— Martin Freeman’s hobbit Bilbo along with the dwarves all needed to appear smaller than the humans and elves. To achieve the necessary scaled effect in The Lord Of The Rings, director Peter Jackson and crew positioned the larger characters closer to the camera, but because The Hobbit would be screened in 3D and 3D reveals such camera eye-trickery, the filmmakers used Slave Motion Control cameras. These cameras allowed two mirrored sets to be filmed simultaneously, with Bilbo and the dwarves acting on one set and Sir Ian McKellen, who plays the wizard Gandalf, acting on a smaller-scaled green-screened set. The filmmakers were able to merge the scenes in post, making it appear that Gandalf was much bigger than his companions.

[Photo via Popular Mechanics]