Mythmaking, moviemaking. These days, it's all the same. By now, you may have heard of a trilogy of movies called The Lord of the Rings. But perhaps, by some omission or oversight of conversation, you may not have heard of the studio behind the movie — the Ring Leader, as it were, for the brilliant digital and practical effects that have helped to adapt J.R.R. Tolkien's literary masterpiece into a visual one.

We speak, of course, of none other than Weta, Ltd.

Situated unassumingly in a quiet, nondescript suburb of New Zealand's capital, right next door to an old weathered ice cream factory, Weta is a state-of-the-art facility producing some of the world's most fantastic visual effects. Even as we speak, an entire world populated by elves, dwarfs, hobbits, trolls, orcs, ents, wraiths and balrogs is patiently coming to life. (And you thought you had a busy workload.)

Peter Jackson, director/writer/producer of The Lord of the Rings. All images © 2001 New Line Cinema Productions.

For The Fellowship of the Ring, the number of artists and technicians at the Kiwi studio doubled in the year leading up to the film's wrap date, from 90 to nearly 170 artists at its peak. It is expected the staff will need to grow to 250 persons to complete the work on The Two Towers, slated for delivery in October of this year. While the practical filming for the trilogy is done, other than pickups, the artists will be soldiering on for the next 18 months, or so, to finish the two remaining films.

Director Peter Jackson and the Weta team have had to achieve, visually, in five years what Tolkien labored for 12 years and 1200 pages to create in words.

Fellowship: A Brief History of Weta
Fourteen and a half years ago, Richard Taylor and his partner Tania Rodger decided they wanted to start an effects business in Wellington, New Zealand. There was no such industry within the country at the time. Therefore, starting a workshop that specialized in models, puppets and physical effects was quite an unusual undertaking — perhaps even more so given the rural upbringings of Taylor and Rodger. Taylor explains, "We don't come from a long history of loving effects films, and suchlike. We didn't have access to the movie culture that others may have grown up with." But Taylor and Rodger saw it as a great way to utilize the skills they had, and to devote themselves to their love of making things. The operation began in the back room of their flat as RT Effects, Ltd.