SCADTV Fest ‘23 - Speaking with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power creatives John Howe, Kate Hawley, and Ramsey Avery
While at the 2023 SCAD TVFest in Atlanta, Blackfilmandtv.com had the opportunity to speak with some of the creative team of Prime Video’s critically acclaimed series: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. On hand with John Howe (Concept Artist), Kate Hawley (Costume Designer) and Ramsey Avery (Production Designer) as they discussed their collaboration with the showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay.
What came first, the illustration, the production or the costumes?
Ramsey Avery (Production Designer): It depends on the on the part where you are in the process. There were definitely things that Kate came up with first, and I was like, "Oh, this is how the world fits around that," or John would have sketches that I came up with that makes sense and how we develop this. It's just a back and forth and it's all the time and some of the way it really works.
What was the challenge in creating something new so any of the folks who knew your previous work elsewhere wouldn’t see any repeats?
John Howe (Concept Artist): This is a world that we have visited before and it belongs to the audience. Here we are, going back but not to the same place because it’s a different time. So the only true way of depicting now is to get out to originally calculate while you're trying to find a spark that you had beginning and then designing something moving forward. The show runners were amazing in creating the storylines and fleshing out the characters.
How much leeway were you given in doing what you do best? What came first, the concept or the budget?
Ramsey Avery (Production Designer): To be very specific about it, we were creating eight hours of content, right? A Marvel movie is two and a half hours of content. So we had to come up with three Marvel movies for the budget, basically, of one Marvel movie. So the budget really was constantly an issue. It's always a matter of you have to design in the context of the budget and with a concept for the schedule. What comes first and what we're going to make first because it's always changing. Yeah. So it's all of that. There's the whole creative vibe that you want to get into, but you are having to do within a budget and the schedule and the practicalities of the world and the people that you're working with.
In terms of the costumes, how challenging was it to everyone look different?
Kate Hawley (Costume Designer): Well, there's the overall culture and race that you're dealing with the environment there. And so I always approach it with big, broad strokes. And I do that in conjunction with John and Ramsey. And then I focus in on the detail, and it's about the individual arc of that character, and how they sit in relation to others. And with talking, especially the environment that they're in. So I stopped being on board and then go into the detail, but we use the same thing as sort of focusing on the broad scale of the show, and then the detail of one story, you have to keep moving in and out of that.