Back in 2006 Weta released upon the world a collection of devious disintegrators by the dreaded Dr. Grordbort. Designed to rid the world of Moon Men and for the hunting of exotic game on Venus each weapon is the perfect deadly device for smiting your foe!

 

Created and designed by Greg Broadmore and crafted by Dave Tremont, in a big shed in New Zealand otherwise known as Weta Workshop.

 

 

 

Greg, David; who is Dr.Grordbort?

 

David: He's just this guy, you know..... best refer to Greg on this one.

 

Greg: He's a six foot stack of compost wearing a lab coat. He invented China and breakfast burritos. No, wait, that's my uncle. Dr. Grordbort is a fictional scientist and inventor who builds and designs Rayguns amongst other things. He's based on my uncle.

 

David, having worked on LOTR and Greg on The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, as well as King Kong, getting paid to make dreams come true surely is an excellent way of life! What started you on your respective creative paths to end up working at Weta and ultimately toward the creation of Dr. Grordbort's universe?

 

David: I always enjoyed making things and Thunderbirds was it for me. I was overwhelmed by it and the models that ran across the screen and sometimes exploded. My dad used to build us wooden toys and watching him do this was the trigger. As kids we could not buy toys (nor afford them) of the things we saw on TV so we built our own. With time and a lot of patience I slowly got work doing what I always wanted to do. I worked in Sydney through though late 70's and the 80's then the Gold Coast through the 90's. Richard and Tania convinced me to come to New Zealand to work on LOTR, which I did and ended up moving everything over here to live... bloody cold though.

 

Greg: From the age of about seven, I was in and out of juvenile homes a lot. One of the jobs we had to do was go and clean up tagging and graffiti on the walls of the local brothel. So we'd go there and "white it out" and then at night I'd sneak out and go do my own drawings on these pristine white walls, of tanks, robots and potplants. It was great because I always had this clean canvas to work off. I got there before anyone else did. The next day, if they found it, they'd get us to paint it down again. Some places were pretty obscure though and they never really got round to cleaning it up again. So if you go to a few places in Whakatane (that's this really small town in NZ where I'm from) you can still see some of my work. My early work.

 

 

 

Greg, I have read you like robots and dinosaurs, do you think there’s a reason we don't see more steampunk robot-dinosaurs, wielding ray guns in Weta productions? It surely is a shame.

 

David: Dino's and robots are cool.... yeah Greg, why not????

 

Greg: No, you must be remembering that wrong. I hate Robots and Dinosaurs! I buy a lot of Robot and Dino toys which may be causing the confusion, but I take them home and burn them.

 

Lord Cockswain stars in an episodic comic strip over on Dr. Grordbot's pages. Some one has requested I ask you what is the Lords favourite tipple is, what are the true dimensions of his moustache are if he prefers cake or crumpets?

 

Greg: The true dimensions of his Moustache are seventy two trillion DPI by 27 petaflops and his favourite drink is urine. Trips around the solar system can take a long time and the Whiskey can only last so long. Cake or Crumpets? That's the eternal question isn't it, right up there beside the meaning of life (which is amassing mores things than everyone else) The answer is scones. hands down.

 

Dr Grordbort's Contrapulator Dingus Directory, published under Weta Publishing and Dark Horse Comics, contains some ingenious devices and gizmos, the Goliathon 800 Moon Hater being my favourite. Will there be any more designs from the book being made available as models?

 

David: Clear an area on that mantle piece, or book shelf, of coffee table, or garden shed.

 

Greg: Bend over and clear an area in your colon, we got retro futuristic devices you wouldn't believe on the way.

 

 

 

David a fascination with Thunderbirds can only be a good thing in my eyes as I am a big fan of the tunnel maker The Mole, what was the last Thunderbird related model you built?

 

David: It is hard to do anything, not Weta, and so I seem to average one Thunderbirds (or Gerry Anderson) related model per year. The last Thunderbirds model was the Laser Cutter Tractor (30 Minutes after Noon). That was a couple of years ago but since then I've built the Mobiles 1 to 3 and Shado Control... always wanted a Mobile. The latest is a UFO.

 

What are the ray guns made of?. I've only picked up the miniature version of the Manmelter 3600zx and even that makes a hefty paper weight, not that I would recommend such a use of course!

 

David: They are remnants of dark matter left over from the big bang pulled into our dimension through hyper special conduits and then take on the form of low melt white metal (like pewter). They are solid and if it were not for gravatronic trans mass dimensional stabilisers, they would sink to the centre of the earth... which would be bad really, especially if you had them on your favourite coffee table at the time.

 

Greg: Really? I thought they were made of atoms. I'll have to check with the factory but last time I checked they were assembling them using billions of atoms.

 

Can you run through the basic production of one of the pieces, from initial sculpt to final finish?

 

David: They start with a drawing and discussion with Greg, how big, texture, what functions etc. I would build the patterns out of wood (mostly) with a lot of turned aluminium and plastic. They are textured with putty. They are kept in several pieces to make it easier to mould which is done in silicone rubber. The pieces are cast out in urethane resin and assembled. The piping is added with metal wire and they are then pained by the talented Weta artist Sourisak. It takes about four to five weeks to do. Greg then comes down and tells us how wonderful we are and that Grordbort would not be if it wasn't for us.

 

Greg: At the end of the process I usually come down from my lofty tower in the design room and hand feed Dave succulent fruits and pet him like a kitten showering him with compliments. He loves that kind of thing.

 

Do you ever get problems with customs when shipping to foreign countries? I would suspect it's not every day that they get a crate full of 7 lb, hand crafted death rays passing through the border patrol scanner!

 

David: Border control and customs are too highly trained to see the obvious. They are looking for, and finding, the hidden dangerous goods like apples and the such. A whacking great death ray in a box usually gets past unnoticed.

 

 

 

Greg: I like apples. I feel like eating an apple.

 

The infomercial that is available on Youtube provides further insight into the Imperial universe infested with Moon Men and Fetid Swamp Creatures. Is there any plan from Weta on expanding the universe into say a TV special or mini series, following the exploits of Baron Julies Huntswertherly for example?

 

David: That is the dream.

 

Greg: The universe is already expanding, type red shift into Google! But seriously for a moment, yes, we are currently working on a 42 part Mini-Series featuring Baron Julie Huntswartley or whoever and it'll be available on Wax Cylinder this fall. It'll weigh around 38 kilograms so make sure you have a fast download speed on your internets. Word.

 

 

 

For more information on Dr. Grordbort as well as Greg and David follow the links...

 

Links:

Dr. Grordbort’s 

Greg Broadmore’s  Weta profile

David Tremont’s Weta Profile