Matte paintings of Middle Earth, done by artists around the world, are a highlight of the vfx.

BD: What impressed you the most about the vfx?

BF: That they were organized enough at the end to pull together people from all over the world and keep these shots managed and they were trustworthy enough to hand this stuff off to people whose work they'd only seen online.

BD: What tools do you use?

BF: My main program is After Effects, which I used for comping and roto work. But then there was a scene where Gollum is stealing a fish from a person's house. They were looking for a matte painter for the shots that came up on the list, which isn't my specialty, but I tackled a portion of the matte painting and I used Photoshop to rough out this scene. They sent me a bunch of images of an English hut and angles that they liked and I wound up taking that hut and I did manage to incorporate a matte painting of a sky that one of the artists did. The matte painters did such great work and I wanted to incorporate as much as I could.

BD: Considering the downturn, how's business been for you in Arizona since the release of the short?

BF: We do get people that bring up the downturn in the economy, and, of course, we're reading all kinds of stuff online about the shops that we admire shutting down because there's not enough business. But I have to say that it hasn't really affected us. We've continued to grow and add new clients. I mean, we're doing better than we've ever done. But I think we're kind of in that sweet spot in a way. There's been a ton of interest from business and right now we have two independent films that have contacted us. So, if all goes well, they'll be in production in the fall.

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN and VFXWorld.