‘Lord of the Rings,’ ‘Avatar’ VFX House Weta FX Partners With Taiwan’s Moonshine Studio Under AI Pact With TAICCA

Weta FX, the New Zealand visual effects company behind “The Lord of the Rings” and “Avatar,” will invest in Taiwanese animation and VFX outfit Moonshine Studio.

The investment is part of a partnership with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) aimed at making Taiwan an AI hub for Asia’s content industries.

Weta FX CEO Daniel Seah and TAICCA chair Sue Wang signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday at Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) in Taipei. Taiwan’s Minister of Culture Li Yuan attended the signing. No figure was given for the investment.

Seah said the partnership has three parts. The first is the investment in Moonshine, founded by Lin Chia-chi, which he said had been around six months in the making. The second is a technology platform that will invest in Taiwanese film and TV projects and use Weta FX’s global reach to get them in front of wider audiences.

“On the AI road, nobody is really far, far ahead,” Seah said. “We all have to venture into this tech-filled AI world together. That’s why, while investing in Taiwan, we’re investing in technology.”

The third part, and the one Seah said he values most, is talent. A program will allow Taiwanese filmmakers, particularly young ones, to come to Weta FX for exchanges and internships, and potentially to work there in future.

Seah has spent close to 16 years as a VFX CEO. That includes 14 years running Digital Domain, the company co-founded by James Cameron. He moved to Peter Jackson’s Weta FX nearly two years ago. Li noted that Seah was born in Malaysia and grew up in New Taipei’s Yonghe district before working in China and Hong Kong.

Weta FX’s staff alone, Seah said, make up around 2% of the population of Wellington, New Zealand’s capital.

“Over the past 30 years, Weta turned Wellington from a political capital into such an important global production base,” Seah said. “We think Taiwan has even more of that opportunity.”

Wang said Moonshine’s team ranked first among Taiwan’s VFX houses. “Every time we met the Moonshine team, my only worry was: Can you make money like this? How long can you keep going?” she said. Wang added that the team “deserves to be put to better use, and seen by more people.”

Wang also thanked Taiwan’s National Development Fund for its support.

Li summed up the day in an eight-character Chinese phrase, “Daniel Seah comes home, dreams come true.” The phrase plays on Moonshine’s Chinese name, which means “dream.” He said AI and cultural technology will be among the Ministry of Culture’s priorities for the next four years.

Li joined Wang Film Productions at 37 hoping to make original animation, and gave up two to three years later. “I thought maybe this dream would take 20 or 30 years to come true,” he said. “I didn’t expect that after waiting so long, I would at least see it come true with my own eyes.”

Also on hand were TAICCA president Erica Wang and three Weta FX executives: chief technology officer Kimball Thurston, VFX supervisor Sean Noel Walker and R&D head Andrew Moffat.