Avatar, a popular SyFy film has hit the theaters, and its release has been well publicized on television, not to forget the creation of video games, toys and other numerous film-related merchandising in the stores.
There are many who have been and continue to be behind-the-scenes of Avatar. Director, writer, producer James Cameron is one of them!
James Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada and later lived in Niagara Falls, New York. He was interested, as a child, in astronomy and science fiction (now-a-days called SyFy).
Cameron was known to write his own SyFy short stories. As a nine-year-old he would boast that he could make a movie better than “King Kong vs. Godzilla” (1962).
From then on Cameron began taking a deeper interest in film.
He also obsessed with building rockets and airplanes from junk piles - skills later used in the building of models on film sets.
James Cameron was an avid reader, so much so that he skipped a grade in school. Seeing Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) became a "turning point" for Cameron, and he experimented with his dad's movie camera to create his own "films!" ~ from the Titanic to Avatar...
Cameron married and led a "blue collar" type of life, but he remained fascinated with the movies. After viewing George Lucas' "Star Wars" (1977) Cameron then decided to do something about his passion.
He moved to Los Angeles and began working in the entertainment industry. Xenogenesis (1978) was his first attempt. It is a 12-minute sci-fi short that proved his competence with special effects, and it also proved the need for him to develop other filmmaking skills – namely story, character and dialog.
Due to Xenogenesis Cameron landed a job in the model department of Roger Corman’s production company, New World Pictures, a low-budget film factory. Here Cameron further developed his craft.
Many hats Cameron wore - art director, production designer, and second unit director on Galaxy of Terror (1981). He directed his first film, “Piranha II: The Spawning” (1981).
Early in his career Cameron wrote films that others directed, including the script for Rambo: First Blood II (1985). He soon began directing more, that of Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and he produced Point Break (1991).
Directing continued to be his true love, so again he returned to it on True Lies, with Arnold Schwezenegger (1994), and his increased rise to fame came when he directed Titanic, with Leonardo DiCaprio (1997).
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Photo/NCM)
Cameron found television to be his next endeavor for the following decade. A few of his works are that of: Dark Angel (2002), Ghosts of the Abyss (2003), Volcanoes of the Deep (2005), Aliens of the Deep (2005) all in 3-D IMAX and The Lost Tomb of Jesus (2007).
In 2009 Cameron returned to feature filmmaking with “Avatar” (2009), with Zoe Saldana (role in Star Trek, Pirates of the Carribean:...), Sam Worthington... a futuristic sci-fi adventure about a band of humans battling a distant planet’s indigenous population, with his long-awaited return to helming a film being chronicled near religiously in the sci-fi blogs of the world.
2010 finds Cameron wearing the hat of executive producer of a 3D cave-dive action drama: Sanctum (late 2010). It will 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 while he was leading a diving expedition, trapping 15 divers.
Other talent James Cameron has worked with: Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Arnold Schwarzenegger...
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