Strong NZ digital influence on global stage in Hong Kong

The boys ham it up at the opening of the Dr Grodbort’s Exhibition at Hong Kong’s Cyberport. From left to right, Stanley Tong HK Film Director/ Producer , Richard Taylor and Greg Broadmore from Weta Workshop and leading Hong Kong actor Eric Tsang.

New Zealand made its presence felt again at the 2010 Digital Entertainment Leadership Forum (DELF) at Cyberport in Hong Kong.

Weta Workshops’ Richard Taylor was a keynote speaker at this year’s international forum, which focused on “the next wave of digital creativity”. Wellington and how it had positioned itself globally was the key theme last year.

Richard opened with a short and predictably stunning Weta showreel and tracked through a highlights list of Weta's involvement in various film projects from “King Kong” to “District 9” and “Avatar”, which recently won the Best Visual Effects Award at the 82^nd Academy Awards.

Keith Barclay, editor of Screenhub NZ, who attended DELF in March, says Richard told the audience that while Avatar is, by general consensus, currently the gold standard in 3D filmmaking Weta is working on two other features that were far more advanced in their use of 3D.

The forum is put together each year by part-time Hawke’s Bay resident Hal Josephson and included Wellington lawyer and HKNZBA member Michael Stephens as the chair of a panel.

Mr Josephson works with Cyberport under the full support from Create Hong Kong.  Co-organisers included Hong Kong Comics and Animation Federation, Hong Kong DigiCreate Alliance, Hong Kong Digital Entertainment Association, Hong Kong Digital Entertainment Industry Support Centre and Hong Kong Game Industry Association. 

After the forum the New Zealand theme continued with the opening of Weta designer Greg Broadmore's Dr Grordbort exhibition at Cyberport’s Arcade.  The exhibition, which runs until May features the fictitious universe of Dr Grordbort’s with a collection of art paintings, sculptures and Raygun props,

Dr Grordbort’s universe began as a series of nine acrylic paintings of rayguns that sci-fi fan Greg created in his spare time while working on King Kong.  Richard and Greg decided to transform the paintings into art objects or collectibles.  The Dr Grordbort’s series now comprise two books published by Dark Horse Comics, several raygun collectibles, hundreds of illustrations, digital paintings and sculptures and a motion picture in the near future is being talked about.

On top of the exhibition, Asia’s first official Weta Collectibles Shop opened in Cyberport.  The shop sells limited edition of fine art collectibles and merchandises by Weta artists, including items from blockbusters, such as The Lord of the Rings, District 9, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Dr Grordbort's Rayguns.

New Zealand cloud computing giant, InterGrid has also organised a global online design competition, Dr Grordbort’s Venusian Characters Design Competition.  The spectacular competition targets to attract two million contestants from around the world through the web interface developed by Frenzoo, a successful Cyberport IncuTrain Programme graduate.

The grand prize winner will be awarded a trip to New Zealand to meet Richard Taylor and the award-winning team at Weta Workshop.

Cyberport is also planning to hold a charity auction whereby selected items will be placed online for bidding.  All proceeds from the auction will go to Habitat for Humanity China in support of the Sichuan earthquake project.  This is to echo with Weta’s support for the Sichuan earthquake through its exhibition held at the Sichuan Provincial Museum in Chengdu, China in December last year.