Weta Digital
Founded Year: 1993
Weta Digital is a world leading visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand. We provide a full suite of digital production services for feature films and high end commercials, from concept design to cutting edge 3D animation.
Weta was formed in 1993 by a group of young New Zealand filmmakers including Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk. It later split into two specialised halves - Weta Digital (digital effects) and Weta Workshop (physical effects).
One of our first projects was to provide visual effects for Peter Jackson?s film Heavenly Creatures. We went on to work digital magic on Peter?s blockbuster movies The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong.
We also work with other Hollywood directors, providing digital effects for box office hits like I, Robot, X-Men: The Last Stand, Eragon, Bridge to Terabithia, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Water Horse, Jumper, The Day the Earth Stood Still, District 9 and The Lovely Bones.
Most recently Weta Digital won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects on James Cameron?s Avatar. Our work on the film involved using a new camera system and shooting on a virtual stage. New technologies were developed for supporting software and a new production pipeline in order to reach a new level of creative and technological excellence, delivering the film in 3D.
Our reputation for creativity and delivery keeps us in high demand with some of the world?s leading film studios.
Specialties
VFX, Visual Effects, Feature Film, Commercials, Special Venue Projects, Animation, Compositing, Motion Capture, Lighting, Effects, Crowd Generation, Film Scanning, Recording
Weta was formed in 1993 by a group of young New Zealand filmmakers including Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk. It later split into two specialised halves - Weta Digital (digital effects) and Weta Workshop (physical effects).
One of our first projects was to provide visual effects for Peter Jackson?s film Heavenly Creatures. We went on to work digital magic on Peter?s blockbuster movies The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong.
We also work with other Hollywood directors, providing digital effects for box office hits like I, Robot, X-Men: The Last Stand, Eragon, Bridge to Terabithia, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Water Horse, Jumper, The Day the Earth Stood Still, District 9 and The Lovely Bones.
Most recently Weta Digital won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects on James Cameron?s Avatar. Our work on the film involved using a new camera system and shooting on a virtual stage. New technologies were developed for supporting software and a new production pipeline in order to reach a new level of creative and technological excellence, delivering the film in 3D.
Our reputation for creativity and delivery keeps us in high demand with some of the world?s leading film studios.
Specialties
VFX, Visual Effects, Feature Film, Commercials, Special Venue Projects, Animation, Compositing, Motion Capture, Lighting, Effects, Crowd Generation, Film Scanning, Recording
Address
People
Matt Aitken
(1997 - 2011)
Visual Effects Supervisor
Pre-production Cg Supervisor
Digital Effects Supervisor
Digital Models Supervisor
Computer Graphics Supervisor
Digital Modeling Supervisor
Models Supervisor
Guy Williams
(2001 - 2012)
Visual Effects Supervisor
Co-visual Effects Supervisor
Digital Effects Supervisor
3d Cg Supervisor
Cg Supervisor
3d Sequence Supervisor
3d Sequence Lead Technical Director
Pre-pro Shading Supervisor
Eric Saindon
(2001 - 2009)
Visual Effects Supervisor
Digital Effects Supervisor
Lead Cg Supervisor
3d Sequence Supervisor
Creatures Supervisor
Martin Hill
(2005 - 2012)
Visual Effects Supervisor
Shaders Supervisor
Senior Shader Writer
Shader Supervisor
Cg Supervisor
Visual Effects
Digital Effects Artist
3d Sequence Lead
Garry Runke
(2009 - 2013)
Visual Effects Artist
Effects Technical Director
Visual Effects Technical Director
Movies
The Hobbit: There and Back Again (2013) Man of Steel (2013) Iron Man 3 (2013) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) Prometheus (2012) The Avengers (2012) The Adventures of Tintin (2011) Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) X-Men: First Class (2011) Gulliver's Travels (2010) Knight and Day (2010) The A-Team (2010) Avatar (2009) District 9 (2009) The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) Jumper (2008) The Water Horse (2007) Enchanted (2007) 30 Days of Night (2007) Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) Night at the Museum (2006) Eragon (2006) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) King Kong (2005) I, Robot (2004) Van Helsing (2004) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) Contact (1997)News
November 26th, 2012
Take a look at the post-production part of The Hobbit.
August 6th, 2012
A very complete article covering all the major studios that did the VFX on Prometheus.
July 15th, 2012
Here is the brand new poster from Zack Snyder's Man of Steel.
July 11th, 2012
This issue covers The Avengers, Prometheus, Battleship and Snow White and the Huntsman.
June 20th, 2012
A very in-depth article about the visual effects on Prometheus by all major vendors.
June 19th, 2012
Another article about the visual effects Weta Digital did for Prometheus.
June 18th, 2012
Martin Hill talks about the work Weta Digital did on Prometheus.
June 15th, 2012
In this episode you can see some visual effects breakdowns of the spacecrafts, holograms, star map room and the Engineers.
June 14th, 2012
A CGS article about the work done by several studios on Prometheus.
June 13th, 2012
Weta and Rising Sun Pictures help Ridley Scott on his sci-fi return.
May 25th, 2012
VFX Supervisor Guy Williams talks about the visual effects on The Avengers.
May 17th, 2012
Check out this amazing poster!
May 9th, 2012
A must see!
May 4th, 2012
ILM's Jeff White and Weta's Guy Williams discuss a new Hulk and Iron Man tune-up for Joss Whedon's superhero epic.
March 27th, 2012
it covers John Carter, Red Tails, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and The Adventures of Tintin.
March 27th, 2012
Here Robin Hollander takes us through Weta Digital's ground breaking use of the technology on Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
February 27th, 2012
Crowd-funded movie short helps developing an open source vfx pipeline.
February 13th, 2012
President Lincoln's mother is killed by a supernatural creature, which fuels his passion to crush vampires and their slave-owning helpers.
February 10th, 2012
A report from the 10th Annual VES Awards hosted by Patton Oswalt. Plus, Rob Legato, Stan Lee and Douglas Trumbull.
January 22nd, 2012
CGSociety takes a look at how Tintin was lighted by Weta Digital.
December 24th, 2011
Visual Effects Supervisor Matt Aitken talks about his experience working on Tintin.
December 20th, 2011
it covers Real Steel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Hugo and The Tree of Life.
November 23rd, 2011
New Ridley Scott film Prometheus is rumored to be a prequel to Alien.
October 14th, 2011
Take a look at this behind the scenes video of the upcoming Spielberg movie.
October 11th, 2011
Joss Whedon brings together the ultimate team of superheroes in the first official trailer for Marvel's The Avengers.
September 23rd, 2011
Dan Lemmon talks about his role in the film.
September 2nd, 2011
A CGSociety article about the visual effects by Weta Digital in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
August 22nd, 2011
A response to Andy talking about his performance capture in film.
August 9th, 2011
Joe Letteri explains how they pulled off Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
August 2nd, 2011
A lot of interesting material in this behind the scenes, a must see.
July 8th, 2011
This paper will appear at Siggraph 2011.
June 16th, 2011
In this amazing article fxguide covers the work made by all major vendors.
June 3rd, 2011
In this new trailer we can see the real plot of the movie. The apes looks amazing!
May 5th, 2011
Weta Digital's "deep compositing" technology, developed during its work on Avatar, will be supported in the next release of OpenEXR, company CTO Sebastian Sylwan has announced at fmx.
April 28th, 2011
More of the plot is reveal in this trailer.
April 27th, 2011
Take a look at the Featurette and some cool concept art images.
April 26th, 2011
Blockbusters blow budgets, deadlines
April 14th, 2011
Weta Digital is behind the visual effects of this movie, looks amazing!
April 12th, 2011
First "very quick" look at Weta's Apes
February 15th, 2011
Take a look at this interesting documentary about the story of CG characters.
February 10th, 2011
Sequel to the popular franchise traces the early years of archenemies Professor X and Magneto as they discover their powers for the first time
February 1st, 2010
Hassan El Youbi, Lighting Technical Director, talks about his work on Avatar.
June 1st, 2007
Hollywood puts pressure on techies
March 21st, 2004
They have a total of 1600 dual processor servers.
February 18th, 2004
Mark Ramshaw discusses the transition Weta Digital is taking from The Lord of the Rings series to new projects like King Kong.
