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Saruman’s Stronghold

The Making of Orthanc

© Lotrscenerybuilder 2010

VI. ‘A graveyard of unquiet dead’

So we didn’t really mind when another urgent matter started to nag us: the furnishing of the tower’s environment. As the Games Workshop TT ‘Journey Supplement’ explains, “… the torn and ripped landscape at Orthanc is covered in ramshackle mine workings and lifting gear used by Saruman’s minions to excavate the land for its iron ore.” One of these contraptions is the so called ‘Infamous Wheel’ with its vampire killing stakes…

There was no thinking of doing without at least some of these scaffolds, including the wheel. So we picked up the old wheelwright trade and set new things in motion.

Scaffolds were built from matches and strips of cardboard.

In a fit of enthusiasm we decided to construct one of these lifting cranes as well; it took an extra hour or two, but it was time well spent. Nothing like the treadmill-exercise of the past weeks.

Lastly, we had to make a fitting Isengard board. With half of the lotrscenerybuilder residence already turned into Middle-earth, our storage capacity is dwindling fast (it doesn’t please the missus at all to see her summer frocks having to share the wardrobe with Carchost and Narchost). Therefore we decided to construct a two-piece scenery board. At the centre, a detachable plate would contain the tower and Sharkey’s wheel; round it, a ring-plate was going to carry the offshoots of Mathedras. No doubt the Orthanc part was going to survive the War of Wrath at the end of the shooting… but probably not the Wizard’s Vale.

The jigsaw-shape of the centre plate made it possible to rotate the tower a quarter turn: that way we could photograph the tower in different positions without loosing the view of the backdrop mountains. A fistful of “Low mounds and domes of stone” were carved from a scrap of foam board.

One of the oddities that we encountered while we were doing our research for the Orthanc project, was the “Mystery of the Twisted Horns”. Each horn that crowns the summit of Orthanc is in fact a prolongation of one of the four piers. In consequence, the number of horns that is visible when looking at the tower depends on the position of the viewer (or the camera): if one is standing in line with one of the four main faces – say, a ‘ninety degrees position’, then one should see at least three, and probably all four of them…

If, on the other hand, the camera is aimed straight at the centre between two piers – a ‘forty-five degrees position’, then only two horns are visible. As long as the summit horns are seen at close quarters, their arrangement doesn’t cause any confusion. Seen from afar, however, these horns seem to merge into an obscure set of peaks that resembles… a bunch of tulips. Therefore, in case of a long shot, the ‘forty-five degrees position’ is the best if one doesn’t want to strip Saruman’s abode from its nasty, thorny character. Now if you study some of the Orthanc screen shots (for example the one where Gandalf on horseback is approaching the Ring of Isengard) you will notice that the position of the horns isn’t always corresponding with the position of the piers… Apparently the digital magicians of Weta felt the need to ‘improve’ the looks of the tower by giving its crown a subtle twist – like a cork in a bottleneck!