Sitting Down? It's a Long One!

Yesterday was a really cool day, but I had something annoying happen to ruin it..but whatever.

We woke up early-ish because we had to be ready for the limo at 9:15 to drive us to WETA Workshop accross the bay. I decided to take the car because I knew we were going to stick around a little longer, kinda sucked that we couldn't enjoy the limo...but whatever..I like my independence.

We followed the limo as it took the senic route around Wellington harbour (which is so amazingly beautiful), and finally got to WETA Workshop...geek personafide. Here is my report from there that I published on TheOneRing.net, KongisKing.net and TheOneLion.net:

Earlier this morning I was allowed access to the coolest place on earth, WETA Workshop. Located in a non-descript area of Wellington near the airport, this small groupings of offices and warehouses has produced some of the best practical and special effects seen in this century (and the last one too). Not only that, but it is also a digial studio, miniatures unit, production facility and more. If you've seen, held, or heard anything from Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Narnia and a few other films in the last few years, chances are it was made here.

My tour began with a meet and greet with Richard Taylor. Richard gave us a detailed background of WETA. From its humble beginnings to the huge powerhouse operation it is today, Richard outlined it all for us. The conference room at WETA HQ is most likely the most 'polished' place on the complex. It is filled wall to wall with photos, plaques and awards on one side, and the other side is full of WETA Collectible statues, busts and figures. One shelf in particular holds 5 golden Oscars that Richard proudly displays for all guests. He promptly took them out for us and passed them around. Richard was kind to take time out of his busy schedule (two cell phones that kept ringing) and was not short on words detailing their work on King Kong as well as LOTR and Narnia, easiest the three biggest projects they have taken on so far.

The details that went into the Skull Island people was so complexe that I felt I was listening to an anthropolgy course about real natives than a film production house. Richard and his team really work on these characters from the ground up to make sure they seem believeable to the movie going public.

We were next shown the WETA showreel. This, I assume, is shown to producers or toymakers or any sort of suit who need a quick demo of what WETA can do. All the 'money' shots from the LOTR Trilogy, King Kong and Narnia was seen on this video. We were given a great DVD copy to take home and enjoy as well.

Next we were introduced to an old friend of any TORN regular, Daniel Falconer. Daniel took us on the rest of the WETA tours. After saying goodbye to Richard we headed down into the main complex of the building that housed the metalworkers, leather area, paint, sculpt, models and more. The folks at WETA seem to pride themselves that they are still very down to earth, which in itself is kiwi philosophy. You can tell by walking around the complex that they don't like to pamper themselves with things that will only get in the way of their work. However you can also see how proud they are of some of the major work they've accomplished. All along the buildings there are props, art and photos from earlier work. Swords and other weapons, maquettes, paintings, models, clothing, along every hallway and around every corner. I got the feeling they use it to inspire themselves to achieve even better and higher quality of work.

These days the team seems to be in between major projects. The buildings were not that busy today. Daniel assured us that during LOTR production people were working 24/7 on models, props and other things. Today we saw some great Narnia bookends they plan to have out by Christmas. We also saw one of the Venture 'bigatures' alongside a corsair ship being repaired for the grand opening at the Te Papa museum (It seemed very surreal to see those two together). There were also a few smaller jobs being worked on like a plane wing model and some sculpt work for a children's feature.

WETA's latest pride and joy is a new computer animated feature called 'Jane and the Dragon'. Canadian fans can currently see season one on YTV. We were given a tour of the digital studio they use to create the show, as well as the 'mo-cap' stage where they shoot the main characters. (Think of an entire show being made the same way they made Gollum and King Kong with Andy Serkis). We were then privy to a special few minutes of an as-yet unfinished episode of the show. I have seen the show on YTV before back home and think it's a great show for kids. You can tell the folks at WETA are very proud of it.

That led us back to the main offices where we started. It really went WAY too fast and I know the folks with me and my wife wanted to hang out a bit more just to smell that air of creativity around the place.

I know a TON of fans have made the trek to Camerdown Street to see the studio and only managed to get a shot of the front door, so I feel extreemly lucky to be able to get down here and see a place I have only read about for years. Thanks to Richard Taylor and Daniel Falconer for the tour and special thanks to UBISOFT for the trip!

So before we left the studio I was given directions to the Chocolate Fish Cafe, located somewhere nearby. We were due to meet Philippa Boyens for lunch, for those who don't know Philippa is one of the Oscar winning producers of LOTR, all around Geek Chick and super cool person. Well...we got lost..ended up almost in the ocean and needless to say missed the chance to have lunch with her. I was seeing red..

We finally gave up the chase and decided to stop by a local beach and take a look at the amazing view. The weather was like my mood however, stormy and temperamental (or just plain mental) and so we didn't stick around long.

All this time in New Zealand my wife has wanted to see a penguin in the wild, yes they are out there in the wild along the shoreline out here. Well..we saw one...but it was dead. Perfect fucking capper to my morning.

We decided to head back into down and get some lunch, we found this amazing noodle place on Cuba St. I really liked what I had, and was able to eat it with chopsticks...so that improved my mood.

We got back to the hotel and chilled for a bit. I finally found out the time and place for my lunch with PJ so that REALLY improved my mood. We went by the indoor pool and dipped our feet in the water, oddly enough we both forgot to bring swim trunks.

Late last night I received an email from one of the people at the Te Papa Museum about the LOTR Exhibit opening up there this Friday. I asked if they were having a special opening night party and they invited us to a special opening morning breakfast (hey, it's the other side of the world..makes some kind of sense). Anyways, free food!

This morning we had to get up even EARLIER to make it for this 8AM breakfast shindig at the Te Papa Museum. It was really swanky, but thankfully some other people were in jeans and a T-shirt like me, so I didn't totally feel out of it. The two reps from Te Papa, a rep from Air New Zealand and Richard Taylor spoke for a bit, then we all cheered and drank champagne.

I bumped into Chris and Dan Hennah from TheeFootSix productions, they did a TON of work on LOTR and were as always pleasant to chat with. I then spoke with producer extraordinaire Barrie Osborne (The Matrix, LOTR) and he dragged me to meet the director of his next film 'The Water Horse', he also seemed keen on having me work on that film as well, so that's a bonus.

Here's my report from the exhibit I posted on TheOneRing.net:

Xoanon here, this morning my wife and I were lucky enough to get an advanced look at the new Lord of the Rings exhibit at the Te Papa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand.

The Te Papa Museum is the pride and joy of Wellington, boasting some half dozen events, it sits on Wellington Harbour like a jewel in a crown.

Housed on the fifth floor of the sprawling building this exhibit features something for everyone, costumes, weapons, bigatures and more. Each character from the story is given his or her own small section of the museum with costume displays, photos, props and other items seen in the film. TV screens at every stop play small clips from the DVD documentries that tie into the display. There was an entire room dedicated to armour from every race, hidden speakers gave us battle sounds from the film, and the mood lighting really got you into the spirit of the moment.

There was another section devoted totally to the One Ring. The ring insignia floated around the room as the One Ring floated in mid air. Another section housed the Minas Tirith bigature and the model of Bag End as seen by Frodo in Galadriel's mirror.

The Elven boat that carried Boromir's body was on display, with a dummy that looked uncannily like Sean Bean himself. Weapons were on display, both behind glass and others out in the open available for you to touch and feel.

One of the really neat touches was the forced perspective demonstration with two versions of Gandalf's wagon, visitors are able to get a photo taken with a guest, one looking decidely Hobbit-sized.

My favorite model on display had to be the Corsair ship proudly displayed at the main entrance to the Te Papa Museum. It's sails held high, this 'miniature' model looks seaworthy as is!

If you can get down to Wellington from now until August I highly encourage you to stop by and take a look!

After that we came back to the hotel as it was too early to drive to my lunch with Peter Jackson (pinch me someone). We hopped in our cars and went to that

Sorry..not telling anyone about that, it was a great chat though

After lunch we decided it was such a nice day that we would head back to the beach area we accidently discovered while looking for the Chocolate fish Cafe. We took a ton of photos, and then took the senic tour back to our hotel.

Wfew! Ok me tired of typing now...see you all at home soon!