Published at: April 20, 2005, 4:53 a.m. CST by staff
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a link for ya' to the brand new and spiffy website for Weta Workshop, the effects wizards behind LORD OF THE RINGS, KONG and more impressively BRAINDEAD (aka DEAD ALIVE for us yanks) and MEET THE FEEBLES.
You know what the site reminds me of? It reminds me of being a kid in the late '80s and early '90s and checking out books on ILM from the school library. Delving into these tomes, I found out about people like John Dykstra and Dennis Muren, got to see photos of them working on the INDIANA JONES movies and STAR WARS movies, got to read about their other projects and see what they specifically contributed to the films that I loved. At the same time, I was getting badass behind the scenes photos on stuff like the above trilogies and POLTERGEIST and GHOSTBUSTERS.
Weta right now feels like ILM felt back then. It's a group of people pulled from all areas around the world who are putting out some of the best stuff on the market today. From Weta's work on the amazing Bigature boats in MASTER AND COMMANDER to their prosthetic work on the mermaids in PETER PAN to the amazing job of creating dozens and dozens of different cultures through weaponry and armor in LOTR, their stuff has been top notch.
If you go to the site above you'll find profiles on some of the great people who are responsible for all the above and more, including Gino Acevedo (who did all the prosthetics on LOTR and is one helluva nice guy, to boot), Daniel Falconer (who designed Treebeard and scripted much of the Elvish writing... and is also a top notch person) and the lovely Gayle Munroe. By clicking here you can see each person and a gallery of their work.
Another part of the site I'd like to point you to is a list of their filmography... CLICK HERE FOR THAT! What's cool about this area is the behind the scenes stuff you get to see on stuff like BRAINDEAD and MEET THE FEEBLES... And yes, I agree... the Kong and Narnia links there are big cockteases...
There's many other areas, but I'll let you folks explore and discover those for yourselves. I've been lucky enough to have spent time with some of these people while down in Wellington on KONG and ROTK and have also been gifted by having been shown around the workshop. It's a great place and I'm very happy that they've opened this site to give everyone a peek behind the curtain. Enjoy it, squirts!
