A Conspiracy Unmasked

DIARY OF A CITY GUARD – PART 9

A series of irreverent tales from my experience as a Tolkien-nerd working as an extra on the first series of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power television show.

One of the Assistant Directors (ADs) comes up to our table in the extras holding tent where we’ve been sitting uncomfortably, drinking tea and coffee and eating free snacks since our arrival a couple of hours ago.

“Ok city guards, we’re going to set now, grab your helmets and follow me”

Hooray! FINALLY. I say FINALLY, but to be honest it all happened pretty quickly. It only feels like a FINALLY in retrospect as I write part nine of a series that I began writing an entire year ago.

There are a dozen of us lined up outside the tent for a quick costume check that mainly focusses on our beautiful capes, which absolutely refuse to sit correctly on our shoulders. Then we’re walked over to the armoury, where a couple of guys are busy organising swords, pikes, shields and other sundry items of weaponry. Each of us guards is given a dagger (rubber) to fit the little sheath hanging from our belts, an eight-foot pike (rubber blade, wooden handle) and a round shield (sadly not rubber).

Despite the weapons being rubber they look entirely convincing, and hard to tell apart from the “real” weapons they also have. The real ones have metal blades and are the “hero” weapons, e.g. props for cast members. Not giving hero weapons to extras is an emminently sensible decision. The pikes have a nice weighty well-balanced feel that readily lends itself to thoughts of taking down one of your fellow guards while they’re not looking. But the shields? Oh my.

Looking seriously cool with a gold edge and a big round gold boss they are otherwise blue, with the same sun motif on them that we have on our chest plates. I’m sure they’d be pretty useless up against someone wielding an actual battleaxe or such like, but nevertheless these shields are very solid and very heavy – two feet wide and I’m guessing about 3 kilos. They are buckled to our left arms and we’re all feeling pretty cool, and complementing the construction and solidity of said shield. Until it starts to dawn on us that they’re already starting to feel pretty heavy and we’re not even on set yet.

With all of us ready, if not for battle then certainly for guarding, we march off towards an enormous higgledy-piggledy structure of wooden beams, plywood walls, gaffer tape and cables. Lots of cables. All the cables. This, of course, is The Set.

I’m aware that I’m about to find out a lot more information about this show. Although at time of writing, season 2 of The Rings of Power has recently been broadcast, back here in early 2021 nobody even knows what the show is called yet. All I know is that in story terms I’m in the late Second Age, and I’m a guard in a place called Amdelyn – which is not an actual Tolkien city. It could be a fake name for the purpose of secrecy, or the writers may have just made it up for the story. However all thoughts of that are temporarily forgotten when we enter the set. Or should I say the city.

It’s hard to express just how bloody impressive this place is. I mean it isn’t if you’re, like, a good writer; but for a hack like me writing an hour after the edible kicked in and at the end of my second pint of bitter? It’s hard. One moment we’re walking on rubber mats through a building site, the next moment we’re in an old street paved with stones. The street is only a couple of metres wide and the buildings lining it are towering over us. I’m looking around in awe and from my own perspective – inside a helmet that is admittedly rather restricting my view – the place feels entirely real. I’ve walked through many similar streets in medieval towns in Europe, especially England, and this looks just like one of them.

Indeed it looks OLD. As I walk on through I see bits of graffiti etched into stone. Blocks that don’t match because of a repair. Repairs that were bodged. Faded beauty of discoloured murals and sculptures. It gives the distinct feel of a once great city whose best days are perhaps in the past. The city set is so big that we are walking down a couple of long streets with practically no sign of any crew and equipment – they’re all set up down the far end – and this greatly amplifies the sense that we’re in a real place.

There’s a bit of a hold up when we arrive at our destination – to get onto today’s set we need to cross a small wooden bridge, and a large number of other background actors are making their way off set at the same time. The twelve of us stand to the side and make way. There are six of us lined up either side of the path, standing bolt upright (you can’t slouch in armour!) with our shields and pikes, letting the “civilians” through. This is the first day on set for the City Guard, so nobody has seen us before. Some of the extras smile and nod approvingly in recognition of our costume. Others smile nervously. A few look a little frightened. It’s beginning to dawn on us guards that we have quite an imposing presence and we all make a mental note that this could perhaps come in useful later, specifically by the snack table and the coffee cart.

The path clears and we cross the bridge and onto today’s set. I’m a little taken aback by the sheer size of the place. It’s a wide-open space, perhaps as big as 100 square metres, dominated by a huge pool of water. I’m standing on a dock, and the stone buildings behind and to the left of me are twenty feet or more high and look fantastic, full of doorways, staircases and assorted nooks and crannies – the faded blue paint on the dirty white stone giving the place something of a Mediterranean feel. A lower tier to the dock leads to couple of wooden piers that are full of assorted bits of fishing and sailing paraphernalia, and there is a small rowing boat in the pool. The illusion of being in an old Greek fishing port is somewhat spoiled by the far walls, ahead and to the right, which are massive blue screens dotted with the occasional tennis ball. Oh well.

If you’ve watched season one of The Rings of Power – and I remind you nobody has any idea that that is name of the show at this point in my tale – then you’ve read enough by now to know exactly where I am, but I’m still in the dark, and I will get more confused before the fog finally clears! But on the subject of the name, I mentioned in part 3 that the only clue to the title of this show thus far released was this clapperboard from set. Back in early 2021 the glimpses of a few letters that are left tantalising uncovered sent the fan community into a flurry of speculation as to possible names:

As I hang around waiting, which is at least 95% of my job, I notice one of the crew has a clapperboard. Brilliant! I might not know where I am, but I’m going to find out the name of the show. Oh man it’s going to be really difficult to keep this a secret. My excitement however is short-lived, lasting only as long as it takes to start laughing as I read the words Untitled Amazon Project. Bastards!

The set is now bustling with crew and assorted extras are being placed here, there and everywhere as they ready the scene for shooting. This takes the best part of an hour, but eventually the cast are beginning to appear too. Hopefully once everything is in place and the scene starts to play out I’ll be able to get some solid clues as to where the hell in Middle-earth I am…