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TRIVIA
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Peter Jackson (1961 - ) Date of Birth: 31 October 1961 It's a very long way from vomit-drinking aliens to the greatest movie trilogy of all time, but it's one made with some style by New Zealand's most famous film-maker, Peter Jackson. Like so many directors, Jackson started out armed only with his father's 8mm camera - later replaced by a Bolex 16mm - a group of friends, a back yard, and a desire to make movies. Starting at the age of 8, Jackson immersed himself in the minutiae of film-making, learning every aspect of the craft, from photography, editing and make up to scripting, special effects and acting. Armed with boundless enthusiasm and a sense of humour, he and his school friends made spoofs of many of the popular films that fired Jackson's imagination, including Bond homage Coldfinger and zombie epic Revenge of the Gravewalkers. In 1983, still only aged 22, he embarked on his first full scale production, a semi-professional effort then titled Roast of the Day. Working days as a photo engraver, Jackson scrapped together whatever money he could spare to fund the project and built most of the equipment he needed himself. Friends and work colleagues were called in to help in front of and behind the camera, little realising that what started out as a bit of fun would turn into a four year slog, giving up weekends to piece the film together. Cast members dropped out, money was constantly is short supply and things were looking bleak when news of Jackson's dogged perseverance reached the New Zealand Film Commission's CEO Jim Booth who was impressed by the young film-makers refusal to give up on what was now titled Bad Taste. Booth arranged a lifeline for the production, organising a steady feed of cash to keep the film, and Jackson's production company, Wingnut Films, afloat. When it was finally completed, Jackson found himself - not for the last time - at the prestigious Cannes film festival (it was his first trip outside New Zealand) where Bad Taste became an instant cult classic. The reception it received at Cannes ensured the film's success and it was snapped up for theatrical and video releases around the world, announcing Jackson as a deranged new horror talent to watch out for. Sadly, Bad Taste didn't go down at all well with what passed for New Zealand's film-making establishment, who seemed positively terrified of this mad maverick suddenly let loose among them. It didn't deter Jackson however, and the disdain of his film-making colleagues simply seemed to strengthen his resolve. Retaining the services of Jim Booth - who quit the Film Commission and became Jackson's regular producer - he began laying plans for his next assault on local film-making taste and sensibilities. At the tail end of production on Bad Taste, Jackson had met playwright Stephen Sinclair and his partner Frances Walsh who were so excited by the young director's vitality and humour that they volunteered to help him develop his next project. The started piecing together the basis for a full on gore movie they were going to call Braindead. But before that one could start, Jackson had something else to get out of his system. Although New Zealand's film community had done little to welcome Jackson, the success of Bad Taste had earned him a Hollywood manager and an agent and he was soon fielding numerous offers to move to California. But Jackson simply wasn't interested - he had his own vision and felt that staying in his native New Zealand would give him a better chance of achieving it. So he stayed where he was and made a puppet film. With lots of violence. And sex. Meet the Feebles is, quite genuinely, unique. Originally envisioned as a half hour short, a showcase for Jackson's perverse sense of humour and love of all things grotesque and disturbing. But it didn't quite go according to plan. A year into production, the film was in trouble and looked as though it might have to be abandoned altogether. A desperate Jackson flew a rough cut of what had been achieved so far to Cannes where a Japanese distributor fell in love with it and stumped up $250,000 on two conditions - that it be expanded to feature length and that it be ready in time for the following year's market. It seemed a ludicrous proposition - Jackson needed far more money than that and to complete a technically demanding film in less than a year was insane. But Jackson accepted the deal and made do with what he'd got. He called in Walsh, Sinclair and another writer, Danny Mulheron, to help him flesh out the plot and work up as many scatological gags as they could muster. Jim Booth was installed as producer and he managed to secure the remaining funding from the reticent and highly skeptical New Zealand Film Commission. The film still managed to run over time and over budget, but Jackson's enthusiasm was so infectious that his crew opted to stay on, unpaid, to see the film though to completion. But the film was so confrontational, so uncompromising and so unlike what anyone was expecting that it found it next to impossible to land a wide distribution. Grudging video releases stoked the fires of a cult following and cemented Jackson's reputation as a wild-eyed film-maker of vision and integrity. Inevitably, Meet the Feebles served only to further alienate the New Zealand film-making community and, equally inevitably, ensured that the siren call to depart for Hollywood was louder and stronger than ever. But still Jackson chose not to go, preferring still to soldier on in the harsher economic and artistic climes of his homeland than sell-out to corporate Hollywood. In 1990, story analyst Robert McKee visited New Zealand at the invitation of the Film Commission to and deliver his renowned seminar on screenplay story structure. Given the insularity of the New Zealand industry, this visit from a famous Hollywood script guru caused a sensation and his lectures in Auckland and Wellington were packed to the rafters. Among those taking in McKee's words of wisdom were and Fran Walsh. The clarity of McKee's words and the simple truth of his approach to storytelling was a revelation for Jackson. He realised that the key to breaking out of the cult ghetto and reaching a wider audience would lie in his ability to tell a well constructed story. Inspired, he and Walsh dusted down the now long abandoned Braindead project and re-crafted it based on the principles learned from McKee's lectures. Nine drafts later, it emerged as a fully formed horror comedy, abandoning the looser, almost makeshift feel of the narratives from his earlier work in favour a more tightly plotted script that actually had a story. It also had blood. Gallons of it. Braindead has often been hailed as the single most violent movie ever made and its sheer over-the-top verve has garnered it a legion of adoring fans. The film was made with a large cash injection from a Spanish distributor who insisted that Jackson cast a Spanish actress in the lead female role. But no sooner had Jackson scoured the large Spanish immigrant community in New Zealand in search of the perfect woman for the part than the Spanish investor pulled out, leaving Jackson with a rewritten script but no cash to film it. Even though the money was eventually found elsewhere, Jackson honoured his agreement with actress Diana Peņalver and cast her in the important role of Paquita. The finished film was Jackson's most successful to date, playing in the States under the new title Dead Alive and just about everywhere else as Braindead. It's mind-twisting blend of the darkest humour and the grisliest gore brought him to the attention of even more fans and industry insiders and it looked like Jackson was about the inherit the crown as horror's favourite young director. But instead of continuing down the same route - there was little else he could have done with horror after the glorious excesses of Braindead - Jackson made a notable detour with the wonderful Heavenly Creatures, a dramatisation of the the Parker-Hulme murder case that had shocked New Zealand society in the 1950s. It had often been mooted as a possible film subject (allegedly six attempts had already been scripted in the past) but no-one ever got around to making it, including Dustin Hoffmann who was supposedly attached to one such attempt. Jackson approached the project with a zeal that was to become legendary in his later work - the amount of research he did into the case, into the people involved and into the New Zealand society of the 1950s in which the killing had taken place was astonishing and it all shows on the screen. Everything about the film is a perfect recreation of the actual locations and the essence of the era is captured brilliantly. Jackson surprised everyone by making a shocking film with virtually no violence, by getting incredible performances from his two young leads (Melanie Lynskey and, making her film debut, Kate Winslet) and by creating a film of great depth and emotional weight. Nothing he'd done so far had even hinted at what he did with Heavenly Creatures and there a lot of nay-sayers who suddenly had to eat humble pie and take note of Jackson. One of the key elements of the film are the astonishing visual effects used to realise the girls' imaginary "fourth world" and they were created by a team of people who came together under the corporate name Wingnut Effects and Technical Allusions, better known as Weta. Jackson admits that the company should have been called Wingnut Effects and Technical Illusions, but thought that Weti just didn't sound right - however, he's also claimed that the company name isn't an acronym at all but simply the name of a particularly nasty local insect! Weta were to become a major player in the effects industry, their work gracing the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995 - 1999) and Xena: Warrior Princess (1995 - 2001) as well as Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001 - 2003). Sadly, Heavenly Creatures marked the end of Jackson's working relationship with Jim Booth. The former New Zealand Film Commission boss who had done so much to champion Jackson's early work, died shortly after the film was completed. Heavenly Creatures was another huge success for Jackson and again he was actively pursued by the Hollywood studios. But again instead of heading for Los Angeles, he stayed put and made Forgotten Silver (1995), a fascinating fake documentary that had been gestating for years but which hadn't got off the ground because it was so expensive. With his new found respectability, Jackson was able to get the budget he needed and the film's complex but subtle effects sequences could be completed by his own in-house unit. Using his new-found clout, Jackson was able to lever money from the still skeptical New Zealand Film Commission, New Zealand On Air and Television New Zealand and was able to take the money without his investors interfering with his work. Halfway through filming, Jackson made the long-delayed decision to work for Hollywood, accepting Universal's offer to fund his ghost comedy The Frighteners. But when they studios arrived down under insisting that the film start earlier than Jackson had anticipated, it looked as though Forgotten Silver - a faked biopic of a supposedly forgotten New Zealand film-making pioneer - would have to go on hold. Jackson's solution was simple - he had Universal's visiting suits taken on a tour of exotic New Zealand locations while he feigned illness. As the suits were being entertained in and around Wellington, the "sick" Jackson was off completing Forgotten Silver, even faking a "emergency gas leak" so they could clear Camperdown Studios for final filming without arousing suspicions. Now fully "recovered", Jackson set sail for Hollywood and his long awaited American debut with The Frighteners, an effects heavy project that Jackson used to further promote Weta, using the film's enhanced budget to show off his effects house's talents. One of his team, Andrew Adamson, stayed in Hollywood and would later co-direct the hugely successful Shrek (2001). The Frighteners wasn't a huge success but it did confirm that Jackson would be able to work within the confines of the Hollywood system, could manage star names and could produce the goods when asked to. It gave him the chance to start looking at his long cherished dream projects. One of these was a remake of King Kong (1933), the film that had introduced Jackson to the magic of cinema as a child. Universal announced that they were going to back Jackson's remake but pulled out in 1996 when they got wind of the forthcoming Mighty Joe Young () remake. Jackson and his Weta team were devastated. A lot of hard work had gone into preparing for Kong and the rug had been pulled from under their feet, leaving them out of pocket and with no work in the offing. But Jackson was characteristically undeterred and decided that if he couldn't make Kong, he wanted a crack at his other dream project. With his now partner Fran Walsh working on a script with Jackson and Philippa Boyens, Jackson flew to Los Angeles to pitch the biggest project any of them had ever been involved in - the wanted to film J.R.R. Tolkien's massive The Lord of the Rings. Jackson had his friend, New Zealand filmmaker and critic and Forgotten Silver collaborator Costa Botes write a detailed, annotated precise of the novel and, after being turned down by just about every studio in Hollywood, persuaded New Line Cinema to take on the project. To his amazement, the company not only agreed to fund his Rings adaptation but suggested that he could only do the novel justice was by filming each of its three constituent sections, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, as three separate and massive films. In what must surely be one of the most perceptive decisions ever taken in Hollywood, New Line agreed and the rest is history. The Lord of the Rings, released over three years,
took almost five years to complete. It is, simply, the finest movie
trilogy of all time, took an almost unimaginable amount of money and
made Peter Jackson one of the best known film directors in the world.
The success of the mammoth undertaking enabled Jackson to revive his
other pet project and weeks before the final installment, The
Return of the King, opened in 2003 the suddenly red hot
Jackson announced that King
Kong was back on, again at Universal, and due for release
in 2005. There were even murmurings, possibly premature, of Jackson
returning to Middle Earth to complete the set and make The Hobbit
for the big screen. Whatever Jackson chooses to do next one can rest
assure that it'll be huge, innovative and shot through with the same
humour, invention and vision that has been a hallmark of his career
from Bad Taste
onwards. * = television 1986 1987 1988 1989 Worzel Gummidge Down Under: The Bulbous Caulifower (26 February 1989) (performer (Jock)) * 1992 Valley of the Stereos (co-producer) 1994 Hercules
and the Lost Kingdom (project manager: Weta Ltd) * 1996 The Making of The Frighteners (script, director) 1997 The Ugly
(special thanks) 2001 The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (producer,
script, director, performer (Albert Dreary – uncredited)) A Passage to Middle-earth: Making of Lord of the Rings (performer (himself)) * Quest for the Ring (performer (himself)) * The South Bank Show: Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (16 December 2001) (performer (himself)) * 2002 The
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (producer, script, director,
performer (Rohirrim warrior – uncredited)) The Making of The Lord of the Rings (performer (himself)) Making the Movie: The Lord of the Rings (performer (himself)) * 2003 The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (producer, script,
director) The Saw Is Family: Making Leatherface (special thanks) 2004 2005 1976 1994 1995 1997 2002 The South Bank Show: Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Renee Fleming (3 February 2002) (performer (himself)) * 2003 REFERENCES MAGAZINES Total Film no.110 (January 2006) whole issue
Last Updated: 15 October, 2008
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