Weta Digital eyeing future in TV after Game of Thrones success

Game of Thrones' zombie bear created by Weta Digital.

New Zealand's own Weta Digital just worked on the biggest TV show in the world - and they aren't planning on stopping any time soon.

Last week it was revealed that New Zealand's own Weta Digital team worked on Game of Thrones and now we know they were behind the awesome zombie polar bear who attacked Jon Snow's squad from episode six.

When the episode aired, Weta's visual effects supervisor Wayne Stables was watching the show with his wife and when the credits rolled Weta's name, their phones started blowing up with messages.

"I couldn't really talk about anything before then so it was funny, but it's interesting for me to know how much social media picks up on things. I guess it's not that surprising because [Thrones] is the biggest TV show in the world, but I think a lot of people were surprised to see Weta at the end of it," laughs Stables.

He's hoping it's not the last time it happens.

Weta Digital has traditionally focused on feature films, working on major productions like The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, The Avengers and Fast and Furious 7, but this shift to TV could be huge for them.

"For me personally, I'd love to work on more. I think it would be a lot of fun to do more work on the next season and if the opportunity arises for us to do that, that would be great," says Stables.

"And now that we've done Game of Thrones we'd be interested in...exploring different things because TV has obviously changed a lot hasn't it? There is so much great long-format TV out there and there's a huge amount of work that goes into it."

He references the obvious shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead but says even shows like Boardwalk Empire require a lot of visual effects just to create all the historical locations and backgrounds.

Even the Game of Thrones scenes they worked on took a core team of about 20 people nine months to get from initial discussions to final delivery.

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"It is just one scene but it's funny because if you think about it ... that blizzard didn't really exist...the fire on the swords that the characters were holding ... It's the crux of anything in terms of visual effects: For every effect that you see, there are four invisible ones that you don't really think about."

But until the next offer rolls in, the team at Weta are enjoying their current success.

"It was really awesome; I'm a massive Game of Thrones fan so it was pretty cool to be asked to be involved," says Stables.

"I was very proud to see our name roll on those credits."