James Cameron Videos : James Cameron (AI) PART 3 OF 4

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James Cameron (AI) PART 3 OF 4

"The way I did it was I came in through production design, which is good because you're thinking visually and you're very aware of the director's problems in trying to tell a story and how the environment is, you know, a manifestation of the narrative in some way. And you know, I sort of proved myself as a production designer in the scrappy, stay-all-night-for-15-days-in-a-row kind of independent film making that was done at Roger Corman's place. This was in the early '80s. And when they see that you have the creativity and the stamina, and that you basically understand film making, it's not a ridiculous leap in that environment to say, "I now want to try my hand. I want to direct." [ Key to Success ] Preparation "I just basically went up to Roger one day and said, "I'd like to direct second unit on this." The film that we were making at the time, which was a low budget science fiction horror picture. And he gave me a camera and a couple, two or three people, and we started a little second unit, and the second unit basically became this steam roller that wound up shooting about a third of the picture because they were falling way behind on first unit. So they'd give me the actors and say, "Well, do scene 28 and scene 42." And all of a sudden I was working with actors, and that was terrifying because I hadn't really thought that part through yet. You know, that in order to direct, you have to work with actors. It's not just about sets and visual effects. So it was ...

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