Weta Workshop Ltd.

Taylor Made

08 June 09

Richard Taylor recalls vividly his first ever visit to the Orange British Academy Film Awards in 2002 where he would go on to win not one but two BAFTAs – for Special Visual Effects and Make-Up – as his contribution to The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring.

“What I particularly remember is that, beforehand, some of our crew were embarrassed for me that I was going to go and have to lose publicly in front of the world. I didn’t have that mindset myself. Rather, I was so unprepared for the monumental opportunity of going to the BAFTAs in London that I didn’t even have a suit when I got on the plane in New Zealand.”

Weta Workshop Ltd.Knowing that he’d be flying for 48 hours to spend just 21 hours on the ground because he had to be back for a shoot the following day, Taylor’s first urgent stop after Heathrow was M&S.

“I was shocked [by] how much their tuxedos cost and could only afford the top half. I thought to myself it wouldn’t really matter much as it was so unlikely we’d win I’d never have to go up on stage anyway.”

When Taylor finally got to the Odeon, Leicester Square, he was using bits of plastic as cuff links and the strap off his backpack to hold up his everyday trousers.

“My feeling was that I’d just wander in among the crowd, take my seat and watch the evening… then my name got called out and I thought, ‘well, the cameras will surely only focus on the top half ’, so I walked up on stage and the host Stephen Fry then leans in with a smile and whispers, ‘nice pants!’”

After that, winning a BAFTA would become something of a habit for Taylor and his remarkable Wellington-based Weta Workshop, whose origins are in an effects company he and his wife Tania Rodger founded nearly 25 years ago.

In 2003, Taylor was back in Leicester Square to share, with Ngila Dickson, the Costume Design award for LOTR: The Two Towers, while his Weta colleague, American digital wizard Joe Letteri, also earned one for his collaboration in Special Visual Effects, a feat he repeated the following year for LOTR: The Return Of The King.

Two years later, in 2006, Taylor and Letteri were part of the same category’s quartet of winners for Peter Jackson’s epic remake of King Kong, shot almost entirely within a mile radius of Weta’s headquarters in the quiet suburb of Miramar on a small peninsular about 15 minutes from Wellington city centre.

My great aspiration was always to run a multi-faceted effects facility…

Taylor and his wife were working out of an eight-foot square room at the back of their flat when they first met up with Jackson as the then 27-year-old fledgling filmmaker was embarking on his second feature,Meet The Feebles.

Their collaboration has now continued fruitfully across more than two decades. As well as many films together, this also includes, since the early Nineties, a partnership with producer/editor Jamie Selkirk in the Weta facility, now comprising the Workshop, a digital arm and Camperdown Studios, boasting a number of fine sound stages. Within the Workshop, there are also two more companies comprising a licensing business and a children’s television production arm.

Explains Taylor:“My great aspiration was always to run a multi-faceted effects facility. The unique thing about our BAFTAs and, of course, the Oscars, is that the same group of people have won them having worked in visual effects, make-up and costume.We have that Jackand- Jill-of-all-trades mentality. To have a group of people who are so capable of working at that pinnacle across such a diverse array of disciplines is an unusual thing.”

A self-styled Thunderbirds “obsessive” who as a dyslexic (“before the term was used”) child first sculpted figures out of clay from a creek at his home near Auckland to express himself, now has a particular fondness for their kids’ TV offshoot. Jane And The Dragon is still playing in the UK after five seasons and Five has bought Weta’s latest creation, The WotWots, about baby aliens who crash-land in Wellington Zoo.

And as well as Jackson’s own film productions – The Hobbit, directed by Guillermo del Toro, is next up – Weta is also servicing some of this year’s more eagerly awaited Hollywood titles, such as James Cameron’s 3D extravaganza Avatar, due out at Christmas, and Steven Spielberg’s latest, The Adventures Of Tintin.

Back in April, Taylor won this year’s ‘Supreme World Class New Zealand Award’, the citation naming his Workshop as “a global business, which is the envy of the world”.He was presented with the prestigious Tall Poppy. The statue was designed and made by – you guessed it – Weta.

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