Peter Jackson: A Film-maker’s Journey. Brian Sibley

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СКАЧАТЬ producer Tony Hiles and composer Michelle Scullion. Concentrating on the newspaper crossword at that moment, they were the perfect team to help me when I needed it.

      from his collection! I felt that what it needed to be was a big score, plenty of full-on, wall-to-wall music and – thinking “blokes”, “cars”, “guns” – went off on a misguided “heavy metal” tangent, before changing course to a more “classical” approach.’

      As the score developed and began to be recorded, Michelle was intrigued by Peter’s intuitive grasp of the process: ‘Peter sat on my shoulder the whole time. He may have lacked musical vocabulary, but he had all the words necessary to explain the shape and the emotion of what he wanted. I was surprised that someone so new to the film business could do that, but he was not only smart, he was an incredibly quick learner: each step was just another thing to be taken in by his huge sponge-brain that soaks up experience and uses it; in turn, I learned to go with him and let him guide me…’

      Reflecting on Peter’s subsequent career, Michelle Scullion says: ‘I won’t jump on the bandwagon and say I knew then that he was a film-making genius, but I will say that it was clear that he was totally dedicated and had ambition. Bad Taste may have started out as a weekend “guerrilla film-making” project, but I don’t believe that it was ever truly a hobby in Peter’s mind.’

      The score for Bad Taste was richly varied to match the moments of insidious menace and relentless pursuit; for the scene where the aliens feast from a bowl of regurgitated pea-green ‘gruel’, Michelle wrote a subdued jazz score with a muted trumpet: dinner music for chuck-eating; while the climactic battle scene had all the energy of a full-on, rock-and-roll number.

      In July 1987, as Michelle was completing her score and the sound effects were being added, a rough-cut of the near-completed film was screened for the New Zealand Film Commission. Internal reports reveal a mixed reaction that veers between arch condescension and blatant dislike. Seeing Bad Taste, it seems, had left its audience with something of a bad taste…

      The film was disparagingly described as ‘a backyard 16mm feature film made by Peter Jackson, a former employee of the Evening Post Circulation Department’. Whilst ‘its very explicitness should ensure that it can earn some money from the grosser end of the international video market’ it was thought to lack ‘style and verse’ and suffer from various weaknesses including ‘minimal acting talent and characters who are unsympathetic and crude.’ The report went on: ‘The film includes a lot of misjudged humour, which could be enjoyed by the crassest of audiences, but very probably not, because much of the dialogue is incomprehensible, especially so for anyone outside New Zealand.’

      Jim Booth defended the project, saying that ‘viewing a film with only an unedited dialogue track (and no atmosphere or effects sound) is an unusual experience and perhaps gives a false impression of the finished film’, but it was left to Tony Hiles to ride to the defence of the project on which he had been serving as Consultant Producer.

      In a document sent to the Film Commission entitled ‘Bad Taste: Report on an Experience’, Tony presented not only a vindication of the support which had been shown towards Bad Taste, but a moving, often prophetic testimony of belief in Peter and his incipient talent:

      I worked with Sue Rogers on the Bad Taste poster design. I always liked the image of the alien jabbing his finger up, and had attempted to shoot it myself several times. This is a shot I did at the end of my parents’ garden. Eventually a professional photographer, Rob Pearson, came onboard and shot the final memorable image on the coast at Moa Point near Wellington Airport. Cameron Chittock was wearing the alien costume.

      ‘I see him as an amiable mixture of Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen – he is creative, inventive, a good actor and he loves film. However, I do not see him as some sort of messiah. He has a hell of a lot to learn – his comprehension of story and scene structure is limited, as is his ability to utilise his time and that of his co-workers in a fully economic fashion. But these things will change, as he learns fast…’

      Countering murmurings that the Commission ought to insist on more changes being made to the film, Tony continued, ‘Bad Taste is an individual film with both the strengths of a film-maker with talent and the weakness of a film-maker with limited experience – and that is exactly why Bad Taste essentially works and should be left alone to work in that way.

      ‘Bad Taste is more than a New Zealand film, more than a regional film, it is a Pukerua Bay film. For what it will ultimately cost, Bad Taste is an extremely low-budget film, which should return its investment if correctly marketed. I believe the actions and support of the New Zealand Film Commission to be an excellent example of how to assist and encourage a new film-maker.

      ‘The whole project is really based on taking a risk; Peter started taking the risk nearly four years ago and the Film Commission took its risk on Peter almost a year ago. Completing the exercise will prove that risks are worth taking.’

      Bad Taste was completed and without any further demands for changes.

      The song accompanying the end credits – as the survivors drive away into the sunset in Derek’s eccentric car – was composed and sung, not by The Beatles, but by Mike Minett with a backing group that included Fran Walsh and Michelle Scullion. It caught the renegade spirit not only of the Bad Taste Boys but also of the film and its director…

       We’re gonna be winners, this time we will;

       We’ve got a good team, unbeatable.

       This time unite, we’ll be as one,

       Our private army will never run.

      The last Bad Taste photo, taken to promote Tony’s Good Taste documentary. In its own way, it sums up the spirit of the preceding four years quite well.

       We’ve got the reason to believe,

       We’ve got the power to succeed;

       But the minute you let me down,

       You’ll leave a bad taste in my mouth.

       Let’s get the permission,

       Let’s do it right,

       License to kill,

       License to fight.

       We’re only Human,

       We’re only Boys,

       We’re only…Dispensable toys.

      After four years, it was finally over. The little weekend hobbyist film had been given the necessary professional finish. The exhausting, occasionally tedious, week-in-week-out regimen had ended with a flourish of high-energy activity, an injection of much-needed cash and the involvement of people who worked in the real film industry. It was a moment that marked not just the completion of a moviemaking project, it was СКАЧАТЬ