"Avatar: The Way of Water" is in theaters, and for well-known reasons, many audiences cannot enter the theater to enjoy this legendary sequel for the first time.
Film director James Cameron, as the top figure in the global film industry today, has left a strong brushstroke in film history for his creation of commercial film box office results, the promotion and shaking of the Hollywood production system, and the witness and promotion of film from industrial visual effects to digital visual effects.
The legend of the god Ka never stops.
In order of the time of the work, the editor collected and sorted out ten strange anecdotes of James Cameron to delight fans.
A catastrophic debut
Even Kashin himself is unwilling to admit that his debut film is a bad film called "Piranha 2: Reproduction".
The original intention of the creation of the "Piranha" series is to rub the popularity of Spielberg's "Jaws" series, and from this inexhaustible poster, you can also see the degree of its shoddy production. At that time, the original director skipped the ticket, and the fledgling James temporarily topped the bag, although James refused to sign several times before the release of the film, but trapped by the terms of the "American-Italian co-production" in the contract, James finally had to compromise and directly lost the final editing rights.
It is also since this black history that James has deeply realized what "right to speak" is.
Strong oath with the T-800
Now looking at the "Terminator" series, its rough special effects have been miserable, but the reason why the film has endured is largely due to James's design of character movements.
It was also after being bullied on the set of "Piranha 2" that James had a dream in which a guy with a metal skeleton appeared viciously from the flames, dragged a knife on the ground, and chased him.
As a result, this has a famous scene in film history that is praised by later generations.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born as a bodybuilder, got the opportunity to perfectly show his body shape at this moment.
This curling even has a feeling of stretching from the "mother", and in the next frontal shot, Arno's signature pectoralis major muscles appear stronger in low-lighting shadows, and with backshots, follow-ups, close-ups, the naked, silent Arnold looks at this new world from above.
Power boundaries
The most obvious criterion for judging whether a director is a senior director or a technical job is to see where his power boundaries are.
For James, being a director is more than just a set; He is responsible for everything in the entire crew, and what he seeks is a kind of power on the spot. As big as the direction of the script, as small as the position of the group performance.
In contrast to power are the obligations that a big director should fulfill beyond the scope of his profession, and the cold box office returns in the film market.
James is a notoriously detailed maniac, as small as a screw, as small as every mask and mech, he has to personally operate and shoot the effect.
For example, before filming "Titanic", in order to convince investors, James not only led the team to dive 12 times to explore the real Titanic, but also spent a lot of money to create a delicate model of the big ship from the external outline to the internal structure;
In order to restore the Titanic in full size 1:1, James traced the traces left by the Titanic around the world, and rebuilt the Titanic, not only a film business, but also an archaeological work, 1,600 tons of steel, more than 3 million rivets, more than 15,000 plywood, the ship is not for a long voyage, but for sinking.
Unavoidably
There are 150 group performers on the deck of "Titanic", and each person's character biography is written by James himself.
When Rose was suffocated by the high society and wanted to kill herself, Jack once described the feeling of soaking in the Atlantic -
"It's like being stabbed on the skin by a thousand knives at the same time".
This quote comes from the true description of that night by the survivors of the Titanic;
The line of being unable to get on the lifeboat and being forced to comfort his little daughter "only separated for a while" is also based on the original words of the scene.
The money is not creative enough
Before being linked to "big investment", James also struggled when he started his business at the end of the last century.
When filming "Alien 2", James on a budget racked his brains in order to highlight the huge size of the Alien Queen and distinguish it from his predecessor. Subsequently, he chose four adults to play the four hands of the alien queen, and then restored the main body in equal proportions, which gave the 4-meter-tall alien queen.
What if the funds are not enough to build 12 equal sleep pods?
Then use a mirror and refract to achieve the same effect.
Doubts from the outside world
As early as the "Terminator" set, James was angry about the "step-by-step" of the set staff.
When it is tea time, no matter how heavy and summoned the work in front of them, employees stop working like machines to enjoy tea breaks.
This was unforgivable for the workaholic James, but trapped by rigorous production treaties, James could only solve the problem by firing a photographer.
In fact, the more frustrated and excited, the more James character trait. Outside doubts have always been the cornerstone of James' career empire.
Actor Bill Paxton once described James as " just hearing words like 'you can't do it', 'you can't do it', 'you can't do it', he gets an erection,' "
Technology peak
"Avatar" pioneered the process of film from industry to digitalization, not only leading the 3D wave of cinema lines around the world, but also pushing digital compositing technology, performance capture, virtual photography systems and CG special effects technology to maturity. In James's creative concept, film is the visual art of dreaming, and the visual attributes of this artistic carrier are much higher than its virtual and real attributes, so in his films, the story is often not bizarre and twisty, and the application of technology in the film is the core concept of James's creation.
The greatness of films such as "Avatar" and "Titanic" is not that they invented anything, but that some technologies that have just been born, do not know where to develop, and are still in the trial and error stage, have embarked on a more realistic and imaginative track.
It can be said that James Cameron's new work is the highest point of global film technology at that time.
Play against tennis
In order to fully mobilize the creativity and imagination of the actors, James asked each actor to perform out of thin air in front of a prop, which was usually a tennis ball.
During the casting process, in addition to the facial contour to conform to the basic contour form of the Na'vi people, the actor must also have strong swimming ability and diving ability, holding his breath for 1 minute, which is the basic threshold set by Cameron.
It is reported that the longest time the crew held their breath was Kate Winslet, with a duration of 7 minutes and 12 seconds, breaking the diving record set by Tom 5 in "Mission Impossible".