Weta Digital
Weta Digital is a digital visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand. It was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for Heavenly Creatures. Weta Digital has won several Academy Awards and BAFTAs.[1]
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Industry | Visual effects, CGI animation |
Founded | 1993 |
Founder | Richard Taylor, Peter Jackson ![]() |
Headquarters | Wellington, New Zealand |
Key people | Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, Joe Letteri, Wes Takahashi, Eileen Moran, David Conley |
Website | www.wetafx.co.nz |
Weta Digital is part of a number of Peter Jackson's co-owned companies in Wellington which includes Weta Workshop, Weta Productions, Weta Collectibles and Park Road Post Production.
The company is named after the New Zealand wētā, one of the world's largest insects, which is also featured in the logo.
History
As of 2017, Weta Digital has won six Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), King Kong (2005), Avatar (2009), and The Jungle Book (2016).
Weta Digital has developed several proprietary software packages to achieve groundbreaking visual effects. The scale of the battles required for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy led to the creation of MASSIVE, a program which can animate huge numbers of agents: independent characters acting according to pre-set rules.[2] To recreate 1933 New York for King Kong, Weta created CityBot, an application which could "build" the city on a shot by shot basis.[3]
Kong’s fur also required the development of new simulation and modeling software. A set of tools that combined procedural and interactive techniques added wind to the 460 billion individual strands of fur and modeled interaction with other surfaces. New shaders were written that accounted for the scattering of light from within each hair that added to the volumetric quality of the fur. Large chunks of fur were ripped out and filled in with scars, blood, and the mud of Skull Island. Each frame of fur took 2 gigabytes of data.[4]
For James Cameron's Avatar, Weta modified MASSIVE to give life to the flora and fauna on Pandora, for which the company did most of the visual effects with the four-time Academy Award winner visual effects expert, Joe Letteri,[5] under a team led by executive and producer Eileen Moran.[6] Recently the company has developed their motion capture technique to be able to leave studio for shooting on location, as utilized on the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes and its sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.[7][8]
On 19 June 2020, Weta Digital announced that it would be producing original online content under the name Weta Animated. The company also announced a new chief executive Prem Akkaraju, who comes from Los Angeles.[9]
Film and television visual effects filmography
- Heavenly Creatures (1994)[10]
- Forgotten Silver (1995) (TV)
- The Frighteners (1996/I)
- Contact (1997)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
- Van Helsing (2004)
- I, Robot (2004)
- King Kong (2005)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
- Eragon (2006)
- Enchanted (2007)
- Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
- The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007)
- 30 Days of Night (2007)
- Jumper (2008)
- The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
- District 9 (2009)
- The Lovely Bones (2009)
- Avatar (2009)
- The A-Team (2010)
- Knight and Day (2010)
- Predators (2010)
- Gulliver's Travels (2010)
- X-Men: First Class (2011)
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
- The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)
- The Avengers (2012)
- Prometheus (2012)
- Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
- Man of Steel (2013)[11]
- Iron Man 3 (2013)[12]
- The Wolverine (2013)
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
- Godzilla (2014)
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
- Furious 7 (2015)
- Fantastic Four (2015)[13]
- Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)
- Krampus (2015)
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015)
- Deadpool (2016)
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
- The Jungle Book (2016)
- Central Intelligence (2016)
- Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
- Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
- The BFG (2016)
- Pete's Dragon (2016)
- Spectral (2017)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
- Avatar Flight of Passage[14] (2017)
- War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
- Game of Thrones (Season 7)
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
- Justice League (2017)
- Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)
- Rampage (2018)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- Deadpool 2 (2018)
- Animal World (2018)
- Mortal Engines (2018)
- Aquaman (2018)
- Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
- The Umbrella Academy (2019)
- Game of Thrones (Season 8)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- Annabelle Comes Home (2019)
- Ad Astra (2019)
- Gemini Man (2019)
- Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
- Lady and the Tramp (2019)
- Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
- Birds of Prey (2020)
- Space Force (2020)
- Mulan (2020)
- The King's Man (2020)
- Black Widow (2020)
- Godzilla vs. Kong (2020)
- The Tomorrow War (2021)
- Jungle Cruise (2021)
- The Suicide Squad (2021)
- The Batman (2021)
- Avatar 2 (2021)
- Avatar 3 (2023)
- Avatar 4 (2025)
- Avatar 5 (2027)
- Shadow in the Cloud (TBA)
- The Adventures of Thomas (TBA)
- The Christmas Chronicles 2 (TBA)
- The Green Knight (TBA)
- We Can Be Heroes (TBA)
References
- "Another visual effects Oscar for Weta Digital?". Wellington.scoop. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
- "Massive Software". Massive Software. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
- "Interview with Chris White on King Kong". cgarchitect. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
- "Bigger and Badder: How Weta Digital Bulked Up for King Kong". Studio Daily. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
- Alex Ben Block (10 December 2009). "The creatures of 'Avatar' were 15 years in the making". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 4 January 2010.
- Barnes, Mike (3 December 2012). "Top Visual Effects Producer Eileen Moran Dies in New Zealand; Worked on 'Avatar,' 'The Hobbit'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 28 December 2012.
- Staskiewicz, Keith. "'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes': See Andy Serkis and others go ape in this side-by-side special-effects video -- EXCLUSIVE". Entertainment Weekly. Entertainment Weekly Inc. Retrieved 19 July 2014.
- Danny Allen (5 August 2011). "Giz Interviews Weta Digital's Effects Guru, Joe Letteri". Gizmondo. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- Wiltshire, Laura (19 June 2020). "Weta Digital will create original content for the first time in 25 year histor". Stuff. Archived from the original on 19 June 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
- "The Birth of Weta", 1994, "The Edge" TV series, S2E7
- Gilchrist, Todd (17 December 2011). "Effects Supremo Joe Letteri Says Zack Snyder Is Placing Emphasis On In-Camera Effects In 'Man of Steel' | The Playlist". IndieWire. Washington, DC, USA: SnagFilms. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- COHEN, DAVID. "Marvel's Alonso to studios: Support Digital Domain". Variety. Retrieved 24 November 2012.
- "Weta Digital". Retrieved 4 February 2015.
- Murphy, Mekado (31 July 2017). "Inside Avatar, the Theme Park Version". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 August 2017.