“Nietzsche once said ‘Man is as a rope stretched between the animal and the superhuman’,” muses Sir Reginald Hargreeves in the first episode of Umbrella Academy (2019). It’s an ironic line, given the most human character in the Netflix original series is not human at all, but rather a being who personifies the middle ground between the animal and the superhuman. There are few places better suited to delicately walking that line than Weta Digital, with the New Zealand-based digital visual effects company creating the character of Pogo. Think Batman’s butler but, well, a chimpanzee. Guardian to the dysfunctional Hargreeves family of superheroes, actor Ken Hall’s movements on set became a visual reference for Weta animators, combined with the facial and vocal performance of Adam Godley in the studio.
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Collection
Not in ACMI's collection
Previously on display
11 February 2022
ACMI: Gallery 1
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Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
183484
Curatorial section
The Story of the Moving Image → Moving Worlds → MW-06. Visual Effects → MW-06-AV03
Object Types
Moving image file/Digital