Hobbiton Village

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 Chong Ho Alex Yu

Dec 2023 - Jan 2024

Weta Workshop, a New Zealand-based company specializing in special effects, played a key role in designing and creating physical effects for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbiton series. In addition to exploring Hobbiton's Middle Earth, I took a tour in Auckland to understand how Weta crafted visual effects for the Lord of the Rings and other sci-fi and fantasy movies. Surprisingly, Weta heavily relies on physical models and make-up rather than computer animation, let alone AI. Photos 5-8 on this pages were captured during the Weta tour, and I enhanced them using AI. The last three photos were taken in Tauranga, New Zealand.