Weta Workshop
An interest in Weta Workshop’s milling machines and high tech 3-D computer systems saw members of Ohakea’s Avionics Flight pay a visit to the Wellington-based company’s facilities.
Weta Workshop's 'creations'. WN-08-0048-14-tn.jpg.
While there’s a world of difference between what our people use milling machines and computer design for, going to the sharp end of the technology was certainly an eye-opener for our Avionics Flight people. SGT Mark Harpur tells the story.
An invitation was recently extended to a number of personnel from Avionics Flight at Ohakea to have a tour of Weta Workshops in Wellington. Most of us have heard of what they do at the facility and we have all witnessed some of the things that they create either on the movie screen, at exhibitions or even the Air Museum at Omaka.
Weta Workshop is a warehouse that creates physical images to be used mainly in the movies. The statues they create are amazingly lifelike. It is only when you touch them that you can tell that they are actually made out of polystyrene, as I reached out to touch Golem a creature from Lord Of The Rings, I half expected him to jump out and bite my hand!
Gollum from 'Lord of the Rings'. WN-08-0048-15-tn.jpg.
The basic principle of forming the majority of their work is to create a small scale model of the image that they intend to produce, digitally scan it, expand it to whatever size they require and finally send to a milling machine for production. The 3D milling machine was capable of producing items made from polystyrene, aluminium etc and for one recent production they turned out over 5000 swords in less than three months. Now that computers are considerably more powerful it has also enabled the artists to sculpt relatively small models and then computer enhance them to the requisite size as opposed to making large and cumbersome visualisations. It was interesting to see that a lot of the machines and equipment were scratch-built by those personnel and this highlighted a similarity to some of the things that we do in the Avionics trade. We have personnel designing and building test sets for, amongst other things, the Radar Altimeter, PCB milling machines as well as building power supply units for NVG displays. In his spare time one technician was tinkering with a small jet engine to see if he could get it to work and then see what use it would be for future tasks that came their way.
Marc Harpur and Richard Taylor.
WN-08-0048-17-tn.jpg.
One job they were doing that really highlighted the fact that we were seeing a different world was what they were doing to a couple of brand new 4WDs. These cars were going to be systematically stripped and turned into beaten up old weather worn vehicles. They were then due to be shipped off to the other side of the world. From leaving the factory until going on the scrap heap they would have around 50 kilometres on the clock. Having owned some dodgy cars in my time I left that area with my eyes moistening.
Right next to the imminent car destruction there was a sculptor busy making a life-size dragon-head with the body under construction next to a large drawing on the wall behind it. All out of polystyrene and the finished model was going to be over 15-20 feet high.
As you can imagine there were props all around the ‘factory’ and you went around saying that’s ‘such and such’ and that was in that film or this film etc. In one corridor there was what can only be described as an armoury and aptly named the ‘weapons wall’. There were all kinds of different weapons and fake guns displayed on the wall (all made of polystyrene, rubber, aluminium etc). There was one of each kind made for Lord of the Rings and King Kong on display but they have hundreds in store.
Avionics Flight personnel. WN-08-0048-16-tn.jpg.
The most impressive aspect of the whole visit was the people. Richard Taylor the Managing Director and Creative Director of Weta Workshop even made time for us and was waiting at the end of the tour to make sure that we had seen everything and to ask us what we thought and answer any questions. Everyone that we met was happy to chat about what they did (if they could, as even we had to sign a confidentially agreement before going in), explained things to us and how they did this or that to create the result they wanted. Their work ethic is determined by their imagination, they did not seem limited to just doing the job at hand, they did not clock watch but got on with what they wanted to achieve. The end products are a testament to their professionalism, patience and attention to detail. They were warm and very friendly and prepared to let us see what we could, we even got to handle their Oscars and Baftas. All in all it was a very rewarding and eye- opening experience.