10 years of taking secrets to cave
Busloads of tourists would park outside Miramar’s Weta Workshop headquarters hoping to catch a glimpse of the work that brought Sir Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings to the big screen.
Waving out from behind their office windows were Weta Workshop co-founders Sir Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger, smiling at the hopeful tourists from behind the towering white fence; a barrier to keep the secrets of the film industry tucked safely away.
‘‘Occasionally we would wander down there and we’d get on the bus and we’d say hi and tell them a little about what we were doing,’’ Taylor said yesterday.
‘‘They would always ask me to come through and, of course, we can’t have people through because of the confidentiality of the next job we are working on.’’
For Taylor and Rodger, it wasn’t enough. Out of their desire to connect with the community and promote the extraordinary work by some of the country’s best artists, the Weta Cave was born.
Adorning the cave’s walls are film artefacts: moulds, sculptures, prop replicas, art prints as well as souvenirs. A figure of Gollum eyes up each guest, as a giant Orc sneers, displaying yellow-stained fangs. Souvenir tea towels depicting The
Lord Of The Rings graphics were the cave’s biggest seller, Taylor said.
This weekend, the Weta Workshop crew and alumni will cut a cake to celebrate the cave’s 10th anniversary, offering Middle-earth calligraphy and signings by senior Weta Workshop artists Daniel Reeve and Daniel Falconer (The Lord of the
Rings, The Hobbit) to the public, and staging an in-store scavenger hunt with a one-of-a-kind prize.
The cave has been an extraordinary thing, Taylor reflected, because it had allowed him and Rodgers to offer something back to those tourists.
‘‘It’s sort of spilled the beans, if you like. It’s allowed us to speak somewhat to the mystery behind the doors and that has had an amazing benefit, because of course that allows young people who may be thinking of this as a career – but been uncertain whether they can break in – discovering that it’s entirely possible.
‘‘Many of the people who have worked with us have come to us through the portal of the Weta Cave.’’
Weta Workshop boasts more than 200,000 people through its cave each year.
‘‘It’s a lovely opportunity to have that little bit of insight into the magic and I think that is something special. Prior to that, you might have seen it on behind-the-scenes making-ofs, but to actually stand inside the Weta Caves and look at some of the models and the examples we have used in the actual filming – that’s quite a nice feeling for those people, it’s quite personal for them,’’ Rodger added.
The Weta Cave celebrates its birthday tomorrow. Doors open at 9am and close at 5.30pm, with Taylor and Rodger cutting the cake at 1pm.