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Chapter 3 ~ "The Shire"
PJ: This was a shot we did, when we were doing pick-ups. We felt, we hadn’t really got the ideal introduction for Frodo and we found this really pretty forest about an hours drive north of where we were based and we thought, that just this moment of Frodo reading a book under a tree would be a really great way to introduce his character.
PB: Was funny seeing him standing there after 4 months or so and he was standing there with his feet on, in costume with the hair on just laughing and laughing, that he was back being Frodo again.
PJ: This was a very important scene, because it’s the first time we see the size of Hobbits compared to a human or in this case a wizard – Gandalf – and we used very simple tricks for the scene. There is no computer special effect at all. We simply used a big Gandalf, an about 8 foot tall person called Paul, and a very small Frodo, a 4 foot high person called Kiran. That’s Paul catching, that’s Kiran being cuddled by Ian, that’s Paul cuddling Elijah and so just between, cutting between the big and small stand-ins, if you like big and small doubles, we were able to create the illusion – without any complicated tricks at all.
In this version of the opening the dialogue on the on the cart between Gandalf and Frodo is a little different. We just used different pieces of dialogue and we were able to establish the mystery of the ring a little bit more, the fact that, not so much the ring, we don’t know it’s the ring yet, but the fact, that Bilbo Baggins has been acting kind of strange, that was something, that we wanted to get a sense of the fact, that he’s, he’s got that unusual behavior going on, that we ultimately later find it’s the ring, but at this moment it’s concerning Frodo.
I know, one of the concerns, that Fran had, when we were contemplating this version for the theatrical release of the film was that, she was worried, that it would establish Bilbo as a slightly darker character, that … Bilbo is obviously a very loveable, cute Hobbit, but the fact, that we first see him introduced in this way, being a little bit weird that sort of, you know, acting in a slightly compulsive, unusual way and Fran was concerned, that would, it would just, it would not really, it would lead to expectations of who Bilbo was, that is not really true, that obviously he’s just having a strange little episode here, because of the way the ring is affecting him, but he is basically his usual loveable self. It’s possibly not the best way to introduce the character by seeing him in this, in this manner first. The shots here of Gandalf and Frodo talking were done after the original Hobbiton scenes were shot.
One of the difficult things with the beginning of the film was the fact that we have to talk about Bilbo, a character we don’t really know. We have to talk about the fact, that he’s leaving and there’s something strange going on and just the concept of setting (all that) stuff up was a little bit tricky.
PB: We don’t want to be too dark and too ominous too early, because there’s so much of that in the film. We wanted to show Frodo especially. That’s part of what we’re trying to do here, show this young boy, who has a very carefree life. We worked quite hard to do that.
PJ: Hobbiton is a location in Matamata in the North Island of New Zealand and we spent at least a year before we were due to shoot in building Hobbiton. The bridge is completely fabricated. It was built by the New Zealand Army out of polystyrene. The “Green Dragon”-Pub was just constructed at a side of a small lake.
The fireworks in the back of the cart were done by a computer. We just had the little smoke bombs going off and there are computer fuzzy effects.
(All of) our Hobbit extras were gathered from the local farming community of Matamata. We just looked for the best Hobbit faces we could, because we knew kind of what Hobbits should look like. They had to be slightly short and squat and have large eyes and round faces.
PB: Couple of those extras got married, did you know that?
PJ: No.
PB: They met on set and got married.
PJ: Oh, yes. This shot shows the size of the location. It was literally a huge area of land and probably at least a mile, 1,5 mile square, that we landscaped. All of the roads were built, the Hobbit holes were built, the trees – often the trees were planted, the gardens were planted, none of this existed.
It’s a lot of work going on for what’s relatively shot amount of screen time really, that we see the exterior of Hobbiton, but we just felt, that it just, you just had to sell it.