Figurine of Lieutenant Colonel William Malone in the battle. Photo / Supplied
Figurine of Lieutenant Colonel William Malone in the battle. Photo / Supplied
Breakfast radio host Brian Kelly didn't expect to be quite so gobsmacked as he took 74 prize winners to Wellington to see the two World War I exhibitions at Te Papa and the Dominion War Museum.
"I'd seen Gallipoli: The scale of our war exhibition, but I hadn't seen the Great War Exhibition by Sir Peter Jackson at the Dominion Museum Building," says Kelly, host of Coast's breakfast show which ran a competition offering winners a free return flight to Wellington, courtesy of Wellington Airport and Jetstar, and back to see the two world-class exhibitions.
"I was just blown away; I just wasn't prepared for the colour and realism of it all. They are both such amazing exhibitions; I defy anyone to go there and not be moved by the experience."
The Coast saw for themselves the interest generated by the two exhibitions - the Gallipoli exhibition with its famous giant figures whose presence and detail really personalises the war and Sir Peter Jackson's Great War Exhibition's colourful recreation of a world at war; entered via the fragile peacefulness of a Belgian village but descending into a nightmarish world of bayonets, mustard gas, grenades and flamethrowers.
Listeners flooded the station's website registering for the lucky draw which saw 37 couples randomly selected for the free trip - and then those same listeners had their emotions flooded by the twin, co-ordinated exhibitions.
"Everyone who went was affected by it," says Kelly. "Rick Morin [Coast's night show host] and I took the party from Auckland down and everyone said it was world-class. Rick himself is originally from Canada, which has its own war history, of course - and he said he had never experienced anything like it." Kelly says probably the best way to see the exhibitions is to go to the Sir Peter Jackson Great War Exhibition at the Dominion Museum building first.
"It just gives you an overview of the whole war and the reasons for it," he says. "For example, I saw a picture of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife [whose assassination sparked the conflict] lying in state in Sarajevo in their coffins and it was in colour - it blew me away too.
"In fact, all of the photos in that exhibition are in colour and it just makes it seem like today and really heightens the relevance. There are massive exhibits such a huge gun, tank and double decker bus though to 5000 tiny figures on an enormous diorama of the Gallipoli peninsula all telling the story of WW1."
After that, the Gallipoli exhibition at Te Papa opens up the world of war with a complete sensory depiction of the horrors and bravery. Each of the eight giant figures, representing seven soldiers and a nurse from the time, can stop a visitor in their tracks.
Weta Workshop took 24,000 hours to craft them; they're clinically accurate replicas, down to every thread of clothing and pore of skin and seem to be animated with intense emotion.
A medically accurate animation of the effects of bullets on the human body has been nominated for an award by the Royal College of Surgeons. There are also film clips of men inside Turkish trenches, seen in glimpses as you follow the footsteps of scouts attacking Chunuk Bair.
Vibrations of artillery come up through the floor as you march in the footsteps of men attacking this high ground. You see the men inside Turkish trenches, either totally unaware or reacting with astonishment as the New Zealand troops storm in.
Kelly and Morin took the Auckland winners down recently and a Christchurch team of 38 couples, making 150 winners in all, will visit the exhibitions in November. The winners enjoy a free flight courtesy of Wellington Airport and Jetstar, and two buses are laid on to spend two hours at each exhibition before taking them back to Wellington Airport for the return flight home.
