According to E! Online the large marquee housing all the costumes at the Ruapehu location earned the name Orcland, thanks no doubt to all the Orc costumes it housed and the many transformations from Human to Orc that happened within.

But I found that while the size of Orcland was quite impressive, it was just one of many marquees, trucks, and trailers comprising a whole tent city in one of the ski carparks. The costume marquee is the largest there, and is filled with racks and racks of Elf, "Gondorian" and Orc costumes. (This is the marquee that collapsed due to the weight of snow on the roof.)

Orcland at night (from down the road a tad):

To get a better view of the whole tent town, I moved to the next carpark up from them. It was from here that I could begin to get an idea of the scope of the shots that were being filmed here, and the incredible organization that was required for all this.

At least six large buses and several smaller buses were lined up ready to take extras back to the army base and the carrot-worshipping town of Ohakune (more on that later) on the other side of the mountain, with smaller vehicles regularly coming and going.

The end of the costume tent is visible at back left. But what's the trailer at right with the back door wide open? Let's move in for a closer look...

Orc makeup removal! (Oh what a find. Just keep that camera steady.)

I remember that most of the Orcs were supposed to be women because they could handle the heat of the costumes better. And probably because they're generally shorter (eh, Tehanu :-), and indeed, the Orcs I saw in the filming definitely were short, especially compared to the Elves they were manfully fighting. Most of the people having their makeup removed appeared to be women, but what could I tell - I was almost half a kilometre away.

Ahhh. Coffee and a newspaper. Just what an Orc needs at the end of a loooong hard day beating up Elves. Love the hair of that makeup artist.

Really quite strange. The view from this carpark doesn't normally have the tops of marquees in it. (I was actually about to film a suspicious-looking helicopter taking off.)

Ian.
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http://i.am/ianman

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