Xenite.Org News

Independent Kiwi film maker joins New Zealand production - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

June 26, 2000 at 14:33:50

James Cunningham, who won recognition at the Cannes film festival this past April, was hired to work on WETA's special effects projects for Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings". If this fact was announced on other Tolkien movie news sites, it slipped past Xenite.Org, and for that we apologize.

An April 20 article in The Dominion says the 26-year-old independent film-maker from Auckland, New Zealand, will be working as a technical director on the special effects team.

Cunningham created an 8-1/2 minute short film titled "Infection", "about a mutant hero who orchestrates the perfect computer crime." It took Cunningham 10 months to make the film and cost 55,000 (New Zealand) dollars.

LOTR movie fans should take note: "Infection" will be shown during the New Zealand Film Festival in July. Fans will probably want to see what so impressed WETA that they would offer Mr. Cunningham a job.