Special effects of The Lord of the Rings film series Later on, the scenes were merged using digital effects. Besides Weathertop, many of the other scenes in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were shot in this way, first by filming the scenery or set miniatures, then the actors on a studio set, and merging the two together. An example of this is in the Mines of Moria, when the Fellowship was fighting the Cave-troll in Balin's Tomb, and again when the Fellowship is on the Khazad-Dum stairs and bridge. Gandalf has his own particular scene with computer graphics as he grapples with the Balrog as they fall to their
Production design of The Lord of the Rings film series Production design of The Lord of the Rings film series The Lord of the Rings film series began its production design in August 1997. Peter Jackson required complete realism and plausibility in his vision of Middle-earth, and hired Weta Workshop to create the various pieces of armour, weapons, prosthetics and creatures seen in the trilogy, as well as aged costumes and historically influenced sets. Jackson began storyboarding the trilogy with Christian Rivers in August 1997, effectively creating a rough black and white 2-D version of the film. Jackson showed excerpts of the "animated" storyboards (filmed images with voices and a