The VFX company behind “Avatar: The Way of Water” has been a part of mega blockbuster movies, won a slew of awards and is owned by none other than “Lord of the Rings”’ director Peter Jackson.
Wētā FX, founded as Wētā Digital, is a New Zealand-based digital visual effects company and was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for the movie “Heavenly Creatures”.
Thus began the rise of the company that went on to do groundbreaking work on movies such as “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “Avatar”, “Avengers”, “X-Men”, “Hunger Games”, “The Hobbit” and many more.
Wētā FX has been revolutionary in many ways. The scale of the battles required for “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy led Wētā to create “MASSIVE”, a program which can animate huge numbers of agents: independent characters acting according to pre-set rules.
For James Cameron's “Avatar”, Wētā modified “MASSIVE” to give life to the flora and fauna on Pandora, the planet in the movie, for which the company did most of the visual effects with the four-time Academy Award winner visual effects expert, Joe Letteri.
“Avatar” is considered to be a landmark for visual effects in cinema.
One of the most influential graphics companies in today’s age, Wētā has won numerous awards including 6 Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects, 12 Academy Science & Technology Awards, 6 BAFTA Awards for Best Special Visual Effects, 2 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Special Visual Effects among others.
The Wellington-based company has also worked on television including “Game of Thrones”. The company says it has “1,500 of the most ambitious artists, engineers, and executives you’re likely to meet”.
“We’re known for performance-driven animated characters such as Gollum, Kong, Neytiri and Caesar as well as the worlds we create including Middle-earth, Pandora and countless others,” Wētā FX talks about themselves on their website.
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