James Cameron's Avatar

James Cameron is a movie director and producer famous for his "Titanic" epic at 1997. He has also directing and written stories for other famous movie like Alien and Terminator. His upcoming movie, "Avatar" is his first movie for many years after "Titanic". James Cameron reputation made this movie as something people expect to be comparable with "Titanic".

James Cameron has the idea to make "Avatar" movie for a long time. At his childhood, James Cameron has love for science fiction book or movie like 'The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad' or '2001 Space Odyssey'. He has a drawer full of drawings of creatures, characters, robots or spaceships from his own fantasy art. Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" make him interested in his own filmmaking and model building. He became known for his talent when he direct and write stories for Terminator. His next movie Alien and The Abyss also shown his interest on science fiction.

He is a perfectionist and demand a lot from his crew. However, this is also what makes the movie like The Abyss and Titanic receive the best visual effect on Academy Award. He became known for his visual effect and science fiction visionary.

"Avatar" was planned by James Cameron to be in production shortly after "Titanic". However, the special effect require very high budget at that time that no studio willing to fund the production. "Avatar" starts of production announced at 14 June 2005 with the production title of "Project 880". His other movie that based on Japan scifi comic "Battle Angel" also announced at the same day. Both will use the same 3D digital camera technology developed by Vince Pace and virtual production studio developed by Robert Legato.

"Avatar" is half live action and half photo realistic CGI. The live action shooting location is in Hawaii, while the CGI shooting location is in studio. Shooting is required for the CGI part too because the animation is made by sampling real human movement including the facial expression. This result in more realistic animation character.

The story of "Avatar" is about a disabled ex-Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) that has his second chance to feel how to walk again by following Avatar program that made him a driver of alien body. He then assigned a mission to infiltrate the alien village, Na'vi. In his mission Jake Sully meet a beautiful alien Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) that then become his teacher. The meeting with Neytiri change Jake Sully opinion about Na'vi and make him join them instead. Jake Sully then led Na'vi to fight human for the fate of both worlds.

In "Avatar" Sigourney Weaver appears as Grace who is a resemblance of James Cameron personality. She said: "I teased him because to me I'm playing Jim Cameron in the movie as this kind of brilliant, approach-driven, idealistic perfectionist. But that same somebody has a great heart underneath. So I have to say I was always kind of channeling him."

For the music James Cameron has trust James Horner again. James Horner mention that he asked to make the soundtrack as revolutionary as the film itself. He mentions the difficulty of creating balance between the introduction of providing new sound scape and keeping audience emotion with conventional music. James Horner has collaborated with James Cameron in the past in Alien and in Titanic where he won Academic Award for best music.

"Avatar" is a big budget movie that many people said it is a huge gamble by James Cameron. The movie production cost is said to reach more than $230 million, some said it would reach $500 million including the marketing. Many worries about whether blue character would be received by the audience. James Cameron himself and Fox Studio do not worry about the film popularity. They have high hope that the movie will make profit just like Titanic. Scifi fans are kept being updated with movie clip and high resolution CGI photo from the movie. Scifi fans have a high hope for this movie.

"Avatar" will be officially released on December 18, 2009. It will be first screened in Dubai on Dubai Film Festival at December 16.

Source:
IMDb - Avatar (2009)
Movies Online - James Cameron Interview, AVATAR