Day 323: Trip to Middle-Earth

Around noon I got on a bus to take a trip over to Matamata to visit the Alexander sheep farm, which is a sprawling farm of rolling hills that houses over 12,000 sheep. Oh, (as if you didn't guess from the post title) it's also the home of the Shire movie sets (Hobbiton and The Green Dragon Inn) from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. When Peter Jackson was looking for film locations prior to making Lord of the Rings he did a helicopter search of the surrounding farmlands, and took interest in the Alexander's farm because of rolling hills, lake and suitable party tree, background of mountains in the distance, and lack of any visable roads or power lines to deal with. The "set" is basically the entire town of Hobbiton in ridiculous detail, including branches of town that cost millions of dollars to build and ultimately got cut from the movies entirely.

In addition to getting to walk around all of Hobbiton, our guide told us lots of stories about the creation of Hobbiton and the challenges of filming. All these little anecdotes were a really cool addition, and I'll mention a few of the ones that I remember off the top of my head.
-The gnarled oak tree sitting on top of Bag End wasn't originally part of the farm. Instead, a tree for a nearby farm was numbered, chopped up and then wired back together on the set. Since the tree was obviously now dead, 250,000 fake oak leaves were imported from Taiwan and wired by hand onto the tree just before filming was supposed to begin. Unfortunately Peter Jackson fell sick and filming was delayed for a couple weeks. The weather had enough of an effect on the colour of the fake leaves that Peter Jackson sent people up to hand-paint all 250,000 leaves before they finally got around to filming it. The actual tree is maybe in the movies for 10 seconds. For The Hobbit they dismantled the old dead tree and used the parts to make casts for a more permanent replacement, which of course required wiring 250,000 more fake leaves onto the new version as well.
- Near the beginning of The Hobbit (very minor spoiler) there's a scene in Bag End when Gandalf bumps his head on a chandelier, then turns and bumps his head again on the door frame. Only the first of these was scripted, and Ian McKellen actually hurt himself on the second one. Peter Jackson thought it was hilarious and kept it in the movie.
- All the fruit trees on set are dwarf apple and pear varities, because they look more size appropriate than full-sized fruit trees. Unfortunately in the books the fruit trees in Hobbiton are described as being plum trees, so before filming every single fruit and leaf were removed from the trees, and plum leaves and fruit were attached in their place.
- For Bilbo's party and the Green Dragon scenes they came up with a special beer that tastes like normal beer, but is only 1% alcohol so that multiple takes wouldn't turn into a bunch of drunk hobbit actors stumbling around.
- In the scene in Lord of the Rings when Merry and Pippin steal Gandalf's fireworks, they used a small explosion to cue the actors for timing when it was going off. Billy Boyd (Pippin) was startled by the explosion and apparently let out an unscripted high-pitched squeal when it went off. Peter Jackson thought it was hilarious (this is a common trend) and kept it in the film.

After getting a tour around Hobbiton we crossed by the watermill and over the bridge to The Green Dragon Inn, where we got to lounge around and enjoy a free drink (real ones, not the 1% prop stuff).

Anyway, since this is what people really care about, here's pictures!