Weta Leads The Charge

“Wellington: once you come, you stay,” Crave Online’s Grae Drake is told on a visit to Weta Digital. “This is both a threat and a promise, uttered by the geniuses employed at Weta. The quote is certainly true for most of their staff that has come in from all over the world, as I learned when I stopped in to get schooled on how Weta created every single ape you see onscreen (as well as some of the world they lived in) for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Weta is probably the only place I will ever listen with rapt attention to someone such as Marco Revelant, model supervisor, discuss fur creation and grooming. The best part was when those lunatics let me put on a motion capture suit and experience it for myself. I crouched down in my grey spandex with infrared balls firmly attached, arm extenders in hand, and pretended that I was Caesar [played by Andy Serkis in the film] leading the charge on the Golden Gate Bridge.”