Horsewyse Magazine–LotR Two Towers

Aussie Horse trainer Grahame Ware Jnr has gone from The Saddle Club's 'Staright' to 'Shadowfax', equine star of The Two Towers.

Lord of the Rings–Two Towers opened in Australia amidst much fanfare on Boxing Day 2002 with critics declaring it even better than the first movie in the trilogy, based on the books of J.R.R. Tolkien. There's heaps more horse action in Two Towers, which features the Riders of Rohan–a race of plainsmen whose culture centres around the horse, but the equine star of this movie (from our point of view) is Shadowfax, a role shared by two snowy-white Andalusians named Blanco and Demero.

Australian horse trainer Grahame Ware Jnr. (who also owns and trains The Saddle Club horses) was involved in the training of horses used in Two Towers. Grahame had just finished work on the movie last year before travelling to Victoria to start work on series two of The Saddle Club. At one stage though, he was required to help with a few finishing touches on Two Towers, so was picked up from The Saddle Club set and flown to New Zealand for the day!

There's lots of battle scenes in Two Towers, much of it was filmed using the 'blue screen' technique.

"We did a lot of de-sensitizing with the horses to prepare them for the battle scenes," Grahame said. "We had to teach them to be calm in all situations."

There is one spectacular scene early in the movie where a horse rears up over the top of hobbits, Frodo and Sam. Grahame explained how this was done....

"The horse was taught to stand on a mark and rear over the top of a camera. We buried a plexiglass-covered box containing the camera in the ground and the horse had to rear over the top of this. Director, Peter Jackson also wanted the horse to land with his hooves right in the middle of the glass. That took some doing...I had about three weeks to work on the horse and the scene was shot in a studio set."

The rear was part of a battle scene, which was also filmed indoors on a studio set. "We had around 50 horses for that scene and of these, 20 were owned by the production company and 30 were ridden by their owners. So we not only had to train the horses to work in a studio set, but train the owner/riders as well, to help them understand the basics of filming. We set up some obstacle courses and basically de-sensitized the horses and turned them into fearless machines. In the end those horses were so confident they could have done anything! It was all about never hurting the horses or letting them get upset...keeping them calm and relaxed at all times. Around 35 of those horses were thoroughbreds so we really had our work cut out!

ÓWe also had to teach the riders how to have their horse 'switched on' and 'switched off'...when they called 'action' and the horses and riders had to run, they had to be switched on and run at a gallop, ducking and weaving around people, jumping over bodies on the ground. But once that was over they needed to be switched off, so they could be ridden on a loose rein. The big thing was horse safety and comfort, we wanted to know those horses were looked after, that they weren't over-worked or put into situations where they felt threatened or uncomfortable. It doesn't matter if the scene involves a paper bag on the ground or a huge background explosion...to me, the horse needs to be properly conditioned to whatever he will be facing, big or small.

"We had 50 stunt guys on the ground wearing Orc and Uruk-hai suits and their vision is limited in those suits...they can really only see straight ahead. Well they had around 60 horses galloping through them which means they have to have trust in those horses and their riders. They expect to take the occasional fall but they're not there to get trampled! It's all choreographed, there's no 'let's just do it and hope for the best'. Everything is planned and trained for right down to the last detail."

Shadowfax makes his appearance in the movie when summoned by the wizard Gandalf–played by Ian McKellan, who you might also remember as the bad guy in the X-Men movie. Shadowfax will allow only Gandalf on his back and together they travel and go into battle.
"Blanco and Demero shared the role of Shadowfax but I chose to work mainly with Blanco throughout the film and swapped them around for some of the stunts. I found Blanco the better horse to work with. It's hard to have a horse that rears and does liberty work, then put actors on them. This meant I worked with Ian McKellen, who I found to be very obliging and good to work with. He's not a 'horse person' as such but he had a lot of respect for the horses."

Ian was required to ride without saddle or bridle, so Grahame had his work cut out, especially when you consider Blanco was a stallion sharing a set with 200+ other horses!

Another scene-stealer (from a horsey viewpoint) was when Aragorn (played by Viggo Mortensen) is injured and lying wounded alongside a river. His horse locates him, rolls him over and lies down so Aragorn can scramble aboard.

"I trained a horse named Brownie for that scene, but a lot of the scene was cut which was a shame as it was probably the hardest thing I'd done and was under pressure to get it all together."

Grahame's wife, Vicki (also an experienced horse-person) was present during the filming of that scene. Grahame and Vicki had only recently married and she got to visit him in New Zealand for a (sort of) honeymoon.

"Everyone who watched that scene being filmed had tears in their eyes, even on rehearsal days," Vicki said. "Brownie was fantastic. Viggo jumped up off the ground and hugged Grahame because he was so thrilled with how it all went. I told Grahame that we HAD to bring Brownie back home as he's something special and tried so hard."

While Brownie did that scene's stunts, the horse Aragorn rides off on was named Uraus, a warmblood stallion that Viggo liked so much he ended up purchasing him. Uraus is still in New Zealand and Grahame will continue working with him for the third movie.

Vicki continued, "When Grahame first arrived in New Zealand, all the horses were enjoying a break between movies but they took to him like a duck to water...they fell in love with him. That rearing scene (discussed earlier)...no-one's ever done that in a movie before as far as we know, and we've seen just about every horse movie. The day after Two Towers opened in America, the American Humane Society called and congratulated Grahame on the horse work, commenting that he'd brought the horses into true character."

Grahame didn't actually do any riding in Two Towers, although he will probably have to ride a few of the stunts in the third movie, which also features a lot of horse action. "It's too hard co-ordinating everything AND be on a horse. I have to consult with Peter Jackson, the stunt department and give instructions. But if there's a stunt or rearing scene in the third movie, then I might have to get dressed up!"

So what's it like to be involved with such a famous movie...or trilogy of movies? "It's fantastic," Grahame replied. "But it doesn't matter to me if it's the biggest film in the world, or the smallest....I still put in the same amount of effort. I like what I do and consider myself lucky to work in an area I enjoy so much."

Grahame's work on Two Towers has raised his profile to such an extent he's now one of the most highly regarded and sought-after horse trainers world-wide and deservedly so. When you see him working with horses, you can recognise an almost uncanny affinity he has with them–they WANT to do what he's asking them to do, all without force or gadgets.

Right now Grahame is back in New Zealand hard at work on The Return of the King, the third and final installment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. After finishing work on The Saddle Club late last year, he filmed a commercial in between Christmas and New Year, before heading back to New Zealand around mid-January. He even had to knock back working on Tom Cruise's new movie The Last Samurai, which is also being filmed in New Zealand.

The horse scenes in Two Towers are certainly spectacular...as many as 250 horses were filmed riding side by side across the New Zealand terrain. Seventy saddles were specially made for the movie, each aged, painted and embossed with Middle-earth history. All saddlery was specially crafted to fit into the Middle-earth era, including some spectacular horse armour. The armoured helmets worn by the Riders of Rohan featured flowing horse manes.

A stable was established near Wellington where 75 core production horses were trained. The actors were encouraged to visit the stables anytime to ride their horses and Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom often visited for a leisurely ride, even on their days off.

There are quite a few 'how did they do that?' horse scenes, including one where Gandalf and other horsemen ride down a dangerously steep hill and while they did ride down a hill, it was a lot less steep than depicted in the film. There's also scenes where horses and riders appear to ride straight into the spears of their enemy, and to ride across a narrow bridge, trampling and knocking the enemy off. All this was filmed using the blue screen technique and digitally enhanced post-production. The dead horses in some scenes were costumed prop horses with taxidermy horses used for closer camera angles.

So what happens in the third movie? Well there's plenty more horse action, that's for sure, so no doubt Grahame is real busy right now! Lucky thing.......

©2003 Horsewyse Magazine