New Zealand home of Middle-earth

What was your role in the making of The Lord of the Rings?

As head of Weta Workshop, I oversaw the running of several departments over about five years, beginning on pre-production and following through till now. Weta Workshop undertook the design, fabrication and on-set operation of all the special make-up and prosthetics effects, weaponry, armour, gore and injury rigs and creatures. We also built all the miniatures based on designs from Alan Lee and John Howe. We chose to take on so many departments under the one roof because we felt it was the only way we could be sure that Middle-earth remained stylistically coherent. If the different responsibilities had been disseminated amongst various effects workshops around the world, as usually would have happened in a film project of this size, we would have lost what we call the singular Tolkienesque brush-stroke. We knew we had to capture that one vision, which unites all the different elements and makes them appear to believably come from the same world. It was a huge undertaking, unprecedented on such an enormous scale, but feel that we rose to the challenge, and hopefully the results will be evident on screen.

What are the strengths of the New Zealand film industry in your view?

One of the New Zealand film industry's greatest strengths is the Kiwi attitude. New Zealanders launch themselves into undertakings like this with passion and an attitude that there's a creative solution to every problem. It's the old number eight fencing wire cliché, but it exists. It doesn't mean the work is cheapened, it means that because of our isolation and attitude, we can find novel and effective means of solving problems cost-effectively. That's a very healthy attitude to have in the film industry and especially in the effects business.

What was the single biggest benefit of shooting The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand?

One of the biggest strengths is of course what we have just talked about, the Kiwi attitude which is carried by crew. Another is our geographic isolation. This ties into the Kiwi attitude and also fosters it. Because we don't have the depth of experience that comes from living and working in somewhere like Hollywood say, we are forced to come up with novel solutions. The isolation also means that we can work in comparative secrecy and quietness. We're outside the focus of the bright lights, which suits us fine. It means we can be assured, and in turn assure our clients, of greater confidentiality than could usually be expected with a project of this scale. That isolation also works to our advantage in that we'll be able to show the world images of a landscape they've likely never seen before. New Zealand hasn't been seen on international screens very often before, so for much of the world's audiences, they'll be experiencing something completely new and exciting.

How do you consider the spirit of Tolkien was captured in the New Zealand landscape?

Tolkien's Middle-earth is very much based on a vision of Medieval Europe, but it's twisted slightly because alongside people you've got Hobbits living in little holes in the hillsides, Elves in vast and breath-taking arboreal cities and Dwarves carving great mansions out of the earth. There's all kinds of strange creatures lurking in the valleys and shadows. New Zealand's landscape is highly suited to that vision because it looks very much like the wild lands of Europe as they probably appeared before being so heavily domesticated and changed by human development, but with a slight skew in another direction as well. The light is slightly different. The plants are familiar but not quite the same. The forms of the land are close to European, but not quite there, and yet they are real, so you accept them, but also it mediates your acceptance that there could very well be little creatures living in those hills or stalking the woods. Like everything in the way we approached these films from a visual stand point, the landscape is magical and fantastic, but grounded in the same reality that we know.

How was the New Zealand film industry supportive of such a large production as The Lord of the Rings?

Something as big as The Lord of the Rings cannot be done unless the people are behind it at every level. This is more than just the crew's film, more than even the greater film production community's film. This has become a film project that New Zealanders have come to own and enjoy. It's hard to find anyone who doesn't have a friend or relative who wasn't involved. The support has been fantastic, from the New Zealand screen production folks, through governmental bodies, the army, right down to the guys whose property was used to access a location, or the guy who owns a corner shop in a small town where filming took place. They have all been with us on this journey and they all have reason to feel some ownership and pride in the finished product. When the curtain opens in December, Kiwis everywhere can stand tall and feel proud that they made this phenomenal undertaking happen.

Now that production is complete, what are your thoughts on the undertaking as a whole?

We have been on an incredible journey over the past five years at Weta Workshop and this was only made possible by the unique and creative team of young New Zealand technicians that we gathered around us. To expect people to set out on such a monumental task, and to have them so impassioned to the very end is testament to the richness of the subject matter, the vision of the Director, but most importantly the tenacity and creative flair of this group of young New Zealanders.