Matt Aitken

Weta Digital’s visual effects supervisor Matt Aitken will meet ideaschool Screen Production students on EIT’s HB campus this week.

One of the world’s premier visual effects companies, Weta Digital is famous for ground-breaking, performance-driven digital characters such as Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Caesar from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Screen Production programme coordinator Claire McCormick is “blown away” by Weta’s show of support for EIT’s young filmmakers.

“Weta Digital is world-class.  Our students were priviledged to visit to Weta earlier this year as part of their industry field trip.  We are absolutely thrilled they are sending one of their visiting experts to the Bay.”

After a half-hour presentation to students from Screen Production, Visual Arts and Design and IT, Matt will spend one-on-one time with students and check out EIT’s facilities.

Matt has worked at Weta Digital since the early days of the company.  He was digital models supervisor on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  His work on District 9 won him a nomination for Best Visual Effects Oscar.   He is currently working as a supervisor on the third film in Peter Jackson’s trilogy The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Matt has a Master of Science in Computer Graphics from Middlesex University in London.

EIT graduate Sam Buys has been working at Weta Digital for five years and holds the senior production role of digital asset manager.

“I’m responsible for managing the ‘asset’ builds for a film.  An ‘asset’ could be anything from a dragon, digi-double, a tree or a table.  In some projects we could have 3000 or more assets.”

Now working in digital visual effects, Sam says the grounding EIT gave him in the mechanics of film-making and his work in the industry before he came to Weta have been hugely helpful.

In May, EIT’s second-year Diploma in Screen Production students caught up with graduate Sam Buys during their tour of Weta Digital and Weta Workshop, which Sam helped organise.

“It’s great to have the opportunity to share my experience with the new generation of filmmakers who are doing the same course that kick-started my career.” he says.