January 19, 2023
“A lack of Love. Love needs to be present. A lack of it will diminish everything into mediocrity.”
- Sir Richard Taylor - Founder of WETA workshop.
This post is for my friend Jeff.
Some of you may find this information more than a bit geeky. That is ok. You don’t know Jeff. I do. And Jeff is awesome.
Jeff is a small statured, charming, gregarious, throughly impish, young man with a fabulous mustache and an easy smile.
When I first met Jeff he told me he was a professional puppeteer.
“A professional puppeteer?”, I asked. I don’t think I have ever met one before.
“Yes!”, he replied enthusiastically.
Not knowing how to respond I replied, “Ok…good to know.”
If you visit the Studio Jeff works in you will find it festooned with puppets of all sizes and shapes with bits and pieces of various puppet anatomy everywhere. There is a sewing machine, tool boxes , table saws and a piano where he will occasionally belt out Broadway style tunes that he wrote himself.
It is a lot to take in. But, you only have to spend a few minutes with him to realize he is very passionate about his craft and obviously talented. He loves his art and is very serious about improving it at every level.
Which brings me to today’s story and why Jeff is involved. We arrived at the bottom of the North Island. We are in Wellington, New Zealand.
It is also the home of the WETA workshop. For Jeff (and many others), this is Mecca and worthy of a Religious Hajj. It is that important of a pilgrimage site to those who love "being creative and making cool stuff"
Jeff was on our minds as we visited the studio.
WETA, which is named after an insect native to New Zealand, was founded by Richard Taylor and his partner Tania Rodger in 1987. Taylor was unemployed and Taylor worked as a waitress. Both of them loved puppets and model making. Taylor would bring home from the cafe blocks of margarine and Taylor would spend his days sculpting fantastical creatures out of them.
It doesn’t sound like a promising career beginning does it? it wasn’t. But Richard was passionate and loved what he was doing. In the early 1990’s he met another dreamer of big things here in Wellington. His name was Peter Jackson.
Jackson was trying to become a film maker and he needed puppets for a twisted muppet like movie called “Meet the Feebles”. The film was marketed in some countries with the tagline: "From the director of Bad Taste, comes a movie with no taste at all!”. Taylor created the puppets for the film.
In a short 10 years later they would join forces again. This was a trilogy of films called “The Lord of the Rings”. WETA would design and build the thousands of swords, armor, creatures and miniature sets required for the film.
Today, WETA is a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The company's reach rivals that of Industrial Light and Magic - the special effects company founded by George Lucas.
Much of the photography will show figures made by WETA. That is it’s specialty, creating creatures.
The tickets were $50 dollars a pop to go in! But, we aren’t allowed to take many pictures of the interesting bits inside the tour due to “Copyright”. Their were some limited areas they allowed you to take shots. Very limited!
Biff and Frank Insert -
Frank - “We will tell them everything they see is 'hush hush', top secret and only allow them to take pictures of stuff they can buy! Then, we will tell them they are 'collectables' and will go up in value!”
Biff - “Genius”
Still, while you are touring you see the considerable art in what they are doing. The gentleman who designed and made all of the swords for the movies started out in his back yard making swords for Renaissance Fairs. No one else in New Zealand was doing this work. Today some of his work is in London at the National Museum.
Here is one of the artists giving a brief demo -
The Miramar peninsula, where WETA was located, was a warehouse district at the time. It was derelict and Taylor was able to purchase work buildings cheaply. Today, the old warehouses are surrounded by expensive homes. Down the street the movie studio just completed work on the AVATAR sequel.
It was fascinating to walk through and a long way form there humble beginnings in sculpting blocks of butter.
I understand my friend Jeff’s passion even more now. And I appreciate even more just how talented he is and I have no doubt one day he will be working at a place like WETA.
Or, more likely, starting his own company.
POSTSCRIPT -
New Zealand made the world news yesterday. Jacinda Arden, the Prime Minister, in a surprise move decided to step down from her office.
The story is below.
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