It’s not all CGI.........

[shermeen]

Originally Posted by VGRetro

It's the love of model making that is the reason much of the live action set production still goes on at WETA... It's kind of their thing.

Look at how they would sometimes use Models for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. They COULD have just used CG, but for them it's fun to build the models, and it's also fun for them to see people trying to identify what is a model and what is CG.

Like Aardman, they're in it for the passion of it. That's why they spent months recreating the 1933 King Kong Spider Pit Sequence, for example.

They use models when they CAN over CG, whether it looks the same or not ,for one simple reason. Because they CAN.

It's not the most exciting answer, I'll grant you, but the fact is people are like that.

Thanks for the info. I didn't take into consideration that a company making things for profit would go the extra mile just for fun so nice to hear it.
But I'm assuming that in all cases (Thunderbirds or even The Hobbit) that anything that does mix CGI with real models will be digitally adjusted anyway to change the entire look of the sequence so that they match because if they didn't it would be quite jarring I would imagine.

[FAB_61]

One other thing I spotted going thru the photos and the associated comments and responses to them:

There an exchange at one point that essentially goes like this:

"Can I come and work with you guys on Thunderbirds?"
"If we were still going, I'd get you here ASAP"
"Not going - does that mean it's been cancelled"
"We're just not shooting at the moment"

Which I wonder potentially points to something that has been highlighted elsewhere: ITV Studios have never said they've "cancelled" production of TAG - they've just not ordered any more at the moment.

The way the production and transmission of the rest of Series 3 has been dragged out means they don't actually have to make any more at the moment - so perhaps once the rest of Series 3 is shown, and then the whole lot repeated, and some of the other markets have caught up showing it; there'll still be scope to make some more.

FAB_61

[Joe90]

I think the enthusiasm for Thunderbirds is clear when you hear from the staff at WETA in interviews but, unfortunately, that enthusiasm and some nicely made models do not make up for such poor characterisation, simplistic scripts and hackneyed plot devices. Whoever the series was aimed at deserved better than what they got.