The Biggest of Dem Rings 2 - The Two Herds

Friends reunited!

The Biggest of Dem Rings 2 - The Two Herds was a turning point in the brother's movie-making style. Keeping the same Low-budget ideea, the brothers invested in a greenscreen (a piece of green fabric used as a background; in postproduction one can replace said background with anything they want).

Though it did make the process easier in some ways, it also over-complicated things in other directions. It took FOUR years to complete this project and it was launched on the 3rd of June 2011, at Hollywood Multiplex, one of the biggest local cinemas. There was no entry fee so they had to keep it a secret, inviting only friends and friends of friends, to avoid having to launch it TWICE (again).

You can see it here. It lasts for two hours, but it also includes The Biggest of Dem Rings 3 - The Return of the Shepherd!

• Andrei had several moments in which he wanted to give up entirely, but his friends encouraged him to go on, no matter how weird or crappy the movie would've been. "It's still MUCH better than the first one!"
• Diana, who played Legoulash in the first movie, has a cameo as "the specialists" (yes, plural), which was a side character played by Andrei in TBODR 1 (AMMDI 1).
• The actor who played Legoulash, Nicu, was found just a week before they needed someone to fill the part. He also had to go to Spain in less than 10 days, so the brothers had to go on "full machine-gun" mode to shoot everything they needed as fast as possible. If a single shot was messed up and unusable, they couldn't have asked him to come back and redo the shot.
• All the extras (filling characters in the background) were summed up in The General Man of Trust, a character meant to be in the background. The actor playing him was so into the role that Andrei wrote multiple extra scenes for him.
• The expression "Do you KNOW... the onion?" used by Sifonier (Eomer) when he was harassing Grilaj (Grima) is still used to this day by some of the people who saw the movie, when they make fun of each other in a jokingly/argue-y way. The brothers have no idea why...
• The actor playing King Elcube also has a cameo as Dildo (Bilbo Baggins), a part which he played in the first movie as well.
• King Modem, played by Cristi, was actually found enjoying a simple raide in a tram, on his way home. He looked so perfect for the part that Andrei went out of his way and asked him then and there if he'd be interested in playing the King. Cristi thought that Andrei, with the long hair and beard, was actually from Jehova's Witnesses.
• Fafamir, played by Iulian, was created as a character based on the actor's bad temper. As teenagers, he and Andrei shared the same class. Many years later, all grown up, the actor was calm and mature. They had to work together to mimick the teenage-y attitude that Iulian lost. The great thing about this experience was that they boought a wig for Iulian a long time ago, specifically for this part, and he kept it even though they lost touch before the shooting of the movie.
• Mihai actually auditioned for Gaga (Gollum) because Andrei thought he couldn't play the part the way they wrote it. The scene he auditioned for was the "Gollum slaps his personalities" scene. When Andrei asked him to stop slapping himself, Mihai knew he nailed the part. And he did.
• They had to dub a scene due to an audio mistake (waterfall in the background). When dubbing this scene, Mihai had to remember the way he voiced his character (Gollum) since there was a one-year break time between shots.
• When you look at certain shots, you wouldn't realize that the actors did not really act together. Most shots are filmed on a greenscreen, so the actors never met in real life. When Gandalf is talking to King Modem in the castle, there's an actual two-years distance between the filming sessions. It's like time-travelling. In one shot.
• Mihai played most of the enemies in the movie.

  

  Friends forever.

• Shanti, their cat, has a cameo, along with Kauff and Gustav.
• The King locked in the Room scene was actually a reference to an old romanian cartoon that the brothers made. It featured one of Andrei's oldest friends, Daniel Ionesti. He didn't want to appear in front of the camera because he planned on becoming a famous politician. "They would use this against me and my votes will drop!", he said. He was serious.
• Legulash, Nicu, was supposed to be the photographer. After a Lord of the rings - Extended Edition Marathon (12 hours straight), Andrei managed to convince him to play the part, despite the fact that he was reluctant at first.
• Sam, Greg, genuinely did not know what the hell he was talking about when they filmed the speech scene. He only got it when he saw the final edit.
• Some filming sessions were rough (14 hours non-stop, no food or water).
• Andrei had a full-time job as a journalist during the production stages.
• Daniel and Andrei lost many nights working on the 2D-3D scenes. When the PC was too slow or the program would just crash, they had to change the scene itself so they could actually finish the renders. This was NOT an easy process. Most of the time they agreed upon the details, but they also had long arguments regarding silly things such as the number of degrees the 3D camera should tilt to.
• The 3D rendering was so complicated that a single frame (out of a 25 frames span, which equals one second) would last SIX whole hours to render. Take another look at the movie with this in mind. Or just multiply 6 hours with 25 frames to get how long it takes for one second of 3D footage to render.
• Alex, who plays Gandalf, swore he would not return to film the second part. After THREE years of searching for the right actor, Andrei was about to give up. Then Alex said "Fine! I'll do it! But just one day! Try to get everything into one day!". So they did. All of Alex's shots were filmed in one day. (8 hours to be precise).
• Greg's nickname to this day is still "Sam".
• The orc heads were hand-made in a very claustrophobic process. Filming with those on your head would inevitably make you swallow bits of paper and dry glue.
• Every single actor came back to reprise their parts. After four years it was really fun to see everyone grown up, having jobs, getting married... and they all talked about how they will make LOTR Parody 3 (or 4) in about ten years. Why not? :)