Weta Digital, a place like no other

Sep 05

Weta Digital, a place like no other

, by Garrick Rawlingson | Peoplestudios

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Hi, my name is Garrick Rawlingson and thanks to Autodesk sponsored CG Student Awards (www.cgstudentawards.com) I’ve been doing a one-month internship in this amazing company called Weta Digital. At the time of writing these words, I’ve been extended until the end of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

The first time I heard about the CG Student Awards was on a rainy and cold afternoon, like many others when you live in London. I was killing time exploring the internet. From pages to blogs, between two “lol cats”, I finally ended up on the Awards homepage and thought, “This is great ! I may somehow do this” (you think like that in English when you grew up in France). I loved the concept of a friendly competition with such amazing prizes organized by the company whose software we all use. A couple of hours later and a quick update of my showreel, I was part of the game.

I was very curious about other students’ showreels and after seeing a few, I leaned back in my chair…what amazing pieces of work ! Some of the reels were really impressive. I didn’t have a single chance. After a short depressing period (10min) I finally decided to wait and see. I had a little surprise the next morning in my mailbox. A short email from the judges at CG Student Awards saying !!! Congratulations, …(I was so excited, I will never know how it ended).

Well, I was apparently going to Weta Digital one of the biggest and best CG companies in the world known for being behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy, King-Kong and The Hobbit trilogy, just to name a few, what a surprise! I was also going to be the first Animation Intern ever !

After 2 weeks and a little bit of discussion it was decided, I was flying from London to New-Zealand in two weeks to reach my dreams. I had already had the chance of co-directing a short film and working on amazing projects such as Nike’s “The Last Game” but they where much smaller compared to what I was going to do.

Leaving England wasn’t easy – a lot of people to say good bye to, leaving my best friends, my girlfriend, my flatmates, my studio, etc. No tears I promise, I’m a tough guy!

Exactly 32hrs and 53min flight later, I was in Wellington.

Weta Welcome

My first contact was with Alice who is in the relocation team, she welcomed me at the airport and drove me through the center of Wellington to a place I could call home for the next month. Weta provided me with accommodation in a very nice place. I had the all week end to catch up on my jet lag, and by Monday I was at Weta.

I was firstly introduced to my animation supervisor, Aaron Gilman who explained to me how things worked and with whom to refer to. As the Weta building belongs to the airport, all the rooms are named after plane companies. I’m working in the “Messerschmitt” room. After a short kick off demonstration, I went straight to work on shots for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. It is a huge film and everybody is working full tilt. I have to say that at first I was a little lost. A new pipeline, a new way of working with mocap and Linux!

I am seated next to a team of young and friendly animators. I had to refer to these guys a lot at the beginning, testing their patience but (so far) they’ve supported me. So it has been a real challenge for me, but with the help of my teammates I will prevail. It’s amazing how much you can learn in a day.

To sum up, I couldn’t have imagined a warmer welcome from them. They are all very talented and amazingly friendly, the entire Weta team welcomed me so well, I feel now, part of the family.

A typical day in Weta

I’m finally working on a feature film ! I was a little anxious of what I was going to find over there, for a young animator like me, dealing with realistic animation was really scary. I knew that everybody over there had a least three-years’ experience and I felt a little small with my 7 months in the CG industry.

I’m sure you all have one big question. So I’ll answer it right now…

No, I don’t take cups of tea with Peter Jackson every day. The animators relationship with the director is maintained through general emails and most importantly, recorded reviews of our work. The majority of our feedback comes from our supervisors who make sure we are doing the right thing. But I still hope to meet him one day.

The alarm rings around 8am, time to get up.

After a little drive around the beautiful NZ coast or passing through the Mount Victoria tunnel (where people beep their horns when they are happy), I turn at the top of a hill in Miramar and there it is. The legendary Weta Digital Animation studio, facing both the airport and the bay.

The building looks like an old campus; a cosy place where people have stayed simple, no fancy cars outside, no impressive hall, just a building like any other. A building like any other where movies like no others are made.

Once in, the very first thing to do is…coffee

You need to know something about Weta. If you want the slightest chance of being part of the team, you’ll need at least a degree in coffee-making. I mean, they are insane about coffee, they have the biggest, the largest, the most powerful (must be a V8 engine) coffee machine I have ever seen…At least 5 people taught me how to make it in less than a week. And I’m not only speaking about the coffee making, that’s the easy part, but try making a ‘latte’, or-a ‘cappuccino’ and try drawing a crema leaf on top of it, you’ll know what I’m speaking about.

All this coffee drinking makes sense though during crunch time. The movie needs to be released on the 17th of December. That makes long days of work, but one approval or even seeing your shot rendered, and the these hours are totally worth it.

My job as an animation intern is largely killing orcs. I also matchmove characters, place some mocap, and key frame what can’t be mocaped. So almost every morning when I have some thing to show, I go to my day by day meetings with Aaron Gilman, my Animation Supervisor. At every daily meeting, he gives instructions and
feedback on the work I’ve submitted. It’s great to be able to speak animation with someone with so much experience and he would not only speak about it but also jump and act so it’s easier to understand. Most of the time you arrive with something you are happy with, but the good thing is you go back and know how to make it even better. Improving your work, that’s what the dailies are all about.

After lunch I usually work all afternoon and sometimes go to rounds with my Supervisor if I have something to show. I get all my new assignments by my coordinator Natalie Millar. Each time I have a new shot, it’s a new challenge. Weta has got so many in house scripts and plug-ins that it sometimes feels like Maya is the plug-in. I work until 7pm, at which time, dinner is served.

It’s a time to share with all the other animators and speak about what’s going on in this small country. People come from all around the world, so you could hear people speaking, Spanish, French, German and even English sometimes ! The CG industry is such a small world. I think the main reason is because some artists like on the Hobbit, move from one studio to another, moving from one project to another. Everyone knows someone you know. We keep traveling around the world to where the CG industry needs us. I call it CGtinerisation, or back to the nomad life. I know what I will be doing for the next 2 months, but after that…no idea. Exciting !

My journey to Middle earth

I’ve always been a huge fan of “Lord of the Rings” the last time I came to NZ was 6 years ago when “The Return of the King” was released. It wasn’t clear for me that I was going to work in cinema, but I had this attraction to it.

In 2009 I past my general class with cinema option.

Then I’ve spent one year of art and drawing class in France at “Lisaa Nantes”.

But ESMA Montpellier was my first experience with CG. For 3 years I’ve completed my CG general training, including professional workflow in CG movie and animation (modeling, rigging, lighting, compositing). It’s only on the third year I specialized in animation and with a team of 5 incredible buddies, we made a short movie called
“Forward, March!”. That movie help a lot, it was selected to more than 30 festivals and won 4 different prizes. It’s going be released this week online, so for those who didn’t see it yet, I hope you have even more fun watching it than we had making it.

On “Forward, March’s” reward night I met a recruiter, Manon Ihx, who was the first one to trust me and give me my very first animation job at Supamonks studio in Paris.

After 15 days working on a great little octopus animation I was contacted by Passion Pictures in London. Over there I was an animator junior on “Compare the meerkats” and “Nike the last game” I’ve been working with them until my flight to New-Zealand and Weta.

My goal is now to get the most I can from my experience here and maybe one day come back to Directing.

Garrick Rawlingson, 2014

King-Kongclusion

Like every new experience my first month at Weta has been, challenging and intense, I’ve gotten so much out of it and learnt a lot but I have to say that in the end it’s the people here that are the real strength of Weta Digital, a place like no other.

Hasta La Motion!