The Lord of the Rings turns ten

In 1998, something big was rumbling beneath the surface of Wellington. People who knew people seemed to know something; rumours multiplied and mutated; lips were very eloquently sealed. When the announcement came it was, if not quite a Kennedy moment, at least the sort of news event that people rushed around to tell their friends and colleagues: Peter Jackson was making The Lord of the Rings in Wellington.
For some, it took a while for the deep significance of the news to seem real and calculable. We knew that Jackson was establishing a mainstream reputation beyond his hardcore splatstick fan base, and that The Lord of the Rings was no ordinary book, but it seemed like a lot of fuss over a few films. Perhaps the numbers were too big to relate to local reality – hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of cast and crew, 15,000 extras – but eventually we realised that the hype was justified, and that Wellington itself was about to change.
The public announcement didn’t end the speculation, and the combination of secretive film-makers and obsessive fans just nourished the grapevine. A political town thrives on gossip, and Wellington’s tight creative sector fizzed with intrigued imagination. I knew a young cartoonist working on concept art for the film, and asked him about suggestions that central characters had been turned female to balance Tolkien’s notorious sausage-fest and attract a wider audience. He raised an eyebrow and responded dryly, “Hmm, I wondered why I was asked to draw Frodo with tits.” Casting rumours grew ever more virulent, to the point where people swore that Sean Connery must be Gandalf because they’d seen him at the Chocolate Fish Café.
Eventually the rumours coalesced into reality, and the city hummed with the serious business of building fantasy. Wellington being Wellington, everyone seemed to know someone involved, as crew, subcontractors or elfin extras. By the time The Fellowship of the Ring was ready for launch in 2001, it really felt like our film, and the Australasian premiere at the Embassy felt less like an imported Hollywood extravaganza than the city’s celebration of its own achievement. When the trilogy went on to rake in unprecedented piles of cash and awards, it seemed merely just rewards for our talents. A new confidence had unfolded.
In the ten years since that premiere, Wellington seems to have become livelier, more comfortable with its creative side, and more internationally connected. Visitor numbers have soared, partly due to cast and crew and the persistent appeal of Tolkien tourism, and partly to wider media attention. It’s hard to quantify the contribution of the film industry to this growth, partly because so much economic benefit analysis comes from overconfident civic boosterism (ask any business owner who was led to expect a Rugby World Cup bonanza), but also because individual creativity and international exposure interweave with other events. For instance, how much cross-fertilisation is there between costume professionals and the Brancott Estate World of WearableArtTM, and how much have the reputations of that event and of the film industry rubbed off on one another?
The revenue received by screen-related business today in Wellington is estimated at $0.5 billion a year. Thanks to Weta, half of the entire country’s post-production revenue is earned here. Nevertheless, the industry’s high profile needs to be put into perspective: Weta Digital employs 800 people, which is huge by Wellington standards, but it’s still only about half the size of a large government ministry. Wellywood has indeed made an impact on our economy and culture, but there are still more Wellingtonians pushing pens than pushing pixels.
Apart from the economic pay-off, some emerging film-makers swear by their Weta experience as a vital springboard for their careers. Director Paul Campion, whose first feature film, The Devil’s Rock, opened in September this year, started as a visual effects artist in London before landing a job at Weta Digital as a texture painter, packing up his life in England, and moving to Wellington in 2000. The combination of long hours, tight social circles and seat-of-the-pants inventiveness led to camaraderie and mutual support for the creative endeavours of Campion and his colleagues at Weta.
Beyond the obvious value of experience with world-leading visual effects, Campion says that “the main advantage was having worked at Weta Digital and being seen as being part of a film-making ‘family’ here in Wellington, which has meant a huge amount of support from some of the best crew and facilities in the world”. Combined with adventurous funding from the New Zealand Film Commission, and Richard Taylor’s help with demon make-up, Campion credits the “Kiwi mentality that if you go out and make the effort yourself, people will step up and help you” for encouraging him and others take the leap to making their own films in Wellington.
Not everyone sees the local film scene as healthy, supportive and sustainable. One experienced industry source, who wanted to remain anonymous, doubts that Wellington has a proper film industry at all, saying “in many ways the Miramar peninsula is like the North Korea of film-making” – it’s there to serve one extremely powerful individual. In his eyes, the entire film-making machine exists purely to realise Peter Jackson’s vision.
Without denying that Jackson has brought international exposure, tremendous technical skills and the financial bonus of “mainlining foreign money into the Wellington economy”, this insider argues that the fiercely controlled approach is not conducive to emerging local talent or to other international players setting up here. While locals are allowed their small successes, “if you put your head above the parapet it’ll get blown off”, and most overseas producers are wary of “making films in Peter’s backyard”, where one person owns all the studio and post-production facilities. By contrast, a healthy film industry outsources tasks among a lively cluster of sustainable specialist businesses, and a mature industry requires meaningful industrial organisation. The Hobbit actors’ dispute showed how touchy the studios are over union involvement, and things seem even worse for crew: anyone who attempted to organise would never work again. While it’s romantic to think that people are so dedicated they’ll sleep under their desks at night to get the job done, there’s darker talk of illness, drugs and burn-out brought on by inhuman workloads, and a frustration that our production talent doesn’t value itself highly enough to stand up for better pay and conditions.
Without an emerging second tier in film production, local companies have to be inventive in filling the gaps between blockbusters. Weta Digital ticks over with international effects work, while Weta Workshop has carved nice little niches for itself in merchandising, public art and children’s television. Wellywood also links in to Silicon Welly: the presence of a large open-source shop at Miramar adds experience to Wellington’s IT industry, and game developers such as Sidhe use similar digital design talents to the special-effects houses. Aside from Weta Digital’s innovative MASSIVE and CityBot applications for creating digital life and places, smaller companies develop and market their own specialist products such as Virtual Katy (for audio post-production) and 77 Pieces (for digitally rendering clothing). Despite Miramar’s reputation for being not so much peninsular as insular, its creative and financial influence has spread into the wider economy.
In a city where bumping into a historian at a book launch or a former cabinet minister at the Backbencher counted as a celebrity encounter, star-spotting had never acquired quite the sheen that it does in more glamorous cities, so the influx of international big names suddenly brought a new dimension to urban life. Every Wellingtonian has a story about surfing with hobbits, scoffing white bread at the Green Parrot next to Viggo Mortensen, watching the Ukulele Orchestra with Sigourney Weaver, or seeing Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett at a restaurant and then casually debating with friends who was the most beautiful in real life (for the record: Cate all the way).
Sometimes this sits oddly with the Kiwi psyche, such as the famous Motel incident when Tyler was turned away from the secluded cocktail lounge. According to some versions this was because staff didn’t recognise her over the CCTV link, and in others it was because she was with the then underage Elijah Wood. Regardless, Wellington was quick to read this as a sign that not only did we now have bars that are cool enough for Hollywood stars, we now had a bar that was too cool for Liv Tyler! This appreciation of exclusivity was at odds with New Zealand’s vaunted egalitarianism, while at the same time reinforcing a welcome trend towards genuinely top-notch cocktail bars.
In one way the celebrity madness took on a twist that suits Wellington’s liberal, intellectual self-image, since witty, highbrow gay activists Sir Ian McKellen and Stephen Fry seem to generate as much excitement as the pretty young stars. Fry’s Twitter trail makes him particularly stalkable, but they both represent the intersection between our recent “Capital of Cool” branding and an older Wellington tradition that likes our heroes tweedy, erudite and politically aware.
The film industry has left its mark on our built environment, too, most visibly in the hulking concrete studios on Stone Street, the Wrightian pastiche of Park Road Productions, and the vast shipping container walls that pop up to shield sound stages. Our cinematic heritage has been brought back to flickering life, with the triumphant restoration of the Embassy to premiere-worthy glory, and Miramar’s Roxy, while a standard suburban box from most angles, is exuberantly committed to the art of illusion.
Miramar now has something resembling a nightlife. Self-styled “Madness Proprietor” Jonny McKenzie was an inspired choice to run the Roxy’s bar Coco, since his Hawthorn Lounge gave him experience in both Jazz Age glamour and the demands of the movie elite (it’s apparently a hobbit favourite). McKenzie says “The hospitality scene in Miramar has grown from strength to strength. The opening of cafés such as Polo, who brought CBD service to the ‘burbs and a passion for quality of food and wine, is fantastic. This has been strengthened by the Larder, Gypsy Kitchen and now La Boca Loca and Gas Works.” More broadly, he credits the film industry for pushing Wellington hospitality to new heights. “Having well-paid individuals walking around never hurts, but I think it was the knowledge of drinking and dining that helped business grow in different directions. ”Old-time locals have been left ambivalent, glowing with the attention, yet starting to grumble about traffic and noise from late-night shoots. One resident was heard complaining about Coco: “Just what we need, another place to eat in Miramar! We’ve already got Mr Bun.”
The benefits of Weta’s excursions into public art have been debatable. Max Patte’s Solace in the Wind is a hit with locals and visitors, whether they respond to his moody embrace, giggle at his anatomy, or dress him up in hats and woollies. But Courtenay Place’s Tripod was slated as “gimmickry” by architecture critic Tommy Honey, and the Rugby World Cup sculpture prompted one public art professional to wonder whether public art is best left to artists, rather than to people who make monsters for a living. The airport’s “Wellywood” sign proposal drew vandalism threats and drive-by protests as well as the inevitable Facebook groups, and is by all accounts far from popular among film industry workers. Its proponents’ persistence in the face of such derision can only be explained by a blindness brought on by a powerfully glamorous combination of money, celebrity and tourism that no politician or marketing guru can question or resist.
Beyond the physical impact of The Lord of the Rings films on Wellington, the landscape now has another layer: a fantasy narrative woven through the hills, forests and quarries. An ordinary footpath became somewhere to hide from the Dark Riders, Nazis and demons lurk at Breaker Bay, and elves hold court at a nice little picnic spot in the Hutt Valley. On a more realist plane, bars and landmarks gained a patina of celebrity gossip, and it’s hard not to think of the bucket fountain as a hobbit urinal. The psychogeography of Wellington has changed for ever.
A decade on from that first premiere, perhaps we could see “Wellywood” as an enabling fantasy: it may be as illusory as Middle Earth, and it might sit awkwardly with the economic reality of the city, yet it fuels an inspirational self-belief that convinces Wellingtonians we can do things that really shouldn’t be possible. The Lord of the Rings wasn’t the first step away from cardigan culture, but it took the Absolutely Positively Wellington catch-cry to a new level. The film industry may be finely poised – vulnerable to currency shifts or a single deal gone sour, yet with the potential to explode if another Jackson does emerge – so it’s hard to predict how it might look a decade hence. But it has already changed Wellington for the better, since it showed us that we should recalibrate our local aspirations against the best that the world has to offer.