From “Terminator” to “Titanic” to “Avatar”, director James Cameron has pushed Hollywood’s technical wizardry to new limits, however human emotion should at all times come first, he informed AFP.
In an period when particular results are far more accessible to filmmakers, and studios are prepared to commonly spend tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on blockbusters, it’s the inventive expertise that makes the distinction, Cameron mentioned throughout a go to to Paris.
Whether he can nonetheless strike the steadiness shall be examined because the world lastly will get to see “Avatar: The Way of Water” subsequent week — a sequel to his groundbreaking extraterrestrial epic that has been 13 years within the making.
“Anybody could buy a paintbrush. Not everybody can paint a picture,” the Canadian director mentioned. “The technology doesn’t create art. Artists create art — that’s important.”
It was initially hoped {that a} first sequel can be out in 2014, however Cameron’s gargantuan ambitions led to repeated delays.
He doesn’t come throughout just like the kind of megalomaniac director of Hollywood lore — describing his units as “a big hippie commune with a bunch of really great artists.”
But these hippies are armed with some highly effective computer systems.
“We had over 3,200 shots, which is a lot to maintain high quality, high quality control,” Cameron mentioned.
“We brought in machine deep learning and plugged AI into various stages of the process to assist us… not to take the place of the actors at all but actually to be more truthful to what they had done,” he mentioned.
‘CONNECTION TO NATURE’
The problem was managing to attract emotion out of performances that had been largely shot in entrance of inexperienced screens, and the place a lot of the surroundings and props would solely seem later within the results cubicles.
“The heart, the soul, the emotion, the conflict, creativity… all that happens first, and then all the technical work begins,” he mentioned.
Cameron has at all times justified the huge sums he has requested of studios — “Titanic” was each the costliest and most worthwhile movie of all time following its launch in 1997, solely to be topped by “Avatar” in 2009 — and he feels that duty “every day”.
“I can’t be whimsical or impulsive, I have to be very focused and dedicated to creating something that’s both pleasing to me artistically, and that I think will be pleasing to the public and commercial enough to make some money,” he mentioned.
“It can’t be too intellectual, but I can make it satisfying to me by putting in secondary and tertiary levels of meaning that I know are there.”
Clearly, a lot of the impulse of the Avatar collection is drawing consideration to humanity’s influence on nature, however the sequel additionally focuses on Cameron’s aquatic pursuits.
Long fascinated by the ocean, from 1989’s “The Abyss” to “Titanic”, Cameron turned a deep ocean explorer for National Geographic within the 2000s and was the primary solo human to go to the deepest underwater trench, the Mariana Trough, in a purpose-built submarine.
He sees “Avatar” as “awakening that factor in all of us, that connection to nature.
“The movie asks you to feel something for nature… It’s about maybe feeling a sense of outrage,” Cameron mentioned.
“These Navi characters… they do not appear like us, they’re blue, they have the ears and tails. But they signify the higher angels of our nature.
“Maybe for 10 minutes after the movie’s over, you see the world a little differently,” he added.
