WETA tour in Wellington, NZ

Sunday morning and I neglected to find a church service, but I did book us on a tour of the WETA Workshop in nearby Miramar.

Returning to the goals where we decided to do this without renting a car, meant splurging on tours rather than taking mass transit and Ubers to places. By the end of our time in Auckland I was feeling a little sad for not going to the Hobbiton movie set. Neither one of us has seen "Lord of the Rings," but still, it is the one question that people keep asking me when they hear we went to New Zealand. Maybe next time.

I booked the tour through Viator.com for the Half Day Lord of the Rings Tour, which they farm out to a local tour company, Xplortours.NZ. 

Mark, our driver was chatty, but unlike on our Rotorua tour we had breakfast and tea first, and the drive was less than 30-minutes away from the center of town. Our group included a couple of women a little older than us traveling together though they are from different parts of the United States. 

Mark is a 7th and 8th grade teacher who covers all subjects, including native traditions. He said there is a big push in New Zealand to include Maori culture in schools.

During the drive he told us about what we were seeing. We passed Te Papa. Situated on prime waterfront property, this had been the site of the Queen Elizabeth II hotel. It was moved to give the land back to the Maori. The guide said in an earthquake, this is the safest place to be because of the way it was built. This was the beginning of hearing about New Zealanders' well-deserved fear of earthquakes.

Across the street is the Convention Center, currently housing the Brickman exhibit. As Wellington does not (yet) have a LEGO store, this was the closest to LEGOs Don would get in this city.

As it was a Sunday morning, we saw how the area was filled for the weekly market. Mark commented a number of the restaurants closed during the pandemic with the owners and staff getting "day" jobs. They turned their restaurants into food trucks. I was a little disappointed we missed this because of our tour.

Drove along the Oriental Bay, which had been named after its original owner. It has a man-made beach which is packed on sunny days (like the day before). Back in 1840 when the first settlers came it was rocky. It is the only beach in Wellington. Good area to eat.

Wellington is made up of four major cities with 500,000 people in it. 

Along Oriental Bay some of the multi-million dollar homes are on such steep hills they have private cable cars to get people to the top since their cars are parked on the street level in their garages.

We are nearing WETA Workshop. In the hills is a sign reminiscent of the Hollywood sign. Movies is the main industry here, too. WETA Cave houses costumes. WETA Digital is Peter Jackson's CGI studio. Stone Street Studios sound stage (since sold off). Park Road Post Production, which includes a 40-seat cinema to view works in production. 

During our drive he told us WETA started in a student flat making Kiwi cult classics. 

Park Road

Stone Street Studios

The 2001 film Lord of the Rings was filmed a few blocks away. Our tour concluded with seeing the exact spots where filming took place, and recreating the scenes.

First, we went inside where I heard some of my least favorite tour words, "no photography." It was hard to contain myself as everything was begging to be photographed! As they do not have the rights to everything, we could only look, and in some cases touch, but not record.

Mark passed us off to Jenna, a young Canadian living her dream life as a guide at WETA Workshops. She is in awe with everything they do, and in her soft yet commanding voice shared her enthusiasm with us.

Our tour began with a video instructing us what to do in case of an earthquake. While I have heard similar speeches, they usually have to do with fires. The video continued with Richard and Tanya sitting in a movie theater surrounded by their creations giving us a brief high level history of their company, basically what Mark had already told us but with visuals.

One of their most recent projects was creating the statues of soldiers in the Gallipoli exhibit at Te Papa in Wellington.

Trivia: the name WETA comes from the weta, a cricket-like bug found in New Zealand. 

WETA Workshops creates everything from costumes to video games to collectibles and more. It is an enormous enterprise that grows with its needs. 

We met Mackenzie Hobbs (on Instagram as mac_does_makeup). She uses her own face to describe the process. As we were the first tour of the day, she only had an outline. As the day continued, she would add to it. I went to her site that night. It looked amazing! Mackenzie is a self-taught make-up artist. She began at age 12 buying cheap make-up from the local $2 Store (which we never encountered). That day she was mimicking an Alex Pardee character. There was a video of someone being transformed in front of our eyes.

The next room is filled with swords and armor. The founder was already a sword maker in the late 1990s. Making movies allowed him the opportunity to expand his expertise. He now has an apprentice, Chris, who is learning the trade. Some of the swords we see in movies have the heft you would expect, with intricate designs. As you move further back, they are less detailed and made out of aluminum and other cheaper materials, ones less likely to cause damage.

We shifted to a room filled with artifacts (or copies?) we could touch and play with -- hats, wigs, masks, etc. 

A giant sculpture made
out of tin foil

Warren Beaton

Finally we entered a room where photography and touching were both encouraged. Warren Beaton @doc_tinfoil makes art out of tin foil and cardboard using a spoon, hot glue gun, and other basic tools. He then covers it with clay made in New Jersey -- yes, we traveled to the other side of the world to learn about a product made in our state. Don texted Ashley to see if Jerry's Artarama carries, it but they don't. We later learned it is from Maryland and not New Jersey.

Doc Tinfoil gave the briefest most encouraging speech, "I sucked brilliantly at it, after a while I got better." In other words, just keep trying.

They also had a spot for dress up and trick photography. I bought the package.

We are in the movies

Didn't even notice all going on behind us!

Back outside, we did a little more posing:

Mark took us to Mount Victoria, not to be confused with Mount Victoria in Devonport, a ferry ride away from Auckland. We were quickly learning the same names are used over and over again. Adding to the frustration for a tourist is most places have two names: one in English and one in Maori, and that the names are used effortlessly interchangeably. 

As we drove to Mount Victoria we caught a traffic jam, which Mark referred to as the post-church traffic. Another reminder we forgot to plan to go to church.

While "Lord of the Rings" was filmed they relied on local college students as extras. There was a time when one in three college students were in the movies. They needed really tall doubles, and really short ones to give perspective in scenes. 

We saw the spot when the stunt doubles roll down a hill. At the bottom one of them shouts "I broke something," meaning his collarbone. The line was used, but with a carrot breaking. All you "Lord of the Rings" fans are nodding along knowing the exact scene, the rest of us are simply nodding our heads.

As we were recreating scenes, locals were commenting they didn't realize that had happened here.

Here are the scenes we recreated:

 

Scene two:

You do have to appreciate that filming took place over 20 years ago and things do change.

Peter Jackson and WETA made rookie mistakes when they made their first film, such as not getting permits, not closing roads, not warning locals what was up. They turned their early enemies into fans.

On our drive back we drove around Wellington's cricket grounds located in the largest roundabout (pause) in the Southern Hemisphere. 

As Mark drove us back he told us about the earthquake of 2016. It took the city two years to inspect all the buildings to see if they were safe. During that time, most people worked from home. By the time the pandemic came four years later most companies knew how to handle working from home.

Thus concluded our tour.