Sir Richard Leslie Taylor (born 8 February 1965) is the founder,

creative director A creative director is a person who makes high-level creative decisions; oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos; and directs and translates the creative people who produce the end results. Creat ...

and head of New Zealand film

prop A prop, formally known as a (theatrical) property, is an object actors use on stage or screen during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinct ...

and

special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. ...

company Wētā Workshop.

Early life

Taylor was born in Cheadle,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England, on 8 February 1965, and emigrated as a child to

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, where his family lived at Te Hihi, and later the

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

suburb of Patumahoe. He was naturalised as a New Zealand citizen in 1974. Taylor studied at Wesley College, Paerata, and then became a graduate of the former Wellington Polytechnic.

Career

Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy (2012–2014), both of which ar ...

, Taylor and his company created all of the props, costumes, prosthetics, miniatures and weaponry for Jackson's epic ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy. For his work on the three films, he shared in winning four

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...

. This included two for '' The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'' in

Make Up Cosmetics are substances that are intended for application to the body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering appearance. They are mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources or created syn ...

and

Visual Effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action fo ...

, and two for '' The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'' in

Costume Design Costume design is the process of selecting or creating clothing for a performers. A costume may be designed from scratch or may be designed by combining existing garments. "Costume" may also refer to the style of dress particular to a nation, a ...

and Make Up. He was nominated for Costume Design for ''The Fellowship of the Ring''. Taylor can be seen and heard on all of ''The Lord of the Rings''

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

s, in behind-the-scenes documentaries and on the audio commentaries on the extended edition DVDs. He also appeared on set to give direction to actors and stunt personnel in several fight scenes. Both Richard Taylor and Wētā Workshop appear in the documentary film '' Reclaiming the Blade'', where they discussed the creative and technical process of how movie props (specifically swords) are created at Wētā Workshop. Swords created by Wētā for films such as ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

'' and ''

The Chronicles of Narnia ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven portal fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, the series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia (wor ...

'' are featured in the film as well. In the 2004 New Year Honours, Taylor was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to design and the film industry. In the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours, Taylor was promoted to

Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit The New Zealand Order of Merit () is an order of merit in the New Zealand royal honours system. It was established by royal warrant (document), royal warrant on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Monarchy of New Zealand, Queen of New Zealand, "for th ...

, for services to film. Wētā Workshop has also worked on '' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe''. Richard Taylor and his crew designed and built all the armor, weapons and special props for the film. The company were also heavily involved in the making of Peter Jackson's interpretation of ''

King Kong King Kong, also referred to simply as Kong, is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. The character has since become an international pop culture icon,Erb, Cynthia, 1998, ''Tracking Kin ...

'' for which he won his fifth Academy Award, in Visual Effects. In April 2009, Richard Taylor won the supreme award at the World Class New Zealand Awards. The awards honour

's tall poppies who are successful on an international level. In February 2012 Taylor was named New Zealander of the year, beating finalists

World of Wearable Art World of WearableArt (WOW) is an international design competition, attracting entries from more than 40 countries each year. The competition features wearable art entries, which are judged on durability, the safety and comfort of the models, a ...

founder Suzie Moncrieff and Auckland plastic surgeon Sharad P. Paul, nominated for his work on

skin cancer Skin cancers are cancers that arise from the Human skin, skin. They are due to the development of abnormal cells (biology), cells that have the ability to invade or metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. It occurs when skin cells grow ...

. By 2014, Taylor's company, Wētā Workshop, was involved with

Magic Leap Magic Leap, Inc. is an American technology company that released a head-mounted augmented reality display, called ''Magic Leap One'', which superimposes 3D computer-generated imagery over real world objects. It is attempting to construct a lig ...

, a startup company reported to be working on projects relating to

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

and

computer vision Computer vision tasks include methods for image sensor, acquiring, Image processing, processing, Image analysis, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical ...

that received over USD $4.5 billion of venture funding by 2024. In May 2020, due to economic fallout resulting from the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the relationship between Taylor's Weta Workshop and Magic Leap came to an end, when the latter company laid off about 1,000 staff members worldwide. All of the Magic Leap employees in New Zealand were laid off, and the partnership with Weta Workshop was dissolved.

Awards and nominations

* Nominated: Best Costume Design, '' The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'' (2001) * Won: Best Makeup, ''The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'' (2001) * Won: Best Visual Effects, ''The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'' (2001) * Won: Best Makeup, '' The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'' (2003) * Won: Best Costume Design, ''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'' (2003) * Won: Best Visual Effects, ''

'' (2005)

References

External links

*
Richard Taylor's profile page
on the homepage of Weta Workshop {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Richard 1965 births Living people Best Costume Design Academy Award winners Best Costume Design BAFTA Award winners Best Makeup Academy Award winners Best Makeup BAFTA Award winners Best Visual Effects Academy Award winners Best Visual Effects BAFTA Award winners Knights Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit English emigrants to New Zealand New Zealand film producers New Zealand make-up artists People from Cheadle, Greater Manchester New Zealand visual effects artists