The forest of Lindon was built on a stage by Ramsey Avery and his design team. Additional details like the waterfalls were digitally added in later.

Prime Video (Lindon)

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Fantastic Filming

Meet the team bringing the world of the Lord of the Rings to your TV screen

September 2022
By Jennifer Hackett

The kingdom of Lindon is a beautiful place with a lush forest of golden-leafed trees. But it can’t be found on a real map. Until recently, it existed only in the footnotes and appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved Lord of the Rings books. On September 2, Lindon comes to life in the new Amazon TV show Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Instead of being built by elves, Lindon was made on a stage by talented artists and engineers.

The Lord of the Rings series takes place in Middle Earth, a fantasy world full of elves, dwarves, hobbits, humans, and more. It’s one of the most famous fictional places of all time. Because it’s so well-known, creating the locations in the show was an exciting challenge for production designer Ramsey Avery.

Unlike the movies based on the books, The Rings of Power is a new story based on the extensive background history Tolkien wrote but never published in a full novel. That means many of the locations—including Lindon—don’t have complete descriptions.

The kingdom of Lindon is a beautiful place. It has a lush forest of trees with golden leaves. But it can’t be found on a real map. Until recently, it existed only in the Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien. On September 2, Lindon comes to life in a new Amazon TV show. It’s called Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In the books, Lindon was built by elves. But it was brought to life on a stage by talented artists and engineers.

The Lord of the Rings series takes place in Middle Earth. This fantasy world is full of elves, dwarves, hobbits, humans, and more. It’s one of the most famous fictional places of all time. Because it’s so well-known, people already have ideas about what it looks like, says production designer Ramsey Avery. That made creating the locations in the show an exciting challenge

Six movies have come out based on the books. But The Rings of Power is a totally new story. It’s based on the background history that Tolkien wrote but never published in a full novel. Many of the locations in the story, including Lindon, aren’t described completely. In fact, Lindon is only mentioned in footnotes in the books.

Prime Video (Howe)

John Howe starts all his concept designs with a series of rough sketches.

“We don’t know what Lindon, the grand Elvish kingdom in the second age, looked like,” Ramsey says. “Tolkien doesn’t give us many clues.”

Avery worked with other artists and the director to piece the few clues they did have into designs that felt like the Middle Earth we’ve seen in previous movies. One of those artists was John Howe, an illustrator and concept artist who also worked on the films. When working on a concept illustration, Howe imagines that he’s actually looking at the location from a distance. “It’s very much like visiting a place you have never been but creating it as you go,” he says.

“We don’t know what Lindon, the grand Elvish kingdom in the second age, looked like,” says Avery. “Tolkien doesn’t give us many clues.”

Avery worked with other artists and the director to design the sets. First they pieced together the few clues they did have about places like Lindon. Then they incorporated them into designs that felt like the Middle Earth in previous movies.

One of the artists Avery worked with was John Howe. He’s an illustrator and concept artist who also worked on the earlier films. To illustrate a location, Howe imagines that he’s looking at it from a distance. “It’s very much like visiting a place you have never been,” he says, “but creating it as you go.”

As a lifelong fan, Avery was thrilled to design this new part of Middle Earth. “Tolkien’s books were key to my hideaway nerd world. They opened my eyes to how vast and wonderful the world could be,” he says. “And now I have been part of bringing them to life!”

Avery has been a lifelong fan of Lord of the Rings. That meant he was thrilled to design this new part of Middle Earth. “Tolkien’s books were key to my hideaway nerd world,” he says. “They opened my eyes to how vast and wonderful the world could be. And now I have been part of bringing them to life!”

Ben Rothstein/Prime Video (New Zealand)

The series was filmed in real locations across New Zealand that Avery selected and on stages built by the production team.

ANNOTATING WORD PROBLEMS

Word problems can help artists like Avery figure out how to design and build sets for the show. Annotating, or marking up, a word problem is one strategy you can use to help you interpret and solve these problems.

EXAMPLE

CIRCLE words that you do not recognize or understand.

HIGHLIGHT the question the word problem is asking.

UNDERLINE important details, such as numbers, symbols, or key words.

STEP 1

Read the word problem twice. Annotate the problem using the conventions above.

STEP 2

Use what you underlined to devise a solution strategy. To find the number of New Zealanders in the crew, multiply the total number of the crew by 0.90, the percent rewritten as a decimal.

800 × 0.90 = 720

STEP 3

Restate the question in your answer.

There were 720 New Zealanders in The Rings of Power’s crew.

ANNOTATING WORD PROBLEMS

Word problems can help artists like Avery figure out how to design and build sets for the show. Annotating, or marking up, a word problem is one strategy you can use to help you interpret and solve these problems.

EXAMPLE

CIRCLE words that you do not recognize or understand.

HIGHLIGHT the question the word problem is asking.

UNDERLINE important details, such as numbers, symbols, or key words.

STEP 1

Read the word problem twice. Annotate the problem using the conventions above.

STEP 2

Use what you underlined to devise a solution strategy. To find the number of New Zealanders in the crew, multiply the total number of the crew by 0.90, the percent rewritten as a decimal.

800 × 0.90 = 720

STEP 3

Restate the question in your answer.

There were 720 New Zealanders in The Rings of Power’s crew.

Annotate and solve each word problem below related to creating The Rings of Power. Use the online answer sheet to record your work and answers.

Annotate and solve each word problem below related to creating The Rings of Power. Use the online answer sheet to record your work and answers.

Howe brainstorms a new location by drawing sketches. He makes at least 5 and no more than 12 sketches per day. What’s the greatest number of sketches he would make in 6 days?

Howe brainstorms a new location by drawing sketches. He makes at least 5 and no more than 12 sketches per day. What’s the greatest number of sketches he would make in 6 days?

For one set, Avery’s team had to create hillocks and valleys on a dirt floor. To make a valley, set builders dug a conical hole with a radius of 10 feet and a depth of 4 feet. What volume of dirt did they dig up, rounded to the nearest tenth? (Hint: Volume of a cone =  1/3 ×  h × π × r2)

For one set, Avery’s team had to create hillocks and valleys on a dirt floor. To make a valley, set builders dug a conical hole with a radius of 10 feet and a depth of 4 feet. What volume of dirt did they dig up, rounded to the nearest tenth? (Hint: Volume of a cone =  1/3 ×  h × π × r2)

A. The trees in Lindon are called mallorn trees. Each tree has leaves made of silk, and each leaf was about 7 square inches in area. How many mallorn leaves could be cut from a bolt of silk that was 3,600 inches long and 42 inches wide, assuming there were no gaps?

A. The trees in Lindon are called mallorn trees. Each tree has leaves made of silk, and each leaf was about 7 square inches in area. How many mallorn leaves could be cut from a bolt of silk that was 3,600 inches long and 42 inches wide, assuming there were no gaps?

B. A single mallorn tree needed about 100,000 silk leaves. How many bolts of silk were needed to make leaves for 4 trees?

B. A single mallorn tree needed about 100,000 silk leaves. How many bolts of silk were needed to make leaves for 4 trees?

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