LotR Limited Ed. DVD Extras (RotK) - Shelob's Lair....
Last "Limited Edition" LotR DVD screencaps. Honestly. Below are a mere dozen caps, but I saved them for last because they are so beautiful.
~*~
In this bit of the RotK "Limited Edition" Extras, Elijah is merely standing around the Shelob's Lair set -- somewhat in character, mostly out -- while crew members fiddle about with this before continuing.
The frames taken from this moment are, to me, absolutely exquisite. You know how the face of Elijah Wood as Frodo affects me: the aesthetic power of its classical beauty: a face straight out of the history of painting. These caps exemplify that quality to a very high degree: every frame a work of art, portraits of what pearlette calls a "Baroque angel".
I also think that the shreds of spiderweb that partially obscure Frodo's face from view add a wonderful effect. They make a veil, almost, stretched across the image of his face. A veil which only accentuates the sense of mystery and near-other-worldliness many of us see in film-Frodo.
We see Frodo plainly; as he is, but we also see him through the scrims of our imaginations. Stealing from a famous text, we see him "dimly", but, one day, we hope, if only in our imaginations, "face to face" -- as his creator, Tolkien saw him. Whether fully-revealed or veiled, his face takes my breath away.
Once again, many thanks to jan-u-wine for loaning me these DVD's.
Note: As usual, these have been tweaked for brightness but especially for sharpness. The top images were the most blurry, but so beautiful! You can try sharpening them more, but the surface of the image begins to look like cheesecloth or windowscreen. If that is an effect you like, go to it!
ETA:
This is to let fans of these images know that wendylady1 has just made some really striking versions of one of the last screencaps in the series, using a photo-shopping program. The effects are subtle so that they don't destroy the original image, but bring out moods and nuances in different ways.
If you would like to see Wendy's enigmatic caps, go HERE.
ETA #2:
Another of my artist-Frodo-friends (and current chief beta of "Threshold"), stillscarlet, has also photoshopped one of these images. I had a huge weakness for an Elijah she had done a while back, as if behind a scrim of lace. It made me think of him looking wistfully out of a window (see image I am referring to in a comment below). So, acquiesing to my wishes, she made a few lace ones of one of the Shelob's Lair cap, also ones using gorgeous "oil painting" and "tree bark" effects.
To see Scarlet's screencap versions, go HERE.
~ Elijah Wood as Frodo, while filming the Shelob's Lair scene for RotK:
P.S. There's a great little sequence in which Andy Serkis, off-camera, helps spur Elijah's reactions by delivering some of Gollum's most taunting lines while Frodo is hung suspended in the web.
So that's where that look of blazing fury came from! Unfortunately, it didn't really make good caps. But, again, it was an example of a generous artist: an actor who made it his business to bring the most out of his fellow-performers with his enthusiastic engagement, even though he was not on-screen himself.
~ Mechtild
Listing of all Frodo and Elijah screencaps HERE.
~*~
In this bit of the RotK "Limited Edition" Extras, Elijah is merely standing around the Shelob's Lair set -- somewhat in character, mostly out -- while crew members fiddle about with this before continuing.
The frames taken from this moment are, to me, absolutely exquisite. You know how the face of Elijah Wood as Frodo affects me: the aesthetic power of its classical beauty: a face straight out of the history of painting. These caps exemplify that quality to a very high degree: every frame a work of art, portraits of what pearlette calls a "Baroque angel".
I also think that the shreds of spiderweb that partially obscure Frodo's face from view add a wonderful effect. They make a veil, almost, stretched across the image of his face. A veil which only accentuates the sense of mystery and near-other-worldliness many of us see in film-Frodo.
We see Frodo plainly; as he is, but we also see him through the scrims of our imaginations. Stealing from a famous text, we see him "dimly", but, one day, we hope, if only in our imaginations, "face to face" -- as his creator, Tolkien saw him. Whether fully-revealed or veiled, his face takes my breath away.
Once again, many thanks to jan-u-wine for loaning me these DVD's.
Note: As usual, these have been tweaked for brightness but especially for sharpness. The top images were the most blurry, but so beautiful! You can try sharpening them more, but the surface of the image begins to look like cheesecloth or windowscreen. If that is an effect you like, go to it!
ETA:
This is to let fans of these images know that wendylady1 has just made some really striking versions of one of the last screencaps in the series, using a photo-shopping program. The effects are subtle so that they don't destroy the original image, but bring out moods and nuances in different ways.
If you would like to see Wendy's enigmatic caps, go HERE.
ETA #2:
Another of my artist-Frodo-friends (and current chief beta of "Threshold"), stillscarlet, has also photoshopped one of these images. I had a huge weakness for an Elijah she had done a while back, as if behind a scrim of lace. It made me think of him looking wistfully out of a window (see image I am referring to in a comment below). So, acquiesing to my wishes, she made a few lace ones of one of the Shelob's Lair cap, also ones using gorgeous "oil painting" and "tree bark" effects.
To see Scarlet's screencap versions, go HERE.
~ Elijah Wood as Frodo, while filming the Shelob's Lair scene for RotK:
P.S. There's a great little sequence in which Andy Serkis, off-camera, helps spur Elijah's reactions by delivering some of Gollum's most taunting lines while Frodo is hung suspended in the web.
So that's where that look of blazing fury came from! Unfortunately, it didn't really make good caps. But, again, it was an example of a generous artist: an actor who made it his business to bring the most out of his fellow-performers with his enthusiastic engagement, even though he was not on-screen himself.
~ Mechtild
Listing of all Frodo and Elijah screencaps HERE.