How'd they make the hobbits and the dwarf shorter?

[Manwe Sulimo]

Of course, if you don't have the Extended DVD....<P>Each of the short characters had a double for the large, panning shots (e.g., the Fellowship running by the Elvish ruins in FotR). For special scenes like in Bag End, each actor (Ian McKellem and Elijah Wood/Ian Holm) was shot in a to-scale set (the hobbits in a regular-sized set, McKellem in a small set). Then the shots were digitally put together. Otherwise, they used blue-screen tech to insert actors into the foreground of a scene (Elijah Wood in Bag End "Nobody knows that it's here. Do they, Gandalf?). For some shots they also used perspective, like when Frodo and Gandalf are talking across a table. Elijah Wood is actually sitting two feet behind Ian McKellem, but it seems like they're next to each other. The same technique is used in Bree, Rivendell, and Lórien.