This past summer I was lucky enough to catch a double feature of Aliens and The Abyss­ with the monster brain himself, James Cameron, there to conduct a Q & A during the intermission. The theatre was packed to the gills with hardcore movie buffs that salivated over the gorgeous 70mm prints of two of the best action/adventure movies of the 80’s, if not ever. You can imagine the kind of geeky pandemonium that pulsed through the crowd when the floor was opened up for Cameron to take questions from the audience. Only, they didn’t want to talk about creature effects in Aliens. They neglected to ask how the far-superior director’s cut of The Abyss came to be scrapped. Everybody had but one word on his or her mind: Avatar.

First, you need to remember that this screening was held months before even the poster art for the film was released. All that was known about the elusive project was that it was going to be the most technologically significant instance in cinema since the introduction of Technicolor (or so Cameron notoriously insisted). Virtually every question the audience could come up with was an attempt to extract some morsel of substantiated information about Avatar that they could go home and blog about. Cameron didn’t budge on much in the way of the story, but he did offer some candid information regarding the work that went into achieving such extraordinary images. At the time, without any kind of visual reference, it felt like a lot of mile-a-minute technobabble; you needed a dictionary in your pocket just to keep. Regardless, it all sounded assuredly revolutionary, and time, of course, ultimately proved that it was.

Popularmechanics.com recently posted a dizzying interview with Cameron that goes in-depth about the technical process of bringing the film to life. It’s remarkable how well spoken the man is off the cuff. The video interview is an absolute must for those who are interested in the filmmaking process, or anybody who wants to take a stab at understanding just how the hell this man managed to transport you to another planet. Watch it for yourself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aao0YSITuxc