When I was about 14, I got a splicing kit, which means you could chop up the film into little pieces and switch the order around and glue it together.
— Peter Jackson
Filmmakers have to commit to making 3-D films properly like Jim Cameron did and not do cheap conversions at the tail end of the process.
It is now such a complex society in terms of media. It just comes at us from every direction. You kind of have to push it all away.
I like to keep an open mind, but I do think there is some form of energy that exists separate to our flesh and blood. I do think that there's some kind of an energy that leaves the body when it dies, but I certainly don't have religious beliefs particularly.
As a filmmaker, you want nothing more than to have people say, 'I love your movie.'
I watch 'Goodfellas,' and suddenly it frees me up entirely; it reminds me of what great film directing is all about.
48 frames per second is something you have to get used to. I've got absolute belief and faith in 48 frames... it's something that could have ramifications for the entire industry. 'The Hobbit' really is the test of that.
When you're starting out, you know, you have to do something on a very limited budget. You're not going to be able to have great actors, and you're most likely not going to have a great script.
I used to send away for eight-minute Super 8 movies of various Ray Harryhausen scenes advertised on the back of 'Famous Monsters of Filmland' magazine.
The only thing about 3-D is the dullness of the image.
Everybody's life has these moments, where one thing leads to another. Some are big and obvious and some are small and seemingly insignificant.
Rivalry doesn't help anybody.
I didn't want my kids having to pass through an airport named after their father.
The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself.
New Zealand is not a small country but a large village.
I fell in love with stories watching a British television puppet show called 'Thunderbirds' when it first came out on TV, about 1965, so I would have been 4 or 5 years old. I went out into the garden at my mom and dad's house, and I used to play with my little dinky toys, little cars and trucks and things.
As a filmmaker, I believe in trying to make movies that invite the audience to be part of the film; in other words, there are some films where I'm just a spectator and am simply observing from the front seat. What I try to do is draw the audience into the film and have them participate in what's happening onscreen.
I am not anti-media at all. But the media, the news anywhere in the world, is based on drama.
In the old days, you cut out a scene that might've been a really great scene, and no one was ever going to see it ever again. Now, with DVD, you can obviously... there's a lot of possibilities for scenes that are good scenes.
Once you go down a road, you take it through to the end.
Buster Keaton's 'The General,' from 1927, I think is still one of the great films of all time.
I've always tried to make movies that pull the audience out of their seats... I want audiences to be transported.
There was a great magazine in the '80s called 'Cinemagic' for home moviemakers who liked to do monster and special effects movies. It was like a magazine written just for me.
I was bullied and regarded as little bit of an oddball myself.
The vast majority of the CGI budget is labor.
One of the first movies I ever saw was 'Batman,' based on the TV series with Adam West and Burt Ward.
For a lot of my childhood, I didn't want to direct movies because I didn't really know what directing was.
Film is such a powerful medium. It's like a weapon and I think you have a duty to self-censor.
What I don't like are pompous, pretentious movies.
I think that George Lucas' 'Star Wars' films are fantastic. What he's done, which I admire, is he has taken all the money and profit from those films and poured it into developing digital sound and surround sound, which we are using today.
You don't want to believe everything you read on the Internet.
Second movies are great because you can drop into them, and it doesn't really have a beginning on it, particularly in a traditional way. You can just tear into it.
Every time you do something, people are going to like it, people are going to hate it. You tend to make the movies on the basis you are making them for the people who are going to like them and not worrying too much about people who don't like them.
People sort of accuse Tolkien of not being good with female characters, and I think that Eowyn actually proves that to be wrong to some degree. Eowyn is actually a strong female character, and she's a surprisingly modern character, considering who Tolkien actually was sort of a stuffy English professor in the 1930s and '40s.
I think 'Jaws' is a remarkable film.
I thought that there might be something unsatisfying about directing two Tolkien movies after 'Lord of the Rings.' I'd be trying to compete with myself and deliberately doing things differently.
Prosthetic makeup is always frustrating.
There's a very go-to kind of attitude in New Zealand that stems from that psyche of being quite isolated and not being able to rely on the rest of the world's infrastructure.
Actors will never be replaced. The thought that somehow a computer version of a character is going to be something people prefer to look at is a ludicrous idea.
The big-budget blockbuster is becoming one of the most dependable forms of filmmaking.
Filmmaking for me is always aiming for the imaginary movie and never achieving it.
I mean, I didn't have a huge upbringing with movies, I guess.
No film has captivated my imagination more than 'King Kong.' I'm making movies today because I saw this film when I was 9 years old.
To get an Oscar would be an incredible moment in my career, there is no doubt about that. But the 'Lord of the Rings' films are not made for Oscars, they are made for the audience.
