The Post

Film-makers ponder the future post-virus

- Andre Chumko andre.chumko@stuff.co.nz

Weta Digital executives say the company is unlikely to return completely to the office in the wake of coronaviru­s and will run more production virtually, sometimes across continents.

On Friday, the Wellington company’s executive producer David Conley, senior visual-effects producer Lena Scanlan and visual-effects supervisor Guy Williams discussed the state of the internatio­nal screen market, and how New Zealand was perceived by Hollywood, in a Zoom broadcast.

Conley, who has worked on films including Cloverfiel­d, Life Of Pi and Pirates Of The Caribbean, said Weta Digital first started thinking about consequenc­es of the global pandemic in January, when the company had difficulty getting hardware out of Wuhan, the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Within hours of the company drafting ‘‘what if’’ scenarios for the virus escaping China, the first Auckland case was identified, he said.

Weta Digital quickly moved to working from home after the first case was announced, but it proved more challengin­g than most companies.

As well as requiring some heavyduty equipment, much of Weta Digital’s work is governed by strict intellectu­al property (IP) contracts to protect film studios’ content, making it harder to move to at-home working.

Conley said there was ‘‘enormous pressure’’ to come up with protective­s measures to make sure nothing escaped its facilities. As such, working from home had never been allowed before.

Solutions were developed and worked through with studios and filmmakers, and the fact the crew rose to the occasion showed the company understood how valuable IP was.

Now, given how well working from home had gone, Conley said he didn’t see the company ever returning to a 100 per cent inside-facility.

Social distancing, increased hygiene practices and borders being closed (for the short-term) were all new challenges for the business of making films with internatio­nal partners.

However, Conley expected a dearth of content wanting to be made once borders did reopen. ‘‘There will be a massive glut of film production.’’

As part of the move to home, Weta Digital was engaging with more virtual production – where live actors perform against digital-generated environmen­ts

– which allowed for more flexibilit­y, especially with borders closed.

Scanlan said there was no drop in production of the Avatar films since Weta Digital went to a work-from-home situation..

‘‘You can dive in and out, split live action out, do it in beats, get virtual cameras . . . It definitely has been a good moment to take a breath after such a long sprint.’’

Working remotely had also given people a chance to make conversati­ons less complicate­d, and staff were finding solutions they wouldn’t have in the past.

Williams, who’s worked on X-Men, The Hunger Games, and The Lord Of The Rings, said the lockdown had forced Weta Digital to be more critical about the way it worked.

Conley said traditiona­l cinema would ‘‘always’’ have a place, but future content may shift towards the Netflix or YouTube-style: smaller, and more digestible. While screens were getting smaller, the spec standard was getting larger, he said.

More hybrid production – for example combining a performanc­e with actors in Los Angeles with visual effects realised here, could also be on the cards. The biggest challenge was modernisin­g and upskilling infrastruc­ture.

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Lena Scanlan
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