'Miniatures, traditional character makeups used once more in movies'

"Lord of the Rings" and "Avatar" associated physical/special effects wizard Gareth McGhie said the move towards computer graphics and full digital shots has been the "biggest challenge" facing the physical effects industry but there seems to be a turnaround now.

"The biggest challenge facing physical effects industry has been the move towards CG, Full Digital shots. This trend however seems to be reversing and we are seeing more miniatures, and traditional character makeups used once more in blockbuster movie making," Gareth, currently a creative technologies lecturer at Wellington Institute of Technology, New Zealand, told IANS in an email interview.

Gareth followed up a successful career in hairdressing with an over decade-long stint in the New Zealand film industry working with the five-time Oscar winning Weta Workshop in Wellington (a world-leading TV/film special effects and prop company) in props manufacture, miniatures construction, prosthetic make up, moulding, casting and set work which led to his role as workshop supervisor.

During this time he ran a team of up to 100 artists and technicians, completing 12 major films including, "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" series, "District 9" and "Avatar".

He says the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy remains a "high point" in his film career due to the scale of the project.

"Avatar was to prove the most challenging due to the nature of the specialist props," Gareth, the Associate Head of School, Creative, Wellington Institute of Technology, observed.

He explained step-by-step how a model is painstakingly made for a typical high-budget film.

"First is concept design, followed by prototyping (physical), then we will make the model either physically or digitally then generally we will take a mould and produce castings made from materials dependent on intended usage. The last stage is painting."

Gareth's personal art practice centres on contemporary Maori carving and adornment working predominantly in bone, wood and stone.

He still works closely with the Weta Workshop and film based manufacturing companies in the Wellington region and actively researches in this area.

Asked on the new techniques, materials and processes that are being introduced, he said physical film production remains much the same as it has always been.

"However digital technologies like 3D modelling and milling alongside scanning and printing has seen a move towards digitisation of model making in particular."

He was in India earlier this month for the Ficci Summit and visited institutions for collaborations.

Noting India's "very large and vibrant film-making industry", the artist remarked "although there appears that there are a lot of differences between Western and Indian film-making, there is no doubt that there could be much that we could share".

"Institutions that we have visited while in India, including the Innovative Film Academy in Bangalore and Shiv Nadar University in Noida, share our own creative direction and ethos, and our recent signing of Memoranda of Understanding with each of these new partners provides a strong base for further collaboration."

Unfortunately, the film industry internationally lags "far behind" most other industries in terms of eco-friendly practices, he pointed out.

"Due to the nature of rapid turnaround production and budgets involved this trend will be a hard one to reverse. It would require a concerted effort by associated production companies and practitioners to engineer a positive change in this area," he added.

--IANS

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