Director Debuts: Peter Jackson's First Film

By: Keith Mitchell w/ Chestpoundfilms

Director Debuts is a series that examines the very first works of top filmmakers today.

This week at Chestpound’s film blog, we’ll take a look at Peter Jackson’s first major film Bad Taste (1987). Armed with a group of friends, their self built equipment, a Bolex camera and a creative mind – Peter Jackson spent four years creating a feature length film that would kick start his career.

The film follows an alien extermination group named A.I.D.S (Alien Investigation and Defense Service) as they battle aliens sent to earth to harvest humans for an intergalactic fast food chain. The film originally started as a 10 minute short called Roast of the Day, but after reaching the editing process- Peter realized he had about 50 minutes of usable film and decided to continue shooting.

A script was never written for the film. So for four years, on the weekends, a group of friends and co-workers would get together and just toss around ideas.

The amazing thing about this movie was the level of dedication the crew put forth. Taking an entirely DIY approach, the crew built all of their equipment including a jib, wooden dolly tracks, and a steady-cam that cost about $20. They even created modeled homes, masks, puppets and automated weapon props. It wasn’t until the end of the production that the New Zealand Film Commission offered to invest $235,000 into the film.

The majority of the film was shot on a second-hand Bolex camera without any sound recorded. So Peter and the rest of the crew had to dub their dialog over the footage during postproduction.

Usually, there’s a post to the film, but since this is a feature length picture (and I’m unsure about the rights) we’ll do something slightly different.

Below is a three part documentary, Good Taste Made Bad Taste. This video gives an inside look on the creative ideas the crew used to make the film.

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3: