STACK NZ June 2015 Issue 63

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WetaWorkshop’s Lans Hansen, who was responsible for creating the droids on the sci-fi
hit Chappie, tells John Ferguson how 3D printing technology is revolutionising their work.
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JUNE 2015 JB Hi-Fi
W hen it comes to
3D and movies,
most people would
immediate think of the
clunky glasses and the visual
images that appear to fly off
the screen towards you.
But there is another 3D
revolution underway and
in its own quiet way, it’s
transforming the way films
look on screen. These days
physical props and costumes
can be produced by 3D
printers, and at the forefront
of this new production
technique is New Zealand
company Weta Workshop,
whose most recent
project Chappie arrives this month
on DVD and Blu-ray.
Directed by sci-fi maestro Neill
Blomkamp, the film tells the story of a
police droid who develops a mind of his
own when he is reprogrammed by his
creator, but inadvertently ends up in the
hands of some small-time crooks.
The task of bringing ‘Chappie’ – as
he is dubbed by his new owners
– to life fell to visual effects giant
Image Engine and Weta, with the
two companies working together
to seamlessly blend the digital and
physical.
That’s where Lans Hansen
comes in. An industrial designer,
he has run Weta Workshop’s 3D
department for the past two
years and has been responsible
for the department’s increasing
utilisation of 3D
printing technologies.
Hansen had previously
worked with Blomkamp
on Elysium and District
9, but with Chappie ,
the use of 3D printing
technology was taken
to a whole new level.
“We first started using 3D printing five or
six years ago,” Hansen explains to STACK
from his Wellington office. “Back then it was
so expensive we would only print little bits and
pieces – for example, we might print
the scope of a gun. But when we got
to Chappie, there was nearly 200
parts that all had to fit perfectly. We
realised that 3D printing was the
only way we could pull this off.
We actually printed the entire
robot – every single part was
printed and then molded.
This was a huge leap for
us. The printed parts
that came out were
extremely accurate
and just snapped
together.
It actually made the whole
process far more streamlined
if we had used our previous
techniques.”
Blomkamp came up
with the original design
of Chappie, which Image
Engine then turned into
a detailed digital model
that would be used for the
animated sequences. It was
then up to Hansen and his
team to come up with a
physical representation of the
robots, a job which ultimately
involved creating 12 droids.
“There were different
levels of detail,” he says.
“There were six ‘hero’ droids,
and six background droids – those are the
ones you see in the factory and being set on
fire. But there was also added complexity
because as Chappie goes through the
movie, he gets hit by poles, he gets set on
fire, spray-painted, etc. So we had to have
updates for the physical models to reflect
what is being animated.”
Like Chappie’s fictional creator, Hansen
is very proud of what the team achieved
in building the droids; for him, it’s up there
with the Green Goblin suit he developed
for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – “that was
incredibly complex, because it had so many
moving parts and the stunt actors had to do
back flips wearing this suit” – another job
which required heavy use of 3D printers. And
Hansen has no doubt that the use of the 3D
printing technology is the way of the future as
far his job is concerned.
“I believe the next Star Wars film in London
is going to have a lot of 3D printing,” he says. “It
seems it is becoming a lot more commonplace.
We had one 3D printer five years ago, now I
have got 10 machines and they are running
almost 24 hours a day at the moment. It is going
to become an integral part of the process.”
There is another 3D
revolution underway and
in its own quiet way it’s
transforming the way films
look on screen.