Animals

 

Actors at Work Productions’ critically acclaimed, award-winning feature film follows the lives of Arathorn and Gilraen, the parents of Aragorn, from their first meeting through a turbulent time in their people’s history.

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They tell you never to work with children and animals and for good reason. However they also tell you to stick with two actors and one location when you have no money - not what we are doing which is multiple locations, multiple actors, costumes, props, wigs, children, orcs, elves, changing seasons, cold conditions, short days, rain, location shooting, mostly exteriors, flight paths, the public, sword fights etc and all on no budget. So considering we are ignoring all other advice why not this one too, hey?!

Dúnedain horses are bred in the North to be stout and strong. It is said they could even be a match for the Mearas of Rohan, for they could go on for days without rest at a great pace.

"Their horses were strong and proud bearing, but rough-haired"
The Passing of the Grey Company - ROTK


Louis from

www.hilton-horses.com


I have wanted to get at least one horse into the film for a while but we had no luck in July. There was a perfect scene to use one this time and we had a few options of horses but I never thought we’d actually manage to get a trained film horse who’s already a star of stage and screen! Waterloo, or Louis, from Hilton Horses came along for a day in Epping forest to play Elgarain’s horse, Narthal. Louis is the star in the ‘Hip Hop Horse’ Yell advert and has performed in Carman in Covent Garden in London.


Louis was fantastic and because he was trained we could do much more with him that with any other horse. The only downside was that although he is a Fresion and they can be long haired and feathered (perfect for the Dúnedain), Louis has just recently been clipped with a blanket cut so Sam had to re-clip him to try to make it less modern looking.




Well horses aren’t the only animals in Middle Earth. We also see other animals, both alive and dead. We have pigs and chickens in the village and West Stow sometimes have sheep but they haven’t been there when we have been filming yet unfortuntately.


Our dead chickens and rabbits were stuffed and hired from Keeley Hire prop store but Fang was a male muntjac deer who unfortunately met his fate during our July shoot on the road coming in towards the village. Fang, nicknamed because he only had one of his little fang like teeth left after he met with the car, is now immortalised in our film. The original idea was to gut him on camera (some of the re-enactors had offered) and maybe even spit roast him for dinner but it was decided that his injuries from the car accident may have made him inedible. He was used in two of our scenes and then laid to rest back in the woods across the road. Thanks Fang!