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Peter Jackson
Age: 48
Height: 5' 6 1/2"
Birth Place: Pukerua Bay, North Island, New Zealand
Born: Oct. 31st, 1961
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Peter Jackson's Main TV Roles
NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at
IMDB
BIOGRAPHY: Peter Jackson was born as an only child in a small coast-side town in New Zealand in 1961. When a friend of his parents bought him a super 8mm movie camera (because she saw how much he enjoyed taking photos), the then eight-year-old Peter instantly grabbed the thing to start recording his own movies, which he made with his friends. They were usually short, but they already had the spectacular trademark that would make Jackson famous: impressive special effects, made at a very low cost. For example, for his film "World War Two" which he made as a teenager, he used to 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's first step towards the more serious filmmaking came with an entry in a local contest to stimulate amateur and children's film. For this film, he used stop-motion animation to create a monster that ruins a city in the style of Ray Harryhausen. Unfortunately, he didn't win. When Jackson was 22, he embarked on an movie making-adventure that would change his life. This film, Bad Taste (1987), was begun as any other Jackson film, in an amateuristic style, at a low budget and using friends and local people to star in his film. Jackson himself did nearly everything in the movie, he directed, produced, filmed and starred in it, in a number of roles, amongst them that of the hero, "Derek". And everything was filmed on a second-hand, $250 camera. It took Jackson and his friends four years to complete the movie. What had started out as an joke in a group of friends, then became a cult-classic. A friend of Jackson who was working in the movie industry convinced him the film had commercial prospects and arranged for it to be shown at the Cannes film festival, where it won a lot of acclaim, as well as a number of prizes. The movie soon became a hit because of its bizarre humor and overdose of special-effects, some realistic, some hilarious because of their amateuristic look. After the success of Bad Taste (1987), Jackson became recognized as a director and the door to fame and fortune was opened. He gave up his job at a local photographer's shop and became a well-known director of horror-movies, after the success of his first professionally made movie, Braindead (1992).
TRIVIA:
- Ranked #6 in Premiere's 2004 annual Power 100 List. Had ranked #20 in 2003. He is the second-highest rated director on the list, behind only 'Steven Spielberg' (qv).
- In 1998, he bought the New Zealand based film company National Film Unit.
- Was invested as a Companion Of The New Zealand Order Of Merit [CNZM] by the Governor-General of New Zealand in March 2002.
- Ranked #20 in Premiere's 2003 annual Power 100 List. Had ranked #41 in 2002.
- Father of 'Billy Jackson (III)' (qv) and 'Katie Jackson (I)' (qv).
- Credits his favorite movie _King Kong (1933)_ (qv) as his biggest inspiration in filmmaking. He said that he cried when King Kong fell off the Empire State Building.
- Both of his parents died during production of The Lord of the Rings.
- The London Daily Mail reported (December 5, 2003) that Jackson was so fond of _King Kong (1933)_ (qv) that he once cut up his mother's old fur coat and used it to make a model of the great ape; also that he consulted with 'Andy Serkis' (qv) on the script of his version of the movie.
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