Peter Jackson: A Film-maker’s Journey. Brian Sibley
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Название: Peter Jackson: A Film-maker’s Journey
Автор: Brian Sibley
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9780007364312
isbn:
I built a steadicam camera mount using plans from a US home movie magazine, CineMagic. Like the crane, it was a point, shoot, hope for the best device, but ended up working quite well.
Comparing him to one of the success-stories of New Zealand film, Geoff Murphy (who would later serve as Peter’s second unit director on The Lord of the Rings), Tony Hiles described him as ‘one of those people who will make films whether he gets any help or not.’
He went on: ‘I find his attitude worth encouraging – he has plans to get into special effects for film and does not appear to have superbig ideas about himself – a refreshing change from the usual starryeyed tyro who thinks the world owes him a living, or at least enough money to make a film.’
The appraisal ended with a couple of caveats: ‘There is a lot of untangling to be done and it won’t be that quick – but I’m sure it’s worth the effort, especially initially, as this will allow us to find out enough about him to know whether it’s worth continuing.’ And on the subject of money: ‘I recommend that any Film Commission investment is stage by stage, drip-fed, keeping the project reasonably lean and hungry, otherwise it could go all over the place, just like the aliens’ brains…’
Tony Hiles’ evaluation was to prove the turning-point in Peter’s career: it reinforced Jim Booth’s impression and provided independent evidence that would help convince the board of the Film Commission when the time came to approve investment in the film.
At the end of his report, Tony wrote: ‘I look forward to continued involvement with this Sheep-offal Saga.’ He had already warned Peter that the Commission might ask him to oversee the film’s progress to completion and when Jim Booth wrote to Peter, on 6 October 1986, with the news that the Film Commission was ‘now definitely interested in assisting you to complete the movie’, he added, along with requests for budgets, that the Commission wanted to appoint Tony as a consultant. In reply, Peter indicated that he was ‘very happy with the idea of working with Tony,’ although, as Tony pragmatically observes, ‘If I’d been a one-legged gorilla he’d have probably still said, “Yes!”’
In his letter to Peter, Jim Booth wrote: ‘Once again, I would like to congratulate you on your energy and the results obtained to date. A most commendable effort.’ Peter’s response was suitably expressive of his obvious gratitude:
‘Many thanks for the consideration that you have been giving to my movie over recent weeks. As you can imagine, I was delighted to receive your letter…I realise that my project doesn’t follow the normal pattern or accepted procedures, or whatever. The Film Commission’s support in spite of that makes me all the more grateful and, I should add, determined to produce something really worthwhile…
‘The next six months are going to be a great learning experience for me, far better than going to film school, and at the end of it we’ll have a finished film. I’m looking forward to all the learning, and I’m also looking forward to working within a set budget and schedule, a discipline I’ve never needed before.
‘So thanks again for the faith you have shown in me. I won’t let you down.’
After signing off – ‘Kind regards, Pete Jackson’ – he added an engaging, and suitably tantalising, postscript: ‘If you liked the movie so far, then don’t go away. The best is still to come!’
For a while, Bad Taste had a very different climax, featuring a chase scene on alien hover vehicles (this was 1985, so I was no doubt inspired by Return of the Jedi). I built this model of Craig and hover car at about half scale. Eventually the idea was scrapped and a new ending devised when the NZ Film Commission came onboard.
Following Tony Hiles’ recommendation, Jim Booth began dripfeeding the continuing production of Bad Taste with a payment of $5,000 made from the director’s discretionary fund and therefore not requiring the approval of the full board of the Film Commission. Jim acquainted David Gascoigne with what he had done and, a little while later, mentioned that he was intending to advance another $5,000. This, as Jim was well aware, was bending the rules, which allowed the director to spend only a maximum of $5,000 per picture, as opposed to making repeated payments on the same project, which would normally have required approval by the board.
‘I was knowingly complicit,’ admits David, ‘because it was a case of Jim having a good idea – he was a great believer in (with capital letters) Having Good Ideas! – and I not only didn’t intervene, I gave him tacit encouragement. Today it would be different, but then we were inventing a system of film support as we went along.’
As for Peter, he now reached an important decision about his future career:
I decided that if Jim was going to be able to give me these payments, then the moment had finally come to start working on the film full-time. So, I went into the Film Commission and picked up the cheque – made out to WingNut Films – for $5,000. It was the most money I had seen in my life; the following day I handed in my notice at the Evening Post.
I kept filming for the next six or seven months: I could only shoot at weekends because all my actors still had full-time jobs, but at least I was now able to build props, masks and two different scale-models of the Gear Homestead, which we had now decided was in fact the aliens’ spaceship and would have to take off at the end of the movie. Being able to devote all my time to the project meant that I was not only able to accelerate the schedule but also to step up the production values.
Peter had been introduced to Cameron Chittock, a Christchurch model-maker and puppet-builder who was attempting to break into the film industry. Cameron flew up to Wellington, visited Peter at his home in Pukerua Bay and showed him examples of his work.
Cameron was given a tour of the Peter Jackson workshop – a basement room that Peter and his father had dug out under the house and built by hand, and which Richard Taylor would later describe as ‘a Batman’s lair’! Cameron was staggered at the professionalism, and the sheer quantity, of the creations packed into the room, from Peter’s stop-motion puppets for The Valley through to the weapons, props and masks, which he had been building for Bad Taste. He also got his first glimpse of the film itself:
‘I loved it! It made me laugh: I’m not especially interested in horror movies or films with a lot of blood-and-guts, but I found Peter’s angle on the genre irresistible. The thing that really attracted me to him was his sense of humour and what you might call his outrageous behaviour on film – he had a rebellious streak in him and he attracted other rebels and provided the focus for a bunch of people in the film industry who were wanting to stir things up a bit!’
Recognising Cameron as someone who was not only skilled but who shared his own passion for special effects, Peter offered him the job of being his special make-up effects assistant. ‘I moved to Wellington, ’ remembers Cameron, ‘and, within a few days, was working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week trying to keep up with Peter!’
Cameron’s early recollections of Peter accord with those of many who knew him at this early stage of his career: ‘If you didn’t know him, you might have thought him quite shy with people, even withdrawn, but as soon as you put a camera in his hands or gave him a paintbrush or bottle of latex to work with, he became incredibly confident and СКАЧАТЬ