In The Frodo Franchise, I devote a brief section of Chapter 9 to discussing the impact that the technical innovations devised for The Lord of the Rings trilogy had on the film industry. Two of those innovations, the Massive program for generating realistic crowd scenes and the skin-simulation system used for Gollum, are fairly familiar to fans. One other crucial innovation, however, has perhaps been even more important to the way films look in the post-Rings era: selective digital grading.

Digital grading involves scanning the shots of a film into a computer, using a program to manipulate their color, light, and other photographic qualities. Then the result is scanned back onto a film negative, which is used to print the copies sent out to theaters. About 70 to 80% of The Fellowship of the Ring was done with a “digital intermediate” or DI. All of The Two Towers and The Return of the King were handled this way.

Peter Doyle helped invent the process used, and he and his colleagues fashioned it specifically for Rings. The program was later named 5D Colossus (and now is sold under the name Lustre). On one of the first days when I was doing research in Wellington in October, 2003, Peter kindly gave me a demonstration of how selective digital grading is done. “Selective” means that the Colossus system allows the colorist to isolate a portion of the frame, manipulate its look without changing anything else in the composition, and then let the computer add the same effects to the other frames of the shot. Without such automation, the manipulation of photographic effects on a DI would be hopelessly lengthy and expensive.

It’s actually a beautiful process to watch, and one gains a real sense of just how many choices at every step of production digital technology has given filmmakers. By the way, as Peter and I were sitting at a computer for the demonstration, he looked over at the monitor of the workstation to our left and remarked, “Oh, there’s the last shot of the film.” I saw a track-in to a round yellow door as Sam and his family disappeared inside. I remember how much speculation there was on the internet at the time about how the film would end, but I got a lovely preview indicating that it would end much as Tolkien’s novel did. (Later, when I toured Weta Digital, I saw the shot of Gollum falling into the lava being animated. What are the odds of seeing those two particular moments?)

Peter gives a brief demonstration of how the process works in the “Digital Grading” supplement on the extended-edition DVD of Fellowship. Well worth a look, since it shows how much of the rich autumnal oranges of Rivendell, the golden green of the Shire, and the pearlescent complexion of Galadriel came from changes made in the computer.

When I asked producer Barrie Osborne what he thought some of the most important influences Rings would have on the industry, he mentioned its extensive use of digital intermediates.

Nowadays digital intermediates for color grading and other manipulations have become standard practice. In low-budget films, the digital phase may only be used for effects shots or to correct mistakes, such as erasing unwanted wires or cars in the backgrounds of scenes. Bigger films use DIs throughout. Watch the credits of any film these days, and they are likely to include at least a brief section on DIs.

Now an historical study has been written that confirms the importance of Rings in the development of digital grading: Scott Higgins’ Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s (University of Texas Press, 2007). As the name suggests, Higgins deals mainly with Technicolor, the now-defunct but fondly remembered color process that had its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. Technicolor was undoubtedly the best of the color processes used over Hollywood’s history. It could achieve bright, saturated hues beyond the reach of Eastmancolor and other stocks. When Technicolor went out of use in the 1970s, a distinctive look went with it.

Now, however, Higgins says, digital color grading is giving filmmakers an enormous range of choices and hence the ability to recapture something of that look. He confirms what Barrie told me about the crucial importance of Rings in the adoption of this system across the mainstream film industry:

From a technological standpoint, the most important laboratory for digital technology has been Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) trilogy. As with Gone with the Wind, a superproduction provided a thoroughgoing test of the technology and encouraged experimentation. The economies of scale involved in producing three back-to-back features effectively turned the Lord of the Rings franchise into a research and development corporation. In a dynamic relationship reminiscent of that between Technicolor and Pioneer [producer of Becky Sharp, the first three-strip Technicolor feature], Jackson and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie employed a prototype digital system manufactured by the UK-based 5D company. In turn, 5D, refined its Colossus system to meet the producer’s needs, reasoning that this would make it more compatible with the norms of film production and more appealing to the industry. (pp. 214-15)

Higgins goes into greater detail than I was able to in his discussions of the major early films to use DIs, Pleasantville (1998) and O Brother Where Art Thou?(2000). He goes on to discuss how Martin Scorsese used digital color grading to recapture something of the look of 1930s Technicolor in his period piece, The Aviator (2004).

It has been only a little over six years since Fellowship came out, yet already it’s easy to forget how innovative it was. But as I tried to demonstrate in my book, the trilogy had an impact on the film world that was varied and dramatic. Higgins’ discussion of modern color grading provides a reminder of that and offers strong evidence that Barrie was right in his prediction.