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Wellington (Māori: Te Whanganui-a-Tara) is the capital and second most populous urban area of Aotearoa New Zealand, with 418,500 residents. It’s also become a movie making hub.
Filmmakers Sir Peter Jackson, Sir Richard Taylor, and a growing team of creative professionals have turned the eastern suburb of Miramar into a film-making, post-production, and special effects infrastructure centre, giving rise to the moniker ‘Wellywood’. Jackson’s companies include Weta Workshop, Weta Digital, Camperdown Studios, post-production house Park Road Post, and Stone Street Studios. Recent films shot partly or wholly in Wellington include the Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong (2005), Avatar (2009), and Mortal Engines (2018).
Weta Workshop was founded in 1987 by Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger in the back room of their flat in Wellington. It’s produced creatures and makeup effects for the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, and effects for films such as Meet the Feebles (1989) and Heavenly Creatures (1994). Weta Workshop’s output came to worldwide prominence with director Peter Jackson’s film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, producing sets, costumes, armour, weapons, creatures, and miniatures.
Weta Digital was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for Heavenly Creatures. As of 2017, Weta Digital has won six Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), King Kong, Avatar, and The Jungle Book (2016).
Sometime Wellington directors Jane Campion and Geoff Murphy have also reached the world’s screens with their independent spirit. Emerging Kiwi filmmakers, like Robert Sarkies, Taika Waititi — director and Korg in Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Costa Botes, and Jennifer Bush-Daumec, are extending the Wellington-based lineage and cinematic scope. There are agencies to assist film-makers with tasks such as securing permits and scouting locations.
Wellington hosted the World Premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003, and close to 120,000 fans lined the streets to salute the filmmakers and stars as they paraded from the Beehive to the Embassy.
Wellington has a large number of independent cinemas, including the 1920s Embassy, Penthouse, the Roxy, and Light House, which participate in film festivals throughout the year. Wellington has one of the country’s highest turn-outs for the annual New Zealand International Film Festival.
This cache is located at the Weta Cave, where you can join the Weta Workshop crew on a behind-the-scenes look at how Weta Workshop helps craft some of the world’s biggest films.
Logging this cache
At the Weta Cave are 3 cave trolls (safely turned to stone), accessible 24/7 from the pavement… please don’t climb on them. Take a picture of your GPSr or caching username, with a cave troll in the background, and attach it to your log. GPSr may be a cellphone; caching username can be a readable name tag, name on a piece of paper, etc. Example 1, Example 2. Logs that don’t meet this simple requirement will be deleted.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.