LOTR takes away art direction Oscar

3.20pm

Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, tonight won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

Grant Major (art direction), and Dan Hennah and Alan Lee (set decoration) topped Girl With A Pearl Earring , The Last Samurai; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and Seabiscuit to take Return of The King's first Oscar for the night.

The film is nominated in 11 categories.

"I'd like to thank the whole art department of Lord Of The Rings," Major said, accepting his award.

"It's such a great moment to be here, and thank you very much to the Academy. It's been a long journey for us all, and it's just such an incredible high note to finish it all on. It's been an amazing ride."

English artist Alan Lee -- one of the most highly-regarded fantasy artists -- played a crucial role in bringing J R R Tolkien's imaginary world to life. He praised the film's director, Wellingtonian Peter Jackson.

"I'd like to thank the real wizard who led us all on this journey and inspired us with his energy, his vision, nerve, Peter Jackson," Lee said.

"Thank you very, very much for delivering these to us."

Backstage Lee said he started work on the three Lord Of The Rings films six years ago, and was still working on the movie.

"We're just finishing off the last few shots for the DVD (of Return of The King)."

Lee said the designs were partly inspired by his earlier work, and partly by Jackson's vision of Middle Earth.

"There were some pictures in the book Peter liked very much and we more or less just developed those as three dimensional sets and extended them.

"Largely it was a matter of taking Peter as our source and finding out what he wanted. It was very much using our skills to create his vision."

Henna, Major and Lee will all be working on Jackson's next project, a remake of King Kong.

- NZPA