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 muc...more >>h 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. Jacksons first step towards the more serious filmmaking came with an entry in a local contest to stimulate amateur and childrens film. For this film, he used stop-motion animation to create a monster that ruins a city in the style of Ray Harryhausen.<< collapse