Editing Heavenly Creatures (section)

==Production==
===Development===
[[Fran Walsh]] suggested to [[Peter Jackson]] (who was noted for horror-comedy films) that they write a film about the notorious Parker–Hulme murder. Jackson took the idea to his long-time collaborator, producer Jim Booth (who died after filming). The three filmmakers decided that the film should tell the story of the friendship between the two girls rather than focus on the murder and trial. "The friendship was for the most part a rich and rewarding one, and we tried to honour that in the film. It was our intention to make a film about a friendship that went terribly wrong," said Peter Jackson.<ref name="hcfaq">{{cite web|url=http://www.heavenlycreaturesmovie.com|title=Fourth World - The Heavenly Creatures Website|website=Heavenlycreaturesmovie.com|access-date=24 August 2017}}</ref>

Walsh had been interested in the case since her early childhood. "I first came across it in the late Sixties when I was ten years old.<ref name="hcfaq"/> ''The Sunday Times'' devoted two whole pages to the story with an accompanying illustration of the two girls. I was struck by the description of the dark and mysterious friendship that existed between them—by the uniqueness of the world the two girls had created for themselves."

Jackson and Walsh researched the story by reading contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the trial. They decided that the sensational aspects of the case that so titillated newspaper readers in 1954 were far removed from the story that Jackson and Walsh wished to tell. "In the 1950s, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme were branded as possibly the most evil people on earth. What they had done seemed without rational explanation, and people could only assume that there was something terribly wrong with their minds," states Jackson. To bring a more humane version of events to the screen, the filmmakers undertook a nationwide search for people who had had close involvement with Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme forty years earlier. This included tracing and interviewing seventeen of their former classmates and teachers from [[Christchurch Girls' High School]]. In addition, Jackson and Walsh spoke to neighbours, family friends, colleagues, police officers, lawyers and [[psychologist]]s. Jackson and Walsh also read Pauline's diary, in which she made daily entries documenting her friendship with Juliet Hulme and events throughout their relationship. From the diary entries, Jackson and Walsh perceived that Pauline and Juliet were intelligent, imaginative, outcast young women who possessed a wicked and somewhat irreverent sense of humour. In the film all of Pauline's voice-overs are excerpts from her journal entries.

===Casting===
The role of Pauline was cast after Walsh scouted schools all over New Zealand to find a Pauline 'look-alike'. She had trouble finding an actress who resembled Pauline and had acting talent before discovering Melanie Lynskey. [[Kate Winslet]] was among 175 girls to audition for the film and was cast after impressing Jackson with the intensity she brought to her part.<ref name="Sibley2006">{{cite book |last = Sibley |first = Brian |title = Peter Jackson: A Film-maker's Journey |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ljcdAQAAIAAJ |year = 2006 |publisher = HarperCollins Entertainment |isbn = 978-0-00-717558-1 |page = 243 }}</ref> The girls were both so absorbed by their roles that they kept on acting as Pauline and Juliet after the filming was done, as is described on Jackson's website.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

===Principal photography===
The entire film was shot on location in Christchurch in 1993. Jackson has been quoted as saying "''Heavenly Creatures'' is based on a true story, and as such I felt it important to shoot the movie on locations where the actual events took place."<ref name="hcfaq"/>

===Post-production===
The visual effects in the film were handled by the then newly created [[Weta Digital]].<ref>[http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-edge-season-two-episode-seven-birth-of-weta-1994 "''The Birth of Weta''"], 1994, ''The Edge'' TV series, S2E7</ref> The girls' fantasy life, and the ‘Borovnian’ extras (the characters the girls made up) were supervised by [[Richard Taylor (filmmaker)|Richard Taylor]] while the digital effects were supervised by George Port. Taylor and his team constructed more than 70 full-sized latex costumes to represent the Borovnian crowds—plasticine figures that inhabit Pauline and Juliet's magical fantasy world. ''Heavenly Creatures'' contains more than thirty shots that were digitally manipulated, ranging from the morphing garden of the ‘Fourth World’ to castles in fields and the sequences with "[[Orson Welles]]" (played by Jean Guérin).

=== Music ===
# "[[Just a Closer Walk with Thee]]" – Choirs of Burnside High School, Cashmere High School, Hagley Community College, Villa Maria College
# "[[Be My Love]]" – written by [[Nicholas Brodszky]], [[Sammy Cahn]]; performed by [[Mario Lanza]]
# "[[The Donkey Serenade]]" – performed by Mario Lanza
# "[[(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?]]" – [[Bob Merrill]]; performed by the actors
# "[[Funiculì, Funiculà]]" – written by [[Luigi Denza]], [[Peppino Turco]]; performed by Mario Lanza
# "[[E lucevan le stelle]]" from ''[[Tosca]]'' by [[Giacomo Puccini]]; performed by [[Peter Dvorský]]
# "[[The Loveliest Night of the Year]]" – performed by Mario Lanza
# "Sono Andati" from ''[[La Bohème]]'' by Giacomo Puccini; performed by Kate Winslet
# "The Humming Chorus" from ''[[Madama Butterfly]]'' by Giacomo Puccini – performed by the Hungarian State Opera
# "[[You'll Never Walk Alone]]" – performed by Mario Lanza