Engineering

All is not make-believe at Weta. Occasionally we're thrown a curveball that requires skills in mechanics, building vehicles for this universe or far-off galaxies.

And these props must be working pieces of machinery, built to withstand the rough realities of a film set. Or, as was the case for the train set we built for the Legend Of Zorro - allow itself to be blown up in a convincing fashion.

The Warthog "jeep" that we built for director Neil Blomkamp's Halo 3 short movies is a great example. The limitations of this vehicle were set in a computer game rather than reality and therefore presented Weta with a series of interesting challenges with regard to transmission, suspension and interior design.

Other items to emerge from the engineering department are cannons, tanks and other complex mechanical props.