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After 'Titanic,' Director Visits Ocean Depths
2005-01-14
American movie "Titanic" poster |
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LOS ANGELES - In 1997, he was on top of the world thanks to "Titanic," but in his new 3D IMAX film "Aliens of the Deep," director James Cameron has sunk as deep as he could go.Opening on Jan. 28 in IMAX theaters, the film offers three-dimensional looks at sea creatures rarely seen by man, miles and miles below the ocean's surface. "Documentaries are hard," Cameron told Reuters. "The kind of filming I had done before, where you have a script and you know what you're doing, is easy, by comparison." "When you're shooting a documentary, you never know whether you're wasting your time every time you start squirting off some footage, or whether this could be the moment of gold." The 3D technology makes viewers feel they could almost touch the extraordinary animals Cameron found such as a glowing, ethereal jelly-fish, an ugly fish that appears to have tiny stubby feet and swarms of shrimp as numerous as locusts. Accompanying Cameron and his crew on their expeditions to the thermal vents of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were several scientists, including a few from space agency NASA. "For most documentaries, the film crew is piggybacking onto a science mission. This time around, we were able to put together our own expedition and approach the science community to come along," Cameron said. Several marine scientists joined the journey, as well as astrobiologists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Johnson Space Center. "This expedition, using high pressure-rated submersibles, ... has a space analogy. It's the type of exploring scientists may do some day in the outer solar system," Cameron said. The theory is that because the creatures of the deep survive without sunlight, drawing their energy from the chemicals and heat from the thermal vents, they could be a model for life on other planets lacking sunlight. The film offers glimpses not only of the uncanny life found miles below the surface of Earth's oceans, but also, through 3D computer animation, a view of what some say could be future interactions with "alien" sea creatures below the frozen oceans of other planets. NEW TECHNOLOGY The film was shot on a custom-designed high-definition video system, co-created by Cameron and cinematographer Vince Pace. The system is similar to the one used by the team for Cameron's 2003 3D IMAX effort, "Ghosts of the Abyss," which explored the wreckage of the Titanic. Returning to the screen is a tiny robotic camera droid dubbed "Jake" that was first used in "Ghosts" and which was developed by Cameron's brother, Mike. Cameron foresees the day when watching 3D movies shot in a digital format, shown with the industry's latest projection system, Digital Cinema Projection, will be commonplace. "Instead of having to drive hundreds of miles to an IMAX theater, you should be able to just go to your local mall cinema, and there should be a 3D screen there," he says. Cameron said the new generation of digital cinema projectors expected to be rolled out over the next five to six years could wipe out traditional film projectors and make the use of traditional film cameras obsolete. Cameron himself has no plans to return to two dimensions or traditional film technology. "If I never touch film again, I'd be happy. Filmmaking is not about film, not about sprockets. It's about ideas, it's about images, it's about imagination, it's about storytelling," he said, adding:. "If I had the cameras I'm using now when I was shooting 'Titanic,' I would have shot 'Titanic' using them." His next project will be shot with a new generation of the Cameron/Pace Reality System 3D camera. The film, "Battle Angel," is based on a series of Japanese graphic novels. "It takes place in the 26th century, and it's the story of a young girl who has an organic human brain and an entirely synthetic body," he said. "She's a cyborg warrior, it turns out, although she doesn't know that initially, due to amnesia. It's a hero's journey, ultimately." Cameron has conceived "Battle Angel" as the first of a three-part series. "If we're successful, we'll make the other films. If we're not, we won't." Most science fiction, says the director, has wandered away from its roots ever since "Star Wars." "As much as I love 'Star Wars,' and as much as it's really revolutionized the imaging business, it went off the rails in the sense that science fiction, historically, was a science fiction of ideas. It was thematic fiction. It stopped being that and became just pure eye candy and pure entertainment." "And I miss that. With 'Battle Angel,' I'm going to flirt with that darker, dystopian message as much as I can, without making it an art film," he said. Reuters
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