Sunday
16Nov2008
New Zealand Commits Millions to Digital Content Industry
Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 3:03AM
Citing the industry-shaking success of
Weta Labs
in Wellington, another New Zealand city is set to have a huge impact on motion
pictures. Auckland's digital content center will receive a
$2.5
million
increase in funding in 2009 and 2010, in hopes that it can become a
leader of digital animation for film, video, and video games.
Weta, created over 20 years ago, will have its visual magic on display in The Day the Earth Stood Still next month, as well as in James Cameron's Avatar and the upcoming Hobbit films. The company is best known for its work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Jim Dorey, who runs the 3-D-centric blog, Market Saw, told me that this aggressive and forward-thinking move is a bold step in the right direction for both the creative artists and the industry and its emerging technologies. "I think it is a good strategy, personally," Dorey said, cautioning, "Weta is digital and prosthetic effects...animation is a different beast, of course."
"I would think their primary concern should be making sure they have the best possible Internet pipeline to Hollywood that is possible as everything will be digital."
As it happens, that's part of the reason New Zealand is able to get so involved in the Hollywood machine and gain momentum as one of the country's fastest-growing professions. Shona Grundy of Creative Digital Content says, "If you look at other industries...when they are exporting they need to put their products on ships and there is a lot of money in that, whereas our products go over the internet, and there's just no cost to that." As our appetite for bigger and bigger movies escalates, the amount of films that require digital effects or fully-animated and performance capture projects will continue to grow for several years. And New Zealand might just be the center of it all.
Reader Comments (1)
Sounds like I should make New Zealand my new home : )