Home - Interviews - Richard Taylor (WETA), Ray Griggs (director, Wind in the Willows)

MetalLife.com Interview With Richard Taylor (WETA), Ray Griggs (director, Wind in the Willows)
By: Terry Bunch
Date: July 24th, 2010

While at San Diego Comic Con 2010, we stopped by the WETA booth to check out the new WETA designs for the upcoming movie, "Wind in the Willows." Ray Griggs has written the screenplay for the movie and WETA are handling the animatronics and such. We interviewed Richard Taylor (co-founder of WETA) and Ray Griggs about "Wind in the Willows."

Now, I know some of you are probably wondering what a heavy metal magazine is doing talking about "The Wind in the Willows." Well, if you take a look at the story, it is an incredible adventure and Mr Toad likes to party, drive fast and he leaves destruction in his wake. That sounds pretty "metal" to us. The imagery of the story is fantastic and after all, Mr Toad's Wild Ride in Disneyland does land up in hell (where all of us metalheads are supposedly going, so...)

Pink Floyd's first album was titled "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," after chapter 7 of the Wind in the Willows book. Iron Maiden made reference to The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in their song, "The Wicker Man." The Cradle of Filth song "Snake-Eyed and the Venomous" off "Harder, Darker, Faster: Thornography Deluxe" contains the lyric "all vipers at the gates of dawn," a pun of the title of chapter seven.

Photo by E. Lacey, Metal Life Magazine

1. Metal Life Magazine: What made you want to do "Wind in the Willows" now? What brought this project about?

Richard Taylor: Right now? (laughs) That's a simple answer. He (Ray Griggs) approached us. (laughs), so I'll let you talk to him about that.

2. Metal Life Magazine: So are you taking a different twist with the story this time or are you sticking with the original book?

Ray Griggs: I am keeping with the original book, but I am putting a creative spin on it. You know, the freedom that directors have, I am going to explain some of the things that the book never actually did.

Photo by E. Lacey, Metal Life Magazine

3. Metal Life Magazine: Are you planning on doing a sequel and continue with the story or are you planning on only doing the first book?

Ray Griggs: I am not sure, yet, I will all depend on what happens with this one, no plans either way yet.

Photo by E. Lacey, Metal Life Magazine

4. Metal Life Magazine: As far as WETA's involvement is concerned, are you going to be creating animatronics or is this going to be CGI?

Richard Taylor: When Ray came to us, his inspiration was to do something different, to the other fantasy based movies that are out there. The challenges in taking it one way or the other are equal, but it's about how you get a movie without a huge budget to get its head above the parapet. Ray made the decision that animatronics was the way to achieve that, shooting the characters live on set. Ray thought about us (WETA) in respect to that sort of work and that's how we ultimately got involved.

5. Metal Life Magazine: When is the movie expected?

Ray Griggs. The goal right now is Spring, 2012. That's kind of the schedule as of now.

6. Metal Life Magazine: Have you started working on the film yet?

Ray Griggs. We are starting pre-production now. It's going to take over a year for all of the animatronic creatures to get put together and get ready.

7. Metal Life Magazine: Will we get to see photos and videos on set so we can see how things are going or is this going to be all kept secret until it is done?

Richard Taylor: That is totally up to Ray (laughs)

Ray Griggs: I am probably going to keep it under wraps, sort of like the teaser that you can see now, I gave everyone exactly what they were expecting right now and that's just a quick tease. You see the computer animation, but in reality it is not going to be that. I am keeping it a secret what they really look like. It's going to be something really unique.

Photo by E. Lacey, Metal Life Magazine

8. Metal Life Magazine: The characters on display in the booth here, are they resembling what you wanted them to look like or are they more cunning smoke an mirrors?

Richard Taylor: (laughs)

Ray Griggs: (laughs)
Ray Griggs: That, I can't tell you, you'll have to wait an see.

Richard Taylor: They do look wonderful, though. (laughs)

Photo by E. Lacey, Metal Life Magazine

9. Metal Life Magazine: Do you have any particular people in mind for the voices of the characters?

Ray Griggs: I do have some cast members that are locking things up right now. They are dotting the "I's," crossing "T's" and such. We will be making an announcement soon, but we are keeping that under wraps as well.

10. Metal Life Magazine: Our magazine focuses on the interests and hobbies of people that are into hard rock and heavy music. Our readers will be very interested in the soundtrack. Is it going to be orchestral or will you be using songs?

Ray Griggs: Certainly orchestral and I would never go MIDI or digital.

11. Metal Life Magazine: Are you going to utilize specific instruments at key moments to add to the scene or will the full orchestral music perform that task?

Ray Griggs: Probably full on orchestra, it is an epic style story after all. (laughs)

12. Metal Life Magazine: Are there plans for after market type products for fans of the movie?

Ray Griggs: Actually yeah, Richard and I are talking about a lot of that. There will be a series of tchotchkes and other merchandising. As you can see, (looking at the items in a display case at the Comic Con booth) we're already started with that right in the beginning of the process.

Photo by E. Lacey, Metal Life Magazine

13. Metal Life Magazine: Are you also going to target the collectibles market with things like action figures versus the higher end market?

Ray Griggs: It's certainly something we can definitely look into, but we are not at that stage yet.

14. Metal Life Magazine: Where is this going to be filmed?

Richard Taylor: It will be filmed in New Zealand

15. Metal Life Magazine: We feel that WETA have created some of the best animatronics ever built. Have you decided on which technologies you are going to use? Do you have any new tech that you want to utilize for Wind in the Willows?

Richard Taylor: We are definitely pushing the technology as far as we can, there are some phenominal breakthroughs being made in the realm of animatronics. Ray's aspirations are very high and we have a wonderful team of people that are trying to come up with some unique ways to meet those goals. Physics does take over at some point so you can only get so many motors in so much space. It's an exciting challenge and thankfully Ray is giving us the freedom to explore the options available and he is willing to try new things and develop new stuff. This all makes it a really wonderful project for us to work on.

For more info, visit the WETA Page on Wind In the Willows.

WETA is currently offering these bookends with Wind in the Willows characters. Click the picture to get your own set: