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Page 1 of 2 (This article was originally featured in Camcorder User, April 2002)
Once Upon a Time...On December 19th 2001, the world saw the release of the eagerly awaited cinematic epic; 'The Lord of the Rings'. The film was described by some journalists as an 'event movie' and the name most commonly associated this event is that of J R R Tolkien. Tolkien was the writer who many years earlier, influenced both by his experiences of the First World War, penned what many regard as one of the 20th Centuries most influential books. There is however another name worth mentioning, a person who is now intimately bound up in the event too, but a name many overlook. The name is that of Peter Jackson, the director of the 'Lord of the Rings' Trilogy and someone who's rise to directorial fame reads a little like that of a fantasy come true.
Why focus on Peter Jackson? He's by no means the first person to attempt to make a film from a book, he's not the first person to make a trilogy and he's not the first person to attempt to film the 'Lord of the Rings'. Why should we focus our time one someone who's first feature was made over four years of weekends using basic equipment, his friends and financed from his own pocket and he now heads as $300 Million movie production.
Ah. That's why.
The Quest Begins... Back in 1983 Peter Jackson had a job at a local newspaper and the income allowed him to purchase a Bolex 16mm film camera. This wasn’t his first camera - legend has it that when you was very young his parents brought him a 8mm Film camera which he used to make World War 2 films in the sandpit. Armed with his new camera it was time to let the creative juices flow and he began work on a 10 minute short. This short film soon spiralled out of control as the ideas flowed and it sucked in his time, his friends and his money as it grew in to a fully-fledged feature film. The script was improvised and the work all consuming; "..I worked all day, came home in the evening and sat up half the night to get all the props ready for the weekend." From this toil and sweat was born the cult classic 'Bad Taste', the story of aliens who land on earth to harvest humans as intergalactic burgers for their pan-galactic fast-food franchises. But before anything could be done with it, the film still needed post-production and post production on film-stock costs serious money. (Reportedly virtually the entire £100,000 cost of the cult UK Vampire horror 'Razorblade Smile' went on film costs!) The next stage was for Peter to get some money so he applied to the New Zealand Film Commission for post-production costs. Unusually for a splatter-gore-horror movie (indeed one reviewer was later to write; "This film is disgusting. Extremely disgusting. Excessively disgusting. Exhaustively disgusting. Did I mention disgusting? Fortunately, the movie is saved from the oblivion reserved for exploitative splatter films by virtue of its being disgustingly funny.") the film found a Champion in Jim Booth, the Chair of the board of the New Zealand Film Commission.
 Despite many objectors, Booth obviously recognised talent. He arranged funds and took the film to the Cannes film festival in 1988. Upon an unsuspecting world, a resident of New Zealand launched, what is now considered by many to be one of the funniest and most disturbing low-budget films ever. The film had a rapturous reception and within a few days the film had been snapped up and was to be sold in over thirty countries. Peter Jackson had made it. That year 'Bad Taste' went on to win the 17th Paris International Festival of Fantasy & Science Fiction Films Special Jury Prize and the Best 'Gore' Film Award at the Fanta Festival in Rome. He was now a fully fledged and highly regarded film-maker whereas a few weeks ago he'd been an employee of a local newspaper.
From here he made more films including another splatter fest in 'Braindead' (known as Dead/Alive in the US) which was released in 1993, the highly acclaimed 'Heavenly Creatures', an account of an infamous New Zealand murder case, released in 1994. This won a cascade of awards including a Venice Film Festival Silver Lion and an Academy Award Nomination. In 1996 came the Hollywood production of 'The Frighteners' staring Michael J Fox as a psychic investigator. This scooped an award at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Sitges, Spain and an Academy Awards for it's visual effects. Where could such a career take Peter Jackson next? To the extreme, of course. Two years later news reports confirmed what months of speculation had hinted at - that somebody was, again going to attempt to make Tolkien's epic. Heading this ambitious project was Peter Jackson, as he stepped out of the shadows he remarked; "it's one of those books that has had the 'unfilmable' tag -- for just cause." |
