What’s the one on your shirt?
It is a weta, a species of bat native to New Zealand that gives our company its name and we have recreated in 3D…
It is immense and beautiful!
Inversely proportional to the effort, talent and enthusiasm we dedicate to it. That is why the image industry trusts us and they have given us five Oscars.
Critics praise his fantasy…
Fantasy? It is our reality every day! We suffer and enjoy, fail, cry, throw in the trash and redesign until we give life to King Kong, The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Narnia … and the rest.
In New Zealand! Nothing further from Hollywood or European or Asian cinema.
We have worked very, very well with in China. It is the most technologically advanced nation in the world today…
Is technology already its ideology?
They go there, yes. As for Hollywood, the best know that we aspire to be Hollywood without looking at the clock, but against the clock. Is this a…job? No. It’s life
What does he aspire to after five Oscars?
To eternity
It sounds, if I may, pretentious: like the villain of The Lord of the Rings.
Let’s see: Will you and I end up one day?
That, for sure.
But our passion… Do you like journalism?
It would be too late to regret it.
If he likes to write and it feeds him…
At least for a snack.
That’s winning… Congratulations!
And that of being eternal?
If you publish, there will be some kid who wants to be a journalist and will read it… No?
Hopefully.
Well, this is eternity! His vanity and his ego will end in the grave, but his passion will be eternal to the extent that it inspires others to continue it, improve it… It will live on in them.
If it’s useful for you…
It serves me to feel eternal in the workshop with my young creatives and gives meaning to every day of life: teach young people their craft, because it is the way to feel that it transcends.
How did you get to Barcelona?
Professor Judith Urbano, Gaudà expert, showed me the best of him and today I saw GaudÃ’s lizards again…
Grind… , right?
What superb special effects when there was no cinema yet!
I guess they are eternal, yes.
Gaudà lives on in all the architects he inspired. I wanted to be a sculptor… And what the hell! I am! And Gaudà lives in me.
I doubt that there are many sculptors who have moved more than you.
I was born on a farm. I had no toys, so I learned to make them. My wife was the neighbor who lived on the farm next door and at the age of 16 we ran away to find a life in Wellington. We got into a room we both rented: very small.
And they already designed dolls?
Crazy with love and excitement! I can’t stop inventing things. If I stop, I get stuck.
In New Zealand he didn’t have many sculpture references. Museums?
This was my other big advantage. In Barcelona you have… so much culture! But culture enriches with its weight… Weight! If he sees GaudÃ, he will have a hard time daring to build, create… magical lizards.
His genius forces us to be humble.
A Kiwi, New Zealander like me, on the other hand, doesn’t have that weight of culture on his brain: he can create beasts and not feel stupid. And that’s what I started doing with my wife in that quartet 34 years ago… and we’re still going.
Are their characters not art?
It’s not the important thing. The essential thing is to keep jumping as if there was no ceiling or Gaudà to overcome. Passion, enthusiasm and tenacity. And something of naive ignorance, like that of a child: never stop being a child. Surprise yourself when you wake up every day.
Most prestigious film critics tend to be wary of special effects.
These critics get bored and bored.
And can TikTok be art?
Half the planet watches these two-minute videos: are they all idiots? But for that very reason too: it is a danger.
Metaverse? Artificial intelligence?
Someone needs to write the Constitution of the metaverse and AI already, just like the US was written. If you’re always in front of a screen, you don’t use touch or smell. And we’ll end up like cocooned bugs connected to an AI-controlled network that will suck up our energy.
Don’t scare us.
I had books on the farm, that’s why I’m here and that’s why I ration the screens to my kids and give them books.
Screens don’t allow you to dive into what you see; the book, yes.
This is what I aim for with my work.
