Just after Christmas, Duke left the island and arrived in Brisbane and asked someone to send Scarlett Johnson back to North America. Although he only stayed on the island for a little more than a day, he had noticed some problems that might turn to the worst side if he didn't pay attention to control.

Perhaps because of the divorce of his parents, Scarlett Johnson mentioned more than once that monogamy completely violates human nature in his conversations...

Duke knew very well that he was not a good person, nor a gentleman, and liked sexy and beautiful women. He had always pursued the stimulation of fresh and beautiful things, but he also had his own bottom line. Since entering Hollywood, he had never really touched any underage women. He also knew that his control in this area was as limited as most men.

Therefore, it is not the best way to deal with some things that are invisible. After all, Scarlett Johnson is not sixteen years old.

Once such a thing starts and breaks through the bottom line, with his ability to control himself in this area, it may be difficult for him to maintain the bottom line in the future.

The reason why humans are different from wild animals is undoubtedly one of them.

Twisting these things aside for the time being, Duke returned to New Zealand directly. The filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was just halfway through, and there was still a lot of work waiting for him.

Three days later, the crew gathered in Wellington again. Duke first summoned the main members of the group team and held a brief meeting to determine the specific progress in all aspects and prepare for the next step of shooting.

After Zach Schneider left the crew to prepare for the sequel to "The Matrix", the crew could only go from the original three-way to Duke and Anna Prinz's shooting at both ends, and the progress was slower than before.

"I've finished filming most of the Iowin scenes."

After the finance officer mentioned the current account expenditure, Anna Prinz mentioned her shooting, "Most of Ella Fischer's scenes were completed. Only a few shots left against Angma Witch King and Minas Tiris."

The actress recommended by Cate Blanchett has never seen Duke again since the audition. Most of her scenes were shot by Anna Prinz.

Duke nodded, looked through his plan, and said, "Anna, in the next stage, you will take pictures of Faramir and Frodo, Sam and Gollum. For motion capture, please refer to Andy Serkins' opinions."

As Anna Prinz's scenes increased, Duke gradually gained confidence in her and began to hand over some important scenes to her.

He turned to the production manager again, "Charles, when will the extras I want be in place?"

"You will see it when we arrive in Nelson's valley." Charles Rowan only had two days off for Christmas and had already contacted a large number of extras. "The male models who played the elves also arrived in Nelson."

Richard Taylor took the initiative to speak, "Wita Studio is ready, just wait for the filming."

Duke will film the Battle of Helmet Valley. This famous fortress in the Kingdom of Luohan, like other props in "The Lord of the Rings", does not have ready-made templates. They are all newly created based on the description of the novel. The crews outsourced the appearance special effects of Helmet Valley and the White City Minas Tiris to Vita Studio.

The next day, the crew split into two again, with actors such as Elia Wood and Andy Serkins staying on the set in Wellington to film with Anna Prinz, while Duke led a large group of people to a mine near the small town of Nelson, preparing to film the scene of the Battle of Helmet Valley.

To the west of the mine is a valley formed by mining, which is the prototype of the Holy Helmet Valley. To the south of the mine is Minas Tiris built along the mountain, but the model of the Saint White City has not been completed. It is just a prototype for the time being.

In contrast, the Holy Helmet Valley has been renovated by Vita Studio. As soon as you walk into the valley entrance, you can see the quaint texture of the horn castle and the deep stream wall at the bottom of the valley.

Of course, the two seem far less magnificent than the one described in the novel. After all, they are filming movies and the crew's budget is limited. Duke cannot be as crazy as James Cameron to build a one-to-one model.

Although the Helmet Valley is not as complicated as Roslorien, the architectural style of the Horn Castle is relatively simple and practical, and there are not many tedious decorations like elves, it took Vita Studio more than half a year to complete the exterior of the Helmet Valley. Even Duke has been to do more than ten times for field inspections and shooting inspections.

Weita Studio has built two models of different proportions for the Horn Fort. First, it is a one-to-four proportion model. It is built on the valley, supported by steel and wood, and has high-density boards made of polystyrene, and carved with patterns with a water press, then sprayed gypsum on the surface with a gypsum machine, and finally painted...

This treatment perfectly reflects the texture of the city walls.

However, except for some places used to stand people and shoot wars, other places are mostly in shape in order to save costs, especially the surface of the horn castle wall wrapped around the outside of the support frame, which is definitely not as strong as it looks, and even the outer wall of the Holy Helmet Valley can be destroyed with fingernails.

Most of the Deep Stream Walls are reduced in size from one to four. The crew only built a wall of the same proportion, which was also to save costs. The wall was high enough but the thickness was seriously insufficient. The most important thing about this wall was the inward stairs so that Legolas could act handsomely and coolly.

Then there is another one to thirty-five model, which is mainly used to photograph the vision and add it as a background.

The crew was stationed on the periphery of the valley. Duke immediately went to see extras and male models. Needless to say, the male models naturally played the elves that supported humans. The extras were almost all tall and strong men, and they played the powerful army of orcs created by Saruman.

Both sides who really fight in front of the camera are played by special stunt actors, and the most important role of these people is to act as background paintings.

After watching these extras, Duke walked into the Helmet Valley. Today, due to time, he only did some preparations and would not shoot on the spot. John Schwartzman, Hannah Serena, Jimmy Carter and Bill Morris also followed.

Passing through the gate of the Fortress of Horn, Duke walked up to the city, stood on a podium, overlooking the entire valley from a high point. Although it was just a one-to-four model, the fortress still seemed huge enough.

Just a staff member always followed. He reminded Duke and others not to touch all the standing walls, because that was a standard tofu project.

"Hannah..." Duke pointed to the location of the city gate in front of the left, "positioned the blue curtain to the left of the passage."

Then he said to the other side, "Bill, place the bow and arrow launcher you made at the junction of the Deep Creek Wall and the Fortress of the Horn."

In this battle, there were a large number of shots of thousands of arrows being fired at once. In order to highlight the authenticity, the crew specially made multiple bow and arrow launchers, which could launch hundreds of stewed soft arrows at one time.

"John," he finally called the photography director over, pointing to the city gate, "I need a lot of side panoramic shots to attack the city gate. You find a suitable place to set up a camera and use a wide-angle lens to shoot."

Duke is just a director, and the most important task is to coordinate the various functional departments of the crew.

As he said. Movies are never a product of the birth of personal heroism, but a work that a large number of outstanding talents strive to cooperate with.

Several people circled around the horn fort and the Deep Creek Wall. They discussed a lot of matters during the shooting and did not return to the crew's residence until mid afternoon.

Although it was the ninth time that the shooting venue was completed, neither Duke nor John Schwartzman nor others had any relaxation.

Especially director Duke, who will start filming one of the most important scenes of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy tomorrow, he met major actors such as Ian McLean, Vigo Motson and Orlando Bloom, and exchanged their respective scenes with them, and then went to the props and costumes group to check the final preparations for various props and costumes.

In this war, the races that appeared were extremely complicated. The weapons and armor alone included Luo Han's soldiers' leather armor, chain mail, strong orc's full-body plate armor, elves' exquisite armor, etc. Nothing can be wrong.

Especially for the costume team, they have to get up in the early morning tomorrow and work with the makeup team to dress up the actor who plays the strong orc. It will take at least six hours for an ordinary stunt actor to turn into a terrifying strong orc in front of the camera!

But after watching it roughly in the crew, it got dark. Duke returned to his trailer and found that Ivanka Trump also arrived at the crew.

"Didn't you say you want to celebrate the New Year in New York?"

Walking into the outer room of this large trailer, Duke sat opposite Ivanka, "Why are you back so soon?"

"It's a bit boring in New York, and every day is different parties." Ivanka seemed to have a headache. "You were already working hard for your future when I was so old, and my peers in New York..."

She said helplessly, "Most of them only know how to eat, drink, and have fun. If they stay with them for a long time, I think I will fall into depravity. It's better to come back to work."

Tina Fey is still staying in Los Angeles to handle some affairs of the Duke Studio, and Duke is also inseparable from his trusted assistant. Ivanka Trump returns to New Zealand, which is also in line with his needs.

Then, the crew kicked off the battle of the Holy Helmet Valley, and this quiet valley became a noisy place. Not only did shout and roar appear frequently, but even the frequent howlings of death would occasionally sound.

However, during the shooting, Duke found that the mountains on both sides of the valley were not particularly strong, so he specially bought a batch of safety helmets from Wellington for some crew members to wear when they approached the mountains to shoot.

War scenes like this are always Duke's special skills. The shooting progress has been smooth until the strong orc rushed to the gate of the Horn Castle that he encountered the greatest difficulties. (To be continued...)

ps: This is the last update in July. Thank you for your support! It’s just that if you have something to do at night, it will be updated automatically.

I have been insisting on the third update throughout July, which is really not easy for a part-time writer. The manuscripts are almost reduced to single digits. If there are two updates in August, please forgive me! Friends in the group know that I will get married at the end of September. There are a lot of things happening during this period, so we will insist on updating them hard!
Chapter completed!