Meet the Crew: Gus Hunter

This time we're talking to Gus Hunter, who has been with Weta over the last decade and been instrumental in creating many of your favourite movies, like The Lord of the Rings, King Kong and the Narnia movies. But also a few that perhaps you didn't know so much about.

Gus's talent is in high demand at the moment and we're very happy that he's been able to take some time out for a chat.

Magnus Hjert (Interviewer): "Hey Gus - welcome to Meet the Crew. Did you always know you wanted to work in the movies?"

Gus Hunter: "I knew from a young age that I wanted to do art but I didn't plan to work in the movies. I went through Polytech and did communications design for about three years. I then worked as a freelance illustrator for nine years. I worked for graphic design companies and did some story-boarding for advertising agencies. This was all through-out the 90's."

Magnus: "How did you come to work at Weta?"

Gus: "I got a phonecall from a good old friend of mine, Jeremy Bennett, who had just started working on The Lord of the Rings as a traditional artist. They were just starting up the visual effects art department under the art director Paul Lasaine."

"Paul was looking to build a team consisting of one traditional artist and one digital artist. So out of the blue one day, Jeremy called me up. At that time I had learnt how to use the computer and create art digitally - it wasn't as common as it is now. And he asked me if I wanted to come and work on The Lord of the Rings and I just went ‘wow, oh OK then'."

"He gave me an opportunity to meet Paul Lasaine and to bring along my portfolio. So I did in April 2000. I had an interview and he offered me the job."

"So there was no real plan. I was interested, but I never thought I could work in the movies. The art was the important thing to me."

Magnus: "What's the best thing about working at Weta?"

Gus: "It's the creativity of everyone here and to be working with all these cool people, each with their own unique talents. The challenges of every project that comes along and of being creative for the client also inspire me."

"The buzz after a movie is finished and seeing your work on the big screen, knowing that you played a part in creating it. That's a real buzz. And having a big portfolio of artwork."

Magnus: "What's your top tip for someone who wants a job like yours?"

Gus: "Be passionate about what you do. It's one thing to be a good illustrator, but you need to have a bigger sense of design and understand what's required for each project."

Magnus: "Do you have to be interested in movies or be a film buff?"

Gus: "I wasn't really a film buff when I started. The passion is more important. I don't think there are any particular courses or schools you need to go to. In the long run, it's your passion that's going to drive you in the right direction."

"It's also important to have the skills, especially in the digital field. The way the industry works now is that pretty much all design is done digitally. You can pump out a lot of changes and different versions and variations in a short period of time as compared to working them up traditionally. We have a lot of tight deadlines and you need to meet them.

"When I first started, most of the design was done using markers and pencils, but now everyone works on a computer with a Wacom-tablet. So you need to know the technology as well as having a sense of design. Think of the computer as a tool like a paintbrush but a more sophisticated tool, it is only as good as the person behind it so if know how to use it properly you can do some amazing stuff on it"

Magnus: "The first time I followed Richard Taylor around Weta Workshop just after I started, he told me about the staggering number of paintings you and Jeremy Bennett had produced for King Kong."

Gus: "Yeah, it was over a long time. I had been working on it for three years and then Jeremy Bennett came along when he'd finished on Return of the King."

"Both Jeremy and I have about six really thick binders each of double-page illustrations for Kong [Gus indicates about 20 inches thick]."

Magnus: "So we're talking thousands upon thousands of illustrations?"

Gus: "Yeah, I'd say so. I haven't counted them all but I'd say it would be up there"

Magnus: "Is it the creative process that creates so much work? I guess you make a drawing, the director gives you feedback, you change... it's an iterative process?"

Gus: "Yes, I worked on Kong for about a year while Peter Jackson was still working on Return of the King. So while he was busy with that, he told me to go off on a tangent and just explore dinosaur battles and the scenery of Skull Island. So I did that in the background and every week or so a pack of illustrations would be sent to him to look over when he wasn't too busy filming. Apparently he was liking what I was doing, so he got me to do more and more which was very cool. He let me go on my tangents, which was really nice."

"And then when Peter finished on Return of the King and could focus all his energy on Kong, that's when it snowballed. We had 3-4 meetings with Peter every week and Jeremy and I produced about 8-12 paintings each for every meeting. So sometimes up to 80 paintings per week were produced between the two of us."

"Jeremy and I were sitting close together separated by a door and a wall, but we decided between us that we didn't want to look at the other's work between the meetings so that we wouldn't influence each other."

"So when we pinned our paintings up on the wall for Peter, we'd look at each other's stuff and think "Ah, I wish I'd thought of that". There were two different styles and ultimately meant Peter Jackson had a much wider range of art to choose from. And he picked bits of stuff he liked on my pieces and other bits from Jeremy's and combined them. It worked really well - it was hard work, but working digitally meant that it was so much easier to quickly change something."