Weta well into new ventures

By JAMES GARDINER

New Zealand's technical film-makers are already way beyond The Lord of the Rings.

Wellington's Weta Digital has been busy since the trilogy's completion last year and expect to remain so.

Weta staff have worked on the films Master and Commander, Last Samurai, Perfect Strangers and Peter Pan.

They are working now on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with another New Zealand director, Andrew Adamson (Shrek).

But the next big one, in every sense, is Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong.

Weta Workshop director Richard Taylor is due back from Los Angeles this morning with two further Oscars (best costume, best makeup) to add to the two (make-up, visual effects) won for The Fellowship of the Ring two years ago.

All the staff were given a paid day off on Monday and were able to celebrate at a private function in a Wellington bar.

Taylor and his team have been working on King Kong for the past 14 months and he expects it to take about two more years.

"After working on Lord of the Rings with Pete for so long it's so neat to be on to a new project and he's obviously incredibly inspired by it, which is great," Taylor said from Los Angeles yesterday.

He was impressed that Jackson had, after seven years producing the trilogy, thrown himself into the new project rather than take a holiday.

Taylor said The Lord of the Rings cast and crew returned to Jackson's rooms at the Four Seasons at 2am and partied for another two hours.

"We did a lineup of the Oscars on the table and they almost circumnavigated the dining room table, which was hilarious."