Prop makers for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy crafted a giant, six-inch version of the One Ring just to film extreme close-up shots so they could avoid dealing with the annoying physics of macro photography.

A closer look

Prop makers for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy crafted a giant, six-inch version of the One Ring just to film extreme close-up shots so they could avoid dealing with the annoying physics of macro photography. Whenever the camera dramatically pushes in on the tiny piece of jewelry sitting in the snow, it is actually just a massive brass paperweight designed to make the background look weirdly out of focus. Peter Jackson utilized countless old-school camera tricks to force perspective, proving that sometimes the best way to handle complex visual effects is to just build ridiculously huge props and film them normally. It means all those intense scenes of characters agonizing over the heavy burden of the magical ring are slightly undercut by the fact that the actual prop was practically the size of a decent glazed donut