The world of the Weta Workshop

It's bank holiday Monday today so we still have one day to wait until we can get our campervan fixed. We decided to use the day to visit the Weta Workshop. Weta made the props, costumes, make up and many other things for the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit films. They also have another company called Weta Digital who work on the visual effects and this side of the company createe films as big as Avatar. We initially just looked around the small museum and gift shop but soon realised we wanted to do one of the tours of the workshop. We opted for the shortest workshop only tour and managed to get a spot on the 1:30pm tour. We had our lunch sat outside under 3 huge troll figures. It was quite entertaining to see a family arrive with two golden retrievers and when one saw the troll it went into complete defensive mode and started barking at it like crazy. The detail on models was amazing. Our time came to go on our tour and we were allowed to enter a curtained off area of the workshop. The guide was one of the painters who work here and he had a great funny attitude and made everything very enjoyable. Initially you see all the films the company has worked on and it's actually a lot more than you realise especially when all the pieces they make are so detailed. Most of the armour for LOTR is made from a sturdy plastic that's been shaped in a mould so it isn't too heavy for the actor to wear. They do create real armor and weapons to be used for more close up shots. How cool is the guy who makes swords for films for a living! They had a room showing the stages of making the armour for the dwaves in the Hobbit. 1000s of individual pieces were made and all hand painted to then be shown to the director who turned around twice asking for them to be repainted with more blue and then more red. How painstaking that must be! It did make me realise that it would be a pretty awesome job to be one of these painters and it might be something I look into more when we're back home. I think Nick was just in awe of the whole place and would love to work in any aspect of it. It is amazing to discover that most of the metallic items for films is actually painted plastic. You'd never realise it wasn't metal. We also saw one of the heads from the models made for the Gallipoli exhibition we visited. Every pour and hair was individually created on those models and he said that the hair alone on just one model took about 6 weeks to complete. 6 weeks of inserting single hairs into silicone with a needle! Unfortunately as the items are owned by the film makers we were not allowed to take photos but the company managed to negotiate with the Hobbit directors to allow tours to take photos with a model of Azog the Defiler which Nick really got into character for. Overall the tour lasted 45 minutes and it was definitely worth it. Afterwards we headed down to the South of Wellington to do a coastal walk along the bottom of the North Island. It was a slight shame that the walkway is also open for 4WD vehicles to drive along it. It would be okay if they stuck to the path but many ventured onto the beach where possible. The area had a black sand which was so thick in places that after a while we had a small beach in each of our shoes! We did have a very nice walk though and ended up walking for about 2 and a half hours before turning back. On the way we passed some naturally red coloured rocks in the sea and a small seal colony. Just after the seals there's an area of the driving track that climbs up and over a very steep open rock face. It has a huge dip in it so we heard many trucks smash and clunk and probably loose parts of their car trying to climb over it. One truck went so fast over it that it nose dived into the dip and I'm sure some of its bumper probably cracked off. It's mad that people do it but some people find it fun and if the council didn't provide an area where they could do it I imagined they'd find other areas of natural beauty to race around on instead. At least this way it's more controlled. On our way back I spotted a highlighter on the beach, a highlighter! I then decided to pick up rubbish and it wasn't long before we found a blue piece of plastic we could tie into a bag to use. By the time we'd got back to the carpark it was dark but we'd collect a whole bag full of rubbish including a nasal inhaler, ear plug, three pieces of painted wood and so much more. It did feel good to put all this rubbish in the bin so it wouldn't get washed back out to sea. We plan to buy gloves or tongs to take around with us so we can pick up more rubbish. Our new slogan is: Leave only footprints, take only photos... and rubbish!Read more