Wētā Workshop Masters on Building Creative Immortality: From Margarine Sculptures to Lord of the Rings Legacy

Richard Taylor and Greg Broadmore reveal the unconventional methods, philosophical frameworks, and relentless experimentation that transformed a bedroom startup into the world's premier creative effects company.

Key Takeaways

• Creative immortality comes from making artifacts that bring joy long after you're gone, with physical craftsmanship creating deeper human connections than digital alternatives
• New Zealand's remote location became a competitive advantage by fostering intense resourcefulness and "can-do" attitudes essential for tackling unprecedented creative challenges
• The four tenets for creative success are love of oneself, love of what you do, love of who you do it with, and love of who you do it for
• Speed in creative work produces unique qualities that methodical approaches cannot achieve, with rapid iteration preventing perfectionism paralysis
• Diversification across multiple creative disciplines creates business resilience while maintaining the infrastructure necessary for rapid-turnaround film projects
• Professional artists must master caring deeply about their work while remaining unattached to outcomes, accepting that 70% of creative output will be rejected
• Inspiration comes from studying the world with genuine curiosity rather than passive observation, finding extraordinary lessons in the simplest everyday phenomena
• Children naturally provide the ultimate creative mirror, instantly reshuffling priorities and extending time horizons beyond individual lifespans toward multigenerational thinking
• Margarine proved superior to traditional sculpting materials for rapid prototyping, demonstrating how unconventional approaches often solve problems better than established methods

The Origins of Creative Obsession: From Chinese Sculpture Books to Bedroom Workshops

• Richard Taylor's artistic journey began during his rural New Zealand childhood when he discovered a Spanish-language book about unknown Chinese sculptures at his mother's teacher training college closing sale. This book became his primary sculpting education, inspiring him to dig clay from creek beds and teach himself fundamental techniques through copying the illustrated works.
• The coincidental full-circle moment occurred 40 years later when Taylor and Greg Broadmore randomly encountered the original artist from the book while raising earthquake relief funds in Sichuan Province, China, after pulling over roadside and meeting a sculptor whose portfolio revealed him as the creator of Taylor's childhood inspiration.
• Wētā Workshop literally started in Richard and Tanya Taylor's bedroom, using a sheet of MDF flipped onto their bed as a work surface. Peter Jackson famously described visiting their bedroom, noting it "stunk of the same rubber and fiberglass smells of my own bedroom" because both were creating film effects in residential spaces.
• The margarine sculpting technique emerged from practical necessity rather than artistic choice - Taylor couldn't access plasticine in large quantities, so he learned to work with "emulsified vegetable pastry fat" after watching a Scottish chef create decorative sculptures at the Taz hotel where his wife worked as duty manager.
• Taylor describes sculpting in margarine as "like using a 4B pencil, sculpting in clay as like a 2B pencil, and sculpting in plasticine as like a 4H pencil," highlighting how the medium's malleability allowed for faster, more gestural work that matched his creative pace.
• His breakthrough moment came when he secretly broke into his employer's office at midnight, sculpted a puppet of his boss in margarine, cast it, and left it on the desk in a black plastic bag with his business card, leading to immediate employment despite being the only applicant for the satirical puppet position.

The Lord of the Rings Transformation: From 2 People to 158 Crew Members

• The decision to take on Lord of the Rings represented what Taylor describes as "teetering towards the edge of a precipice" - a make-or-break moment where small companies either step back and let others handle the challenge or "choose to leap" and risk complete failure for breakthrough success.
• Wētā Workshop committed to designing and manufacturing five massive divisions for the trilogy: armor, weapons, creatures, miniatures, and special makeup effects/prosthetics, requiring 158 crew members working 7.5 years on 48,000 separate items that appear in 98-99% of all film frames.
• The company's work included hand-making 122 million individual chain mail links over three and a half years, with Taylor emphasizing that "chain mail is only as good as how well you glue the top link on your shoulder and whether the chain is going to fall off you," illustrating the critical importance of every tiny detail.
• New Zealand's cultural advantage proved crucial - the entire nation rallied behind the production with government, military, tourism departments, and civilian population providing unprecedented support because everyone felt pride in what Peter Jackson was attempting to accomplish for their country on the world stage.
• Taylor credits Peter Jackson's unwavering confidence as essential leadership: "I've never ever seen Peter quiver in uncertainty, to fluctuate in a sense of uncertainty that he isn't sure of what he's doing" - this absolute conviction gave the entire team confidence to attempt seemingly impossible tasks.
• The project required constant innovation of new methodologies to meet brutal deadlines, with most film jobs receiving no more than 8 weeks delivery time, forcing the company to maintain 11 different divisions doing 17 different disciplines under one roof for rapid response capability.

Greg Broadmore's Artistic Evolution: From Unemployment to Creative Flow States

• Broadmore spent seven to eight years nearly continuously unemployed before joining Wētā Workshop, describing himself as "a sort of creative lost soul" who had been rejected by New Zealand's most prestigious art schools and struggled to find professional direction despite obvious artistic talent.
• His entry into Wētā Workshop came through perfect timing - sending a portfolio with dinosaurs and robots just as Richard Taylor needed concept designers for the proposed Halo film and Evangelion live-action movie, leading to a two-week trial contract that "just kept on going" for over two decades.
• The 99 Dodgy Slips project emerged from pure boredom while waiting outside stores during Christmas shopping, using a modified Nintendo DS with pressure-sensitive stylus to create 99 drawings of women slipping on banana peels - a "very 1950s comic book kind of idea" that explored creative tensions between sexuality and slapstick humor.
• Broadmore describes his optimal creative state as completely unconscious flow: "I was in a total Flow State with that by the way which is what I love to do... I felt like I woke up at the end and it was done even though this actually took weeks and weeks," emphasizing how the best creative work happens when conscious control disappears.
• His approach to learning artistic fundamentals proved unconventional - he describes himself as "a young punk rocker" who rejected traditional art school instruction like perspective drawing, preferring to "learn by doing" and discovering techniques through constant experimentation and failure rather than systematic study.
• Broadmore's creative philosophy centers on "chasing the fun" as David Deutsch advocates, recognizing that genuine interest and excitement provide the motivation necessary to overcome creative challenges, while boredom or obligation typically produce inferior results.

The Four Tenets of Creative Leadership and Business Philosophy

• Taylor's fundamental framework consists of four essential loves: "love of oneself, love of what you do, love of who you do it with, and love of who you do it for," arguing that without these elements, any creative endeavor becomes hollow and unsustainable over time.
• The first tenet requires genuine self-appreciation without egotism: "if you can't see in yourself your virtues how the hell are you going to expect anyone else following you to see your virtues," emphasizing that authentic confidence enables effective leadership rather than false modesty or destructive self-criticism.
• "Ignorance being your greatest ally" serves as a crucial complement to the four tenets, suggesting that passionate commitment often requires overlooking or underestimating obstacles that might otherwise prevent attempting ambitious projects like Lord of the Rings or major public sculptures.
• Taylor embraces Bertrand Russell's concept that "work is more fun than fun" for people who discover their true calling, noting that even unpleasant jobs can become enjoyable through relationships and attitude: "I used to clean toilets on international airplanes but man the people I worked with... you can turn anything into fun."
• The company's "no secret, share everything" philosophy stems from Dick Smith's educational influence, with Taylor maintaining that openly sharing knowledge and techniques strengthens rather than weakens competitive position because execution and passion matter more than proprietary information.
• Their approach to deadline pressure acknowledges that creative work often requires constraints: "the inability to turn on a dime to react that quickly" would prevent most of their film work, so they deliberately maintain expensive infrastructure across multiple disciplines for rapid response capability.

Diversification Strategy and Business Resilience Through Creative Multiplicity

• Wētā Workshop evolved from a bedroom startup to 400 employees across seven business centers, including design and manufacturing (170 people), digital games, merchandising collectibles, location-based experiences, creative media, retail stores, tourism offerings, and a robotics division developing humanoid robots.
• The diversification strategy provides crucial business stability: "if one division drops off which invariably is happening pretty much every year the other divisions all come together to support that division," creating a symbiotic support system that prevents total dependence on any single revenue stream.
• Film work dropped from 70% to 30-40% of total business as Hollywood underwent dramatic changes, forcing the company to adapt while maintaining its core identity and capabilities rather than abandoning physical creation for purely digital alternatives.
• Their location-based experience division created major international projects including the largest pavilion for Dubai Expo (which remains open as a museum), the largest traditional Chinese medicine museum in China (including designing the 37,000 square meter building), and immersive museum experiences worldwide.
• The Gallipoli exhibition at New Zealand's national museum demonstrates their philosophical approach to public art - creating 2.5 times life-size hyper-realistic sculptures of seven soldiers and one nurse to tell World War I stories through "intimacy of connection" rather than traditional military statistics and photographs.
• The tin foil sculpting curriculum represents their commitment to democratizing creativity by using the most accessible materials possible - "no matter what the socioeconomic level of a family's life is, tin foil invariably always exists in a family's kitchen" - making creativity accessible regardless of economic circumstances.

Professional Artist Psychology: Caring Deeply While Remaining Unattached

• Broadmore identifies the central paradox of professional creative work: "you have to care about the work deeply it is your baby you have to care about it and if you don't care about it the work won't be any good so you cannot become cynical to the work you have to love it and you have to be able to let go of it."
• The District 9 experience illustrates this challenge perfectly - after months designing an organic alien robot and building a full-size prop that was shipped to South Africa and filmed, director Neil Blomkamp simply decided "it's not going to work" and demanded a complete redesign within a week.
• Professional concept artists develop psychological resilience through understanding statistical reality: when teams produce hundreds of design variations for characters or environments, knowing that only one will be selected helps artists maintain emotional equilibrium despite inevitable rejection rates.
• Speed becomes a crucial creative tool because "I think speed gives a work a quality of its own which I think is what I love and chase after," preventing the over-attachment that develops when artists spend excessive time perfecting individual pieces before receiving feedback.
• The competitive camaraderie among studio artists creates healthy pressure while maintaining supportive relationships: "you're in competition with your other artists which is a great camaraderie but it's still a competition" drives everyone toward higher standards without destructive workplace dynamics.
• Broadmore emphasizes that "the joy is not actually in what happens next with that it's actually in the doing of the work itself" - finding fulfillment in the creative process rather than outcomes provides sustainable motivation for long-term creative careers.

Creative Philosophy: Following Curiosity and Embracing Uncertainty

• Taylor advocates for profound observational curiosity as the foundation of creativity: "the core attribute of creativity is to be inquisitive... to be curious" and finding "extraordinary lessons and beauty and inspiration in most if not everything around you specifically the simplest things."
• Broadmore describes two distinct creative approaches - directed creation where "you kind of know where you're going to go you know the ending" versus exploratory creation where "you are just chasing these why questions getting your imagination giving you answers back and you following with the one that is most profound to you."
• The Dr. Groborts ray gun universe exemplifies exploratory creativity - starting with nine paintings of 1930s-style ray guns, the project expanded through asking "why questions" about who made them, why they exist, and what world they inhabit, ultimately becoming a complete multimedia franchise.
• Creative confidence requires trusting that "your imagination will present you these options and that if it feels powerful then you know you've hit somewhere good," accepting uncertainty as a necessary component of breakthrough innovation rather than a problem to be solved.
• The concept of "creative immortality" drives Taylor's long-term perspective: "this is an artifact to me cuz it will carry on and bring joy long after after I'm dead so the sword maker that made that imbued it with creative immortality and to me that's a good place to be as a human."
• Broadmore's approach to comic book creation deliberately avoided considering film, game, or merchandise adaptations to preserve creative purity: "I wanted to keep the thing as pure to itself as possible" because thinking about other formats would force compromises that dilute the original vision.

The conversation reveals how world-class creative professionals navigate the tension between passionate commitment and business pragmatism, building sustainable careers while maintaining the childlike curiosity and experimental spirit essential for breakthrough innovation. Their success stems not from following conventional wisdom but from developing frameworks that honor both creative integrity and commercial viability.