Today is another Geek day. We are going to the Weta Workshop. Weta is the company that did all of the special effects for Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movie. It started was already doing special effects before then but that's what really blew them up to industry leaders
Mike drove us to the workshop but it turns out it in the middle of a neighborhood with very little parking. We spent 10 minutes driving around until we finally found an open spot on a super narrow road right in front of someone's house. I'm sure they hate having Weta near them.
We were early so we walked around the Weta Cave (gift shop) looking for things I could buy and take home. We also found plenty of photo opportunities, a Cave Troll, Armor, Gollum, Elegant Chairs, etc. There were many things that I would love buy but it just doesn't make sense with the tariffs and shipping fees I'd have to pay, it nearly doubles the price.
There was an elderly man that kept sharing stories about the various items, especially the swords. He said that he had 7 of them and was saving up for one of the really expensive ones. Then he kept telling us how there was limited availability on some of them. There as also a set of first edition LOTR books (10th release), but first edition of that release. In other words he was guiding us to some of the most expensive things. One thing that really tempted me was an exact replica of Gandalf's hat. Made by the same company with the same pattern and materials. It was $400 but it was just so cool. That would be my Halloween costume for the rest of forever. But I doubt I could get it home safely in my bags. It would be crushed or torn. Shipping, again, nearly doubles the cost..... I'll think about it while we're on the tour.
Our tour started and 9:20 and was led by Max. That was if we liked her, otherwise her name was Ben.
She told us that we could not take pictures during the first half of the tour because there were real props that were used in the movies. They were still copyrighted and trademarked, so no photos were allowed.
The first room did have a bunch of cool things, like Peter's Sword and Shield from the Narnia movies, a full elvish costume from the 2nd movie, a real Oscar award and a real Bafta award. There were several other important pieces from other projects but I can't refer to my pictures. She told us about all the other movies that Weta has worked on and showed a video of the founders telling their life stories.
The second room was a demonstration room about prosthetics. There were some cool videos of an actor getting a full head casting made, then designing a dracula face and imposing it on his face, and finally creating the prosthetic pieces to glue onto him. We got to see the facial cast, the dracula face model, and finally the prosthetics. We saw them close up to see how much detail was actually transferred onto the silicon. But they missed out by never showing us the actor with the full prosthetics and makeup.
The next room had more movie props like the first, but big props from Lord of the Rings. There was a Balrog head, Sauron's helmet, Mother, Chappy, and a bunch of other robot costumes. She also showed us the full range of chainmail including full steel chainmail down to knitted wool chainmail.
She said that Vego wanted to do everything fully real because he was a method actor. He was insisting on wearing full chainmail and carrying a full steel sword. They eventually convinced him that he couldn't do the moves he needed with the steel sword. And they lied to him about the chainmail. They had plastic chainmail that was nickel plated. It looked real and was heavier than the plastic most others were wearing, so the convinced him it was real steel chainmail. He performed the whole movie wearing that chainmail and they never told him it was fake. She didnt know if he ever found out but he probably did.
She also showed us the difference between the hero sword and the every day aluminum swords. The weight difference was incredible. The hero swords were only used for specific scenes that needed the pristine detail, but the every day swords had cuts and scrapes from being smashed together.
We also saw the 3d cad system they use to build models. They had a 3d printer producing a dragon's head. It's the same printer I have, a Bambu Labs H1C, so I use the same stuff as Weta.
The next room was the first room we could take pictures. There was a lady in the room that makes "Fuzzy Monsters". She demonstrated some of her techniques and told the story of how she came to work at Weta. In the room were a bunch of props that we could touch and take pictures of. Mike and I each got pictures with Gimli's dwarf helmet and Elrond's Elvish helmet. Mike said it would look better if I quit smiling so much so I tried to look stern and that's the picture Mike took and I've been using as my facebook profile picture.
There was a radio controlled troll head that we could play with. We all had allot of fun with everything in the room
Next was the modelling room. The lady here was VERY bubbly. She talked about the easiest modelling substance in the world. It's aluminum foil. She said Rule 1 is dull side out otherwise you can't see any depth of detail. Rule 2 is dont crush it, leave the air and volume if you can. Rule 3 is glue things together to build more volume and details. Rule 4 is add cardboard if you need strength and rigidity. Rule 5 was use a spoon. Use outside of the bowl to burnish and smoth the tinfoil, use the other end to draw lines and indentations. Rule 5 is coat it with modelling sand to make it last. It something like plaster but dries much harder.
She showed us her first personal/professional project. She made a giant tree man entirely formed from tin foil then coated in sand. She sold it for $30k to a Las Vegas casino. They bring it out for a few weeks each year.
We were all allowed to try a bit but I have so little artistic ability I couldn't even get started.
The last room was the photo room. We were allowed to choose from a group of weapons and to pose in front of a black wall. A picture was taken then super imposed in front of a series of backdrops. It cost $20 to buy them if we wanted, or get 2 uninteresting ones for free. I went ahead and bought them.
Back in the cave I started gathering the gifts I was going to buy. I agonized again over Gandalf's hat. It had a geek factor of 10 but a common sense factor of 2. The common sense won out and I left without it.
I also thought about buying Sting but left it for the same reason along with a bunch of figurines and other trinkets I had no way to get home.
I did get about $400 worth of valuable treasures to give to grandkids and kids but it all fits in my carry on bag. I will be ok, even if I have to toss some clothes to fit more goodies before heading home.
Once we extracted our Mitsubishi SUV POS from the tiny road we'd parked it on, we headed up Mount Victoria to the park where the filmed the hobbits hiding from the ring wraith. It wasn't far. Much of the area was clear of growth and even the leaves were clear, probably from people re-enacting the scene.
Nearby was supposed to be the place where Frodo senses the wraith but we couldn't tell where it was. It was a nice park. Many people were biking and hiking the area.
We were already near the top of the mountain so we drove on up to check out the views. They were beautiful. The wind was really whipping around us and there were white caps throughout the bay.
There are obvious differences between this bay and Aukland. We've seen zero casual boating down her. No sailboats, no day or night cruises. Not even any ferries. Only big cargo vessels.
We continued over the top and down the far side, then followed signs back toward downtown. It took us through a tunnel that went through Mount Victoria. It took us about 20 minutes of driving to go over and only about 1 minute of tunnel to go back through.
The first group of restaurants we saw and pulled over to park, then wandered down the street until something looked good. It turned out to be a Japanese Conveyor Belt Sushi. I'd never eaten at a conveyor belt sushi before. We started grabbing Salmon and Tuna Sashimi, pork pot stickers, beef plates, fried tofu, and Inari. Lots and Lots of Inari. We both like it. I guess it's actually a children's dish and the ladies giggled as we kept asking for more. We had a pretty good stack by the end.
After lunch we headed North toward the park where they shot the scenes for Rivendell. It was 30 km away through some beautiful landscape, then down a 1 lane road. We stopped in a parking lot beside a large stream that turned out to be the Fords of Bruinen when they shot the scene of Arwen fighting the Ring Wraiths. Kinda cool.
We walked across a bridge and a few yards to a marker pointing to the Rivendell Location. Several signs showed the layout and where various scenes were shot. A tour company helped pay to rebuild a small replica of the Rivendell gates where Frodo asked Gandalf "Which way is Mordor"
You could kind of see the trees and some of the locations, but it's been 25 years and allot has changed. It was still cool because the feeling was right with the surrounding hills and trees. The ford especially felt right for the Arwen scenes. We spent a good while walking around and reading the signs before we headed back to the car.
The last stop was a city park where the filmed Gandalf meeting Saruman outside of Orthank. It was very hard to picture the scene because it was mostly grass, trees, and a rock pathway that was removed after filming. The book we have did talk about how they bright in a couple of massive trees from another part of the country, pieced them together and hinged them to the ground. They could fell the trees over and over to get just the right shots, then hauled them away and filled in the holes.
For dinner we kind of did the same thing as lunch. We took an Uber to a section of the city with something like a food truck gathering. Nothing there sounded good so we wandered roads until we found something that seemed good. This time it was Thai food with Pad Thai noodles, stir fry and sticky rice. We got medium heat which was about right.
Back at the hotel I wrote the blog for a while, then put on my swim suit and headed down to the hot tub. There was a woman watching a couple kids when I arrived. The hot tub was a stainless steel rectangle with a bench molded right in. It felt like a giant's cooking pot. I turned on the jets and climbed in. The 2 kids (older girl and younger boy) were in the hot tub. Over the next few minutes the mom discreetly got the kids attention and and had them get out and go into the pool near her. I soaked for about 10 minutes. Then since there was only another 10 minutes left till the pool closed, I got out, toweled off and left so they could get back in for the last bit.
I wrote a bit more in the blog then went to sleep.
Today's steps were 11,000 or 5 miles
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