Cameron Duncan

Ever since his childhood, Cameron Duncan wanted to make movies. On weekends he could often be found shooting video with his friends, often elaborate war scenes that featured explosions made with household chemicals. As he entered his teens his filmmaking skills matured greatly, and he made a public awareness commercial about traffic safety that was very highly acclaimed. His life took a tragic turn when he discovered a lump on his knee, which was revealed to be cancerous. He went through an intense, horrific chemotherapy treatment, which seemed to take care of the problem. Duncan then realized his own experiences in the hospital would make for a great story on film. Out of that idea came Dfk6498 (2004), a haunting examination of the experience of undergoing cancer treatment, which Duncan likened to being in prison. He made it largely for the other members of a softball team he played on, so that they would appreciate the freedom and luck they had in not having to go through what he did. Around this time Duncan came to the attention of Peter Jackson, who was shooting the massive Lord of the Rings trilogy. Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh were producing an organ donation commercial, and when they saw Duncan's earlier work they knew they had found their director. Duncan visited the Lord of the Rings set and displayed his childhood films, which reminded Jackson very much of his own childhood filmmaking experiences. Before Duncan could film the organ donation commercial, disaster struck again. His cancer returned, and this time the doctors had no confidence that it could be cured. Knowing his time was very limited, Duncan quickly shot the commercial, then moved on to a far more personal project. In the final months of his life Duncan made Strike Zone (2003), a very ambitious short film in which he essentially played himself, and used the creation of a softball team as a stand-in for Duncan's making the film itself. It was a very arduous shoot involving more war scenes and an elaborate softball match, which likely exacerbated the cancer's effects. During filming a tumor on his lung burst and popped a hole in the lung, but he treated it as just another filmmaking obstacle in his conversations with his mother and Peter Jackson. Cameron Duncan passed away shortly after Strike Zone's completion, at age 16. His funeral was held exactly as he had dictated in the film. All involved mourned the loss of such a potentially great filmmaker, and such an inspirational person. Ultimately, his story would inspire the Oscar winning song Into the West, as heard in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). In his final days, Duncan expressed one wish above all others: to not be forgotten. To grant that wish, Peter Jackson included his two commercials, DFK6498, and Strike Zone as bonus features on the extended edition DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), as well as a documentary explaining Duncan's story. Because of this, the work of this enormously gifted young man will live on forever.