The Weta Cave

Bus to Auckland, New Zealand

Beautiful weather continued. Yesterday, I had looked up the Weta Workshop, which had done the displays for the bug and Gallipoli exhibits at the museum. It turned out it’s based in Wellington and offers tours, so I signed us up for one at 11:00.

Our Uber driver was a dear sweet lady from Russia, who had fled Chechnya in the early nineties, and moved on from Germany when her family was offered residency in New Zealand. She told us how happy she is to be here. Her youngest son was born soon after arriving so is a full blooded Kiwi. It was neat to talk to her particularly after just reading about refugees to New Zealand yesterday at the National Museum.

On the face of it, the Weta Workshop seems like a small operation. There was a small gift shop and tour office known as the Weta Cave where we picked up tickets and also watched a movie about the company. Some may know that the Weta Workshop was responsible for the special effects in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, not to mention Avatar, District 9, and many other blockbusters. The special effects divisions of the company are divided into two main parts, the Weta Workshop, responsible for physical models, and Weta Digital, responsible for all computer generated effects.

The tour focused on the former, physical models. Our fantastic guide, showed us how the model makers create many movie props: first a master model is fabricated, then a silicone mold (typically in two halves) is created, and then each item -- gun, sword, mask etc -- is cast using a two part urethane. Ultimately, everything is painted by an incredibly talented group of artists. The painstaking work includes painting on simulated dirt, grime, and scratches needed for complete realism.

Hobbit feet

The second part of the tour focused on the miniature models often used in conjunction with computer animation. Even these days, it can be easier and cheaper to create a detailed scale model of a city, castle or spaceship than invest the time and money needed to create all detailed texture and lighting effects. We were taken into a warehouse containing the scale sets used for the remake of the New Zealand classic, The Thunderbirds -- five brothers, each with their own space ship that week after week make the earth safe for humanity.

Us in a full sized Thuderbirds cockpit

The models were awesome to look at. Unfortunately, no picture were allowed inside the workshops. It was particularly fun to see how ordinary household items were incorporated into the Thunderbirds models -- toilet paper rolls, ballpoint pens, computer fans, circuit boards, razors, vacuums etc. We were reminded of the Vunderland miniature train museum in Hamburg.

For the rest of the day, we got lunch at Fidel’s -- a Cuban restaurant appropriately on Cuba street -- then wandered back to the waterfront to watch people again jumping into the harbor. It's cool that there are no warning signs at the diving platforms. Apparently the liability laws are different here. The platform was intentionally built for diving, but people also used the pier railings and the top of the bathrooms to launch themselves into the water, some doing back flips from the 5m height. Dex and Kylie were happy to cool off jumping from the lower platforms.

No warning signs here

For the first time in a long time, our overnight accommodations would be a bus. Although I'm guessing the roads will be much better than in India or Vietnam, I'm not expecting to have a horizontal bed and probably not the best night's sleep ... at least not for me.