One of the questions Taylor still asks prospective employees is whether they enjoy "making stuff". "It's actually a serious question, as the computer invades our world and our leisure time is so preoccupied with either sport or computer games that that rare skill - creativity - that is so wonderful in childhood is being lost a little. We lament the fact that it's becoming a rarer skill to find."
Weta employees are often "surprised there is the opportunity to make a career out of what had only been frowned on up to that point" - namely, drawing monsters and fantasy contraptions, copying and modifying comic book creatures, sci-fi environments and general bizarre stuff - and get paid for it.
"These people had seen that they had something special because they live and exist in these worlds, but because their parents or teachers had never imagined that this interest could possibly blossom into anything productive, the continuing story we hear is that they had to keep it to themselves."
Even Taylor's parents were sceptical. But when his first job on a television commercial for Hannah's "Red Hot Summer Sale" came on TV, "I'm convinced my father would have been sitting in his La-Z-Boy in front of the tele and this God-ray of realisation came from the sky and hit him in the chair and he suddenly came to appreciate that his son possibly had a future in the arts in New Zealand".
The types of people he employs have such a singular desire to pursue art that they perhaps haven't shown a strong affinity with regular subjects, and so may be unfairly written off, academically and artistically.
Taylor knew long before his teachers that he would pursue a career in art.
"I celebrated in the 7th form that I'd never have to sit another exam in my life and, indeed, I went right through tertiary education without ever sitting another exam because my ability to verbalise through writing was poor."
His written language may have been poor, but a bronze sculpture made when he was around 15, which his mother displays proudly, shows a unique talent for sculpture and a precocious thematic interest - a male figure scoops the female figure off the ground, a simple but beautifully executed piece that would find a home in any of the nation's top art galleries.
As alluded to in his sculpture of some 20 years ago, Taylor continues with his belief of collectivism, a philosophy embraced at the Weta Workshop. |
