Weta Workshops
Do we want to do this tour. It was expensive, I had a feeling it would be a bit childish but we finally decided, let's give it a go.
A nice twenty minute walk down to the meeting point (the neat thing about Wellington is that you can go anywhere in the city on foot, be it along the beautiful waterfront or down through the interesting streets something or someone to always capture the eye. Orange buses - trolleys and diesels everywhere, lots of one way streets, fascinating little shops and of course the big Fashion stores as well. People seem to be so well dressed too. After Auckland with its hordes of Asian students it is nice to see guys in suits or smart gear and ties and women well dressed.
A friendly hostess checked us onto the bus, gave us a briefing on what we would be doing, and passed around a replica of "STING", Bilbo's sword - amazingly detailed and quite heavy and NO, you can't keep it. She was full of interesting snippets, like Wellington is the windiest city in the world (as everyone knows), and that it is also the coldest place in NZ - which I didn't know. I guess that is due to the wind-chill factor. We discovered that the Maori called the weta wetapunga, which means 'god of ugly things', and since,when the company was named in 1994 they had already been making a lot of very ugly things, it seemed an appropriate name,
On arrival outside - guess what?? the incredibly expensive gift shop where we were to wait twenty minutes before going in to see a film about the beginnings of the workshops. The shop had a most amazing array of objects for sale. the obvious stuff from the Hobbit and Lord Of the Rings, but also stuff from Narnia, Mad Max and a host of other movies I had never heard of. They did, however, sell bookmarks. Very expensive ones, but since I always collect them from places I have been wherever possible, I was thrilled.
The movie was interesting, tracing the very beginnings up to today and the audience gave it a round of applause which tells you something. The Weta Workshop was founded by Richard & Tania Taylor, along with Peter Jackson and Jamie Selkirk. Later Weka Digital was added or split off, not sure which. Films they have worked on include Avatar, The Frighteners (the first time they wrote their own software), Xena, King Kong, 30 Days of Night, Zorro, Tintin (first full feature animated film they made). For Avatar in 2009 they did all the design, tech, armour and weapons. In 2010 they created all the apes for Planet of the Apes. Other films include Prometheus and The Avengers.
Weta Workshops has 11 departments, including the design room, animatronics engineering, prop-makers, engineering and paint shops. Weta Digital have 25 depts. Visual Effects survey, measure and scan everything, for motion capture. Animators combine this with animation techniques, Simulators make sure the details of hair, fur, cloth and muscle play are recreated effectively. Detailed models are built (often in miniature) for any scene that cannot be filmed in reality, eg a train explosion. Lighters and compositors work closely together to integrate all the different layers of a scene so that when they are 'stacked' on top of each other it all works together. (Think of looking down from a mountain-top on birds, planes, clouds, and racing horses on the ground, for example.)
Next we were taken to one of the workshops where we met Lucy - she is a Special Effects Makeup Artist and Technician. All the tour guides also work at other jobs, so they are very knowledgeable. She really knew her subject. It started with a talk and short video about the workshops and covered some of the things they did. There is no possibility of my being able to do justice to the tour, I lack the writing skills and the memory to do it properly. Suffice to say, the incredible amount of of work which is put into making every item which appears on a screen completely lifelike is beyond comprehension. We were fortunate to be there when The Master Swordmaker (a title bestowed on this one man by the Queen) was working. Each sword used by the main actors is hand-made in the old-fashioned way, so is completely authentic. They are works of art in every sense.
Other spin-off companies are Park Road, which does all the post production work before the film is cinema-ready, Stone St Studios, which is the stage sets used, and used to be a paint factory, and Pukeko Productions, who make children's movies.
About 20% of the work they do is for private commissions. So if you would like your own Sting, and have deep pockets and lots of patience (there is currently a three year waiting list) you can.
After a quick sushi lunch back in town we headed off to the Wellington City Art Gallery but were somewhat underwhelmed with the two displays they were showing (too modern for our tastes) so we headed home for a well earned rest and then at 4-00 we set off for Lower Hutt and tea with niece & nephew Shelley & George.
A delightful evening in excellent company then George ran us back to the station to get the train home.
I have heard reports of Wellington's wind over the years and thought a lot was hyperbole. Oh no, its all true folks. We were buffeted by wind so strong that I felt I would be blown away, I was having trouble keeping my feet. As we got further into the City streets we had more shelter until we were completely protected but it was a fascinating experience. We leaned into it strongly for the first few minutes, then around a corner it was behind us and we were nearly lifted off our feet, even found ourselves running several times. However it was a fun walk home, and we slept well that night.
ReplyDeleteWind isn't that bad really, it funnels down the streets which makes it seems worse. But I have to tell you wasn't too bad this week.