Peter Jackson - The Early Years
Profile of the Kiwi Director Who Brought Lord of the Rings to Life
Biography of New Zealand film director Peter Jackson, focusing on his family and the grass roots film-making of his early career.
The phenomenal worldwide success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy has catapulted New Zealand's premier film director Peter Jackson into the limelight. Jackson, who started his career with schlocky horror comedies Bad Taste (1987) and Braindead (1990), has achieved a feat of truly monumental proportions. But this would never have happened without the dedication, perseverance and strength of character that, in retrospect, marked him out as destined for greatness.
The Early Years
Peter Jackson was born to parents Bill and Joan on October 31st 1961, in Pukerua Bay on New Zealand's North Island. He was entranced by films and movie making from a young age – starting out, as many a cinema obsessed child does, by shooting elaborately concocted films on his Super 8 camera. Roping in friends and family to help shoot and populate his early films became an idiosyncratic trait that survives to this day, with both his parents having been given behind the scenes roles on the Lord of the Rings project. Sadly, Joan passed away just days before the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, was released.
The Influence of Fran Walsh
Jackson's wife Fran Walsh also assumes an active part in Peter's films, having been credited as writer on all his features. They met during post production on Bad Taste, and have worked together ever since. She is obviously a hugely essential part of his success and happiness, but Fran prefers to stay in the shadows and maintain a certain level of privacy for her family. This is why she didn't appear in any of the excellent making of featurettes on the Lord of the Rings special edition dvds, even though her input is constantly referenced by other members of the cast and crew. For Lord of the Rings Peter and Fran worked with an additional co-writer, Phillipa Boyens, to achieve the behemoth task of adapting the book. This finally won them the adapted screenwriting Oscar for the final film Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Peter himself enjoys making Hitchcockian style cameo appearances in his films, and can be spotted, amongst others, as a mortician's assistant in Braindead, a drunk resident of Bree in The Fellowship of the Ring and a bi-plane gunner in King Kong. His kids, Billy and Katie have also both appeared briefly in all of the Rings films and in King Kong.
Innovative Early Films
Peter Jackson's early films were low budget gore fests, which gained him a cult status as the 'sultan of splatter'. One of the most interesting aspects of these films was the way Jackson stretched his technical talents by building himself dolly tracks and - according to friend and collaborator Costa Botes* - even a crane and a steadicam. These innovations kept costs down until Jackson was eventually able to generate interest and income from the New Zealand film commission.
Soon Jackson began attracting offers from Hollywood - a difficult thing for many young international talents to resist - but he knew he wanted to remain making films in New Zealand. This was a decision which has hugely benefited his homeland. After all, what Lord Of The Rings fan hasn't dreamt of one day visiting the stunning locations Jackson utilized. He did get involved in one Hollywood project, The Frighteners (1996) starring Michael J Fox, but the film performed rather badly at the box office. In fact, prior to Lord of the Rings and King Kong, the film for which Jackson was most admired was a strange tale of murder and madness called Heavenly Creatures (1994).
For an in depth look at Heavenly Creatures along with the continuing story of Peter Jackson's incredible career please see the article Peter Jackson – New & Recent Films, where his biography continues.
Further information about Peter Jackson's ever growing repertoire of films is also contained in the two part filmography articles Peter Jackson Films 1987 - 1995 and Peter Jackson films 1996 - Present.
Sources: IMBd, Wikipedia, tbhl.theonering.net
*Costa Botes co-directed Forgotten Silver with Peter Jackson and has written extensively for the excellent fan site tbhl.theonering.net.
