Network Appliance Chosen for The Lord of The Rings Film Trilogy
Network Appliance Chosen for Speed of Data Access and Scalability; Deployment of NetApp® F840 Filers in Digital Postproduction Environment Rated ``A Tremendous Success''
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 17, 2001-- Network Appliance, Inc., the leading provider of network-attached data access and content delivery solutions, has announced that Wellington, New Zealand-based Weta Digital Effects has deployed NetApp filers for use in the making of New Line Cinema's The Lord of The Rings. The three-film production is based on J.R.R. Tolkien's popular trilogy.
Directed by Peter Jackson, The Lord of The Rings stars Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Ian Holm, Christopher Lee and many other well-known actors. It is the first of three films that will be released in the run up to Christmas this year. The second and third films will be released at the same time in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
Heavily publicized at this year's Cannes International Film Festival, the trilogy has been shot completely in New Zealand and Weta Limited's Weta Digital Effects and Weta Workshop divisions have been responsible for the special effects.
To support this vital undertaking, Weta Digital Effects has deployed NetApp F840 filers with a total of five terabytes of usable storage capacity.
``This three-year project called for state-of-the-art storage capability and, especially, scalability and speed of data delivery that we found only NetApp and the NFS protocol could provide,'' said Mr. Jon Labrie, Weta's Chief Technology Officer. ``We have already scanned more than a million images for the first of the three films and these are being worked on by our 143 graphic artists. The images have to be scanned and stored for manipulation and with a single frame representing anything up to 12 megabytes, we are talking about a lot of storage.''
Jon Labrie further stated, ``Everything we use the NetApp solution for is absolutely mission critical and the NetApp deployment in our server-centric SGI and Mac environment has been a tremendous success.''
Mr. Michael Burnie, Managing Director for Network Appliance Australia and New Zealand, noted, ``We were delighted to be chosen to supply the data access and content delivery solution for this fascinating and very high profile production. Coincidentally, NetApp is also where the data is stored for www.lordoftherings.net, which Weta tells us is one of the most visited Web sites of all time.''
Mr. Burnie praised Infinity Solutions, his company's New Zealand distributor, for their strong support in the winning of the business and the installation of the NetApp F840 filers. He stated, ``They are very good people to work with and I look forward to our two organizations continuing to cooperate in this way.''
Principal photography for The Lord of the Rings, the original of which was recently rated the most popular book of the 20th century, began in October 1999 and ended last December. Weta expects to continue to be engaged in postproduction work through mid-2002.
Weta was founded in 1993. Weta Workshop produced creature designs, miniatures, armor, prosthetics and interactive animatronics for the shoot while Weta Digital Effects is providing innovative digital effects for compositing with live action footage. Together, the two divisions have produced fantastical characters, creatures and environments for Tolkien's fabled Middle Earth.
Cinema goers will have seen Weta's work in the disturbing makeup effects for Once Were Warriors while television viewers will know the company from the Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess series.
About Network Appliance
Network Appliance, Inc., a leader in network storage and content delivery, has been providing data access solutions since 1992, and is a member of both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 index. Major corporations and service providers, including Lycos, Yahoo!, Citicorp Securities, Siemens, Lockheed, Cisco, Motorola, and Texas Instruments have deployed NetApp solutions.
The company pioneered the concept of the ``network appliance,'' an extension of the industry trend toward dedicated, specialized products that perform a single function. NetApp storage and content delivery platforms (filers and NetCache® appliances) are coupled with powerful content distribution and reporting software. This Center-to-Edge(TM) solution offers seamless data management from the back-end data center to the edge of the network quickly, simply and reliably. The Network Appliance(TM) product portfolio utilizes the company's innovative data access software, known as the Data ONTAP(TM) operating system, as well as standards-compliant hardware. It also offers multiprotocol support and transparent integration for UNIX® and Windows® environments.
Note to Editors: NetApp and NetCache are registered trademarks in the U.S. and Network Appliance, Data ONTAP and Center-to-Edge are trademarks of Network Appliance, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. UNIX is a trademark of The Open Group. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.
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Contact:
Network Appliance, Inc., Sunnyvale
Jaime Leigh Jinks, 408/822-3761
jjinks@netapp.com
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