James Cameron

I stumbled on Twitter on Twitter techcrunch about an exciting wired article about James Cameron. Against the background of universal hysteria on Avatar, I just could not look into the article. From the first paragraphs, I realized that the article would be interesting to many readers of Habr, since it is very interestingly described the thorny life path of a great director. And to detract from his contribution to the development of high-tech computer modeling of characters is simply blasphemy. Therefore, I propose to proceed under the cut and read the amazing story of a former truck driver, and now the richest director - James Cameron.
Translation of the article is made by me on translated.by , as well as with a little help from the Esma user. I hope it will be interesting.


_{12 years after Titanic
Photo: Art Streiber}

In 1977, a 22-year-old truck driver named James Cameron went with a friend to watch Star Wars. A friend liked the movie; Cameron left the cinema, ready to smash something. He was expelled from college and was engaged in delivering school lunches in Orange County, Southern California. However, in his spare time, he painted small models and wrote science fiction - stories that were set in a distant galaxy far away. Life struck him: day and night he dreamed of a world that George Lucas turned into life. Star Wars was supposed to be his movie.

This made him so angry that he bought cheap filming equipment and began to find out how Lucas did it. He drove his wife to rabies by setting dazzling spotlights in the living room and moving the camera along her, practicing shooting in motion. Cameron spent days studying books from the University of Southern California library, reading everything he could find about special effects. In his own words, he became "completely obsessed."
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The realization that he needed money came pretty quickly, so he persuaded a group of local dentists to invest $ 20,000 in what he called his own version of "Star Wars". He and a friend wrote a script called Xenogenesis and spent the money on shooting a 12-minute video - a frame-by-frame shooting of a battle scene between an alien robot and a woman in the exoskeleton. (Contender models were carefully assembled by Cameron.)

The purpose of the video was to attract studios to shoot a full-length film. But after vain attempts to break through to Hollywood, Cameron was left with nothing and temporarily buried his desire to surpass Lucas.



But the attempts were not in vain: Cameron got a job with the King of B films, Roger Corman. Cameron was hired to build miniatures of the spacecraft for the movie “Battle of the Stars” and got the job of a visual effects specialist on the Corman team. In 1981, he directed the second-rate horror film Piranha 2: Spawning.

One night, after working on Piranha, Cameron went to sleep in a fever, and in a dream he saw a robot crawling towards a cowering woman. The picture is clearly imprinted in memory. Descend the year Cameron used it as the basis for a scenario about a cyborg killer sent back in time to kill the mother of the future leader of the uprising.

This time he didn’t need any dentists. The story was so unique that he was able to convince a small film financing company to allow him to become a film director. When Terminator came out in 1984, he made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star on a huge scale, and James Cameron, who was once a truck driver, suddenly turned into a leading filmmaker.

Over the next 10 years, Cameron directed the filming of a series of outstanding films, including Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and True Lies. They brought $ 1.1 billion in revenues from box office money around the world and gave Cameron the impetus for creating the interstellar epic he had dreamed of. So in 1995, he wrote an 82-page screenwriting plan about the adventures of a paralyzed soldier on a distant planet after the Earth turned into a harsh wasteland. Pandora, the alien world, is inhabited by the Na'vi, a brutal 10-foot blue humanoid with cat-like faces and tails of lizards. Pandora’s atmosphere is so toxic that scientists had to develop genetically modified Na'vi, called Avatars, because they were the seat of human consciousness, allowing Na'vi’s body to be controlled remotely. Cameron believed that this project - Avatar - will be his next blockbuster. Or rather, following a short adventure novel about a ship crashing into an iceberg.

Titanic, of course, came out to become the most profitable film. He took 11 Oscars, including the best cinematography and directorial work. After that, Cameron could make any film he wanted. And what did he do?

He disappeared.

Cameron has not released a single film in Hollywood for 12 years. He shot several documentary materials about the underwater world and participated in the production, but in general did not appear to the public. Most of that time, he rarely mentioned Avatar and spoke little about his directorial plans.

But now, finally, he is back. December 19, "Avatar" was released. This time, Cameron, who crossed the mark at 55, did not have to build a huge liner on the Mexican coast, as was the case with Titanic, but why then did the most talented Hollywood man take so much time on one single picture? Partly because it’s not easy to beat George Lucas. Cameron needed to invent a whole set of film industry technologies, make cinemas massively retool with new technology, and imagine every smallest detail of the alien world. But there is something else besides this. To really understand why creating an Avatar took so much time, we will have to go back to the history of the creation of the Titanic.

_{Cameron views the footage with the actors (from left to right) Sigourney Weaver, Joel Moore, and Sam Worthington.
Photo: Art Streiber}


"People may not remember, but there were absolutely terrible times," Cameron said in a private cinema in his estate in Malibu, California. He looks nicer than at the Oscars in 1998 - his hair is longer and more gray, and his face is clean-shaven. But his famous impatience is still on the surface. Earlier in our conversations about what he was doing in the last decade, he told me that I “don’t know a damn thing,” so I tried to give him the opportunity to explain what happened at that time.

"During the filming of the Titanic," Cameron says, "we were just trying to understand how much money we would lose." In fact, in the mystical success of box office, it is easy to forget that losses were expected from the Titanic. The project exceeded by more than 100 million its initial 100 million budget, making the picture the most expensive in the world film industry. The main investor, 20th Century Fox, forced Cameron to limit spending.

As a sign of agreement, Cameron should have waived his fee and future profits from the film. After the Titanic failed its release date on July 4th, clouds rolled over the project. Cameron had a blade on his director's board, and the inscription above read “use only if the film is shit”. “I just realized that I created a soap opera for $ 200 million, where everyone dies. What the hell was I thinking ??? ”- Cameron spoke secretly to his friend. "It looks like I will have to start a career from scratch."

Hollywood magazine "Variety" called it "the biggest adventure in the history of cinema" and wondered if the 20th Century Fox could even come close to breakeven. "Everyone predicted a catastrophic failure," says Rae Sanchini, president of Cameron's production company.



And then, miraculously, Titanic crashed into an iceberg and landed in record books, collecting 1.8 billion dollars in the world box office. “We climbed from rags to riches,” says Sanchini. “It was an incredible experience for all of us, but especially for James. He was physically and emotionally exhausted. ”

Sanchini was still waiting for the director to bounce back, get better. Before Titanic, Cameron admired Avatar - it was, among other things, the cosmic epic of which he had dreamed since 1977. But Cameron didn’t look too interested.

Part of his uncertainty was dispelled at a meeting in Digital Domain, a special effects company founded by Cameron in 1993. He introduced the Avatar concept, explaining that the main characters would be 10-foot blue aliens with narrow bodies and powerful legs and torso. They had to look extremely real; such an effect could not be achieved by prosthetics. The aliens were supposed to be modeled by a computer. But based on current achievements, his team said it was impossible. It would take too much time and money, not to mention unthinkable computer power.

“If we undertake to do this, we will perish,” said one of the artists. "It is impossible, such technologies do not exist yet."

Cameron is actually freed. He did not want to be engaged in actors, agents and other "Hollywood crap." He needed a break. Fortunately, unexpected luck came to him. Fox leaders understood that it was in their own interest to support the self-proclaimed king of the world. They decided to reconsider the fact that Cameron had refused his salary in Titanic, given the Oscar-winning picture, and wrote him a check for $ 10 million. (According to reports, Cameron ultimately earned more than $ 75 million from the film.) Cameron could not work the rest of his life.

“I got my“ you went “money,” Cameron says. “It's time for games.”

By game, Cameron meant the following: a scuba walk alongside unexploded shells from the Second World War off the islands of Micronesia. In the summer of 2000, he chartered an 80-foot yacht and invited a group of people to dive to the fleet of sunken Japanese ships. He also invited Vincent Pace, an underwater photography specialist who worked on the Titanic and the Void. Pace, expecting to be able to experiment with HD video, took all the equipment with him, but soon began to suspect that Cameron was up to something.

While watching the footage of the day, Cameron asked Pace: Why would it be worth creating a “holy grail of cameras”, an HD camera that would shoot both in 2D and in 3D? Pace was not able to accurately answer - he was not an expert, but he knew about cheap red-and-blue cardboard glasses common in 3d films. They were terribly uncomfortable, and the picture could cause headaches if the projector was not calibrated. Cameron was confident that there was a way to improve existing technology. What he really wanted to talk about was his vision of the next generation of cameras: maneuverable, digital, HD and 3D.

The invention of such a camera is not an easy thing, but Cameron said he was ready to make a breakthrough. He meant a mystical, memorable film that would transfer viewers to an alien planet. Cameron did not want to start the picture until the audience could see the planet thoroughly, in 3D. And since there were no cameras that satisfy these requirements, he had to invent his own. He invited the scuba operator to dive in order to ask - is he ready to help? The goal seemed insane, but it seemed interesting to Pace, and he agreed. “Jim knew exactly what he wanted,” Pace says. “This is ridiculous, but I didn’t even suspect what to get involved in. „

After 2 months, Cameron sent Pace a first class ticket for 17 pieces from LA to Tokyo, and soon they were sitting in front of the engineers in the hi-def division of Sony cameras. Pace was needed to convince engineers of the need to separate the lens and matrix from the processor in professional-grade HD cameras. The bulky processor could then be removed by the length of the cable from the lens. And instead of being pulled with a 200 kilogram 3D installation, the operator would control a 25 kilogram optical unit.

_{Cameron put aside Avatar until Na'vi can be modeled incredibly realistic.
Photo: Art Streiber}
Sony agreed to develop a new line of cameras, and Pace, using a prototype, began work. After 3 months, he placed the lens in the box, which allowed the operator to precisely control the 3D image. He thought it would be worth starting tests with one or two actors, but Cameron had his own thoughts on that. He asked Pace to install a camera in a rented P-51 fighter from World War II, and then sent him to a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. Cameron himself took the place of the co-pilot of the P-51, and as soon as he flew into the air, he began to take off as a pilot firing from a 50-caliber blank bore on a B-17 bomber in which Pace was sitting. “It was here that I first felt what Jim means by“ dough, ”" says Pace.

The camera showed itself from the best side, providing a clear 3D image that would not cause headaches throughout a long movie. Pace thought that now Cameron would begin work on the Avatar. Instead, the director took the camera 3 kilometers under water to shoot the remains of the Titanic in 3D. Cameron explained this with the fact that he was not yet satisfied with "real adventures."

His friend on this journey was marine explorer Andrew White. Brave Australian White explored collapsing underwater caves, swam with white sharks, looked into the eyes of crocodiles. But even he rescued before the pressure of Cameron. When the hurricane was approaching the place of their parking over the remains of the Titanic, White suggested that we turn around and wait out the bad weather. Cameron, on the other hand, said it was a great chance to “catch a hurricane by the tail” and make beautiful shots. But the Russian ship captain persuaded Cameron and, to the director’s disappointment, they left.

"He is a strong reptile," says White. “But this is not a death wish — it's just such a way of having fun.”

Sanchini, director of Cameron's production company, did not know what to do. “I knew that he was tired of the movie business,” she says, “but I didn’t expect him to be around for so long.”

But Cameron is not just shirking work. He wanted to make an Avatar, but to shoot in digital and in 3D. Unfortunately, cinema chains did not adopt the new technology so quickly. It cost $ 100,000 for each cinema, so network owners had to be sure that the costs would pay off. They needed quality 3D films that would bring enough profit to cover the costs.

Therefore, Cameron decided to let other directors try out the new technology. The first was Robert Rodriguez (Robert Rodriguez), who shot "Spy Kids 3D" using a new camera. Stereo glasses were still needed for viewing, but Cameron hoped that this would demonstrate the demand for 3D movies and encourage movie theater owners to invest in new projection technologies. Released Spies Kids 3D in the summer of 2003 raised $ 200 million, but movie theater owners were still reluctant to invest in new technology.

Cameron decided to talk with the owners face to face and announced at their annual convention in March 2005. The international exhibition at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel was in full swing, and Cameron prepared to convince. He passionately began to talk about the fact that "the world has entered a new era of cinema." And when the emotional pressure did not help, he simply said that those who do not switch to new technologies will soon regret. By the end of the year, only 79 cinemas across the country could display 3D films. However, the owners cut the chip: in the period from 2005 to 2009, another 3000 cinemas appeared that could turn digital 3D movies.

But not only the lack of 3D cinemas kept Cameron. Special effects companies have so far experienced difficulties in creating photo-realistic characters. The changes came in 2002, when Peter Jackson and his studio Weta Digital introduced Gollum, a computer character confronting the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Cameron realized that it was time to try to create a simulated world that would be indistinguishable from the present.

So in the spring of 2005, he met with representatives of the Fox film company and asked for several million dollars to prove that he could create such a world. The directors had doubts, not all of whom were technical. For example: Tails - should aliens definitely have tails?

“Yes,” Cameron replied. "They must have tails."

He said nothing more. He didn't have to say anything. The directors stopped asking questions and agreed to pay for the tests. Cameron's influence remained unshakable.

The director spent 5 weeks, mounting a 30-second test video. The video captured Na'vi and Avatar running and talking while walking in the forest. Lucas Industrial Light & Magic was responsible for the special effects, and that was enough for Fox to believe in the project. The studio agreed to invest 195 million dollars, and Camaron finally returned to the director's chair.

The first time Cameron was going to outperform Lucas, he had to do it for $ 20,000 in a special effects studio converted from the bedroom of his house in Orange County. This time there was no problem with money, and special effects were in the hands of pros from Weta and ILM. But the question was not only in special effects. Lucas was 30 years old on the development of the Star Wars galaxy. The availability of free time has resulted in a developed, complex system of cataloging and tracking the entire set of heroes, planets, communities and conflicts. To create something even more thoughtful for Avatar, Cameron went to the experts for help.

To begin with, he hired a linguistics expert at the University of Southern California (USC) Paul Frommer to invent a completely new language for the inhabitants of Pandora - Na'vi. Frommer began work in 2005 and began by asking what the language should sound like? Did Cameron want to hear clicks and guttural sounds, or should sounds of variable pitch be used? To narrow the search, Frommer turned on the microphone and recorded a few examples for Cameron.

The director liked the sharp escaping consonant sounds, abrupt manner of speech, reminiscent of suffocation. Frommer decided on the “sound palette” and began to invent the grammar of the language. Cameron speculated where the modifier should be in the compound word, first or at the end, and also helped develop a rule relating to the nature of nouns. "He is a very assertive comrade," said Frommer. “He didn’t just tell me to invent a new language from scratch, but even wanted to discuss grammar questions.”

It has been 13 months since the beginning of work on Avatar, and Frommer wrote an instruction called “We speak Na'vi” and began teaching the actors pronunciation. He organized the Na'vi training camp and trained each actor in turn. "Cameron wanted an emotional game from them, but they had to do it with a language that never existed," said Frommer. If the actor was wrong in pronunciation, then Frommer corrected him. "There were situations when the actors could not hear that they had mistaken a word that never existed."

When the language settled, Cameron set about inventing names for everything on an alien planet. Every animal and plant on the planet received names in Na'vi, Latin, or other languages. It was as if this was not enough, and Cameron hired Jodie Holt, chairman of the Botany Department of the University of California, Jodie Holt, to describe in detail dozens of fictional plants. She spent 5 weeks describing how the Pandora flora can bioluminesce and have magnetic properties. When she finished the description, Cameron helped organize it all.

This work would never have appeared on the screens if it were not for Cameron's passionate love.He invited experts in astrophysics, music professors and archaeologists. They calculated the density of the atmosphere of Pandora and invented a triple scale for Na'vi music. When one of the experts brought the Star Wars encyclopedia, Cameron looked at her and said, "We will do better."

As a result, a team of editors and writers compiled all these materials into a 350 page manuscript called Pandorapedia. She describes the science and culture of a fictional planet, and more than anything else, she describes the world created by Cameron. For fans who want to dig deeper, parts of this book will be available online this winter.

Cameron is trying to show me something with a laser pointer. He stops the scene which shows a large crowd of Na'vi. Laser pointer draws our attention to fancy hairstyles, collected from hundreds of beads. The image is remarkably clear and the hairstyles look impossible naturally. Each bead was made by a master, so that everything looked like handmade work. “Every leaf, every blade of grass of this world was created,” he says, and his pointer runs around the screen, dwelling on so many details that I cannot keep up with its movement.

In 1997, when Cameron tried to complete the Titanic, the setbacks seemed to haunt him. “We were called the biggest idiots in cinema history,” he says. Now he has a direct opposite problem: Expectations can not be even higher. “It makes me work harder.”

But this time the work gave him pleasure. At least the razor was no longer near the director's board. “For Jim, this work was a bit like an antidote to Titanic,” comments Sanchini. “He didn’t have to worry about the weather, problems with costumes, historical accuracy or huge shots. If the main character jumped a pimple, then this was not an incident. Avatar gave Jim complete control. ”

Thirty-two years later, after realizing that he was desperately trying to create a space epic superior to Star Wars, Cameron put the finishing touches on. He could only wait for what the critics and the public would say. The days when everything was under control were over.