Wellington, New Zealand

Wellington, New Zealand’s capital sits at the southern tip of the North Island. It is the second largest city in New Zealand. It has a vibrant cultural scene and is the center of Wellywood, the movie industry. The people of this area have a good sense of humor calling their rugby stadium, the cake tin and their parliament building, the beehive, because they look like a cake pan and a beehive. 😉 The city of Wellington sits on 8 fault lines, 3 of them major and they have 50 to 80 earthquakes a day. Of course they are very minor shakes. Wellington is also the windiest city in the world with daily winds over 50 mph not unusual. It is also the southernmost capital city in the world, being moved here in 1869. In 1820 when the city was first established it was patterned after San Francisco because of all the hills it was built on. There are 152 small private cable cars that take people up to their homes.

Our tour was to see some of the sites used for the filming of the 3 Lord of the Rings movies. We first went to the top of Mount Victoria for a view overlooking the city. Unfortunately, we had a very windy and rainy day, so our views were not great. We then went to one of the main parks in the city. There are actually 2 which surround the city like commas providing lots of green space. The one we went to was heavily forested and we walked around, seeing many of the sites where the LOTR movies were shot. Our guide had photos of scenes from the movies and we stood in places the filming had taken place and he explained how the scenes were shot.

We learned a lot about the movie industry in Wellington. It is a 3.5 billion dollar a year enterprise. Sir Peter Jackson, who was the person who did LOTR, put this part of New Zealand on the map. He had produced small budget horror movies before he tackled LOTR. It was the first time that multiple movies were made at the same time. In order to do this, they had many local people who left their regular jobs and used their skills, carpenters, painters, woodworkers, etc, to work on the films. Currently the small town of Miramar is the headquarters for his company, Stone Street Studios. They can do everything that needs to be done for a movie, from prework to all the final production needs. The work on these films started in 1996 and ended in 2003.

Our next stop was at WETA Workshop. This was a small company founded in Miramar by a young couple, Richard Taylor and Tania Rodgers. When Peter Jackson first came to them to do special effects and manufacturing of props the company only had 30 employees. As they ramped up to do the movie they had over 200 employees. They did all the props, prostheses, costumes and anything else that was needed for the films. We could not take photos on our tour, but we saw some of the original props and learned how they were made. It was a great tour.

Here is a link to their webpage with interesting information and pictures. https://www.wetaworkshop.com/

It was a fun day, even for someone who did not see the movies.