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[ZeoVGM]

Yeah. If it was still five nominations, it'd be Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, Precious, and Inglourious Basterds.

An Education would have been nominated.

 

[border]

...dude.

Cameron is an admitted nutjob. Maybe Winslet just didn't want to deal with it. She's fine doing (mostly) indie/arthouse stuff.

Yeah, considering Winslet's quality and her discerning choice of projects, I'd almost argue that she would be in the same place she is today without Titanic. The kinds of roles she seeks out are not really dependent on her drawing average people to the box office.

If she hated working with Cameron I'm not sure why she should be obligated to do future projects with him. It's not like she is some shit actress catapulted into mega-stardom. On the other hand, somebody like Megan Fox probably owes Michael Bay blowjobs on demand for life.

I think it says something that it took Sigourney Weaver something like 20 years to work with Cameron again, and that a great many of the actors from his previous films did not collaborate with him again. Judging by Weaver's performance in Avatar I'm not even sure she viewed the role as much more than a paycheck.

Worthington will be fine if he doesn't keep getting put into big action blockbusters...he needs to do some smaller films.

"Okay Sam, your character is a down and out junkie going for one last chance at redemption and a life without drugs. He's an American....errrr, he's Austrailian.....err, he is whatever accent you feel capable of doing today."

 

[GhaleonEB]

Precious
The Hurt Locker
Up in the Air
An Education
A Serious Man

Taking out any of those for Avatar would be rough.

The Oscar noms would have closely mirrored the Golden Globes. Avatar was a lock.

"Okay Sam, your character is a down and out junkie going for one last chance at redemption and a life without drugs. He's an American....errrr, he's Austrailian.....err, he is whatever accent you feel capable of doing today."

Eh. His accent was perfectly fine in Avatar.

 

[border]

Eh. His accent was perfectly fine in Avatar.

It's fine for most of the movie, but in the final third he clearly slips in and out of Austrailian and American in the voiceovers.

 

[ZeoVGM]

The Oscar noms would have closely mirrored the Golden Globes. Avatar was a lock.

So which of those movies would it replace then?

That's depressing. Every one of those movies are much better.

I'll just hope for a huge upset and Up wins.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Yeah, considering Winslet's quality and her discerning choice of projects, I'd almost argue that she would be in the same place she is today without Titanic. The kinds of roles she seeks out are not really dependent on her drawing average people to the box office.

If she hated working with Cameron I'm not sure why she should be obligated to do future projects with him. It's not like she is some shit actress catapulted into mega-stardom. On the other hand, somebody like Megan Fox probably owes Michael Bay blowjobs on demand for life.

I think it says something that it took Sigourney Weaver something like 20 years to work with Cameron again, and that a great many of the actors from his previous films did not collaborate with him again. Judging by Weaver's performance in Avatar I'm not even sure she viewed the role as much more than a paycheck.


"Okay Sam, your character is a down and out junkie going for one last chance at redemption and a life without drugs. He's an American....errrr, he's Austrailian.....err, he is whatever accent you feel capable of doing today."

Man you can talk some bullshit.

 

[PhoenixDark]

How is that talking shit? She sleep walks through her role. There wasn't much for her to do though I guess. Another cliched character with little development.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Man you can talk some bullshit.

I dunno, he kind of has a point. I mean why didn't she do any of his movies in the 12 years between Titanic and Avatar? Makes no sense. He must be a jackoff.

 

[Puddles]

So which of those movies would it replace then?

That's depressing. Every one of those movies are much better.

I'll just hope for a huge upset and Up wins.

Avatar is easily better than Precious. Better than Up in the Air as well. The only three movies that have any business winning are The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds or Avatar.

 

[border]

How is that talking shit? She sleep walks through her role. There wasn't much for her to do though I guess. Another cliched character with little development.

In some ways it is hard to talk crap about her performance because well, she's doing what she can with the material she's given. When her character is dying, she rattles off not one but two groan-worthy one-liners. She's in Ghostbusters-mode far more than she is in Aliens-mode.

 

[Discotheque]

In the Loop should have been nominated. Also I liked An Education a lot too :/

Anyways Weaver had no place in any Cameron movie between Aliens and Titanic because...where would she fit?

Maybe in the Abyss but that's about it. He is a demanding man and he does get a bit nutty and over-the-top but Weaver's absence from his films doesn't really confirm that one. (she was shit in Avatar though, so monotonous and dry. In fact I think the only ones that injected some life into it performance-wise were Saldana and Lang).

 

[ZeoVGM]

Avatar is easily better than Precious.

EASILY better? It has a great story and fantastic acting, both of which Avatar lacks.

Better than Up in the Air as well. The only three movies that have any business winning are The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds or Avatar.

An Education has EVERY business winning. It's an amazing movie.

Please explain to me how Avatar is one of only three movies that deserve it yet An Education and Precious don't. Why do you feel that way?

 

[ZeoVGM]

Anyways Weaver had no place in any Cameron movie between Aliens and Titanic because...where would she fit?

Maybe in the Abyss but that's about it.

Sarcasm, dude.

 

[Trurl]

What.

Okay well, you're in a HUGE minority on that one. Just saying. Critically acclaimed and loved by most people who saw it.

Maybe I tend to overstate its suckiness to compensate for how overrated it is. Other than the look of the film, the movie got everything wrong. The emotional dynamics were terrible, the action sequences just felt like watching someone else play a videogame, and it did little to stimulate my imagination the way that I expect from Sci-Fi.

 

[Discotheque]

I think he could have done a lot more cooler stuff with the tech, but in the end it paid off. I think he'll go the more imaginative route for the sequel.

 

[border]

Maybe in the Abyss but that's about it. He is a demanding man and he does get a bit nutty and over-the-top but Weaver's absence from his films doesn't really confirm that one. (she was shit in Avatar though, so monotonous and dry. In fact I think the only ones that injected some life into it performance-wise were Saldana and Lang).

Well my point was not just about Weaver, but everyone else he's worked with. I guess you can say that Schwarzenegger and Michael Biehn came back, but those aren't exactly people I would classify as actors dedicated to their craft.

I'd argue that Weaver would have been appropriate as the lead in True Lies, though the striptease scene might have required a little more working out than Jaimie Lee-Curtis did (there's about 8-9 years difference in their age).

 

[Trurl]

I liked Dr. Augustine.

 

[Puddles]

EASILY better? It has a great story and fantastic acting, both of which Avatar lacks.

It's also not directed half as well, nor is it half the filmmaking achievement Avatar is.

 

[ZeoVGM]

It's also not directed half as well, nor is it half the filmmaking achievement Avatar is.

So technology > acting and writing.

Alright then, Avatar's the best movie ever.

 

[ryutaro's mama]

Subject change.

I wonder if FOX will send out BR screeners of AHBUHDAR.

 

[Puddles]

So technology > acting and writing.

Alright then, Avatar's the best movie ever.

All aspects of a movie should be taken into consideration, but you need to look at the film as a whole instead of breaking it down into its component parts.

Also, that isn't what I said.

 

[Monocle]

I dunno, he kind of has a point. I mean why didn't she do any of his movies in the 12 years between Titanic and Avatar? Makes no sense. He must be a jackoff.

Yeah, that's clearly the only logical conclusion. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that anyone who's even tempted to venture an alternative explanation is an idiot and a poopie-head.

 

[PantherLotus]

Went to catch a 2nd viewing of Avatar today and saw the 3D preview for Alice in Wonderland!

 

[ZeoVGM]

Yeah, that's clearly the only logical conclusion. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that anyone who's even tempted to venture an alternative explanation is an idiot and a poopie-head.

:lol

 

[maharg]

It's because she can't take critizism and doesn't want a director telling her how to act or what to do. Cameron is the kind of director who gets down on the set and tells the actors what he wants and not chill on his seat and say "do your thing". Something Zoe and Sam loved and continue to praise him because of it. However Zoe and Sam are a lot like Cameron in that they expect perfection at all times when filming. It's the reason Zoe left Pirates after the 1st one because she couldn't work for a director who wasn't as completely involved with the picture.

:lol Maybe wait a few years after the press junkets end for the newbie actors before you buy anything they say about the director. I'm sure Winslet was practically cock gobbling Cameron around this point after Titanic's release too.

Anyways, it brought both Winslet and DiCaprio into the wider mainstream, but they were clearly both up and comers before Cameron got his hands on them. Between Gilbert Grape and Heavenly Creatures, they'd both been awarded up the wazoo already.

 

[GhaleonEB]

It's fine for most of the movie, but in the final third he clearly slips in and out of Austrailian and American in the voiceovers.

I haven't noticed that once.

Well my point was not just about Weaver, but everyone else he's worked with. I guess you can say that Schwarzenegger and Michael Biehn came back, but those aren't exactly people I would classify as actors dedicated to their craft.

Cameron has a large stable of actors, crew and others that work with him repeatedly.

 

[richiek]

Never said she did.

I'm just saying that I would never close the door on the guy that made my career.

And Sigourney didn't.

That's all I said.

Um... Ridley Scott made Weaver's career with the first Alien film, not Cameron.

 

[ryutaro's mama]

Um... Ridley Scott made Weaver's career with the first Alien film, not Cameron.

Dude, everyone knows ALIENS is her defining role.

Not ALIEN.

 

[border]

You really are full of it. Cameron has a large stable of actors, crew and others that work with him repeatedly.

Looking at the actors though it doesn't seem like there are that many repeat performers, especially considering that the few ones who did return did so in sequels that necessitated that they reprise a previous role (Hamilton, Schwarzenegger). Am I missing someone, though?

 

[ryutaro's mama]

Looking at the actors though it doesn't seem like there are that many repeat performers, especially considering that the few ones who did return did so in sequels that necessitated that they reprise a previous role (Hamilton, Schwarzenegger). Am I missing someone, though?

True Lies breaks your point for both Arnold and Bill Paxton.

 

[border]

Well like I said, I don't think Arnold is really a consummate actor that cares about being given room to create a personally crafted, nuanced performance. And Paxton's role in True Lies was a bit character part.

That said, I was IMDB'ing and did notice that Eliza Dushku was in both True Lies and the Dark Angel pilot (which Cameron apparently directed). So there's that.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Looking at the actors though it doesn't seem like there are that many repeat performers, especially considering that the few ones who did return did so in sequels that necessitated that they reprise a previous role (Hamilton, Schwarzenegger). Am I missing someone, though?

Off the top of my head, including the sequels you mentioned:

Michael Beihn | Three films
Schwarzenegger | Three films
Hamilton | Two films
Bill Paxton | Four films (Terminator, Aliens, True Lies, Titanic)
Jenette Goldstein | Three films (in increasingly small roles)
Sigourney Weaver | Two films

Off camera, Cameron has worked with James Horner three times, Stan Winston on several occasions, Russell Carpenter on cinematography (three times) some editors (I think), and many repeat producers, including Jon Landau for the last few.

Considering Cameron has only made seven films, he's had a lot of repeat cast and crew.

Also, I shouldn't have said you're full of it, that was uncivil. I'm sick and thus grouchy.

 

[ryutaro's mama]

Well like I said, I don't think Arnold is really a consummate actor that cares about being given room to create a personally crafted, nuanced performance. And Paxton's role in True Lies was a bit character part.

That said, I was IMDB'ing and did notice that Eliza Dushku was in both True Lies and the Dark Angel pilot (which Cameron apparently directed). So there's that.

Jeannette Goldstein also appeared in 3 unconnected Cameron films.

So did Michael Biehn.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Well like I said, I don't think Arnold is really a consummate actor that cares about being given room to create a personally crafted, nuanced performance. And Paxton's role in True Lies was a bit character part.

That said, I was IMDB'ing and did notice that Eliza Dushku was in both True Lies and the Dark Angel pilot (which Cameron apparently directed). So there's that.

Are you sure you're not confusing it with Angel, the Buffy spinfoff? Eliza was never in Dark Angel.

 

[border]

Are you sure you're not confusing it with Angel, the Buffy spinfoff? Eliza was never in Dark Angel.

Actually I guess I'm confusing Eliza Dushku with Jessica Alba.....or I'm confusing one quickly aborted FOX action/drama (Dark Angel) with another quickly aborted FOX action/drama (Tru Calling). At this hour it's hard to say :lol

 

[ryutaro's mama]

Actually I guess I'm confusing Eliza Dushku with Jessica Alba.....or I'm confusing one quickly aborted FOX action/drama (Dark Angel) with another quickly aborted FOX action/drama (Tru Calling). At this hour it's hard to say :lol

For the record, both of them had huge career boosts by being cast by Cameron.

Just saying.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Actually I guess I'm confusing Eliza Dushku with Jessica Alba.....or I'm confusing one quickly aborted FOX action/drama (Dark Angel) with another quickly aborted FOX action/drama (Tru Calling). At this hour it's hard to say :lol

Haha, possibly.

I loved Dark Angel, by the way. I miss that era Jessica Alba. Still the best role she's had.

The second season definitely was not as good as the first but I still enjoyed it for a number of reasons:

- It introduced Jensen Ackles to genre television.
- Joshua was hilarious and when I found out that Keamy on Lost was the same actor I wanted to give him a fucking Emmy for his insane character range.
- The last few episodes were one of my favorite sections of the two-season series and the last episode might have been my favorite. Directed by Cameron and you could tell. It was such a great setup for a season 3 that had lots of unique potential.

It looked to be renewed but then was canceled.

Why? Fox picked up Firefly and didn't want two sci fi shows.

...

 

[border]

I might give you Alba, but you'd have to be insane to think that Dushku owes much of anything to Cameron. It took an IMDB page for me to even remember that she was in True Lies. Joss Whedon made her, if anyone could lay such a claim.

I'm not saying that Cameron isn't capable of making careers (see: Leonardo DiCaprio, Arnold Scharzenegger), just that lead actors haven't seemed particularly eager to collaborate with him beyond sequels. And even that was just in support of the "Cameron is kinda douchey" thesis, which nobody really seems to disagree with. I don't think it really detracts from his work or my estimation of that work. I really like David O. Russell and there are YouTube videos of him literally making Lily Tomlin break down into tears and flip out.

 

[zulfate]

so much fighting in this thread...fight, fight!


movie was good either way!

 

[GhaleonEB]

I'm not saying that Cameron isn't capable of making careers (see: Leonardo DiCaprio, Arnold Scharzenegger), just that lead actors haven't seemed particularly eager to collaborate with him beyond sequels.

You're really having to layer in the caveats now (lead actors, sequels), and that still ignores Beihn, Paxton, Schwarzenegger and Weaver, not to mention all the crew I listed earlier.

You can get a lot of mileage out of the "Cameron is a douche" theme, but you can't look to who works with him to back that assessment up. Cameron has a large - I'd say unusually so - number of actors, crew and others who work with him repeatedly. Full stop.

Box office segue: Avatar did $6.2m Friday, $11.3m Saturday and has a good shot at breaking the 8th weekend record (though it's not a sure thing with the Super Bowl), but Dear John stomped it for the weekend overall.

 

[ryutaro's mama]

I simply said he boosted their careers.

Case in point, I'm sure Dushku got some roles because she was in a huge summer blockbuster.

It certainly didn't hurt her.

 

[border]

Why? Fox picked up Firefly and didn't want two sci fi shows.

Considering that FOX was always looking for a show to pair with the X-Files (Millenium, Harsh Realm, The Lone Gunmen, that horrible show about virtual reality), I can't imagine they were really that opposed to running two science fiction programs. Even Firefly got paired with John Doe (which was part sci-fi, part procedural). I'm sorry Dark Angel got axed, but I'd imagine it was more due to the deadly combination of large budgets and lackluster ratings -- don't blame Firefly.

You're really having to layer in the caveats now (lead actors, sequels), and that still ignores Beihn, Paxton, Schwarzenegger and Weaver, not to mention all the crew I listed earlier.

Anyone is welcome to call it backpedalling, but I thought from the context (Kate Winslet swearing off Cameron) it'd be clear that we were considering dramatic leads that might clash with Cameron rather than generic action actors or side-players that are along for steady work. My original language was probably too broad, I will admit.

 

[Karma Kramer]

Anyone is welcome to call it backpedalling, but I thought from the context (Kate Winslet swearing off Cameron) it'd be clear that we were considering dramatic leads that might clash with Cameron rather than generic action actors or side-players that are along for steady work. My original language was probably too broad, I will admit.

Could it not just be that Kate Winslet is hard to deal with? You will never know the answers you are looking for, but you certainly like drawing conclusions based on little evidence, Your bias is interfering with your judgement, Cameron just like everyone else deserves the dignity of objectivity when it comes to hollywood gossip, who really knows what happens on sets and stuff, hollywood is filled with so much bullshit, its hard to continue to partake in it, with this discussion. If you aren't a fan of his films fine, don't watch them. but trying to prove something you don't know seems like a big waste of time

 

[AniHawk]

Didn't Cameron convince McG to cast Worthington as Marcus in T4 or something?

 

[maharg]

I don't think you can even remotely claim Dushku got a career bump from Cameron. She pretty much quit acting shortly after (except for three movies, one a tv movie, probably no one in this thread has seen) until she graduated and then was cast in Buffy in a completely tangential role.

It's possible she did get the buffy role because of True Lies somehow, but it's hard to draw a connection by default.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

That 'Creating Pandora' doco is on in Australia channel 10 for anybody interested. Right now.

As for Winslet, I remember her Inside the Actor's studio interview where she was questioned about it. She has no hard feelings, but just said that he expects insane amounts of work on the actor's part that most films wouldn't ask of you. She respected him because he was putting in even more work, but doesn't think she could handle it again. One of the parts she referenced was when she had to navigate the water-logged corridors with the axe and the water had to be cold, whilst weighing down her dress and forcing her to climb through the set one handed.

I remember reading a story where they had turned the bow of the ship vertically and Cameron asked her and Leo to stand on the outer-side of the bow for the scene where its going in for the final plunge. She was going to be 150ft or so in the air with a basic harness supporting her. She almost broke and said to Cameron 'And where are you going to be whilst we're dangling up there trying not to fall?', to which Cameron replied 'about 40ft above you holding the camera.'

 

[LeMaximilian]

woops

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43908

Leonard Maltin hosted the Q&A and when Cameron was called up on stage he immediately went into his speech because of a miscommunication about when he was actually getting the award. They paused the speech after about 5 minutes and started the Q&A only to stop it again when Arnold showed up to present the award. You’ll see that represented below, but I wanted to give an idea of how loose the night was.

-When asked about filmic influences, Cameron went back to the Harryhausen films… specifically name-checking Jason and the Argonauts, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Mysterious Island and 20 Million Miles to Earth. He said it was dreamlike to him because he had no idea what Stop Motion was. He also had a steady diet of Science-Fiction and comic books.

-Wizard of Oz is his favorite movie and he loves it because of the combination of beauty and terror that exist in that world. He told his design team on Avatar that he wanted to “scare the crap out of people, but I also want it to be beautiful.”

-As a kid Cameron didn’t know if was going to draw or write. He drew a lot of his own comics as a kid. He had a “narrative impulse” and a “visual impulse” that he didn’t realize he could actually combine by becoming a filmmaker until he was in his 20s.

-His first paying job was on Roger Corman’s (great) Battle Beyond the Stars. He was hired originally as a model builder, but he became the art director almost immediately. It was a trial by fire. “We knew just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to know we shouldn’t even be trying what we were doing.”

-Said he was a better artist and a better filmmaker than a leader at the start.

-“You have to create your own luck” is a lesson he learned on the Corman films. Not in a nefarious way, but that you have to be persistent and prepared for when opportunity comes. “No fate but what we make” from the Terminator films comes from this philosophy.

-When he was a truck driver, he’d drive all week, but on Saturdays he’d go down to USC (he was not a student there, mind you) and go into the stacks and Xeroxed copies of American Cinematographer to thesis done on optical printing or break downs of film stocks and he brought all that back home and organized it binders, studying them.

-First break was when he was allowed to do 2nd unit directing on another Roger Corman film (he didn’t mention the title, but it’s probably the extremely twisted Galaxy of Terror). As an effects guy and production designer he convinced Corman that the director wasn’t getting enough coverage of the effects, so he got the 2nd Unit director job at the expense of his production designer gig.

-The production was so over schedule that he got to direct a lot with the actors. The production essentially had two 1st Units running simultaneously. Even though he was petrified at working with actors they all started requesting to be put into his unit because they liked him better.

-Piranha 2: The Spawning. Cameron was hired to direct, flew to Rome, completed a couple of weeks of preproduction, flew to Jamaica and shot for 4 days before being replaced by the Italian producer, notorious for taking over his films. “It ended up being good for me because the film turned out to be a stinker.”

-They then showed the Power Suit vs. Alien Queen scene from ALIENS… it was really kinda cool to watch Cameron watching his own movies, especially for one of his best. He said afterwards that this is probably what “Hell for directors is… watching your movies on an endless loop at 180db.”

-Cameron commented on the fight, that pre-CG the executed it with a Bunraku Japanese puppet style miniature effects and real life-sized puppets created by Stan Winston. There were two guys, sitting side by side inside the life-sized puppet, each one operating one big arm and one small arm. The Alien Queen was designed around the two-man rig. He then demonstrated the arm-waving.

-Cameron pointed out the shot where you can see Lance Henriksen’s body as he reaches for Newt, the half-body lifting up off the ground revealing his torso. “It’s an interesting lesson in how we perceive film. Nobody is looking there, they’re looking at where his hand is. ‘Will he be able to catch her?’” Cameron himself didn’t notice it until the premiere.

-T2 was kicking around for a while. Schwarzenegger wanted to do one and when Cameron talked to Linda Hamilton, who he refused to do the movie without, she gave him the idea that Sarah Connor would be crazy, mentally torn apart with the foreknowledge of the murder of 6 billion people. He wrote from there.

-After the clip from T2 (the drainage canal chase), the T-800 himself, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger came out to present Cameron the award.

-Schwarzenegger came out like a stand-up comic, saying he’s there to celebrate a great immigrant story, a man who came to Hollywood and made billions of dollars, became admired by millions of people… but “that’s enough talking about myself. I got carried away! Sorry about that!”

-Another Governator zinger: “His movies have made billions and billions of dollars world-wide. As a matter of fact, he made so much money that all of this money together could have wiped out the State’s budget deficit!”

-Schwarzenegger said “Avatar” a few times and every single time it came out like “Ahvadah.” He joked that Cameron intentionally chose that title because he knew it was impossible for Arnie to pronounce.

-Despite all the talk about Avatar 2 going forward, Cameron said he hasn’t decided what he’s going to do next.

-After sitting back down to continue the discussion, Cameron fawned over Schwarzenegger’s presence in the original Terminator saying he was known as being “the ultimate physical form” back then, but that in 90% of the movie he’s in biker leather, with the camera close on his face. What attracted Cameron to him for the part was Schwarzenegger’s ability to be as cold as ice, the opposite from his turn in Conan the Barbarian.

-Apparently Schwarzenegger loved going out to restaurants still in the Stan Winston make-up, with half of his face ripped off.

-There were 42 CG shots in Terminator 2, which forced a merge of computer effects and Stan Winston’s mechanical work. Compare that with Avatar, which was 2600 CG shots.

-The Abyss was Cameron’s most demanding shoot, physically. He’d literally go home and fall asleep with his fork still in his mouth.

-Originally the Water Tentacle was written as the aliens using water as a probe, but instead of a tentacle it was just “intelligent water” that spilled into the room on the floor. Although he had no idea how to pull it off, he changed it into a water tentacle and began the journey of figuring out how to do it “because it’d be cool.”

-Dennis Muren did the CG Water Tentacle stuff in The Abyss… it took them 9 months to do 16 shots.

-Although Cameron does rigorous storyboarding for action scenes (for safety reason first and foremost, he said), he doesn’t like to storyboard scenes for actors, preferring to block on the day with the actors giving their input. He said if you’re not willing, as a director, to look beyond the storyboards and seek out that spontaneity then you’ll miss the magic filmmaking can capture.

-Titanic originated because he wanted an excuse to dive the wreckage.

-Cameron went into Fox and pitched “Romeo & Juliet on the Titanic.” “That was it, I had a deal.”

-Was Titanic a bigger project than he thought it was going to be? “They always are. It’s like a woman thinking about having another child. If she really had a clear memory of exactly what happened last time she wouldn’t do it.”

-Regarding his famous temperament Cameron said he learned on Titanic that the studio looks to the director and the producer for clues on how screwed they are. “Leadership works in both directions, both down the chain and up.” He said particularly on Avatar the studio didn’t understand the process and he had to keep his cool to calm their nervousness.

-“I’m the King of World” line is something they came up with on the day. Cameron was in a crane basket on a long lens talking to Leo via walkie-talkie. The set was next to the Pacific, but locked down, so Cameron had to give the illusion of movement with the camera. He wanted this moment to be big, so he had DiCaprio do a few things… howl like a wolf, etc… Cameron suggested “I’m the King of the World!” and DiCaprio was like “What?” “But he sold it. I didn’t sell it.”

-Further talking about the illusion of filmmaking, Cameron commented that the actors are tasked with protecting that illusion. “Sigourney made the Alien Queen live because of the way she treated it as this thing that really seemed to be there, as her nemesis.”

-IMAX has pulled in $250 million in only 261 theaters on Avatar.

-Cameron’s Avatar research: animals, ecosystems, Colonial Period, the interactions between the natives and the first settlers, the American West and the Conquest of Spain. “But at a certain point you have to abandon the research and tell a story.”

-He first knocked out the story in 2-3 weeks in 1995, writing a 100 page template. Cameron did Titanic, but didn’t think the CG was there for Avatar, so he waited.

-It took 4 ½ years to do Avatar “soup to nuts.” The first 2 years were design and technical development, no actors. The facial performance capture was the toughest technical hurdle to cross. April ’07 began a year’s worth of production including performance capture in Playa Vista, then 4 months of live action photography in Wellington, NZ. Then 1 ½ of post production.

-Cameron joked that he wanted all the “hater bloggers” who kind of disappeared after Avatar became the highest grossing film of all time to come out and admit they were wrong.

-After the laughs from that he was asked “What does Avatar’s success mean to you?” Cameron said that ultimately the most satisfying part of it is to know that he’s communicating with an audience, that people are connecting emotionally with the movie.

-Cameron hopes the environmental message will help in places where it’s needed the most, pointing to its success in China. “I don’t delude myself that an entertainment film is going to change the world, but I do think what an entertainment film can do is associate an emotional response, a sense of outrage at the destruction of nature, with information you already have.”

-His favorite scene in Avatar is the Jake/Neytiri learning to fly/bonding montage. The one where Jake’s voiceover says “I may not be much of a horse guy, but I was born to do this.”

That was the chat. Hope you enjoyed reading along and scoping out some of those pics! Tomorrow’s my final day at SBIFF, but I should be hitting the director’s panel and watching Kirk Douglas’ 1975 film POSSE hosted by Quentin Tarantino and featuring a Q&A between Tarantino and Kirk Douglas himself. It’s gonna be a good day.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Considering that FOX was always looking for a show to pair with the X-Files (Millenium, Harsh Realm, The Lone Gunmen, that horrible show about virtual reality), I can't imagine they were really that opposed to running two science fiction programs. Even Firefly got paired with John Doe (which was part sci-fi, part procedural). I'm sorry Dark Angel got axed, but I'd imagine it was more due to the deadly combination of large budgets and lackluster ratings -- don't blame Firefly.

Uh..? I'm not "blaming" Firefly. It was the far better show. And yeah, budget was part of it: twp big budget shows that wouldn't have a big audience wasn't good for Fox.

The cast of Dark Angel were actually told they were getting a third season. Then Fox announced their schedule and they weren't on it. They were taken off to make room for Firefly, which they wanted to move up from its originally scheduled mid-season premiere. That's a story that's been known for a long time.

 

[gdt]

I'm no dummy.

It's between Avatar and The Hurt Locker for Best Picture, and they both deserve it. Though I prefer Avatar.

Of course Avatar would've gotten the nod with only 5 nominations, you only have to look to the directors list for confirmation.

Star Trek was great, Avatar was better.

The last hour of Avatar was the best directed action sequence in years.

Best scene was the Banshee flight, so I'm not some sort of macho action junkie.

Dark Angel kinda sucked.