Following a chat with Pete and Sara, Paige and I began to realise that the amount of work that would be necessary to pull off a film of this scale would be much more to take on than we had initially anticipated. Therefore it became necessary to drop our other, larger credit projects that we had been intending to do alongside preparing for Men of the North and focus solely on preparations for the film.
With this in mind, it became crucial to meet with Charlie and explain the enormity of his expectations to him; not necessarily to say that we couldn't do it, but more to make him aware of the extra time and budget that would be needed. It was now also of the upmost importance to get a final answer regarding the number of actors that would require Orc make-ups and how many of these would be featured in detail on screen.
Charlie seemed quite shocked when we explained to him the amount of time that would need to be dedicated to the project and asked us if we were sure we were happy to take the project on before we assured him that we were. He told us that he had decided that he wanted 5 Orcs that would be shown in more detailed, close-up shots and another 2-3 extras that would be brought in for fight scenes that would require Orc make-up that would only be shown from a distance.
I set about trying to gain some more specific information from Charlie regarding the Orc characters. I had noticed in the Lord of the Rings films that in battle, the Orcs wear war paint in the form of a white hand print known as the 'Hand of Sauroman', indicating their allegiance. I was curious as to the specific time period that the film was set in; whether this would be before, after or during the reign of Sauroman as this would then influence the type of war paint that could be applied. Charlie said that he envisaged the time period being just at the very beginning of Sauroman's reign; just before the Lord of the Rings films begin their story. He was very interesting in having some form of tribal markings or war paint on the Orc characters, however, he did not want to use something previously seen like the white hand. Instead he requested that we perhaps come up with personalised tribal markings for each Orc, unspecified at this early stage, but something that he promised to consider more thoroughly.
In terms of the Hunter Orc character, I had previously found myself envisaging a character with a large amount of long, matted black hair. When I raised the subject of Orc hair with Charlie he instantly mentioned a desire for dreadlocks, before I had even mentioned my own ideas. It appeared that we were in agreement on this element of the character.
Finally we wanted to tackle the issue of eyes and teeth on the Orc characters. Whilst watching the films both Paige and I had commented that both of these elements formed a crucial part of the character, and were something that could potentially ruin the look of an Orc if ignored or not done properly. The issue was, however, that we were unable to do anything regarding teeth or eyes ourselves due to health and safety issues and a lack of proper training. Charlie seemed very keen on the idea of getting contact lenses if the budget would allow it, and to include a variety of both yellow and red lenses. We explained that we should be able to find something online for a reasonable price, but shot down his idea of using one set of lenses to be rotated throughout different cast members as this would be a health and safety no-no! Although we would be unable to make a set of teeth for each cast member we were aware that pre-made teeth could be bought from companies like Charles Fox for a reasonable price. Charlie, again, seemed keen on this idea so we agreed to research the possibilities and also explore the range of speech that an actor would have whilst wearing false teeth.
We had previously arranged dates and times to take beard measurements from the human cast members and face casts from the Orc cast members, however, there was still a little uncertainty as to when we would be able to meet with John; the actor playing the Hunter Orc, to take the necessary casts and measurements from him. This time, however, Charlie had more firm dates agreed and told us that John would be back in the country on the 14th March, which would mean that we could meet with him after the Easter break, though unfortunately not before.
Although the amount of make-up necessary for the Orc characters had increased, we were pleased to discover that the amount of knotting and postiche work that we would need to tackle had actually decreased. We had previously been told by Charlie that the actor playing Cadoc (Matt) would be unable to grow a beard and had therefore assumed that a beard would need to be made for him. In this meeting, however, Charlie went on to say that he had decided to leave the character as clean shaven to add a little variety to the overall look of the group. This meant that the only human character would be requiring a pre-made beard would be Reigna (Walter) as Charlie had previously requested that he look like a character from Rohan in the Lord of the Rings films and have a longer, plaited beard.
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