Shore was chosen by the filmmakers (who also looked into James Horner) when they found themselves temporarily-tracking parts of the assembled footage to pieces from his existing scores. The films were also temp-tracked sparsely with pieces from the scores to "Braveheart" and "Last of the Mohicans". Shore visited the set and met with the filmmakers and various people involved in the production including conceptual designers Alan Lee and John Howe (who would contribute to his Symphony and Doug Adams' book on the score), actors Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and Andy Serkis, screenwriter Philippa Boyens (who became Shore's principal librettist for the score) and others, and saw assembled footage of all three films.