Peter Jackson: A Film-Maker's Journey

by Brian Sibley

  I worship the power of these lovely two With that adoring love known to so few.

  ‘Tis indeed a miracle, one must feel, That two such heavenly creatures are real.

  The fantasy realm with its invented characters and the girls’ equally fantastical obsession with movie heartthrobs, and in particular Mario Lanza, star of such movies as The Great Caruso and Because You’re Mine and the owner of a magnificent voice, which Arturo Toscanini described as the ‘voice of the century’, all offered promise of a rich visual and musical approach to the telling of the story.

  ‘With character dramas such as A Room with a View or Angel at My Table,’ wrote Peter, ‘we are used to quite laid back, static camera angles. Heavenly Creatures will burst into life with a fluid, lively style. Camera movement and editing will build up to near manic levels during some of the more exalted sequences. The Mario Lanza music will help create this mood. Who knows, we may even get “The Donkey Serenade” back into the charts!’

  Such claims (with the exception of that relating to ‘The Donkey Serenade’) are a not-uncommon feature of ‘proposal-speak’. In the case of Heavenly Creatures, however, Peter Jackson’s claims would be vividly realised with wildly dynamic, highly energised scenes that force the viewer to share in the girls’ heightened emotional states, whether joyous or murderous. What Peter hadn’t specifically promised but, nevertheless, spectacularly delivered were sequences of breathtaking beauty–especially those in which he gives the sense of the relationship between people and landscape that foreshadow many such moments in The Lord of the Rings.

  Sensible of his growing status, Peter ended his submission with a courteous but firm request for an early decision from the Commission. He pointed out that he had been ‘turning down several directing offers’, the latest of which had been from director Sam Raimi and producer Rob Tapert: ‘I’m going to decline without even reading the script simply because it clashes with our plans for Heavenly Creatures. It is my risk and I’m happy about that…I mention it only to illustrate my point that I need to know in October if I should stick with Heavenly Creatures or look elsewhere for work. I need to have a “yes” or “no” from the Commission. I will have to take a deferred decision as a lack of confidence in me and my script and move on to other things…’

  In conclusion, Peter spoke of attitude towards future work: ‘I have a strong commitment to the New Zealand film industry and hope to continue to be based here. If I ever get involved in a Hollywood project, I will be vigorously promoting the idea of shooting it in New Zealand, or shooting SPFX here, or doing post-production here. To make those sorts of demands in Hollywood I need a reasonable amount of clout, and I believe that Heavenly Creatures could be successful enough to give me a lot of clout over there.’

  There may have been some who read that passage and thought that it was nothing more than an attempt to push them towards a positive response on Heavenly Creatures. Time alone would show that Peter meant–and would stick by–every word.

  Nevertheless, apart from the offer to work with Peter’s hero, Sam Raimi, there had been word of another project from ‘over there’ that was equally right in Peter’s backyard: a new Planet of the Apes movie for Twentieth Century Fox. As a youngster, Peter had been inspired by the first of the five Planet of the Apes pictures to make his own ape masks and to pay homage to the movie’s famous climax in his juvenile film, The Valley. Now, over twenty years later, he was in the frame to write a new title for the franchise.

  Ken Kamins had floated the proposition to Peter, who had immediately started putting together a script idea with Fran, which became a three- or four-page treatment. It was October 1992 and Peter and Fran, who were still awaiting a decision on Heavenly Creatures from the Film Commission, were on their way to the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. Ken set up a meeting with producer Harry J. Ufland (whose films included The Last Temptation of Christ, Night and the City and Michael Jackson’s Bad) so that Peter could pitch the Apes proposal, which was for an original story rather than a remake of the first film, as would eventually–and pointlessly–be undertaken by Tim Burton. Peter had been particularly keen to write a part into the script for Roddy McDowall, who had had a key involvement in the five Apes movies and the subsequent television series.

  Fran and I had devised a storyline that continued the Apes saga from where it left off in the fifth movie. We imagined their world being in the midst of an artistic Renaissance, which made the ape government very nervous. It was a time of amazing art and we wanted Roddy McDowall to play an elderly chimpanzee that we based a little on Leonardo da Vinci. The plot involved the humans rising in revolt and had a half-human, half-ape central character that was sheltered by the liberal apes, but hunted down by the Gorillas.

  Harry Ufland was excited enough to arrange a meeting between Peter and Fran and Roddy McDowall on their homeward journey from the festival.

  In Sitges, Peter met Ralph Bakshi who–almost a decade-and-a-half on from directing the animated version of The Lord of the Rings–had just made Cool World, a live-action/animation answer to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Peter and Fran also met and became friends with Quentin Tarantino, fresh from directing Reservoir Dogs, and Rick Baker who had been responsible for the make-up effects on such films as The Howling, An American Werewolf in London and the appalling 1976 re-make of King Kong in which, uncredited, he had donned a monkey-suit in order to play the giant ape!

  Peter and Rick Baker talked about the Kong movies and Rick’s

  I was visiting the Sitges Fantasy Film Festival in 1992 when we heard that the NZ Film Commission had approved funding for Heavenly Creatures. Amongst the many guests at the festival was Ralph Bakshi, who had made the animated version of The Lord of the Rings fifteen years earlier. The thought that I’d one day be adapting that same story hadn’t even entered my head when I asked Ralph for this ‘fan photo’.

  work on other ape and gorilla projects such as Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes and Gorillas in the Mist. Peter also talked about the Planet of the Apes script idea that he was pitching to Fox and which Rick responded to with much enthusiasm.

  While at Sitges, news came from Jim Booth in New Zealand that the Film Commission had finally green-lit Heavenly Creatures. The film that Peter had long set his heart on directing was to go ahead and filming was to begin early in 1993.

  On the way home via Los Angeles, Peter and Fran met up with Harry Ufland once again and had lunch with Roddy McDowall, prior to going on to meet with executives at Twentieth Century Fox, the owners of the franchise.

  McDowall, then in his early sixties, had read their Planet of the Apes proposal and warmed to the fact that they had created a new chimpanzee character with him in mind and which felt like a comfortable grey-haired version of Cornelius, his first Apes role.

  We lunched at the Ivy with Roddy, who was very sweet. He had seen and really liked Heavenly Creatures and was kind of excited about the idea of working with us. He said, ‘I had never wanted to be in a Planet of the Apes film again, but I love your idea and I’d love you guys to make it. We should do it!’

  The group then went on to the Fox studios.

  Walking from the parking lot to the office where the meeting was to be held, Roddy gave us a running commentary on the history of the studio where he had worked for over fifty years since his early films as a child star. He’d point to a sound stage and say, ‘That’s where we shot How Green Was My Valley…’ and he’d say, ‘This was the street that we used for this film…And so-and-so was shot over there…’ He was full of amazing memories and in just taking that short walk with him we experienced this fantastic first-hand insight into Hollywood.

  The meeting with the Fox executive Tom Jacobson did not go well. When Harry Ufland had previously discussed the possibility of bringing an Apes project to Fox, it had been with Joe Roth, who

  Fran and I at lunch with Roddy McDowall and the Ufflands. Over the course of several years, we tried very hard to make a new Planet of the Apes f
ilm, but it was not to be.

  had now left the studio to work for Disney. Jacobson was certainly interested in a Planet of the Apes movie, but less so in Roddy McDowall–Peter’s memory is that he really didn’t seem to know anything about the veteran actor or understand his emotional involvement with the film series.

  It went incredibly badly, but in the process we learned a useful lesson in Hollywood politics. Harry Ufland and Joe Roth were good friends and obviously Joe had been happy to help Harry with his Planet of the Apes project. However, Tom Jacobson was not committed to any previous discussions that may have taken place. So, when Harry made remarks about Joe having said this or that, he just looked up and said, ‘Joe is not here anymore…’ And at that point we realised, okay, there are no allies! No matter what Fox think about a Planet of the Apes movie, they are not interested in Harry Ufland being Joe Roth’s old buddy and they don’t care about Roddy McDowall.

  And as for us…Heavenly Creatures hadn’t been released at that stage, which left us with Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead as our films, and they were films that none of these people had seen. So we walked out and somehow, at that meeting, the project died…

  Though it was not quite the last to be heard of Planet of the Apes…

  Back in Wellington, Peter went straight into pre-production on Heavenly Creatures, on which much had to be accomplished in a short period of time–not least in the area of special effects.

  In contrast to the gore and gunk of the previous films, Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger’s talents were now going to be needed to help create the girls’ imaginary kingdom of Borovnia, which was peopled with life-size versions of the figures of mediaeval knights and ladies that the girls modelled from Plasticine. It was an effect that had made members of the Commission nervous when they had read the Borovnian sequences in the script, but Richard produced models and costumes that not only convincingly created the illusion that Pauline and Juliet had entered a realm of the imagination, but also paved the way for the advanced prosthetic work involved in fashioning the creatures that would inhabit Middle-earth.

  The film was also going to include some limited computer effects

  Richard Taylor and his crew made a crowd of Plasticine figures (above) using rubber suits. I still get asked questions about this scene, with most people assuming they were computer generated. Shooting Heavenly Creatures (below) at Port Levy, near Christchurch.

  –specifically to produce the hallucinatory effect of the Christchurch beauty spot, Port Levy, morphing into an ornamental garden with gargantuan butterflies when the girls have an ecstatic vision of what they called the Fourth World. These moments in Heavenly Creatures were to be the birthplace of Weta Digital.

  The truth was, we didn’t really need computer effects on Heavenly Creatures… I was honest enough to admit that to myself, but I thought, ‘God, what the hell! Why don’t we just get a computer and do some stuff, because this is a great excuse to learn about how these computer effects work!’

  The equipment was a single computer and was very expensive. In fact, it was so expensive that it had to be financed with a loan that was still being paid off seven years later–long after the machine itself had been overtaken by new technology! The machine was operated by George Port who had first got to know Peter during the making of the TV pilot version of Meet the Feebles. ‘It was all Cameron Chittock’s fault!’ recalls George. ‘We knew one another from working for an animation studio and Cameron told me about this anarchic puppet film that he was involved with and invited me to pop in and watch them filming. When I arrived, they said: “Here, put on this elephant suit!” and I was one of the Feebles.’

  Despite the fact that, by his own admission, he was not a very good puppeteer, George was enlisted to work on the feature-length version of Feebles. Half-way through the shoot he also bought a video camera, with which he shot hours of behind-the-scenes footage for what is, to date, an unfinished video-diary and a precursor of the ‘appendices’ that would later become a feature of The Lord of the Rings DVD releases.

  Like many others, George was impressed and intrigued by Peter’s grit and determination. After filming the secret Feebles shoot with its ever-dwindling personnel and resources, George came to the conclusion that ‘it wouldn’t actually have mattered, in the end, whether or not anyone else had been with him: he would have still finished the film–if necessary, on his own!’

  During Braindead, George had stepped in for another actor who was unwilling to have a head cast made and, as a result, it is George’s head–sliced horizontally in two–that is seen being kicked around the floor during the zombie carnage. Between spates of bloodletting the film-fans on the team talked about James Cameron’s recently released Terminator 2: Judgement Day and bemoaned the fact that the computer effects in that film could never be produced by film-makers in New Zealand.

  When Heavenly Creatures began to be discussed, with its need for convincing fantasy sequences, the topic of computer effects came up once more. ‘It was obvious,’ says George, ‘that we weren’t going to be asking George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic to create the effects –one shot would have eaten up our entire visual effects budget! So, Peter and Jim allowed me to do some research and with the aid of Kodak and some dodgy computer salesmen we leased a film scanner and recorder and a Silicon Graphics SGI computer.’ The process was very much one of trial and error: ‘The film scanner didn’t have a manual,’ recalls George, ‘just two pages of photocopied instructions –which were wrong!’

  Whatever other production issues were on Peter’s mind, the first– and most urgent–task to be tackled on his return from Sitges was to cast the film.

  Peter and Fran flew to London, since part of the original proposal allowed for the casting of English actors in the roles of Juliet and her parents–they had moved from Britain to New Zealand when the father, a mathematical physicist, became Rector of Canterbury University College in Christchurch. The casting agents, John and Ros Hubbard (who would later be involved in casting The Lord of the Rings) assembled 175 teenagers for the part of Juliet Hulme, one of whom was a 17 year old with considerable experience in theatre and television but who had yet to make a film and who was currently working in a deli in her home town of Reading.

  I remember John Hubbard saying, ‘I really want you to meet this young actress because–mark my words–she is going to be a star one day!’ Her name was Kate Winslet.

  Kate was amazing: she gave a vibrant audition and, by the time we had left London, we had offered her the role of Juliet.

  Clive Merrison, a veteran of stage, film and television was cast as Juliet’s father, Henry Hulme–to whom he bore an uncanny resemblance –and the experienced theatre actress Diana Hart was cast as his wife, Hilda.

  Anna Quayle, one of the actresses who auditioned for the role of Hilda Hulme, was to point Peter and Fran in the direction of further research. To their astonishment, Anna had announced that her parents had met Pauline and Juliet in New Zealand, shortly before the murder.

  Actors Sir Anthony and Lady Quayle were with a touring Shakespeare company and, while visiting Christchurch, had been guests at a garden party that Mr and Mrs Hulme had held in their honour– an event later incorporated into the film. Sir Anthony had died a few years earlier but his widow, Dorothy Hyson, was still alive and shared her memories with Fran and Peter:

  Lady Quayle had clear memories of the house and the parents and, particularly, of the father showing them the gardens and of the two girls following them around, sniggering and laughing at them from the bushes, making rude noises and having fun.

  So, even when we were at the stage of casting the film, we were still researching and researching…

  Although Honora Parker, the murder victim, was a New Zealander, there had, for a while, been talk of casting a British star-name in the role and mention had been made of Pauline Collins who was still hot from her Oscar-nominated role in Shirley Valentine. Eventually, the part would go to Sarah Peirs
e, who had impressed Peter and Fran with her work in the period TV drama series, A Woman of Good Character, and who had won a New Zealand Film and TV Award for her role in Vincent Ward’s 1988 feature film, The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey, which had for several years been New Zealand’s most acclaimed movie.

  ‘I regard Sarah’s performance,’ Peter later commented, ‘as a real triumph–the strength of her performance turns the story into a true tragedy. It was very important to Sarah that she honour the memory of Pauline’s mother, and I think that this is evident in her compassionate and intelligent reading of the character.’

  Other roles were cast from among established New Zealand actors and Jed Brophy returned to work with Peter again as the gauche young lodger with whom Pauline loses her virginity. The weeks passed and the cast was virtually assembled, with one major exception–a young actress to play opposite Kate Winslet. With just a month until the start of filming, the picture had, as yet, only one of its heavenly creatures.

  The part of Pauline was obviously pivotal to the film, but the intensity of her character made the casting a challenge, especially since Peter was determined that the actress should be as near as possible to the age of Pauline Parker at the time the events took place. New Zealand casting agent Liz Mullane had already auditioned some 500 teenagers for the role–a number eventually whittled down to two or three potential contenders.