A Look Into Sir Peter Jackson

On The 31st of October 1961, a miracle was born and that miracle was Sir Peter Jackson. A person who made the award winning film’s “Bad Taste”, “King Kong” and more importantly “The Hobbit” plus “The Lord Of The Rings”. He’s 62 now which to me, that’s an OLD MAN RIGHT THERE!

His Average Life

As a child, Sir Peter Jackson was a keen fan of Ray Harryhausen film’s. He longed “King Kong” as his favourite film and so he made Stop-Motion figures and filmed some knock off films of “King Kong”. He also produced a famous WWII film called “The Dwarf Police” which featured him using pins to poke holes in the puppets he used to mimic gunshots.

Inspiration

Jackson’s first film was “Bad Taste”, a Horror/Sci-fi film that took him (I’m not kidding) years to make. Shooting was done during the weekend’s since Jackson was working full-time. “Bad Taste” is a film about aliens landing on earth and they have intentions of turning humans into food. That film also has a lot of gore so be warned not to eat a lot if you’re watching it. (because you might through-up).

The Hobbit

“The Hobbit” was only just a book that J.R.R Tolkien wrote. It is set in middle-earth just 60 years before “The Lord Of The Rings” where Bilbo Baggins lives a simple life with his fellow hobbits in the shire, until the wizard Gandalf  arrives and convinces him to join a group of dwarves on a quest to reclaim the kingdom of Erebor. The journey takes Bilbo on a path through treacherous lands swarming with orcs, goblins and other dangers, not the least of which is an encounter with Gollum and a simple gold ring that is tied to the fate of Middle Earth in ways Bilbo cannot even fathom. The Hobbit started production on 20th of March 2011. Jackson also posted on Facebook that the Hobbit will not be a singular movie, but expand into a trilogy and that the third film will not make a bridge between The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings but continue to expand The Hobbit into The Lord Of The Rings.

 The Lord Of The Ring

Jackson won the rights to film Tolkien’s epic in 1997 after meeting with producer Saul Zaentz. Originally working with Miramax Films towards a two-film production, Jackson was later pressured to render the story as a single film, and finally overcame a tight deadline by making a last-minute deal with New Line, who were keen on a trilogy. The first film sent Jackson’s popularity soaring high (like the stock market 📈). The Return Of The King made Jackson win all eleven Oscars and was second sequel to win “Best Picture” (the first being “The Godfather Part 11” ). Just three days after The Fellowship of the Ring was released, Jackson mother unfortunately passed away. The film was played during her funeral.

What’s next?

What is next for Jackson? Will he make a new movie trilogy or perhaps even a book! This is all crazy but who knows? Will we see something change in the cinema’s? This theory might be answered in the future. That’s all I have to say!

The Battle Of Gallipoli took place in the Gallipoli Peninsula where the Ottoman Empire ruled that area back then. The Battle Of Gallipoli was also one of the ANZAC’s bloodiest days during The Great War which resulted in them losing at least 11,r79 men and with the Allies losses, that adds up to 250,000 men. The Gallipoli campaign resulted in a victory for the Ottoman Empire but they also lost an estimate of 250,000 men which is identical to the Allied losses.

The Campaign started in three locations across Gallipoli which is Gallipoli, The Gallipoli Peninsula & Dardanelles Strait. At dawn on 25 April 1915, Allied troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula in Ottoman Turkey. The Gallipoli campaign was the land-based element of a strategy intended to allow Allied ships to pass through the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople (now Istanbul) and ultimately knock Ottoman Turkey out of the war but everything didn’t go as planned.

The campaign started in February 19th 1915 when British Admiralty Winston Churchill pushed for a naval attack on the Dardanelles bombarded with British and French battleship’s. It then resumed on the 25th because of bad weather conditions. Also the Ottoman’s had placed mines in the water and many of the mine sweepers failed to detect them and those ships went KABOOM! The British also sent Royal Marines to sabotage the Ottoman Artillery.

On March the 18th Allied battleships entered the straits. Fire from the Ottoman and undetected mines sent three of the battleship sinking into the ground and three more damaged. The naval assault could not finish due to the Ottoman’s guns needing to be silenced and the minefields also which made it impossible to do at the same time. After the failed naval attack, a full scale ambitious beach invasion would happen on Gallipoli and the peninsula of Gallipoli to.

General Ian Hamilton was commander and had assembled 77 ships and 75’000 men but however, he lacked specialist land crafts. Under his command was A.N.Z.A.C, British Forces and French Troops. The landing started on the 25th of April on Cape Helles where the ally suffered heavy casualties while establishing the beachheads on Cape Helles and A.N.Z.A.C Cove on the Aegean Coast. The A.N.Z.A.C had landed a little north of the landing site that was intended of Gaba Tepe at a cove instead.

The Gaba Tepe landing would be known as the A.N.Z.A.C Cove landing, in honour of the Australian and New Zealand troops who fought valiantly against the determined Ottoman defenders. After the landing the Allies could not progress as trench warfare progressed very fast just it had done on theWestern Front. The summer heat, and the dysentery epidemic was unbearable  and swarms of flies hung around the corpses.

Hamilton ordered an attack on Suvla Bay involving 63’000 Allied troops. They were to link up with the A.N.Z.A.C at A.N.Z.A.C Cove and break the stalemate. But indecision would meant that the Ottoman would reinforce that position, and on August the 10th an attack, led by Mustafa Kemal, recaptured Suvla Bay. Allied casualties increased as the stalemate continued.

Reinforcements were lacking, it was time for evacuation. The order was given on the 7th of December, with the last troops to leave Suvla Bay and A.N.Z.A.C Cove before dawn, on the 20th of December 1915. The last troops left Cape Helles on January the 9th, 1916 and the evacuation was a success with no casualties. The Gallipoli Campaign was a disaster with the Allied 250’000 casualties. While the Ottoman suffered an estimate of 250,000 casualties.

To this day, A.N.Z.A.C day is a day to remember the soldiers who we lost during this war. A.N.Z.A.C day is a day remembered in New Zealand, Australia. It is also a day remembered in Turkey to remember the last victory for the Ottoman Empire before it’s collapse.

Polyfest is a festival where many students from secondary school come to preform and to show people there culture. There are six stages at Polyfest which are: The Cook Islands, Māori, Niue, Samoa, Tonga and The Diversity stage which feature performances from a range of cultural groups including Fijian, Tokelau, Chinese, Korean and Indian. Polyfest, now one of the largest Pacific festivals in the world, began in 1976. Students, Michael Rollo and Mata (Te Kii) Raela, and staff members, Mr Bill Tawhai, Mr Hone and Mrs Heni Green, envisioned the festival’s potential success.

The objective of Polyfest was to demonstrate the pride of cultural identity, and to bring schools and the different cultures between them, together. The inaugural Polyfest festival was held at Hillary College (Otara), and was well supported by students, parents, school staff and the wider community.  Despite only four schools participating, the establishment of Polyfest was a huge success.

The festival’s first ever competition winners were Mangere College, Hillary College coming in at second, and Seddon High School (now known as Western Springs College) in third place. As the festival continued to grow over the years, hosting responsibilities moved between schools. However, to better manage the growth and popularity of this event, Polyfest moved to a larger venue in 1996.

Since then, the Manukau Sports Bowl has been home for Polyfest, catering up to 10000 visitors every year, and a mecca for Pacific arts and culture, food stalls from different cultures, and a growing number of student performers taking part in a diverse range of cultural groups and speech competitions.

These past few years have been challenging for Polyfest event organisers, especially for the schools community, students, their families and friends – first with the cancellation of its final day in 2019 due to the Christchurch tragedy, and again in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic cancelled the festival. 2022 saw the festival delivered in a historic online livestream event with no audiences.

Fast forward to 2024, Polyfest’s 49th anniversary will once again see the Manukau Sports Bowl come alive with the sounds of passion, pride, and culture as Auckland’s secondary schools return for ASB Polyfest.

Picture That Inspired Me To Make This Poem:
Today was a dress-up day at school so I went to get my favourite costume today.

I Chose a mediaeval forger, like my ancestor. 

I went to find a prop but all I could find was a weird box.

Inside the box, there was a prop that was an ancient stopwatch.

As I turned the dial…BOOM BOOM IT WENT FOR A WHILE!!!

Then it stopped…… AND THERE I SLIPPED AND BASHED MY HEAD ON A ROCK!!!

I woke up in a cage, that is a very scary place but I decided to look outside and OH MY GOD WHAT IS GOING ON OUT THERE!!! THERE IS THESE FLYING BEDS THAT LOOK LIKE A WEIRD MONSTER FIGHTING IN  A ARENA AND TIGERS ALONG WITH LIONS THAT FLY HIGH ABOVE THE ARENA AND!-

For our semester theme (two terms) we learnt about “Our Night Sky.” First we thought of ideas for our night sky then we had to make a Canva on what we want to learn about Our Night Sky. We also had to do a Google Form to finally tally our result. Then we waited for a short while for the results and the one that got the most votes was “Mars”. After that we learnt a bit about Mars and “Mars Rovers” which was fun, we got to do a game about Mars Rover which involved picking up rocks and gaining the most points. The difficult part was we had a limited amount of moves (which was 20). My team lost though but that didn’t matter. Then  we started to read a 170 page fictional book about Mars but only read a bit each time before doing more stuff. We used a hillshade blend on a map to name some thin on mars like, “Olympus Mons” which is the biggest volcano on mars and in the entire solar system. We then had to make a poster about one thing about Mars and if we can change it (basically we learn’t about if we could terraform Mars). Here is a poster of what I made for it below ⬇️ (we were supposed to research one part like atmosphere but I did 3).

I woke up this morning and to my surprise I heard no TV sounds ? (Because my brother always watches TV in the morning.) I didn’t care and went downstairs but I saw nobody! NO MUM, NO DAD AND NO BROTHER!!!!! I was shocked and went to grab my phone and call them… no response.

First my parent are gone, second they don’t pick up the phone, now what! But before I could even move a step, I turned my head to see that all windows shattered and few remains on the floor. I tried to call for help but the streets were silent. Then as soon as i shouted the TV turned on and there was a weak signal broadcasting which looked like the news and I watched what they had to tell me.

BREAKING NEWS: There are numerous cases of people disappearing across the world and many are thought to be de-…CRASH!! The broadcast was cut off by not someone … by something. Then there was a growl behind me. I turned around slowly and there was a creature that was a monster of Mother Nature.

Then it just stared at me for a few seconds and charged right at me with full force like a speeding train with no brakes or care of running over a child or a grandpa! I got body slammed into the ground and then it tried to slash my stomach open and the creature meant NO MERCY!!!

I managed to roll out of its grasp then I just ran to my door, got a plant in a pot, smashed the side windows and jumped through it while the creature repeatedly smashed the floor. I think it’s blind. I ran outside but came to a halt when there was a sound in the bushes. I stoped for a second then…BONK!