“Whenever I start a scene, whether it’s action or drama, for me the first thing is to film emotion.” — Charlotte Brändström, Director “As a director, it’s about the language. If I have a good understanding of the story and the characters, I know where to place the camera. And there’s only one possible position for the camera in order to reflect the psychology of the characters and the moment you are portraying.” — J.A. Bayona, Director IN THE FAMILY: DIRECTING On-set camaraderie was an essential component in making The Rings of Power
J .A. Bayona, Charlotte Brändström, and Wayne Che Yip were hand-picked to bring Middle- earth to life, each tasked with helming multiple episodes in the first season of The Rings of Power. Each had to navigate a mix of location shoots, studio sets, and virtual sets, and make the episodes feel visually and tonally coherent—and all under strict COVID-19 hygiene restrictions. Yip says the job of directing on a show as expansive as this one required the right mix of wide-eyed ambition, but also attention to detail and working closely with the cast. “As a director, you’re not there to teach people how to act. You’re there to find those moments that help actors to go in directions that their instincts are taking them.” He also says that his role was made easier by the quality of the collaborators on set. There was an almost magical synergy between the New Zealand-based crew and those who had arrived
from overseas. And working at the complete beck and call of hundreds of extras and technicians— and still maintaining total control—was a strange but satisfying feeling. “You feel that you have an ability to control time,” says Yip. For Brändström, she saw her job as a keeper of the flame in terms of stylistic continuity. “Whenever I start a scene, whether it’s action or drama, for me the first thing is to film emotion,” she says, “You can’t film only the action, because if you do, the action becomes a beer commercial. You want to tell a story with the action.” Bayona, too, was very mindful of all the things that Tolkien does that makes his words so timeless. “When you read Tolkien, the landscape is impossible to separate from the storytelling,” he says. “He created a whole geography, not only characters and a story. So landscape, language, character, story are the basis of this world.”
Bottom Left: Director J.A. Bayona with Daniel Weyman (as The Stranger). Bottom Right: Director Charlotte Brändström on location at the top of Mt. Kidd.
Above: Director Wayne Che Yip discussing the scene with Cynthia Addai-Robinson (as Queen Regent Míriel).
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