Thursday, April 25, 2002
WETA Presentation At AGideas - Xoanon @ 09:46 PST
From: Chris

I saw a presentation by Weta Workshop's Daniel Falconer at AGideas in Melbourne during the week. He showed us a heap of stuff most of which I had seen before including the FOTR trailer. Sadly he was unable to show anything from TTT and was even unable to show their background sketches for FOTR because of the book being published in July. This was greatly disappointing, but the sheer enthusiasm and passion he spoke with was far more valuable than anything he could have shown.

Starting the talk with what Weta was all about he introduced us to Richard Taylor with a photo of him emerging from a cows behind. We then saw the Weta Promotional Reel and the making of the Sideshow Weta products which he informed us are their way of being able to stay with the Rings whilst Weta Digital finishes off TTT and TROTK (he explained that with the majority of the design work already done there really isn't much for the workshop to do). The actors apparently signed a petition for New Line to allow Weta Workshop make these unbelievably detailed sculptures, and so we saw some very comical footage of the actors posing next to their statuettes and thanking the artists.

All in all Daniel was great, and he inspired a lot of us to really pursue what we love to, and not just sell our dreams out to the corporate giants.