don't Understand

The battle in the Mines of Moria would ultimately be presented as a continuous, intense action sequence. However, during filming, it was broken into countless small pieces. For some shots, Duke would pause after a single action and expression, then review the 3D visual effects renders with Anna Printz, John Schwartzman, and Andy Serkis to spot any flaws.

Using a real person's motion data to drive a virtual character was an optical technology that had matured in Hollywood long ago.

Weta Studio did not stick rigidly to existing techniques. Over the past two years, while Duke's crew was in pre-production, they had been improving upon original Motion Capture technology. The optical Motion Capture technology they possessed was now quite mature and highly accurate.

Weta Studio developed this technology across various specialized fields. For example, one team focused entirely on fluid visual effects; a shot of pouring water could be rendered so realistically that no one could tell it was computer-generated. Another team specialized in crowd simulation. In the final scene where Orcs flooded out like a tide in the hall of Moria, only a few main actors actually performed with Motion Capture, while the rest were simulated.

Computer technology had advanced to a point where the results of some composited visual effects shots were completely unimaginable just five or ten years ago. Once the character model for the cave troll Duke was playing was complete, they simply needed to tweak the motion data from his performance and apply it to the model.

It looked simple on the surface, but in reality, Weta Studio had done a massive amount of preparatory work upfront.

Creating the cave troll's visual effects involved four key components. First was building the character model, which meant generating the required virtual character using a computer, with varying levels of detail based on the necessary control points. The second step was constructing the skeletal framework. Since the virtual character ultimately moved through skeletal motion, they also had to build the associative movements between the bones.

Next came the skin model. Since skin is elastic, actions like bone stretching would cause the skin to contract, so corresponding relationships had to be established.

The final step occurred during Duke's performance. They used Motion Capture technology to collect his movement data, bound it to the corresponding skeletal model, and then used that actual captured data to drive the model's movements.

Therefore, Duke had Motion Capture sensors attached to specific spots on his body. High-speed cameras placed all around captured these, generating a series of dot trajectory data. This was essentially obtaining the spatial coordinates for every point in motion.

But this method had its flaws. The light points emitted by the Motion Capture sensors lacked individual identification, making it hard for the computer to recognize them and highly likely to cause confusion.

This kind of filming was only suitable for a soundstage, not for location shoots with more complex lighting environments.

Weta Studio was still refining the technology. Their newly developed Motion Capture sensors could emit infrared light at different frequencies, which specially modified cameras would then capture and collect. Before long, this would be applied to the filming of Gollum.

As a result, shooting scenes with Gollum would no longer be restricted to indoor soundstages. They could avoid natural light interference and capture valid data even outdoors.

After reviewing a few of the filmed Motion Capture shots, Andy Serkis looked at Duke and said, "Your performance is too restrained. You're playing a cave troll. You need to fully unleash that savage, brutal side. Your physical movements can be much more exaggerated..."

"More exaggerated?"

Frankly speaking, Duke was not a good actor.

Anna Printz stood on the other side and agreed with Andy Serkis. "Duke, you have to forget your status as a director. Right now, you're just an actor. You're just a cave troll."

'A cave troll?'

Nodding, Duke stepped back onto the set, ready to continue his battle against The Fellowship of the Ring.

Once Weta Studio's technicians came over and checked the equipment, filming resumed.

Wielding a prop hammer wrapped in blue screen material, Duke smashed it into the ground. Merry and Pippin's stunt doubles tumbled across the floor. He then went after Frodo. Elijah Wood hid behind a pillar, dodging him twice in a game of hide-and-seek before nearly crashing head-on into Duke.

"Roar..."

Duke let out a bellowing roar from deep within his chest, sounding like an ancient monster descending upon the world, looking as if he wanted to eat Elijah Wood alive.

"Great!"

Anna Printz's voice rang out from off-set. "Duke, that was excellently done."

Handing the hammer to a crew member, Duke went behind the monitors with Andy Serkis. Two massive screens displayed Duke's live performance and the visual effect of his motion data transmitted onto the 3D model, respectively.

Looking at his own performance, Duke's mouth twitched slightly. His facial expressions were incredibly exaggerated; if he were acting in a normal scene, he would have completely failed the mark.

But on the other screen, the cave troll representing him was also roaring. When those exaggerated movements were displayed on that hideous, terrifying face, the result looked remarkably good.

"I think I've got the hang of this," Duke said, simply borrowing one of Sam's lines.

After all, he was only playing a cave troll destined to be slaughtered, not a complex character with a split personality like Gollum. It was relatively simple. If Duke had actually been asked to do Motion Capture for Gollum, he wouldn't have been able to handle it.

This was just a cameo to gather material for promotional hype. Duke knew very well that directing was his main profession.

This was Hollywood; there was no shortage of people who both directed and acted. But even the old cowboy Clint Eastwood would only focus on one profession at a time. Let alone Hollywood, even looking across the entire world, you couldn't find someone who was both a director and an actor while simultaneously standing in the top tier of both.

Whether acting or directing, both professions demanded intense focus.

Take Andy Serkis, for instance. The fact that he would become the number one man in Hollywood Motion Capture in the future was inseparable from his focus. The live-action roles he played were mostly minor background parts, yet King Kong, Gollum, Caesar, and the like were all absolute milestone characters in the history of Motion Capture filming.

The battle in the Mines of Moria was shot in fits and starts, with actors and stunt doubles taking turns on set. Some of the cave troll's shots didn't just come from Duke's Motion Capture, but also relied on filming a 1:1 scale model. The entire process felt incredibly long.

While Legolas was shooting arrows at the cave troll model, Duke took off his Motion Capture suit and sat in his chair, taking the moment to drink some water and rest. At the same time, he reviewed the footage they had already shot so that any subpar takes could be promptly reshot.

"Are you satisfied with our visual effects?"

At some point, Richard Taylor, the head of Weta Studio, had walked up behind him. Duke pointed to a nearby chair and said, "Have a seat, Richard."

Only after Richard Taylor sat down did Duke say, "Although it's a little different from what I imagined, Richard, your work is even more outstanding than I expected."

"Thank you," Richard Taylor said, completely unable to hide the excitement in his smile.

Counting The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy, plus Peter Jackson's King Kong, Weta Studio had taken on four massive blockbuster productions with budgets exceeding a hundred million dollars each. They would be released consecutively over the next few years.

Richard Taylor didn't have total confidence in Peter Jackson, but he held tremendous hope for Duke. Putting aside the man's status and box-office appeal in Hollywood and the global film industry, just the meticulous, mind-numbingly complex pre-production work alone was a guarantee of success.

If The Lord of the Rings trilogy succeeded, even if it didn't become a super blockbuster like The Matrix, as long as a single film could pull in box office numbers like The Rock, Weta Studio would step onto the world stage alongside this superstar director.

It could be said that Weta Studio was already knocking on the door of Hollywood's mainstream commercial circle. Whether they could truly break into the North American market depended entirely on the performance of Duke's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

After chatting with Richard Taylor for a bit, Duke returned to work. There were no shortcuts for visual effects; making them truly outstanding required piling on massive amounts of money and time. In keeping with his usual style, all the extra budget for The Lord of the Rings trilogy had been poured into the visual effects.

Visual effects technology was developing rapidly and would inevitably become outdated in the future. What Duke wanted was for The Lord of the Rings trilogy to have the absolute cutting-edge visual effects of its era.

As for the countless critics who aggressively lambasted him for letting visual effects overshadow the plot, Duke simply couldn't care less.

It took nearly four days of filming before this combat sequence was declared complete. Duke also wrapped up his very first acting role since entering Hollywood—though the character he played would definitely shock everyone.

Afterward, Duke dispatched Anna Printz once again to shoot the Orc scenes in Isengard and Minas Morgul. Zack Snyder went to Sydney to negotiate with the people from Warner Brothers, while Duke led The Fellowship of the Ring to continue their journey through the Mines of Moria on set.

A massive number of models were also utilized in the shoot. The grand scale of the Mines of Moria didn't rely entirely on post-production CGI. Weta Studio had built numerous models, combining them with CGI to create those magnificent panoramic shots.

As for the actors, aside from the close-up shots using physical props and sets, they spent most of their time acting to thin air against a blue screen. The mighty Balrog that dragged Gandalf into the abyss was also filmed using a combination of models and Motion Capture.

The scenes in the Mines of Moria lasted for half a month. Once this portion wrapped up, Duke led the crew out of Wellington once again to prepare for location shooting.

Since The Fellowship of the Ring ultimately broke apart, the scenes left to shoot were scattered, meaning the nine of them no longer had to all gather together in one place.

Now that Ian McKellen had finished his journey as Magneto and the other actors' schedules had temporarily freed up, Duke altered the shooting plan. He let Andy Serkis continue finding his feel for Gollum while taking The Fellowship of the Ring out on a journey into the wild.