Queen's Birthday Honours: Credits where credit due

Andrew Adamson (left) and Brad McGann.

The gritty realism of In My Father's Den couldn't be more different from the cartoon comedy of Shrek or the fantasy-fuelled effects of Narnia.

But the New Zealanders behind the hit movies have more than just their country in common. Brad McGann and Andrew Adamson are today made Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the film industry.

Director and screenwriter McGann was already relatively well known for his work on the documentary Come As You Are and the short film Possum, before In My Father's Den catapulted him to fame at home and abroad.

The emotional story of a disillusioned war photographer, who befriends a teenage girl who disappears, became a film festival favourite, scooping several international awards.

McGann, who lives in Ellerslie, also has a well-publicised battle against cancer and his next screen project is planned as an "intensely personal" short movie about living with the disease.

Adamson inhabits a different world in the same industry. He now lives in Los Angeles and his last film, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, was one of the biggest box office hits of last year, grossing US$428 million ($679 million).

The film earned a Golden Globe nomination and an Oscar for make-up.

He began helping with visual effects on films, including A Time to Kill in 1996 and Batman & Robin in 1997. His launchpad to fame was Shrek in 2001, a cartoon about an ogre which wooed adults and children alike. It reinvented the cartoon genre and spawned the equally successful Shrek 2.