The Hobbit in "Design Phase"

MTV recently spoke with Richard Taylor who returns to middle earth as the Effects Supervisor on The Hobbit films after having the same role for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Currently the film is in the "design phase" but has not yet officially begun pre-production.

"The great thing now is that we have experience, which we didn't have last time. We were going into it so green. This time, at least, we have the knowledge of what we learned last time, and hopefully we're wise enough to learn from that."

..it's fantastic to think that we're going to be able to develop the dwarves to such a higher degree... the richness of their culture. The fact that through so many different dwarfs, you'll get to appreciate their cultural differences, where they come from, them as a people."

We haven't actually started fully on pre-production yet — we're still in the design phase — but it's a wonderful opportunity to work with a unique director in [director] Guillermo [del Toro] and continue to work with Peter [Jackson] as the producer, who is so heavily involved."

It's been an unrushed period of pre-pre-[production], and that's been a pleasure as everyone gets back into the right headspace," he said. "As far as schedules go, you'd need to talk to someone else about that. But from our own perspective, we're enjoying this early phase as it's ticking along."