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DISCLAIMER: This transcript is provided on an "as is" best efforts basis and is based on a MiniDisc recording made where speech was not always legible because of noise in the room. Any errors made in transcribing what was actually said are mine, and not those of the speakers quoted, and may include spelling mistakes, incorrect names and other minor typo's.

Q: Paul Brewer spoke of the film maker's determination to recreate a world of fantasy which if you entered into it you'd believe was real. Isn't that the dilemma that the Science Museum faces here? You'll no doubt focus on the special effects and the science involved but ultimately the purpose of the film and this exhibition is to bring about a fantasy world, a world ungrounded in science and reality, against the remit of the Science Museum I'd suggest! Jon Tucker, Head of the National Science Museum: Yes. Thank you very much. This is one of those dilemmas you can imagine the team here at the Science Museum thinking long and hard about all the time. So why are we bringing this exhibition into the Science Museum? Yes, it's to celebrate and show and engage people with the awesome science and technology that's gone in behind it. But it's one of the very important ways in which we reach new audiences. Our mission's quite simple - we're trying to get people engaged and excited and into science. Science right now matters more than it's ever done. The generations around now are growing up and the pace of change is so spectacular, literally a species - the first we're aware of - beginning to alter its own genetic coding. If you experience an urgency here at the Science Museum to get more people and reach new audiences that's why. Something like The Lord of the Rings and the impact it's made and the impact it's generated - there is science and technology we use to connect with people to get people interested. We jolt people. People say "Ooh I wasn't expecting that at the Science Museum - Lord of the Rings?". Then they come and see us. We know this is a fact from researching amongst our visitors. Exhibitions such as Lord of the Rings will bring us new people and once they're here all our research shows they find us much more interesting than they thought we were going to be. Why wouldn't you have a good look around? It's free! You can go to "Making the Modern World" and look at the real Stephenson's Rocket! Out into the Contemporary Science wing and see some of the things that are literally going to affect whether this species - our species - survives or winks out on an evolutionary chain of some point in the future. So Lord of the Rings - yes, science and technology in its own right but a key part of bringing new audiences into this museum. And it's already proving it's been very successful in that regard. Q: In terms of the Science and Technology break groups (?muffled recording), what are the most important things in this exhibition that we see? Richard Taylor, Weta Workshop: I think that on specifics.. there are a variety and I'll touch on those. I think on a more ethereal level from our own country's perspective where we have benefited or been beneficial is that the exhibition ultimately empowered young people in our own country to a level of self-belief that this nerdy, almost geeky, fanaticism that they had for things that they were creating in their bedrooms, just like we were fifteen or twenty years earlier could ultimately have forged career paths. They could take them on journeys and give them an interesting and varied career. It's been really lovely to see and hear the responses of people that have personally been touched by the films but then, more importantly, been absorbed in the technology. They can see that young New Zealanders, just like themselves, have been able to bring these skills that they've been developing. When Peter Jackson came to us six years ago and said "I want to see armies beyond anything we've seen before in Lord of the Rings. Get about and do it" some young New Zealander created a work of science fiction. He empowered digital characters with the ability to think for themselves, bought from a pre-taught repertoire of military moves, understand the terrain that they're fighting on, and were able to set them into battle. At the moment in film 3 we've created 700,000 soldiers that once set to War we have no ability to determine who wins or who loses. It's interesting as an aside to the designing of "Massive" for the first couple of years we had no ability to stop the soldiers fleeing the field of battle because the computer was more intelligent than us and kept insisting on running away whenever they saw the enemy. There is the process of motion capture. We created digital doubles. This is no doubt the area that cinema is going to go heavily. I strongly believe that for great cinema you still need the essential element of human interaction, the complex emotional interplay that we get with the performances of humans in the film. But to achieve the unachievable, to create anything that we can dream of in our minds today is at our fingertips, is available to the movie maker, unfortunately it needs the right budget! The ability to replicate humans exactly is now possible. We made a massive advancement in the character Gollum. Gollum is the result of a huge effort, but a huge effort based on the efforts made by dozens if not hundreds of people around the world. People tend to giggle about Jar Jar Binks but if Jar Jar Binks hadn't been created would we have ever got to Gollum. Our great breakthrough with Gollum was the ability to emulate translucent skin. We'd been pursuing it from a purely technological basis for many, many years but this was a huge group of people concentrating on one problem. It was actually in the final months of film 2 that we finally interwove the techniques of traditional art and digital creation to bring traditional painting skills to the computers that allowed us to basically invest the life that we see in Gollum - to put the translucency and the richness of skin detail in that character. If you think about that single element alone, the ability now within the entertainment industry to realise very very living breathing characters and bring them to the screen in gaming, television and film is a massive advancement in film technology. Q: Leading on from that and I guess this is a question for anybody, is that a lot of these industries which used to be quite separate- television, film, games, music, museums - very much now seems to be in the 21st century all coming together. You used to go and see the film and then maybe pick up the lunchbox. Now you go and see the film you can buy the action figures, you can play the computer game and probably immerse yourself in the 3D environment. It seems very much that everything is coming together. Is that how you . . . ? Richard Taylor: I think a lovely derivative of the film industry and the entertainment that the film industry brings to the population is that it has now created hubs of entertainment that other spokes can splay out from with merchandising, scholastic services, museum displays, theme parking, where there is a theme that runs through things. We are a people of habit. We like to explore thematic connections through things. We like things to have some sort of lineage and link up. I think people are going to more and more find the necessity to be able to follow the journey on a particular story or a particular piece of entertainment through to its ultimate conclusion, to gather the clutter of that story around them. I'm a huge collector of figure kits from films and it's so lovely after that two hour experience in that darkened cinema to capture a moment of that time and to have it at home and enjoy it for eternity. I think it's the ability to return to somewhere like a museum and re-explore the detail of what you didn't fully get a chance to understand that makes something like this so strong. James Rudoni: What really works well for this exhibition and this film trilogy is the level of detail, the effort that's gone in behind the film-making that makes it work so well. It's much better than exhibitions linked up to other movies. Applause to Weta Workshop, Peter Jackson and the whole team behind it for doing such a great job and really giving the visitors to the exhibition something more to see. When you come here you really will gain something more - something you didn't get - from just watching the movies. Q: Richard, this one's for you…we've heard about some of the techniques that you used to make the movie - talk about the Massive software engine, the prosthetics and the motion capture that you used for Gollum. It's a really simple question: Of which of your achievements are you most proud? The thing I'm most proud of in the making of these films is not so specific as a single thing. It's really the fact that I was offered the opportunity to go on this incredibly daunting, but very exciting journey with Peter Jackson and a large group of other New Zealanders and I was able to empower a group of young people in our country. Of 158 people we employed at the workshop only 28 had ever worked in an art department, TV show or film before. They were trained on the job. They were completely under the belief that they could do justice to these writings, that they could bring Tolkien's world to the screen. On reflection today the fact that that group of people had the self-belief that they could challenge the world of film-making, that they could stand on the world stage and be counted is such a wonderful thing. People have often asked "Gee, it must be amazing having won the Oscars". The most wonderful thing about winning the awards we have is to be able to return home and reinforce to this young group of people that we can take our place on the world stage, that New Zealand as a technological and artistic culture can do something of the power of these films and forever stamp our mark on the world through entertainment and cinema and television. The fact that our small city, a population of only 300,000 people - probably smaller than Gloucester for instance - can put together the technology, the skills, the people, the studios but more importantly the enthusiasm - the just unabashed love of the craft - the ability to invest that level of passion to bring this to the screen. People have also said to me "You guys must be good - you created these films". I don't think that our film is necessarily any better or any worse than any other film out there, it's just that we're uniquely different. I think that at the time that these films have come out the world's audience has seen something that is uniquely different: films that have been made with a passion, an enthusiasm, and an intent to do the best possible work we can for the sake of the work, not necessarily the sake of the oscar for the work. Q: A quick follow-up question. Which is your favourite piece in the exhibition? Richard Taylor: Errrm. My favourite piece… and it's not because he's sitting next to me…. I think Lawrence holds the record for the longest prosthetic application of any character, as naked Lurtz in the birthing scene. He went through a ten and a half/eleven hour make-up call, getting in the make-up chair at 10 o'clock at night, on set by 8 o'clock the next morning. Twelve hours of acting. Four to five hours of removal each time he played this character. There is a delightful amateur video shot of the three technicians in my workshop - Gino, Jason and Ben - that went on that perilous trip with Lawrence here every night when he had to do this. As Lawrence is slobbering and snoring away in this chair. I just think that brings the human effort to this exhibition. It's so easy to see this as huge pieces of cinema and business. It's about people on the shop floor going back into the pit and digging, digging, digging. It's about hard work and that little piece of video really shows what it's all about. Q: I just wondered Lawrence how long it took to get ready like this for today? Lawrence Makaore: We actually broke it in about two and a half hours. It usually takes four and a half hours just for the fighting Lurtz. In the naked Lurtz I had two guys painting on me when I first start but when I have to get out of it it's a bit mind-boggling. Your leg's going over there, your arms's going over there - your head's going like that… [cut because of too much muffled noise - sorry!] but it took probably two and a half hours. Richard Taylor: Remember the time Jason knocked the cup of ice-frozen alcohol into your underpants? Lawrence Makaore: I've got G-strings on underneath the 'naked Lurtz' one and they use (garbled) propyl alcohol to take it off. Well when I was actually doing 'the birthing scene' when I rise out like that FX: demonstrates I look at my hand and I look at my head. The suit wasn't actually designed to stretch, stand up and sit down constantly all day. It took us four days to shoot that scene and at the end of it the actual welts from bending down and standing up, because the prosthetics would stretch but the skin wouldn't. When they took it off - when they removed it it broke the blister… and then they poured alcohol over it.. I was just screaming! Richard Taylor: And you don't want a character like Lawrence Makaore chasing you round the make-up room! It's going to be fun going home. Lawrence and I have make-up artists who for the last five years have insisted that it's a four and a half hour make-up for two people which obviously costs a certain amount of money. This morning we did it single-handedly in two and a half hours. Bloody buggers! Jon Tucker: That's a technical term! Q: Can I just ask Lawrence what the reaction of children has been this morning to you? And whether you ever thought you'd end up in a science museum? Richard Taylor: Obviously that reaction of the children was embarrassingly mild! Lawrence Makaore: The little boy I worked with this morning - Max - I just met him this morning and he was just brilliant. I've worked with kids before and without this make-up I look pretty menacing, and this didn't even scare him. He was just like in awe and he was like "Whoooooaaaa!". I really don't know how he felt but he was just like in awe of being with this character that he'd seen on the film that actually died. I think he was looking for (garbled). He was just brilliant to work with this morning. Richard Taylor: It's both frightening and also amazing how comfortable young people are with the art of cinema making through DVDs and books… there's almost no trick that they don't understand. We're amazed at how young children aren't particularly in awe any more, which is so sad in many ways, but they are very, very worldly people and the youngest viewer cannot be insulted by the poor message you're trying to send over. You need to aim always at the highest level whatever the age, and it was amazing watching this young boy today. He knew who Lurtz was. He knew that Lurtz was played by an actor and it was all glued on, and he basically walked over and shook your hand. Lawrence Makaore: (faking crying) He wasn't scared of me at all! Jon Tucker: I'd like to point out that a four-year-old did beat up Lawrence this morning. Stephen Bromburg: Two more questions… Q: Would you say that, from the museum's point of view, this is very much an exploration of the old-fashioned science of smoke and mirrors? The stage tradition on a much bigger scale - an updated version? Jon Tucker: One of the reasons we'd like people to see this exhibition is it's actually a glorious mix, as we've heard. Both the very latest developments in computer-generated film-making, but at the same time you can see some of the weaponry on display at the exhibition was actually manufactured using the very techniques they used in the Middle Ages! This exhibition in itself, as with the film making, spans the whole of history, right up to the latest developments. 'What comes next?' we're asking ourselves. Can't wait to display that when it arrives! Richard Taylor: I think you're right. Special Effects is a magic show. A magician would never play two tricks - the same trick - back-to-back. He'd muddle them up, mix them up and it's the same with special effects. You try and draw from this huge bag of tricks, and as technology romps forward that bag of tricks grows ever more vast. The techniques used on this film go back as far as the works of George Méliès the original founder of special effects, utilising the most traditional techniques. About 50% of the scaling gags on The Lord of the Rings is Elijah Wood on his knees and Sir Ian McKellen on a box - it's as crude as it gets. But as often, magic tricks we see from a magician are the simplest, they're still the most stunning. Stephen Bromburg: One last question… Q: You've talked about the number of people who've visited - over what sort of time scale was that in New Zealand? Paul Brewer: It opened in December last year and went through to the end of April. We had two extensions. Q: Tell us where's it going again after it's been to London, worldwide? Paul Brewer: It goes to Singapore - the Science Museum, and then on to the Science Museum in Boston and then eventually to the Powerhouse which is Sydney. Richard Taylor: I think it's worth noting though that's what's amazing about it is it's like the total population of London coming to an exhibition of a movie that was made in London. The total population of our city went through the exhibition. It's all relative to the number of the people living in the city, but it's of huge interest! Stephen Bromburg: I'm not sure we can fit the whole of London in here during the next four months! Jon Tucker: Thanks very much for coming! Back to Web Log report of this event

Don't forget you can check out reports of lots of other Lord of the Rings -themed events in the Web Logs section

Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk