The story of The Lord of the Rings begins with the forging of the rings, whether that’s in J.R.R. Tolkien’s epigraph to the beloved book series or the opening shot of the acclaimed 2001 film adaptation in which molten metal is carefully dripped into a casting mold.
So to reveal the title for Prime Video’s upcoming series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, it only makes sense that the streamer went back to where it all began.
In a minute-long video sharing the name of the anticipated series, Prime Video forged the title of the upcoming series in metal to kick off an eight-month effort to promote the series ahead of its September premiere. And no, the metal-working is not CGI: The marketing team used practical effects to lend the reveal as much realism as they could muster.
“What could be more true to the spirit of Tolkien than to actually forge something in molten metal?” Glenn Sanders, global senior creative director at Amazon Studios, told Marketing Brew.
The real deal
Prime Video’s creative and marketing teams kicked around the idea of using CGI and still images before realizing the actual forging process might be more impactful for fans. The only problem? “Nobody knew how to do this,” Sanders said.
They turned to help, bringing aboard director Klaus Obermeyer Jr. and his cinematography expertise in high-speed cameras and motion control, and Douglas Trumbull, a special-effects master known for films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blade Runner. It ended up being one of the last projects Trumbull worked on before his death this week at 79 years old.
The filming took place in November over six days at the MFA Foundry in Los Angeles, where master craftsman and founder Landon Ryan led the metalworking itself. There were a few lessons the team learned right away, including that camera lenses don’t tolerate high heat. “A couple of lenses caught fire in the process of kind of learning how to do things,” Sanders admitted.
Another lesson: “When you put 1,700-degree molten metal on dry wood, a dry wooden board, the wood will just explode,” Sanders said. “It just ignites, and you can’t really capture the image.”
Attention to detail
The igniting wood posed a challenge until Ryan came up with a workaround: creating a sand-casted mold to stand in as the wooden mold in certain shots.
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In the final product, the shots with the wood mold and sand-casted mold disguised as wood are impossible to distinguish.
The team also had to determine which metal to use, based on its color and the quality of the pour. Aluminum was a first choice, but it flowed so fast through the molds it looked watery. Bronze had more viscosity and offered slightly more control when poured—so it won out.
Source material
The team filmed at extreme close-ups and at extremely high speeds, sometimes filming at 5,000 frames per second. The close-up treatment presented an opportunity to hide extra details for fans, including Tolkien’s epigraph about the rings, written in Elvish, inscribed on the sides of the letters. If fans didn’t spot the Elvish, the first half of Tolkien’s poem is also prominently featured in the title reveal as the video’s voice-over.
The final result is designed to appeal both to long-time fans and first-timers alike, said Greg Coleman, global head of franchise marketing at Amazon.
“Whether you see the details of the Elvish lettering, which is an Easter egg that we want you to see, or if it’s just the mesmerizing moments of the metal pouring down and those beautiful effects, I think there’s something here for everyone to enjoy,” he said.
Fueled by fans
The painstaking approach paid off immediately after the video’s release. In 24 hours, the video, which had no paid media backing, received more than 1 billion impressions, Coleman said.
In the coming months, marketing will ratchet up as footage from the show becomes available. While Coleman declined to share more marketing plans, Prime Video will likely devote considerable marketing efforts to it, since the series will likely be the most expensive television show ever made.
Filming the metal-working revealed to the team elements of the craft that are rarely captured on video in such stark relief.
“When you shoot things practically, you’re surprised every single time, and you never know really what you’re going to get,” Sanders recalls Trumbull telling the team during the shoot. “That’s part of the beauty of doing something like this.”