Hello all. I watched all three series of Lord of the Rings in 2011, when I had my first work visa to New Zealand. Some childhood memories recall me Xena Warrior Princess Series from 90s as well. Long time after I found, that these and many other movies were made in New Zealand, and Weta Workshop took a huge part of the filming process. My wife Sofia likes movie making and everything, which is related to this (by the way most of the videos on EventsHub social media profiles made by her, so, we decided to visit Weta Workshop to see the magic in person. However, we based in Christchurch and Weta Workshop located in Wellington – you see, we need to get there somehow. Taking into account, that my brother and his wife are visiting us, we decided to go to a road trip across New Zealand all together. Many people have a false prejudice, that Jaguars are not reliable enough, so, we will try to change this misunderstanding. We packed up things in our 2006 Jaguar XJ and started our journey from Christchurch to Auckland. I would strongly advise you to follow this blog to see our trip posts and pictures but for now, let us move Weta.
As was mentioned before, Weta located in Wellington, so, we arrived to Wellington a night before on Interislander ferry from Picton and had a night in Capital View Motor Inn. We had scheduled our guided tour through Weta Workshop at 11am next morning, which was convenient enough for us to have a quick breakfast before (thanks to Sofia again, as she can organize this like this very quick if required). When we arrived at the place, two guides Red and Liam walked us through the magical rooms there.
Pictures and videos were strictly prohibited in some rooms, so, the pictures you see here is just a little allowed pieces of the magic we took out of there. We saw original decorations from many movies, including weapons and shields, orcs and vampires, some face grime and lots of interesting stuff, including original Oscar figure.
During our tour we had a chance to talk to a real artist, who creates face makeup for actors, listen to some interesting stories, how some famous films scenes were filed and how mistakes could lead to better footages during filming process. There were some more interesting details about creating and filming swords and other weapons, we ever had a chance to hold them in our hands for a moment and saw how they are being made, looking thought the window into the actual workshop.
They explained and gave as a chance to see how silicone face masks are made for movie characters, like zombies and vampires, we were amazed to know, that the makeup process takes several hours as well, as taking it out is slow and difficult as well. Most of the silicone masks and makeup sets are single time use items and made individually for an actor, hence, the studio at times have to make hundreds of identical facemasks to film a short episode that will be included in the final version of the movie.
There was another awesome team member, who recalled me Emmett Brown from Back to the Future movie, he shown us how to create decorations using a metal foil, and we tried to do something on our own with the foil provided. That was fun )).
At the end of the end of the tour, we had a chance to take our picture using a special camera. You can see some of them here.
I am not a film-making fan, however, the excursion itself impressed me a lot. If you love to record and edit videos and would like to learn how professionals did this before and do it now, you definitely must visit this place – you will never regret.
The tour itself in 1.5 hours long, however, I would advise to allow at least 2.5 hour in total to take pictures, purchase some souvenirs and exchange emotions with our mates.
Visit Weta Workshop website https://www.wetaworkshop.com/ for more information.
We continue our road trip across New Zealand – please, follow the blog.
Many thanks for reading.
Best regards, Alex,
EventsHub team.