Aaron Beck

Concept Artist

Aaron Beck always dreamed of working in a creative environment. As a kid he focused on the practical side of effects, spending hours coating his face in PVA glue and tissue paper to try and simulate a horrendous push bike accident to scare his mum. She was seldom fooled, or particularly impressed, but as she was never a fan of the detailed gun shot victims and nasty creatures he drew, he felt the design end of film would better suit his artistic inclinations.

After completing a design degree in illustration, he then decided to explore many other creative outlets, such as animation, directing, photography, music video directing and production. In 2003, he won a national music video competition for the direction of New Zealand band, Olmecha Supreme's single ‘Shematica'. In 2004, Aaron produced a successful exhibition of his favourite photographs from a trip through south East Asia and China, the proceeds of which went to tsunami relief efforts. (He was fortunate enough to fly out of Thailand a few days before the tsunami).

In 2006 Aaron joined the Weta team, and has since drawn robots, creatures and costumes for various projects including Halo and James Cameron's Avatar, and a number of secret projects still under wraps. He says his highlight at Weta thus far has been designing props for Avatar (not surprising when you learn his favourite movie as a kid was ‘Aliens') and then seeing them get made by the legendary artisans at the Workshop.