You can't expect a multi-hour story to be all poetry. Homer: *coughs*

the close up on Orcs, Uru Kai were great because it showed how good the make up and visual effect were

I wish I´d never found your channel because all I do now is notice the endless close ups and the poor blocking in virtually everything I watch. Aggghhh!!!!!

While I agree that Jackson uses excessive cutting and his frames sometimes leave something to be desired, I don't think the Eowyn picking up Merry scene was a particularly good example, because he needed to cut in order to conceal that Merry isn't actually as short as a Hobbit. The cutting is still a bit jumbled, but it would have literally been impossible to do in one shot.

69% of the 420 shots are closeups

Could it be that a generation of directors, who were inundated with watching television from an early age, allowed their cinematic choices to be influenced by how television directors tend to have the same tendencies? This doesn't have to be done on purpose, but that their experiences tend to make their movies more like movies made for TV, rather than the wide screen. Just a thought. And, though I find the video very interesting, this has only made me want to re-watch the entire trilogy, one movie per night.

Not an excuse, but actually an explanation (from someone who knows a lot of people who work with Jackson). Peter Jackson HATES shooting - he hates the pressure, he hates the schedule, he hates the early morning starts, he generally doesn't like dealing with actors and quibbling on how to direct them. He says that he's actually got a lot of trauma from bad, difficult shoots in his early years. He's 100% self-taught and, with the exception of making THE FRIGHTENERS, he's made his films largely in a vacuum all by himself. The guy didn't even get to meet his cinematic heroes until AFTER he made LORD OF THE RINGS. All Peter has is the skills he learned through making low-budget films in New Zealand and some of the things he learned - especially when doing special effects - is that its just easier to shoot everything and find the film in the edit. Peter Jackson LOVES editing, he finds it the most rewarding part of the process and he thinks a lot like an editor (according to the person I know who cuts for him). Peter Jackson shoots EVERYTHING from EVERY possible angle. He loves shooting TV style coverage and then figuring out how it all pieces together in the edit suite. In that sort of style, composing beautiful shots becomes very hard when Jackson doesn't KNOW what he wants on the day. And he's very good at firing off a dozen ideas on how to cover a scene. The example you put of Merry and Eowyn is perfect for that -- shooting that scene of her picking up Merry would be a complex VFX shots since Merry is hobbit-sized, Eowyn is human and the storytelling needs us to see who they both are as characters. You can spend a whole morning figuring out how to right and light that scene so it can be done in one seamless shot, or you can shoot all the pieces using doubles and greenscreen and figure it out later. What makes Jackson good and why he managed to deliver the film on time and relative to the budget that was negotiated was because of his background in filming stuff like that - VFX, special effects, piece-meal storytelling and combining it all together in the edit. LOTR neither had the budget nor the schedule nor the director with the background to film it like how David Lean or Spielberg may have tried to do so. The shoot was fast, it was lean and Jackson always erred on shooting as much coverage for performance and storytelling as possible, rather than shooting efficiently and cinematically. LOTR is shot exactly like how he made BAD TASTE, MEET THE FEEBLES and BRAINDEAD - just an absolutely enormous amount of coverage cobbled together to make special effects work and then to speed through the dialogue scenes as fast as possible because he knows that he needs time every day to get the special effects shots done. This does not excuse the way he shoots his films, merely that he was basically the right person to bring those films across the line with the budget and time he had. And yes, the dialogue scenes suffered. As do a lot of scenes because of how they were shot - fast, cheap, lots of coverage and often working with people for whom this was their first ever Hollywood production. I don't care for his style of filming, but as a filmmaker I can definitely say that Jackson's style of wide establishers, constantly moving cameras, storytelling in close-ups and peace-meal insert shorts - all interspersed with carefully storyboarded "wow" shots - is what gives LOTR its sense of pace, its epic rhythm and the fact that audiences could be drawn so quickly into the characters because the film needed that to happen. Eowyn and Wormtongue's scenes especially are a great example - they're the most "Shakespearean" moment in the whole trilogy and the film is able to get to the heart of the drama quickly because Jackson covered everything in those scenes (and also cut out about half the dialogue in editorial). Is it ideal? No. But it was effective in that particular instance. And for instances where Jackson's style fails him, see the work he followed it up with. And, for what its worth, I personally reckon that the trilogy's most beautiful shots are the brain-child of DOP Andrew Lesnie and the Weta Workshop storyboard / concept art department. Because Jackson leans heavily on his DP and storyboards / concept art and pre-viz. Jackson likes to work on iterations, he wants to seen 30 versions of everything. So if he can figure out a really beautiful shot in previz or concept art, then he'll do it and make sure that gets recreated on set. But dialogue scenes are mostly made up on the day and, yes, Jackson likes his wide-angle closeups and constantly moving camera. One last thing: I don't remember where I heard or read this, but Jackson and Andrew Lesnie both said that the reason why they felt 80's fantasy films (which they both adore) look so "hokey" is because still shots made the sets and costumes look unrealistic and stagey. The constantly moving camera was, apparently, developed as a stylistic choice because it made the fantasy sets and costumes look more lived in and less cheesy because your eye couldn't settle on any one detail long enough to see how weird it looked. Again, can't remember where I heard or read that, but that's what I was led to understand was part of the direction decision. It's also why Lesnie refused to shoot anything with 'flat' lighting and also why they color-graded the films so aggressively.

You tell Norma to get in line and I immediately have to hit the like button 🤣

I could never ge tired of thousands of close up of the faces of McKellen and Mortensen and Wood acompained by the score of Shore and the lightning of Lesnie.

Hilarious and brilliant video! Love your style!👌

Beautifully done! Really incisive.

I especially agree with the shots within the awesome set pieces. We mostly see them only for a very short moment, or just from afar, and then it's immediately close-ups only. He could have created more immersion by showing off the the respective set piece more and doing fewer cuts to the faces.

I have never loved any movie as much as I do LOTR. Since I was 10yo and saw the first one in the theater. Nor have I rewatched anything as many a time as LOTR (…maybe Matrix back in the day). But bloody hell, HOW did I never realise that in the panning shot through the forest you eviscerate to bits you can ACTUALLY *SEE* BOROMIR DOWN THERE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. IT WAS THIS CLOSE?! Since it takes such a long time before Aragorn arrives I always assumed Boromir was further down the hill and closer to Nen Hithoel 😅😅😅

Jackson’s dynamic camera work and always moving type of shots is what sets it apart from other epics. I find the Villeneuve’s Dune almost devoid of life because of the stillness of almost every shot.

I’ve been trying to keep myself from commenting before I finish the video, and now that I have, my critique of the critique here is this: While Jackson’s visual storytelling does lack in a technical sense, and arguably an aesthetic sense part of me can’t help but feel that a very very very significant part of the filmmaking required for these movies was disguising the flaws and limitations of VFX/CG at the time and also shooting all three movies simultaneously, jumping from shots for one movie to the next in the same day often. I’m not giving this as an excuse for Jackson’s sloppiness, but rather a compliment that he was able to accomplish such a feat and go on to the have subsequent cultural (and personal) impact these movies had. The second part is not necessarily a compliment to Jackson, but maybe even an observation of an accident: I can’t help but feel that something about the fact that he is NOT using finely tuned cinematic language consistently may actually have even helped with the immersion of so many people in a “fantastical” world. Particularly the use of close ups and inserts. He brings a lot of humanity and tangibility to such an elevated and whimsical story by not making it feel so much like a movie, but rather like we’re seeing people in real spaces. Often, sci-fi and fantasy directors often go far out of their way to make sure things feel fantastical and designed, but I would argue these “better” filmmaking techniques may actually elevate the alienation a more general audience could easily feel by a secondary-world fantasy series. These movies also changed my life and I’m biased for sure (although their flaws and weaknesses have become increasingly apparent with age and experience), but I have always wondered what it is about Jackson’s approach that makes it feel welcoming to general audiences rather than making them feel like they’re in the wrong theater, as it were. Great videos man! I’ve been going through your channel for a few days now. And I do appreciate your ability to criticize and compliment where credit is due 🙌🎉

I agree so much - and all those shots you chose are the one’s I would have chosen too, one’s I love- 10/10 video g - so much truth

ADDED: no film is perfect. For the true 'The Lord of the Rings' experience, read the books. The books aren't perfect either though. But they give a infinitely more back ground story and description than is technically possible in a movie. EDIT: my excuse for Peter Jackson shooting way too many close ups is the fact he had to shoot three feature length movies back to back. So he probably thought about framing certain shots, then after a few months he just said, screw that, shoot it in face to face close ups, let's get on with this! I remember from watching the Behind The Scenes on the DVDs that a good many pick up scenes were literally shot in the studio's backlot. In those instances of course you don't want to show too much of the background, which looked 'more or less' like the original sets. It's the George Lucas school of shooting a film. Especially the 'prequels.' Correction, it's the MTV-school of editing. Entire generations have grown up with this as the 'regular' way of editing. Shot, close up longer than a few seconds? Cut, the audience is falling asleep/checking their phones! That last thing about the phones is not entirely untrue, I'm afraid. Last time I went to see a movie in a theatre were these three movies. Whenever I noticed someone checking their phone, which was easy because where does this extra light come from in the sacred darkness of the theatre? I wanted to strangle them.

Good Video man Waiting for next one.

LOTR are some of my all time favourites, but this video is good criticism 👍

That sweeping shot down the mountain in the FotR climax is one of my favorite shots of all time. No amount of lecturing on how it’s “bad” will take away one ounce of the joy and awe it gives me to watch it.

I think the moving table and camera was designed to sell the forced perspective. We’ve seen static forced perspective before. Having the camera move made our subconscious believe he really was a small person compared to the tall wizard. Similar to what happened with the cgi dinosaurs in Jurassic park. Those types of effects used to be done with opticals which always have to be static. Same with matte paintings. You see the same thing happening in avatar. The camera is usually moving to sell the world because he doesn’t have a built in real world that we already live in like the films of say, David Fincher. If the movie takes place in the real world, the camera movement and slight “turn tabling” isn’t necessary. The parallax helps make it real for the mind. It’s like a forced 3D or something. It “deflattens” the image. I think also these movies came out at the height of MTV and I remember all the “extreme close ups!” And stuff like that being really popular. All that being said all your points are well made and taken. I love your videos and you are a great teacher. Have you considered teaching a class of some kind? Like an online zoom class or something?

You are the best 👌👌👌 Can't get enough of your videos. Amazing content, always waiting for your new uploads.

I think you're inverting cause and effect here: over-reliance on close-ups and intense camera movement is ubiquitous in modern cinema BECAUSE jackson made it popular with lotr in 2001. A style that fits the film, I'd say, both because of the subject matter and the runtime. Blocking is lazy but, again, it fits the story: characters standing and delivering makes the film look like a painting. Compare it to the bad moments in rings of power or game of thrones: characters move way too modern-like, and everything feels like a costume party.

You can't blame only Peter Jackson, he had 2nd and 3rd unit directors as well. Probably the pressure of shooting THREE films over the course of two years was the main culprit. Maybe if he had used Kurosawa's technique of two cameras and let the 2nd cameraman film whatever they wanted would have helped.

I have only watched the extended versions of the films. They’re great films and to know that it’s not perfect gives me hope for my film career

All these critiques of how Jackson shoots kinda pale in comparison to the fact that I still spend the entire time watching going, “That’s the most beautiful shot I’ve ever seen!” over and over again.

i like the closeups -_-

Thank you so much for talking s**t about these movies. Orson Welles said that "Even Lassie can act in a close-up!" I didn't like these movies because there was no subtlety about anything; because everyone is departing on a long journey when it's dark (not city-street, car with headlights dark, but The Moon and nothing else dark); because Alan Lee's art is dull and ugly; it's too often cartoons and bad CGI. I disagree that Eowyn pulling Merry up onto her horse at full gallop is a problem with the multiple shots - it's bad because a muscular man could not have done that, let alone Eowyn.

11:20 - Sometimes "imperfect framing" is an intentional artistic choice. Having so-called imperfections can make a scene feel like a real moment caught on camera, rather than something staged. For instance, If you stumbled up a live battle and tried to capture it with your camera, you wouldn't have perfect framing because you wouldn't know what was going to happen. Your camera would be trying to "keep up" with the live events. As was even stated, the function of the shot was to orientate the viewer with the geography of the fight scene, which it accomplishes, not necessarily to showcase the choreography of any particular cast member.

I love this channel

I am willing to give Sir Peter Jackson some concession simply for the fact that he actually managed to turn books like The Lord of the Rings into films in the first place.

Do you think Jackson 's directing ELAMIDAM or Sober? I don't know but I love his close ups, supported by his amazing cast (maybe because I am too familiarized of close-ups), how about his movies such as King Kong and The Hobbit trilogy? and can you give us the list of your top movies, would like to know your taste overall! nice vid btw, thanks for finding faults even in such perfect movies :p

All these critiques of how Jackson shoots kinda pale in comparison to the fact that I still spend the entire time watching going, “That’s the most beautiful shot I’ve ever seen!” over and over again. In the end, the quality of direction should be measured by the success of the end product. LOTR is endlessly immersive and emotionally engaging. So the direction is good and successful, even if technically ramshackle. “Does it make you feel what the director wants?” Should always be the primary standard in judging filmmaking. And for LOTR, the answer is a resounding yes.

And I thought I was alone in seeing the blurry muli cut of of Eowyn grabbing Pippin.

I have been watching your videos all day long. I didn’t hit the subscribe button or the like button until I saw “Push-in close ups for love scene” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You need to make a video on how to direct copyright avoidance.

Fascinating.

As these are the best films ever made, it proves the blocking and closeups work as intended. Not every scene has to screen perfectly filled out. I think these movies are amazing!

As for the blocking and the claim characters in the background doing nothing in LOTR you are totally wrong! It is just purely ill-intentioned and subjective from your side because there are plenty of shots with background characters doing (and not overdoing) their part well! Close ups...well maybe over used but not a big deal as you make it out. Framing was indeed poor occasionally (as in the forest chase shown here). Interesting video, but not one of your best.

Haven’t finished the video yet, but couldn’t some of the blocking stuff be attributed to the fact that he has to convince us that characters are all the wrong height?

I picked up on all of this on first viewing, too, that so much of the framing and blocking was merely servicable and seemed rushed in a lot of places. A lot of the framing in the Borimir final battle IS pretty weak. But I'd read an article before seeing the first film that they shot all 3 films at once over the course of a year, so I forgave Peter Jackson for a lot.

I actually had problems with the cinematrography and shot compositions watching all these as a lad when they were released in theaters. Magical camera shots and close ups the entire film. I fell asleep watching all three of these in theatres. You forgot to talk about business, there's no blocking and there's barely any business except when they eat. it's actually very similar in how it's shot to the Star Wars Prequels, just shot reverse shot. Actors doing nothing.

I once told a friend, what i thought about the movie. And kniw viewing your video, i understand that i must've subconsciously understood the bad blocking. Becuaee I once said to a bewildered friend: "these are movies, where people are just walking from A to B." 😂

I felt the range of Closeups helped the film to give it a wider visual range. There's shots where objects are literally miles away, and others where you're about 6 inches from the subject. For movies with such a vast runtime I think it really makes sense to have this visual range, and to add stimulation to the image to keep the energy up (like when Denethor is eating at the table and the camera moves.) a lot of those pushes also are leading into or out of adjacent shots.

One could argue the shitty framing is to somehow make the fantasy world look more “realistic”

Yeah theyre walking in a straight line. duh. what of it. Sometimes you do that for a few seconds while hiking up a mountain.

Ah, but who's the best at blocking, editing and framing? Jackson or Christopher Nolan? Or should that be, who is the least terrible?

I can deal with rushed blocking, some sloppy shot compositions. The movies on the whole carried a lot of story without dragging. Things I could have done without: - Gimli being a comic relief character. The line about Helm's Deep being able to stop an army like water on rocks was supposed to be his, not Theoden's. Every chance for Gimli to say something, they just cut his line, or gave it to someone else, because the writers thought they needed at least one character to be ridiculous. They didn't - this is an epic story of heroes, and not everything has to have comic relief. - CGI Goblins climbing the walls like they were spiders. In general, any time large groups of creatures were needed, the CGI struggled to convince us they existed. Yet when they would have one alone, like that cave troll or the balrog, they were amazing. So maybe he just should have settled on shooting crowds more conventionally, and not relying on CGI to create artificial scale? I don't know; it's hard to gauge what the response might have been had he shown armies only in small groups at a time. That also leads to criticism. But in any case, i would not have had the goblins crawl around like gravity had not effect on them. Even the cartoon LOTR dealt with the goblin swarm better. - The army of the dead being ghostly rather than physical - the scene of them running through the orc army had no impact. CGI ghosts sweeping through massive armies like a swiffer mop diminishes the effect of the massive army. - Terribly scripted and composed large battle scenes. The skirmishes all looked great, but the battles were just wall of CGI mashing into other walls of CGI. Who would send cavalry right up the middle when charging those elephants? That's like sending a jeep right up the middle of a line of tanks. You are drawing all of their fire, ensuring death. Peter Jackson never heard of flanking? But ... somehow the cavalry didn't all die though? So what, the archers on the elephants didn't know what they were doing, and the elephants were no threat on their own? Diminishes the effect of the big scary elephants, surely. I think Jackson should have added a medieval warfare consultant to his film crew, and actually listened to that consultant. Or maybe just watch Spartacus? - Denethor lighting himself on fire before going on a long run and jumping off a cliff. He should have just thrown his body onto the pyre, like in the book. That scene had horrifying gravitas before Jackson turned it into a cartoon. This is probably the greatest misuse of a dramatic scene in the series. - Heavy over-reliance on music, sound, and CGI to show the "power of the ring." Sean Bean was the only actor allowed to show the influence of the ring without bombast. Meanwhile Ian McKellan, Ian Holm, Cate Blanchett, and poor Elijah Wood all had scenes where their reactions to the ring were displayed via extreme closeups, slow motion, music effects, sound mixing, even CGI effects to make them grow in size or distort their faces. Galadriel's scene was the worst culprit - she has some good lines, showing how the ring would sway her ambition and turn her into a tyrant. It's a beautiful scene in the novel. Too bad we can't understand the lines because apparently Cate Blanchett's acting needed CGI and sound effect help? There are some other things, but mostly that's the stuff that bothered me. These are great and epic films; no one had tried to do better and likely no one ever will. But they do have problems, and I would not say they are in the shot composition and the blocking.

You forgot the plethora of b####y slow motion shots and that Sam has to yell MR FRODO every five b####y seconds for every enemy to hear. But while it is at times a train wreck it is a glorious one and you just cant not look, can you! Oh yes and break dancing wizards;)

I've always felt his style was very heavily leaning on costumes, make up and tiresome close-ups. I had read the book 5 or 6 times before his first film came out and I was quite disappointed when it did. Not to say there's not a lot to admire. But when I will be in the mood for lotr I will grab the book, not rewatch the films. I also couldn't stand how Peter Jackson directed Kate Blanchett, she looks the part and she is an ace actress but here she's unrealistic, unmotivated, unnatural and almost unwatchable. Anyway. Thanks for the excellent critique

Was Eugene de Savoy a film critic?

We like closeups.

This video kept me more awake than the actual films (I suppose it has brevity going for it)

The music is guff

The close ups still make me cringe. All subtext is foretext, and there's nothing left.

Ah, theo George Lucas school of blocking: standing up and slowly walking towards the camera.

You...uh...you DO realize that most of the wide shots you're praising are done by Second Unit and Second Unit Directors, right? Not Peter Jackson. Also that aerial shot in FELLOWSHIP that you're having a conniption about? They did MANY takes using that camera system - called a Flying Fox System - and it was custom-made piece of gear specifically for LOTR. It was highly experimental equipment and most of the footage from that system was unusable. The version that ended up in the film was one of only about two usable takes and it was the better take. And why was that? Because that kind of shot - of putting a camera on a cable-system and having it fly BETWEEN TREES with 180 degrees of motion on a remote-control head....had never been done before. You're literally looking at a FIRST OF ITS KIND shot. And something that would have been impossible to do easily before the age of drones. The fact that they got ANYTHING in frame and in focus and that audiences were able to follow the action and characters is nothing short of a miracle. It's not that they sat in dailies and decided "oh this will do", but rather they sat in dailies and watched an hour's worth of unusable shots and then found two segments that were salvageable and it was far too expensive to redesign the rig and go back to the location and shoot it all over again. Like I said in my other post, LORD OF THE RINGS was filmed like a low-budget movie. It was shot fast, lean and with the enthusiasm of a student film. There's stories of actors literally carrying their own props and chairs and gear from location to location because there wasn't enough crew to move fast enough sometimes. And they didn't mind because everything was experimental and new and fun for just about everyone. Except maybe Jackson who hates shooting altogether.

Mushrooms

No offense, but complaining about closeups in LOTR reminds me of complaints regarding the music in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Namely, that its music was disunified and should have been done by a single composer. (Maybe Alex North?) The problem is that maybe, in some alternate universe, if you got want the movie would suck. And you wouldn't know why.

The framing is indeed atrocious, even when he imitates Murnau's Faust he gets it wrong

I disagree about the action scenes. The first two movies were great, but the action in the third and final movie was so overdone, it became tiresome. Like an MCU battle finale. To me The Two Towers deserved the Oscar instead.

Absolutely agree with every criticism. Without the forgiveness. A more measured director could have immersed me in this world, let me believe the characters existed, and wrapped up the essential narrative in a single three-hour epic (well, OK, maybe two). And I might've loved it even though it's about wizards and hobbits and magic rings and beardy white dudes with broadswords or whatever (none of which I find the least bit cool). But Jackson doesn't trust the audience's intelligence, imagination, or attention span enough to ever stop shouting at us: "Epic! Epic! Special effects! Epic!" When he isn't throwing the camera around, he defaults to shytty handheld cross-coverage, all of it so numbingly literal it knocks dead any sense of wonder the wider vistas might hint at. I just see cackhanded footage of actors in funny make-up and costumes, saying silly things in deathly earnest, while either posing on a studio set or scrambling around yet another Very New Zealand-looking location (I'm from New Zealand, so it's doubly hard to believe in Middle Earth when you know you're looking at a place you can catch a bus to). Even the battle scenes are too bloodless and repetitive to enjoy. The poor editor was seemingly under orders to use a shot from every set-up filmed, in as rapid succession as possible, and never let the emphatic score stop, to hell with visual elegance and rhythmic grace... For me this trilogy's not enthralling, just exhausting, and rather cringe. Jackson's first three splatter comedies, on the other hand, never take themselves too-seriously and have consistently rewarded my repeat viewings for decades now. Screening Bad Taste or Meet the Feebles for first-time viewers, especially unsuspecting LOTR fans, is one of those special pleasures only a sick cinephile can truly understand.

The only thing I hate more than the LOTR trilogy is the mess that is the 3 Hobbit films & I can't remember if I saw the last one. I saw the 3 films in the cinema & by the time of The Return of the King I was bored & and angry - not watched them since. The music is good but the way Jackson & wife decided to improve & alter the story made it worse for me. I just like the books so much & the BBC radio adaption. The casting was poor for too many characters: Sean Austin as Sam (the country bumpkin), Pippin & Merry turned into a comedy duo, Miranda Otto as Eowyn ( too plain & dull as an object of desire for Wormtongue & Faramir and unbelievable as a shield-maiden braving the Witch-King), substituting Arwen for Glorfindel and making her "badass". Lastly I absolutely hate that high pitch whine Serkis used for Gollum & completely ignored why Smeagol got the name Gollum. The awful special effect for Cate Blanchett in the Mirror of Galadriel scene, so OTT with the distorted voice. The ridiculous fight between Gandalf & Saruman atop Orthanc. I could go on. For me the over use of special effects, cramming a thousand or more extras into battle scenes where most would be dead within a short time because it is melee combat rather than organised units: lets rush headlong at these spears/pikes, lets ride our horses down a very steep slope, I know we'll use the old trope of getting archers to draw their bows & wait for the order to fire. Sorry this is too long but the films are a victory of style over substance like buying a cake then discovering they have used low-fat spread instead of butter and it is ersatz cream. Jackson forgot that sometimes less is more.

This video just comes off as someone who thinks he understands film language but doesn't at all. Close up push ins are a common technique and symbolize intrigue.

All these critiques of how Jackson shoots kinda pale in comparison to the fact that I still spend the entire time watching going, “That’s the most beautiful shot I’ve ever seen!” over and over again. In the end, the quality of direction should be measured by the success of the end product. LOTR is endlessly immersive and emotionally engaging. So the direction is good and successful, even if technically ramshackle. “Does it make you feel what the director wants?” Should always be the primary standard in judging filmmaking. And for LOTR, the answer is a resounding yes. It’s difficult to imagine that a more formally “proper” director could have delivered films that work so well.