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Hero image for Good Taste Made Bad Taste

Good Taste Made Bad Taste

Short Film (Excerpts) – 1988

This documentary showcases some of the tricks of the trade used by Peter Jackson in the making of his first feature — the aliens-amok-in-Makara splatter classic, Bad Taste. Compiled following the film's 1988 Cannes market screening, it's framed around an extensive interview with a 25-year-old Jackson at his parents’ Pukerua Bay home. These excerpts offer fascinating insight into his ingenuity: from building a DIY Steadicam, to the making of the infamous sheep-obliterating rocket launcher scene, to PJ musing on the impetus that being an only child provided him. 

I was thinking of ideas that were Hollywood ‘big’ … and I had a little Super 8 camera that couldn’t shoot sound … and I was dying to do animation [but] I didn’t have a single frame control. I’d just have to press the trigger for a short burst …
– Peter Jackson on his early filmmaking forays

Produced by

Logo for City Associates Films

City Associates Films

Source

Logo for City Associates Films

City Associates Films

Acknowledgements

Made with funding from the Short Film Fund of the NZ Film Commission

Music

Music taken from the movie Bad Taste, composed by Michelle Scullion

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