Richard Taylor

The name of Richard Taylor is often mentioned in the same breath as Wellington special effects and design empire Wētā — which Taylor helps command — and director Peter Jackson. The blockbuster success of The Lord of the Rings and King Kong has allowed Taylor to apply his imagination, lateral thinking and leadership skills across a range of areas, from monster-making and costume design, to children's TV programming.

Taylor and his partner Tania Rodger have been helping bring Jackson's visions to life ever since the director's second film, Meet the Feebles. Having done so much work for one director, "there is an almost unwritten language between you", Taylor argues. "It means that you can move forward with intent, knowing that the director is always going to have thoughts and ideas, but he’s also confident that you’ll deliver what’s required and something special is going to come out of it in the end."

A passionate advocate for local talent and ingenuity, Taylor was proud to have hired "almost completely a New Zealand crew" for Lord of the Rings.

Taylor grew up on a farm south of Auckland. The child of an engineer and a science teacher, he taught himself to sculpt using mud dug from a creek behind his house. Keenly interested in art, he was 17 before realizing that soap opera Close to Home was filmed in a television studio, instead of someone's house. Moving to Wellington with his creative and romantic partner Tania Rodger, he studied graphic design at Wellington Polytechnic.

Afterwards Taylor got a job designing board games. But he soon quit to concentrate on making props, models, and sets for television advertisements, and the occasional stage play. Taylor heard that producer Dave Gibson was considering making a Kiwi version of Spitting Image, the English show that used a cast of puppets to satirize public figures.

Taylor created a puppet of Gibson and left it on his desk. He got the job. Over the next 18 months, Taylor, Rodger and future production designer Clive Memmott created more than seventy puppets for Public Eye, sculpting with time-saving margarine.

During this period the couple met another enthusiast of model-making and DIY special effects: director Peter Jackson. But plans to work together on Jackson's sophomore feature Braindead fell apart, after a key investor unexpectedly withdrew. Instead Jackson turned his energies from zombies to low budget puppet movie Meet the Feebles. Based in a rat-infested freight shed, Taylor and Rodger helped build the movie's cast of dysfunctional animals, working under the command of puppet designer/maker Cameron Chittock.

When Braindead was reborn three years later, Taylor and Rodger were key members of the team that created the film's extensive make-up and prosthetic effects. Working under the mantle RT Effects and working from a variety of locations, the pair also provided props for a number of television commercials.

In 1993 this burgeoning effects operation was reborn as part of a new company called Weta Ltd. Taylor, Rodger and Peter Jackson were among the founding partners. Heavenly Creatures has staked its claim in Kiwi filmmaking history partly because it marks the first work by Weta's digital effects arm, which began with one staff member (George Port). But Taylor's physical effects team also contributed impressive work, including the pseudo-plasticine suits worn by the inhabitants of the imaginary kingdom of Borovnia.

Special effects can be divided into two categories: those that are physically built (Taylor's area of expertise), and those created in post-production: either photographically or in a computer, long after live filming is complete. The division was made clearer in later years, when Weta Ltd was split into two arms: Wētā Digital, and Taylor's Wētā Workshop.

The mid-90s proved a key period of expansion for both arms of Wētā. Wētā Workshop was kept busy providing extensive props and models for Jackson/Costa Botes mockumentary Forgotten Silver, and Tony Hiles' effects-heavy fantasy Jack Brown Genius.

Taylor's team also provided prosthetic effects for some of the nastier moments of Once Were Warriors, and Scott Reynolds chiller The Ugly. The latter won Taylor his second design award at the NZ Film and Television Awards (Braindead being the first).

Inbetween the Kiwi productions, Taylor kept his Wētā Workshop crew busy on a number of American-funded projects — creating dead aliens for Stephen King miniseries The Tommyknockers, sundry monsters for the Xena and Hercules shows, and a miniature city for a TV movie about a tidal wave.

In 1995 the workshop team created a wealth of ambitious effects for Jackson's big-budget ghost comedy The Frighteners, including miniature townscapes and an animatronic ghost dog (some of their creations did not make the CGI-heavy final cut; they can be glimpsed on the extended edition Frighteners DVD.)

Then came Tolkien. When work began on adapting the Lord of the Rings epic into cinema, Wētā became a creative hothouse, with a team of designers, craftspeople and effects technicians collaborating to bring Middle-earth and its inhabitants to life. Wētā Workshop's brief was dauntingly wide: the workshop team took on the jobs of designing and creating the film's armour, weapons, make-up effects, and physical (as opposed to digital) creatures. Plus a great many miniatures, some of them so big that they were nicknamed 'bigatures' . Doing the initial budgeting was an epic in itself. At their height, workshop staff numbers edged past 180.

Thanks to the Rings movies, Taylor went on to share Academy Awards for visual effects, costume design and make-up. Wētā Workshop would later bring its many skills to bear for three further movies, based on Tolkien's first Middle-Earth tale The Hobbit, earning Taylor further Bafta nominations in the process.

In 2005 Taylor won an Oscar and a BAFTA for Wētā Workshop's effects work on King Kong. Such blockbuster-sized calling cards drew industry attention New Zealand's way, helping the miniatures crew at Wētā Workshop secure a number of overseas projects. 

Wētā Workshop built miniature ships for Master and Commander and Van Helsing, and model trains for the climax of both Tangiwai - A Love Story and The Legend of Zorro. The team worked closely with South African director Neill Blomkamp on the ambitious worlds of dystopian sci-fi hit District 9, and Elysium. Wētā created weaponry and armour for the first two Narnia movies, and chainmail for Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven. The company continues to contribute its talents to projects shot both locally (Ghost in the Shell, Pearl) and elsewhere (Dune, Alien: Romulus, acclaimed Australian series Cleverman).

Launched in 2014, a video games division has become a major part of the workshop's operations. Wētā Workshop has also spent many years designing and creating collectable sculptures. In mid 2008 the company opened a store on its Wellington site, which features original props and collectibles. These days the company offers daily tours of its workshop; in 2020 a second attraction was launched, at Auckland's SkyCity complex. The Wētā team have also built permanent sculptures in Wellington celebrating the NZ screen industry and the Rugby World Cup. 

New Zealand stories have not been forgotten. Wētā Workshop built the animatronic puppet sheep which run amok in horror romp Black Sheep, and reunited with Sheep-meister Jonathan King for Under the Mountain, based on Maurice Gee's tale of aliens under Auckland. The company created a vital prop — a dead one — for Gaylene Preston's Perfect Strangers, and won an award for its gruesome makeup effects on WWII horror The Devil's Rock (directed by Wētā protege Paul Campion). 

Long keen to create television shows for younger viewers, Richard Taylor began collaborating with author Martin Baynton on two shows which they brought to life at Wētā Workshop: multi-nominated adventure series Jane and the Dragon, based on a series of books by Baynton, and The WotWots. The latter follows the adventures of an "energetic pair who embrace their adventures with gusto and enthusiasm". The pair also created WotWots sister show Kiddets. 

In 2008 Taylor, Tania Rodger and Baynton set up Pūkeko Pictures. The company's slate included a new version of beloved 60s puppet series Thunderbirds. Lasting three seasons, the show used a combination of models and CGI animation.

 

Sources include
Wētā Workshop website. Accessed 20 April 2025
Pūkeko Pictures website [broken link]. Accessed 20 February 2014
Julia Gabel, 'A little bit bonkers': Weta Workshop's vault of 'cool stuff' opens in Auckland' (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 11 December 2020
Rachel Lang, 'Gibson Goes Public'- Onfilm, June 1988, page 26 (Volume 5 Number 4)