Wellington Day 3 11/9/13
We had a fairly late start as Byrnie had come down with something, I felt a bit off myself sore throat and the like. It was a really nasty day too as blowy as yesterday and now raining too. We had panned to hit the museums today but given the horrible weather and the illness we weren’t really up to it. After some caffeine and some pain pills and several games of Xcom we decided to try and at least do something.
Since we weren’t up for a full day we decided to go for the most unique opportunity so rather than hit one of the museums locally that would be fairly similar to other museums so we decided to go to the Weta Cave which is a small museum come gift shop for the New Zealand based special effects company Weta.
The place is in a fairly unassuming section of Wellington near a school and a residential district. The Weta cave is a small museum showing props from their various films as well as various models and things for sale. The also ran a tour which gave a glimpse of their workshops. The lady who took us round was one of the model makers who worked there.
It was an interesting tour they showed us the process they go through to make props for movies. Starting with a concept sketch of the prop for example they showed a gun from district 9. They took something like 400 different sketches before they got one approved for the next step. They sketch had lots of details on how it should look and trial colors to get the right look for the film.
After the sketch they went to a 3d model made in maya they use that to get an idea of how it will look from any angle and also how to break it down into parts for easier manufacture. The next step was cutting the shape out in foam using a CNC machine the foam is hard like wood but without the grain or other marks but it can be carved to put in extra detail. The cut they make is a rough version that needs smoothing and detailing. Once they’ve got a model in sufficient detail they make a mold as the foam they use for the CNC is fragile so they make a silicon negative that they can use to cast a resin positive.
They clean the resin part up removing any seams or imperfections and then start the process of painting and detailing adding marks and dirt to it to make it look more real. The more detail they can add the better the things look. They add a sort of metal foil to make it look like metal showing through the paint.
Next they had an exoskeleton which was made for District 9 but wasn’t actually used in the film. Another design was used a more mechanical version this one was a more organic look with huge amount of detail like skin texturing on it. The lady giving us the tour said they had to not get too attached to any one piece as it might not make it to the final film and they had to see the film as the final product.
They showed us some of their castings that were made for movie promotion one for the hobbit film of Thorin which was what they called faux bronze plastic painted to look like bronze. After that was a mockup of a typical workers desk with a pc + graphics tablet and example stuff to work from as well as anatomy examples they work from. They also had a time lapse shot of some digital painting using photoshop. Some of the concept shots they showed were incredibly detailed and yet their experts could put out 4 of the things a day.
She showed us this huge bunny suit that used to be near their lunchroom and on of their founders used to hide in it then ambush unsuspecting employees. The also showed us so animatronic sheep heads from a film called black sheep that had were sheep. You could see the various servos in the thing and the controller units.
The next thing we saw was a full sized functional Warthog from halo they built for a short the made for bungie. Which was an incredible piece of work apparently they ran it all round the streets. The next piece was some of the various armors and weaponry they made for films they have a full time blacksmith who makes all the weapons and such in the traditional ways. These pieces are typically quite heavy and also fairly sharp. So they make prop versions that are wood or foam or plastic depending on what they needed the item for. So for closeup work the metal forged piece is used the so called hero prop. Then as soon as they need to move or do stunt work they swap it out for the safer lighter versions. Of course all the versions have to look identical so they can have 8 or nine versions to make.
The next bit was a miniature of a city from prince caspian movie it was quite detailed and probably 5 ft tall they also had what they called a bigature which was bigger version probably 10ft tall which was used for tracking shots and closeup work.
After that we got a look at the CNC room where they had several machines setup to mill the foam they used into shape. They even had some jobs going at the time, some of the machines were custom made by Weta and their technician who was apparently self taught. The tour guide made the point that a lot of their people their hobbies were there day jobs and before they joined weta they did the stuff in their spare time.
Next we saw various armours from lord of the rings including saurons boot that they used to crush the sword which was to full scale sauron being 14ft or so and the normal armor being man sized they had a larger foot made for that scene. They showed us some of the chainmail used the real stuff is quite heavy so they made replica stuff out of plastic the rings were cast for them then hand assembled by two guys who had to assemble millions of these rings so many that their finger prints wore off. They showed us some of their prosthetics use in movies made in silicon material and then painted for detail it really looked like flesh.
Next they had two sculptors who were making models for a childrens book they were making which was about a moveable forest and all the creatures were like plants or trees. Some where posable made out of a type of clay with a wire inside and others were made of miliput. The detail was incredible with textures and individual leaves and all sorts fine detail.
The final things was a model of a gorilla probably King Kong where they had hand put thousands of hairs into it and it wasn’t even for a movie it was a demonstrator for Weta Digital to get their hair simulation stuff right.
After that we had a look at some props from avatar and tintin. It was a really interesting tour and fascinating to see all the props and process involved in their creation.
We headed back to the hotel as the cold weather wasn’t helping with the illness. Later in the evening it was raining hard and extremely windy the rain was going sideways so we decided going out would be unpleasant. So we decided to stay in an order room service we had soup a nice vegetable soup. Then I had a beef burger and Byrnie had a lasagne. The food was pretty good and with the horrible weather out it was good not to have to go out to get something. Tomorrow we head to the south island hopefully the extreme wind that’s been attacking New Zealand wont make the crossing too bad.
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