Peter Jackson was born in Wellington, New Zealand on October 31, 1961, so ironically on Halloween. He lived in Pukerua Bay with his parents and was an only child. His parents died whilst he was making "Lord of the Rings" and he now still lives in the same house as then.

Jackson started filming when he was 8 years old. His parents had gotten a camera for Christmas and he got his hands on it. He started making films with his friends, usually short, but already with special effects.

Since he was making his own films at such a young age, he already showed great creativity. For example, he made a short film called ´World War Two’ when he was a teenager. He would simulate a firing gun by punching little holes into the celluloid, so that once projected, the gun gave the impression of displaying a small fire.

Jackson left school when he was 17 and started working for a local newspaper. This way he could finance his 16 mm camera. He made a stop motion animation about a monster that destroys a city in the style of Ray Harryhausen (a special effects pioneer). Peter Jackson entered a local contest with it but didn’t win.

His career kicked off with the film "Bad Taste", a low budget film he made with his friends. It was an alien horror comedy for which he pretty much did everything himself. He was the director, producer, editor and actor. He eventually secured some degree of funding from a sympathetic member of the New Zealand Film Commission. It took 4 years to finish the film; it is now a cult classic.

One of Jackson’s friends worked in the movie industry and arranged for it to be shown at the Cannes film festival. There the public was very positive and it won a number of prizes. After this success Jackson became recognized as a director which gave him some opportunities.

He made "Braindead" another horror comedy, but now professionally made, this was also a success. He also made some smaller horror films like "Meet the Feebles" "A Muppet Parody" and "Dead Alive" the goriest film of all time.

Jackson then went in a more serious direction with "Heavenly Creatures" the debut film for Kate Winslet. A drama about two girl friends who murder the mother of one of them. It has some of Peter Jackson's trademarks; dark, violent humour and frenetic camera work. But it is more humane than his previous work. This is also the first film on which he worked together with his wife, Fran Walsh.

After the success of "Heavenly Creatures" Jackson briefly got back to horror comedy with "The Frighteners." Unfortunately it flopped, but there is one really good thing about this movie. Whilst working on the special effects, Peter Jackson realised that now pretty much everything was possible in films. This gave him the idea of filming the book that was supposed to be unfilmable; "The Lord of the Rings"

It was the biggest film project ever and no studio dared to finance it. The last shot was New Line, after that they were going to give up. New Line saw the potential of this film and gave money to make all three. This was in 1998, Jackson worked on this film until December 2003 when "Return of the King" was released. It was a huge success; Peter Jackson gained millions of fans and has now got the opportunity to remake his favourite film, the film that awoke his love for this medium: "King Kong"

We eagerly await what will come out of the hands of this man. He clearly has talent and a lot of enthusiasm. He promoted "Braindead" at Cannes by hanging flyers up over and over again as security people repeatedly took them down. Rumour has it that he also wants to film "The Hobbit" I really hope he does.

Works Cited and Consulted

The Official Lord of the Rings website
Your Mother Ate My Dog! the Peter Jackson FanlistingS)
The Peter Jackson Guide