Bonus content! What the Lord of the Rings making-of documentaries taught me about filmmaking

For the past year or so, I’ve been experimenting with ways to move away from streaming services. I quit Spotify in January, and before that, slowly decreased my reliance on Big Tech platforms to access film and television, first, cancelling my subscriptions, before making the jump and purchasing a small DVD player last summer, setting out to re-introduce physical media in my life. This, coupled with a sudden urge to rewatch The Lord Of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001, 2002 and 2003) back in December, led me to acquire the complete trilogy on DVD - first edition (French) theatrical cut - early in the new year, before rewatching it all in February. Of course, I could have borrowed them from my public library, but I figured these were classics that I’d want to rewatch enough times to justify a purchase, and maybe even, that I would pass on as some kind of family heirloom one day, the way my sister left her Buffy The Vampire Slayers boxsets behind when she left school.

I am not the only one to have made a pivot back to physical media in recent months. In fact, there’s been a steady growth of social media content and online literature on the topic, something I’ve keenly followed (and even wrote about for Polyester last year if you’re interested). In short: many people, like me, are tired of paying private corporations with terrible politics to access the culture they love, with no control over when this might be removed, censored or entirely disappeared from the face of the earth. Hence, physical media ownership as a path out of the streaming economy : you get to watch your movie as many times as you want, in whichever sequence you prefer, without your viewing habits being immediately harvested as user data for the material gain of our Big Tech overlords. Plus, a DVD is an incredibly immersive experience - we’re speaking thematic welcome screens and ambient music, menu interactions with bespoke fonts and visuals, something I’ve seen many social media users post about. But, there is one aspect of DVDs that I don’t see covered nearly enough in the growing physical media literature : access to bonus content.¹

See, when I told my LOTR-loving friend and former housemate Christina that I was embarking on a middle earth rewatch journey, she immediately suggested that, seeing as I now owned physical copies, I should also watch the bonus content. In her words, the special features “make you appreciate the construction of the films even more, and the complete joy of the cast adds so much delight to my watch.” ² And after all, why not, why shouldn’t I? I had already invested a month of second-hand shopping to source my collection, paying an impressive 4€ grand total for it,³ and I was about to spend over nine hours of my life watching the movies (well, more like twelve hours, because I had already re-watched The Fellowship of the Ring twice by the time Christina messaged me), so what would three more hours of content really cost me. Surprisingly, for someone who grew up with DVDs at home and watched them religiously, I never really paid attention to bonus content - except for the Karaoke feature on the Shrek 2 DVD, that was elite! - but seeing as I was now so emotionally invested in the objects I had laboured so intensely to acquire, I decided to abide by my friend’s wisdom and committed to watch all of the additional content available (I’m a very all or nothing person). And so, I put the first special features disk in the DVD player, and I was immediately immersed in a world of trailers, early 2000s made-for-tv ad-spots, and making-of content. Specifically, all three of my special features disk involved (roughly) the same content: marketing material (music videos, and the aforementioned trailers and ads), one feature length making-of documentary (which I will focus one here), and an additional one to two shorter features along with a range of featurettes, each re-using footage from the core making-of films.⁴

Christina was right (of course she was), watching the making-of did bring me a new appreciation for the movies. But as I made my way through the trilogy’s three making-of, I realised these were built different. They showed me a scale of work I had never witnessed before, had access to people, processes and materials I could not imagine any other production ever needing. This is because the production they were documenting, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, was an exceptional one. Exceptional, of course, because all three resulting movies are visually stunning, emotionally impactful works that have had a lasting impact on both audiences and the history of cinema, but also because their very existence is exceptional. First, the material on which Jackson’s movies are based, J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved classic The Lord Of the Rings, is a well-respected work of literature, built around a rich universe renowned for the complexity of its world-building. Second, and most notably, because Jackson’s movies were sold as a trilogy to be shot back-to-back, monopolising cast and crew for a minimum of two years of continuous work, and producing sequels before any return on investment on the $281 million budget was made. This grants the three making-of a rare insight into the labour of filmmaking. Every movie has costume designers, directors and screenwriters (at least I should hope so…) but few will have the money, time, and quite frankly the need, to forge thousands of swords and hire hundreds of cavaliers, craft several miniature sets, motion capture both humans and horses, and film at night for four months. The LOTR trilogy made use of such a wide array of skills and expertise that its making-of becomes a case-study in everything a movie might need to do, and by extent, everyone a movie might need to employ.

The first aspect of filmmaking that any making-of documentary makes evident is time spent directly on creation: time on and around set. In the case of the LOTR making-of, each of the three feature explores a key moment of filming their respective movie - putting together The Shire in the first film, building Rohan and shooting the battle of Helm’s Deep in the second, or creating Minas Tirith and the Black Gate in the third. Depictions of the cast and crew at work on set are also weaved in with insights from the workshops and animation studios; testimonies from costume designers, prop makers, set designers and special effects teams on how they prepared for filming, and how long that preparation took. The second movie, the making-of for The Two Towers, also spends a significant amount of time with actors, allowing audiences to connect with the labour of acting, of course, but also with that of make-up and prosthetics teams, trainers, stunt coordinators and dialect coaches, showing the many shapes a working day might take, even for those whose work is primarily to be on camera.

From my watch of the LOTR documentaries, I learned that the crew spent a year prior to filming growing vegetables to make The Shire set look more authentic to the Hobbit’s insular way of life, and that costume designer Ngila Dickson selected natural fibres for their costumes, so that viewers would feel that this fictional fantasy race had grown, weaved and sewed together the fabric to create their own garments. I learned that Gimli (John Rhys-Davies)’s costume was over 14kg, and that the set of Rohan was built to scale in a vast clearing between two mountains, making it both visually striking and exceptionally windy. I learned that a blacksmith worked with the Wētā Workshop to craft historically accurate, character specific swords for the leads, along with further swords for the extras, and that they experimented with allying metal and plastic so these swords would be more resistant to repeated impact, because filmmaking requires more usage from a single sword than real life combat would. I learned that the battle of Helm’s Deep took four months of night shoots, that just about every available people and horses of New Zealand were hired at some point during production, and that Wētā Digital (now FX) pioneered new methods to motion capture both humans and horses so they could digitally augment live-action combat scenes and populate miniature sets with characters.

And by doing so, I got a sense of just how far in advance of filming production starts, how long a day on set might stretch to, and who, beyond camera crews and actors, might be present there. I learned that costuming is both highly conceptual and deeply physical work, requiring teams to imagine how fictional cultures may be materialised in a way that is legible to the audience, while also being asked to carry 14 kg of armour up and down a hill under harsh winds several times a day. I learned that an actor then has to wear this armour while running up the hill reading his lines, and that he may spend weeks training for a fight scene only to be seen on screen for seconds, so that whatever screen time he gets feels realistic to the audience and coherent with his character’s skillset. Although I have never worked in a similar environment, my viewing of the making-of still confronted me with the realities of life on set, how filming might demand cast and crew to physically and psychologically sustain months of adjusted sleep schedules and reduced sun light to shoot night scenes, or how the constraints of filmmaking, which requires several takes be done of a single scene, might necessitate props to adapt in ways no other industries would have the need for. I spent time with the special effects and miniature teams, seeing on my screen what a preliminary drawing looks like, how a miniature is scaled and filmed, and all the stages involved in motion capturing and animating a single horse, before it can be built to thousands.

Of course, some of this I knew from having done student films, from listening to friends who worked in the industry, from helping my sister when she took up film classes in high school, or being a volunteer on a short film two years ago - but I could just as easily not have known any of this. Like most people enjoying films, I could have had no contact with the labour that goes into creating the entertainment I love, and yet if I had none of this prior knowledge, I still would have learned all of the above simply by watching the making-of documentaries. Making-of have the power to make legible the labour of filmmaking to non-technical audiences, involving them in the creation of the cultural product they just witnessed, and showing them the breadth of expertise required to craft such work, beyond that of only directors, actors and producers, who despite being very important to filmmaking, are often more visible in the public sphere than other film professionals.

Although all three documentaries can be viewed independently from each other, they also function as a cohesive unit, a trilogy within the trilogy, each bringing in details about how the movies were conceptualised as a whole. This particularity allows them to represent more abstract aspects of filmmaking, especially that of creative development, a facet of the craft that a smaller production’s making-of may struggle to represent as freely and expansively as it is here.

The first movie explores the creation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, its success and licensing for the big screen. In particular, it highlights the story of Tolkien’s publisher’s son, now an elderly man, who recounts reading The Hobbit for the first time, Tolkien’s original book from which The Lord of The Rings trilogy would eventually emerge. This may sound rather anecdotal, and it was likely placed here as a way to emotionally connect viewers to the book’s story, but the thrill of discovering Tolkien’s universe for the first time is mirrored in the last documentary, the making-of for The Return of The King, through director Peter Jackson’s own first read of the trilogy as a young adult. Jackson remembers how, upon reading the books, he immediately felt the story’s cinematic potential and couldn’t wait to watch the live action movie someone would eventually make of it one day. It is only while working with the Wētā Workshop/Digital on other projects years later, that he realised cinema had finally reached the technological capacity needed to create the faithful and creatively interesting adaptation of the books that he had imagined. This is, of course, an incredibly romanticised vision of the creative process, one that was probably very helpful in 2003, during The Return of The King’s award season run, that would eventually garner the film 11 Academy Awards nominations and wins, including Best Picture. Yet it is also effective in representing a dimension of creative work that may otherwise be quite difficult to access, especially for those audiences who have no contact with a creative field: how is an idea born? How long does it take to mature, and what elements - beyond sheer willpower - will tip it from idea, to project, to movie?

Jackson’s anecdote on the trilogy’s inception is followed with details from the pitching process, which is probably one of the most opaque stages of filmmaking, and one I expect very, very few audiences will know anything about. We not only learn what a pitch deck is, but what went into the one that Jackson presented to production companies: a first draft of the scenario (which brought all three books into one movie, something Jackson felt would be easier to sell), early concept art and storyboarding, timelines and budgets. We then learn what changed in this early material when New Line Film agreed to take on the project, not as a stand-alone film but as a trilogy to be shot back to back. Keeping this for the last making-of documentary is honestly genius: it’s a full-circle moment that wraps back to The Fellowship of the Ring’s making-of, in which the audience first gets to New Zealand and meets book illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe, who previously worked on the LOTR book illustrations, as they begin concept art for the franchise, starting with the Shire.

Making-of documentaries, of course, are not unbiased, perfectly objective fly-on-the-wall insights into the world of filmmaking. They are still produced and distributed by the same people selling you the movie. You may notice that I have referred to making-of as documentaries throughout this piece, because, they are - that is the genre within which they fall, they document a production. But, like any other documentaries, they have an angle, an argument to make. The LOTR’s making-of greater purpose is not to show what filmmaking is, but to get viewers attached to the franchise as a cultural object that they will want to come back to. They do this by emotionally connecting with the viewers through uplifting stories of camaraderie and creative success, and by painting, at times, a somewhat idealised vision of creativity. Darker aspects of filmmaking are brushed over, often romanticised as commitment to the craft - Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) gets repeatedly injured, and the crew spends five hours melting snow from a river so that Andy Serkins (Gollum) can jump in the still freezing water wearing only a thin motion capture suit for the rest of the afternoon. Beyond their documentary use, making-of are also marketing tools. They were a buying incentive for the public to purchase their own DVDs, rather than loan it from a video store or public library. And in the case of a franchise as beloved as Jackson’s LOTR, bonus content still remains a strong buying incentive today, in the era of streaming and digital downloads, with every new edition of the trilogy bringing in a never ending supply of new content - extended versions, unheard commentaries, unseen footage, and always more behind-the-scenes. But while representation of filmmaking is not the core purpose of a making-of documentary, it is an inevitable byproduct, one that has the potential to shift our perspective of the film industry and the workers at its heart.

These three making-of documentaries showed me many - if not most - of the people involved in the trilogy. They made visible the creative work, efforts, and timeframe that the films required, and they helped me understand the skills a production might need and the complications it may face. They even shed light on more obscure aspects of filmmaking I had little knowledge of, and highlighted certain crafts and professions that I had never seen being given centre stage before. They elevated my viewing experience, gave me a sense of scale and complexity, drew me into the creative process and showed me how abstract ideas were turned into the multi-sensorial experience of cinema. But most importantly the LOTR documentaries reminded me that a good making-of has the power to stand as a bridge between audiences and workers. They connect us, they build understanding, admiration and empathy for the people who laboured to create the culture we love, the art that, beyond entertainment and enjoyment, may have a profound impact on our identities or allow us to find community. And that visibility, that connection, is paramount to building solidarity with workers, one that can be leveraged in times of need. Granted I already believed in workers rights before watching the LOTR making-of, but I am still hopeful enough to think that hard evidence and better visibility can change people’s minds.

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1  And yet! So much social media content draws from DVD special features. Those “did you know?” LOTR TikToks are straight up making-of extracts. But that’s a subject for another time (maybe)!

2  As told to me via a voice note that I then edited down for clarity.

3  I’m aware I could have just ordered them online, but I’m a thrifty queen and I love a challenge - and a (very) good bargain!

4  The making-of for The Two Towers also features a short film directed by Sean Astin (who plays Samwise Gamgee), along with the behind-the-scene footage from the shoot - a carnivalesque role reversal in which actors become crew and crew become actors, and everyone gets to perform an caricature of their own profession in some form of filmmaking catharsis - genuinely nearly wrote a companion piece on this alone, and I still might!