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James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian film director, producer and screenwriter. His writing and directing work includes The Terminator and Titanic. To date, his directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$1.1 billion domestically, unadjusted for inflation. After several feature films, Cameron turned his focus to documentary filmmaking and the co-development of the digital 3-D Fusion Camera System. He is currently working on a return to feature filmmaking with the epic science fiction film Avatar, which will make use of the Fusion Camera System technology. Avatar is scheduled for release in December 2009.
Background
Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, the son of Shirley, an artist and nurse, and Phillip Cameron, an electrical engineer. He grew up in Chippawa, Ontario (now part of the city of Niagara Falls) and attended Stamford Collegiate in Niagara Falls, and his family moved to Fullerton, California in 1971. While he studied physics and English at California State University, Fullerton, Cameron used every opportunity to visit the film archive of USC. To the surprise of many people, although Cameron had a large educational background in the natural sciences, he chose a philosophy major from The University of Toronto in 1973. Cameron says of his time there that he was,
“completely self taught in special effects. I’d go down to the USC library and pull any theses that graduate students had written about optical printing, or front screen projection, or dye transfers, anything that related to film technology…if they’d let me photocopy it, I would. If not, I’d make notes.”
After dropping out, he worked several jobs such as truck driving and wrote when he had time. After seeing the original Star Wars film in 1977, Cameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry. When Cameron read Syd Field’s book Screenplay, it occurred to him that integrating science and art were possible and he wrote a ten minute science fiction script with two friends, entitled Xenogenesis. They raised money and rented a camera, lenses, the film stocks, studio and shot it in 35 mm. To understand how to operate the camera, they dismantled it and spent the first half-day of the shoot trying to figure out how to get it running.
Early career
As Cameron continued educating himself in techniques, he started as a miniature model maker at Roger Corman Studios.[4] Making fast, low-budget productions taught Cameron to work efficiently and effectively. He soon was an art director in the sci-fi movie Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). He did special effects work design and direction on John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981). He consulted on the design of Android (1982), and acted as production designer on Galaxy of Terror (1981).
Cameron was hired as the special effects director for the sequel of Piranha, entitled Piranha II: The Spawning in 1981. However, the director left the project and Cameron was hired by Italian producer Assonitis to take over, giving him his first directorial job. He worked with producer Roger Corman. The interior scenes were filmed in Rome, Italy while the underwater diving sequences were shot at Grand Cayman Island.
The movie was to be produced in Jamaica, but when Cameron arrived at the studio, he discovered his crew comprised primarily Italians who spoke no English and the project was under-financed. Under duress, Cameron says he had a nightmare about an invincible robot hit man sent from the future to kill him, giving him the idea for The Terminator, which would later catapult his filming career.
Titanic (1997)
Main article: Titanic (1997 film)
Cameron expressed interest in the famous sinking of the ship Titanic. He decided to script and film his next project based on this event. The picture revolved around a fictional romance story between two young lovers from different social classes who meet onboard the ship’s maiden, and final, voyage. Before production began, he took dives to the bottom of the Atlantic and shot actual footage of the ship underwater, which he inserted into the final film.
For the film Titanic, Cameron cast Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Billy Zane. Cameron’s budget for the film reached about $200 million, and it became the most expensive movie ever made. Before its release, the film was widely ridiculed for its expense and protracted production schedule.
Released to theaters on December 19, 1997, Titanic opened with $28 million on its first weekend. The film’s grosses escalated in the next several weeks. Titanic grossed more in its second weekend than their first, something rare for a modern big budget film. Its gross increased from $28.6 million to $35.4 million from week 1 to week 2, an increase of 23.8%, unheard of for a wide release, and a testament to the appeal of the movie. This was especially noteworthy, considering that the film’s running time of more than three hours limited the number of showings each theater could schedule. It held the #1 spot on the box-office charts for months, eventually grossing a total of over $600 million domestically and more than $1.8 billion worldwide. Titanic became the highest grossing film of all time. (Adjusting for inflation, the film brought in the sixth-highest domestic (U.S. only) gross of all time.) The CG visuals surrounding the sinking and destruction of the ship were considered spectacular. Despite criticism during production of the film, it received a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations (tied with All About Eve) at the 1998 Academy Awards. It won 11 Oscars (also record-tying with Ben-Hur and later The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), including Best Picture, Editing, Sound, Special Effects, Music and Score, and the Best Director award for Cameron. Upon receiving the award, Cameron exclaimed “I’m the king of the world!”, in reference to the main character’s line from the film.
2002–2009
Main articles: Aliens of the Deep, Expedition: Bismarck, Ghosts of the Abyss, and The Lost Tomb of Jesus
Cameron’s recent projects have included undersea documentaries on the Bismarck (Expedition: Bismarck, 2002) and the Titanic (Ghosts of the Abyss (2003, in IMAX 3D), and Tony Robinson’s Titanic Adventure (2005) ). He was a producer on the 2002 film Solaris, and narrated The Exodus Decoded.
Cameron is a leading advocate for stereoscopic digital 3-D films. In a 2003 interview about his IMAX 3D documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, he mentioned that he is “going to do everything in 3D now”. He has made similar statements in other interviews. Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep (also an IMAX documentary) were shot in 3-D, as will his next projects, Avatar, The Dive, Sanctum and an adaptation of the manga series Battle Angel Alita. He is currently filming Avatar, his first film since 1997’s Titanic. Cameron sees Avatar and Battle Angel Alita as a “three film cycle”. See Avatar and Battle Angel below.
Cameron was a co-founder and former CEO of Digital Domain, a visual effects production and technology company.
He is to executive produce a 3D cave-dive drama entitled Sanctum (formerly James Cameron’s Sanctum) to be shot in Australia and directed by Alister Grierson (Kokoda). The script, by Andrew Wight and John Garvin, is inspired by a near-death experience of Wight when a cave collapsed whilst he was leading a diving expedition, trapping 15 divers. Sanctum will use the Fusion Camera System technology, but will have a relatively modest budget. Release date is projected to be late 2010.
In addition, he plans to create a 3-D project about the first trip to Mars. (”I’ve been very interested in the Humans to Mars movement—the ‘Mars Underground’—and I’ve done a tremendous amount of personal research for a novel, a miniseries, and a 3-D film.”) He is on the science team for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory.
Cameron announced on February 26, 2007, that he, along with his director, Simcha Jacobovici, have documented the unearthing of the Talpiot Tomb, which is alleged to be the tomb of Jesus. Unearthed in 1980 by Israeli construction workers, the names on the tomb are claimed, by Cameron, to correlate with the names of Jesus and several individuals closely associated with him. Cameron further claims to have DNA tests, archaeological evidence, and Biblical studies to back up his claim. The documentary, named The Lost Tomb of Jesus, was broadcast on the Discovery Channel on March 4, 2007.
Future projects
Coming up for Cameron is The Dive, based on the true love story of two divers, Cuban-born Francisco “Pipin” Ferreras and French-born Audrey Mestre. Screenwriter Dana Stevens has been hired to work on the script to The Dive, with Cameron producing the movie along with his partners Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini. According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Cameron purchased the rights to Francisco Ferreras’ life story as well as a story from Sports Illustrated on Ferreras.
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Topics: Celebrities, Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Tags: Canadian film director, Chippawa, hillip Cameron, Ontario, Producer, Screenwriter
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