 |
 |
 |
|
FIONA: I am Fiona McDonald, the furniture sculptor for the props department, and amongst other things, am a
props maker. I do anything that needs to be done in the props department, but mostly sculpting details for the
furniture. This entails creating a lot of wooden carvings, or what are meant to be wooden carvings; there's a lot of
detail in the Elven and Dwarven furniture. So it's a matter of sculpting, molding, casting, painting, and getting
everything looking like it is meant to be - all from one piece of wood.
NL: Each culture has it's own distinct look; it must be a challenge to have such different cultures involved?
FIONA: It's fascinating. The Elven pieces are always what we want to spend the most amount of time on,
because they're perfect. Perfect Elves with lots of perfect, beautiful detailed props. That's the enjoyable part for
me, because it's the most interesting detail, it's gorgeous. It is very interesting having a whole lot of different
things to move through, that keeps the interest flowing; rather than just following one track, you can branch off. I
have mostly worked on Elven pieces since I've been here, but we're about to begin work on the Dwarven culture,
which will be a change.
NL: How long have you been on the production?
FIONA: Only since January [five months].
NL: How did you come into it?
FIONA: I had been ringing up Chris Hennah for some time last year, and hassling her a bit, at the time I was
working down in Queenstown on Vertical Limit. So I moved up here to look for work, and got the job within a
week of being here, so it was pretty good really.
NL: Were you looking to get into film or did the fact it was LOTR play a part?
FIONA: The Rings played a part, but I have been living on the West Coast for the last eight years doing my own
art, so motivation was partly financial because the West Coast is hard to exist on. But I enjoy building and I've
built an interest in prop making over the last few years. This is the second film I'm working on, the first being
Vertical Limit as a props maker.
NL: How does Vertical Limit compare, as a production, to LOTR?
FIONA: Very different. I was working on set there; here I'm in a workshop. You don't have an idea of the
whole picture because you're so removed from everything. This production is huge, there are so many people
working on it that it's phenomenal.
NL: Do you have an opportunity to visit the sets?
FIONA: I went over and had a look at Elrond's Council Chamber, and went out to Rivendell, when that was
built, just north of Wellington. They're awesome, I really love them.
NL: Did you find those first illustrations inspiring, just based on the material?
FIONA: I'd been working on my own doing my own art for the last so many years, so when I got here I couldn't
actually believe I was getting paid to sculpt and carve and create things I love. That's my motivation for living,
making things like that, and just having that as a job is amazing.
NL: What brought you into art and sculpting in general?
FIONA: My Dad. I have been producing art from my own home. I'm actually a painter, exhibiting in galleries,
mainly on the West Coast, but anywhere I can, some sold through word of mouth and some through galleries. I
have a lot of my own art around my home creating the environment I want to be in. That's my main interest that
follows me throughout.
NL: Have you read LOTR?
FIONA: I'm in the middle of the last book at the moment.
NL: Do you have a sense that what you are creating, and what is being created around you, has captured the
essence of what you're reading?
FIONA: Yeah. I think it's a really difficult and challenging thing Peter [Jackson] is doing, because it is a book,
and everyone interprets it differently. Everyone reads it and creates their own visual image of what those words
mean to them, so to be able to give that back to people, the actual visual image and have everyone happy with it
would be impossible; everyone has got their own ideas. The translation sits quite well with me.
NL: Do you have a particularly favorite piece you have worked on?
FIONA: I quite liked making the Elven tools the other day; they are very beautifully made. I worked on files and
the other guys worked on other tools. They have a lot of inlays, just really beautifully detailed tools that make you
want to go home and detail all your own tools and inlay them with bits of copper and brass. Basically, both we
and the metal workers were handed designs. The metal smiths made the tools up, or we used a lot of old tools,
like old pliers which were sculpted and changed, and then added a lot of detail to make them something special. I
inlaid the handles on the last few days we were working on them, before that I was strung up with numerous
furniture sculpts for the Elves.
NL: So you're given a drawing and it's your job to do the detail?
FIONA: Yes, or we're given a picture and it's our job to make it, however you decide is the best way to do it.
Between talking to all the people upstairs and all the people down stairs, you work out the best ideas, the best
approaches.
NL: Whose illustrations are you working off of?
FIONA: Generally Alan [Lee] does the conceptual drawings and then draughts people do the draught drawings
which come to us with dimensions and scale
NL: When the drawings come in how is it decided who builds what?
FIONA: Sometimes it's just announced. Nick (Weir) will walk in the door with a drawing and say, "Right, Fiona,
here's your next job." Then there're parts of it that we can farm out to other people in the community, who can
create the look we need for cheaper and faster than we can do it, and there're parts we farm out to each other.
NL: What kind of places do you farm out to outside the workshop?
FIONA: Things like casting, getting the feet for the candle sticks cast; it is cheaper for us to farm that out than try
and do the job ourselves. There're quite a lot of jobs like that, like getting things plated. It's great for the
community, for the local businesses.
NL: What would your estimation to be on the impact the film has made on NZ?
FIONA: Quite massive; the spin offs that go through the community. The different places the money is going to is
just fantastic for NZ.
NL: What are your estimations as to the success of Peter Jackson's LOTR?
FIONA: Huge, I think every person in New Zealand will go and see it, certainly. It's hard to know about the rest
of the world, but it's going to be a pretty spectacular set of films. As far as the book goes itself, and turning it into
a movie, the detail that has gone into it is phenomenal. And it's all coming from the book. I can't think of anything
else that has so much detail written into the source, the book itself, which is just amazing. Loads of people are
going to want to see it. Not just for the story, which we all know is great, but for the detail.
NL: Thanks Fiona.
|
|
 |
|