answers: New Zealand
context: Rivers in August 1997 and assigned his crew to begin designing Middle-earth at the same time. Jackson hired long-time collaborator Richard Taylor to lead Weta Workshop on five major design elements: armour, weapons, prosthetics/make-up, creatures, and miniatures. In November 1997, famed Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe joined the project. Most of the imagery in the films is based on their various illustrations. Production designer Grant Major was charged with the task of converting Lee and Howe's designs into architecture, creating models of the sets, while Dan Hennah worked as art director, scouting locations and organising the building of </s> as envisioned by Jackson was primarily designed by Alan Lee and John Howe, former Tolkien illustrators, and created by Weta Workshop, who handled all the trilogy's weapons, armour, miniatures, prosthetics, and creatures, as well as the Art Department which built the sets. Richard Taylor headed Weta, while Grant Major and Dan Hennah organised the planning and building respectively. The city of Minas Tirith, glimpsed briefly in both the previous two films, is seen fully in this film, and with it the Gondorian civilisation. The enormous soundstage was built at Dry Creek Quarry, outside Wellington, from the Helm's Deep set. That </s> to New Zealand for stunts, and spent five days on a barrel for Bruinen whilst riding double Jane Abbott got to ride on horseback. During the first month of filming, Stuart Townsend was deemed too young to play Aragorn, and within three days Viggo Mortensen became his replacement, just in time to film the Weathertop sequence. Mortensen, who decided to take the role in part because his own son was a fan of the series, became a hit on set, going fishing, always taking his "hero" sword around and applying dirt to his costume to improve costume designer Ngila Dickson's
question: where were the lord of the rings movies filmed