I borrowed this book ages ago, and at some point picked it up, read four pages, and put it back down again. I thought it was going to be the kind of thing where I slogged through a few pages a day – at least until I got to the interesting bits about LotR! ;)

Finally realising I should give the book back, I picked it up again many, many months on. And promptly devoured the first 100 pages in one sitting! I can’t quite put my finger on why it fascinated me so, but it really did. And in the end, the LotR sections weren’t that interesting (I’ve read much more detail elsewhere) and the constant foreshadowing before that point got a bit irritating. Far more enlightening were the early stories: that a 12-year-old with an old-fashioned film camera went on to such successes… almost from day one! I mean, I can’t imagine spending four years’ worth of weekends filming your mates in a ‘splatter’ horror movie – and it being actually realeased (or releasable!), let alone winning praise!

Jackson comes across as single minded, rather obsessed (in a good way) and supremely self-confident (in a good way). And largely just a nice bloke, making you cheer for the success you know he achieved with That Trilogy, especially after reading about several difficult years beforehand.

Like the amazing extras package on the LotR’s DVDs, I came away from this book feeling I’d learned something about the process of film-making. And, largely, that Peter Jacksons’ methods are quite probably completely unrepeatable!