James Cameron - j marshall pittman

James Cameron says AI will never replace actors and artists in his films https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4 James Cameron uses this interview to talk through how he builds Avatar: Fire and Ash, his lifelong obsessions (oceans, nature, technology), the future of the Avatar franchise, and why generative AI will be used only to speed up production, not replace artists or actors.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) Below is what you asked for, in three parts. --- ## Detailed outline of the video - **Intro & setup (0:00–1:15)** - Host introduces a “brand new Avatar movie,” Avatar: Fire and Ash, and James Cameron, describing him as guided by curiosity through films like Aliens, Terminator, The Abyss, Titanic, and Avatar.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Cameron joins the conversation, joking about being made to feel old.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Theme of family & directing actors (1:15–3:30)** - The host calls Avatar: Fire and Ash a “technical marvel” and asks how Cameron keeps the core of the film—family—front and center despite overwhelming technical demands.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Cameron says his north star is “the actor’s eyes,” explaining he stays in the “scrum” with actors, often handheld operating and giving quick prompts so technology never overwhelms the performance, a lesson he says he learned on Titanic.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Working with long‑time collaborators (3:30–7:00)** - Discussion of his “film family”: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Bill Paxton, Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He recounts working with Weaver across four films (Aliens and multiple Avatars), killing off Grace Augustine, then bringing Weaver back as a 15‑year‑old girl, Kiri, and how she prepared by observing teen actors at a New York drama high school.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He notes that audiences accept Kiri as a real teenager, indistinguishable from the young actors playing the other kids.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He also talks about child actors like Trinity Bliss, cast at age seven for the character Tuk, and how these kids have literally grown up with Avatar.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Kate Winslet & performance capture “playground” (7:00–9:00)** - Cameron recalls meeting Winslet at 19–20 on Titanic and later inviting her to “try out this performance capture thing,” which she came to love.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He explains that her son Bear told her, “Mom, don’t be an idiot. Go do Avatar,” helping clinch her decision.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He describes the performance‑capture stage as a “playground” where Winslet would sometimes jump into crowd scenes and play other characters just for fun when not needed as Ronal.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Perceptual realism & how Pandora feels real (9:00–13:30)** - The host introduces the idea of “perceptual realism” and describes Pandora as feeling real even though its flora and fauna are fantastical.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Cameron says the key is simple: observation of the real world.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - They collect extensive reference: skies, natural‑history footage, material shot themselves, and leverage the live‑action photography background of Wētā FX’s head of VFX, Joe Letteri (referred to as Joel Terry in the transcript).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He stresses making CG look like it was photographed, including using “artifacts” like lens flares, overexposure, and imperfect lighting to increase realism, developed over 18 years of work on Avatar leading up to Fire and Ash.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Why other blockbusters don’t feel real (13:30–18:00)** - Asked why many modern blockbusters feel weightless or fake, he points to a generation of VFX artists who never did real‑world photography.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He emphasizes real‑world physics: their characters come from real people doing real actions; stunt performers actually ride rigs and get knocked around, then that motion is translated into CG creatures.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He contrasts their approach with superhero movies where characters “bounce around like grasshoppers” without weight, in part because shots are pre‑timed to strict frame counts derived from previs and boards.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Cameron explains that on Avatar they “don’t bid in shots, we bid in minutes,” treating every shot as hard and not locking shot durations until after the cut, which allows more natural motion and timing.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Scale of production & delegating (18:00–21:00)** - Asked if the scale is overwhelming, Cameron says it would be if he tried to do it alone, but instead he “conducts the orchestra” of about 3,000 people over roughly four years per Avatar film.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He admits he is detail‑oriented and would love to operate every shot himself but has trained himself to let go, increasingly using second‑unit teams and building a creative culture that understands and works in “his style.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He tries to train everyone to “think like a storyteller” and ask, for each of 3,500 shots, how it advances story or character.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Obsession with water & origin story (21:00–27:30)** - The host jokes his career would be easier without his fascination with water—The Abyss, Titanic, Avatar: The Way of Water / Fire and Ash.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Cameron responds that oceans are inherently fascinating and describes the narrative he tells himself: as a kid he loved science fiction and imagining other worlds, then seeing Jacques Cousteau TV specials made him realize the ocean is an “alien world” he could actually visit.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He pushed his parents to put him in scuba classes despite living 400 miles from the ocean, becoming a certified diver before ever seeing the sea.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He shares an “unbelievable” underwater experience: imaging previously unseen hydrothermal vent structures in Mexico’s Guaymas Basin at 5–6,000 feet in 2003, with mushroom‑shaped formations venting hot water.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He says nature’s imagination underwater surpasses human imagination; snorkeling a coral reef in 15 feet of water proves that.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Mother figures, women, and his mom (27:30–34:00)** - They shift to the prominence of parent, especially mother, figures in Avatar, and his general fascination with women as characters he wants to understand better as a male writer.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He critiques the phrase “strong female characters” as misleading; what matters is **complexity** and exploring the female psyche.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He describes his mother as a “proto‑feminist” suburban mom of five who kept pushing boundaries—taking geology classes with him for fun, even joining the army reserve without telling his dad, which caused a big fight.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - She was also an artist, and he says he has always been drawn to strong, interesting women he can learn from, which filters into his writing.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Asked about her last film of his, he says she lived into her 90s and saw Avatar: The Way of Water, which she loved, and recounts that both he and she had dreams that seeded the Na’vi imagery: his of a bioluminescent forest, hers of a 10‑foot‑tall blue woman that he painted.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Nature vs technology & colonialism themes (34:00–41:00)** - The host notes recurring tension between nature and technology in his films, like Titanic’s “unsinkable” ship versus an iceberg, and the new technologically advanced weapons introduced in Avatar: Fire and Ash that clash with nature.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Cameron says this reflects his own life: growing up in the Niagara Peninsula around forests, obsessed with collecting animals and plants, and simultaneously fascinated by technology via his engineer father.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He frames technology as dual‑use in his work: it can empower (Ripley’s power‑loader defeating the Alien queen) or destroy (nuclear war and runaway tech in Terminator).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - When conceiving Avatar, he imagined humans going to another planet to mine, immediately coming into conflict with an indigenous culture, paralleling real‑world colonial histories in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He describes writing an 82‑page Avatar treatment in about two weeks, containing every character and creature, as if the story “condensed out” of a cloud and “almost wrote itself.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - In post‑production, he increasingly feels the film tells him what it needs to be, as if he is uncovering rather than dictating it.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Future of Avatar & the business model (41:00–47:00)** - Cameron acknowledges there are two more ideas within the Avatar story world but insists their realization depends on two conditions: enough box‑office success to justify the cost, and solving the production‑time and cost problem.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He says the theatrical marketplace is contracting while VFX costs keep rising, and their bids on new films often come back unaffordable.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He believes the team has already reached a point where “anything we can imagine, we can do,” but they cannot yet do it in half the time; he does not want to spend another eight years (two four‑year cycles) on two more Avatars at age 71.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **AI, ethics, and new tools (47:00–52:00)** - Cameron says generative AI may help do things faster and cheaper, but only within strict ethical boundaries: “never replacing the actors, never replacing the artists, never replacing me as a director or the writers.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He notes that current generative AI tools are not built to integrate into conventional VFX pipelines; the big AI companies are mostly focused on business‑to‑business products like copywriting, legal, medical, and casual “fun stuff,” not professional‑grade entertainment tools.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He says his team would likely need to build their own AI tools, which could itself take time, possibly delaying future productions by a year or more.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - **Non‑Avatar projects & late‑career goals (52:00–end)** - Asked about what remains on his “bucket list,” he mentions having a couple of non‑Avatar projects he really wants to make that would not take as long as an Avatar film.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He names one that has been publicly announced: The Ghost of Hiroshima, based on a book by a writer he has long followed and discussed working with.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He alludes to other projects he cannot discuss yet.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - For fulfillment, he says he likes to set very hard goals, surround himself with talented young people full of innovation and imagination, and aim high enough that even their “increment of failure” still exceeds others’ success, and that with Fire and Ash he feels artistically satisfied regardless of box office.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) --- ## Projects and innovations mentioned **Films, franchises, and story projects** - Avatar: Fire and Ash (new film, centerpiece of the interview).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Avatar franchise / Avatar universe (overall project of three decades).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Aliens.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - The Terminator / Terminator series (implicitly via nuclear war and tech out of control).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - The Abyss.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Titanic.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Avatar (original film, including the character Grace Augustine).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Avatar: The Way of Water (referenced when discussing his mother’s last film).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - The Ghost of Hiroshima (announced non‑Avatar project based on a book).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Characters and casting concepts** - Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver’s original Avatar character).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Kiri, a 15‑year‑old girl played by Sigourney Weaver via performance capture.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Tuk (Touque), played by Trinity Bliss, cast at age seven.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Ronal, Kate Winslet’s character in Avatar.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Ripley using the power‑loader in Aliens as an example of technology amplifying human strength.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Technologies, production methods, and innovations** - Performance capture “playground” for actors to explore multiple characters and crowd work.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Perceptual realism as a design goal for Pandora’s look and feel.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Extensive real‑world photographic reference (skies, natural history footage, self‑shot material) to ground CG in reality.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Use of photographic artifacts (lens flares, overexposure, imperfect lighting) to increase realism.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Mature VFX pipeline at Wētā FX (Weta) led by a supervisor with a live‑action photography background.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - “Bid in minutes, not shots” budgeting model for VFX, treating every shot as hard and setting duration only after editorial.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Real‑world stunt rigs built in the Bahamas to simulate underwater creature riding and motion before simulating it in CG.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Large‑scale, four‑year production cycles involving ~3,000 people per Avatar film.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Use of second‑unit teams to avoid the director becoming a bottleneck.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Deep‑sea exploration technology enabling imaging of 5–6,000‑foot‑deep hydrothermal vents in the Guaymas Basin (submersibles, cameras, etc.).[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Generative AI as a potential production‑speed tool, contingent on: - Not replacing actors, artists, directors, or writers.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - New entertainment‑specific AI tools integrated into VFX workflows, likely built by his own team.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Conceptual/thematic “innovations”** - Framing oceans as accessible “alien worlds” for exploration inspired by Jacques Cousteau specials.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Applying a “colonial playbook” matrix from real history (Americas, Australia, New Zealand, Africa) to the Avatar story of miners vs indigenous Na’vi.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Treating films as emergent works where the film “tells him what it needs to be” during post‑production.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) --- ## Advice and key quotes from Cameron Below are notable pieces of advice and perspective, with direct or near‑direct quotes from the transcript. ## On keeping story and performance central - “The actor’s eyes” are his north star; he stays physically close to the actors, in the “scrum,” to stay connected and avoid letting technology overwhelm the work.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He sometimes throws in “a little…quick prompt” during performance and learned on Titanic to stay focused on people rather than spectacle.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Advice implied:** Stay close to actors and performance; do not let tools or scale distract from the emotional core. ## On realism, VFX, and craft - “It’s very simple. Observation of the real world.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He emphasizes that many young VFX artists “haven’t done the photography” and stresses making CG look like photography, including accepting imperfections such as lens flares and overexposure.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He contrasts their approach with superhero movies where people “bounce around like grasshoppers” without weight, due to workflow constraints tied to rigid frame counts.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - “We don’t bid in shots. We bid in minutes.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Advice implied:** - Study real‑world physics and photography. - Embrace imperfections that make images feel photographed. - Don’t over‑constrain your shots with rigid pre‑timed previs. ## On leadership, teams, and letting go - He describes himself as “conduct[ing] the orchestra,” not doing everything himself, relying on 3,000 skilled people.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He says he has trained himself to use second units so he does not become a bottleneck, even though his instinct is to “operate every single shot” himself.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - “The thing that I try to train everybody to do is think like a storyteller…what is this particular shot…doing to advance the story or to advance the character.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Advice implied:** - Build a creative culture and delegate; train collaborators to think like storytellers, not just technicians. ## On writing women and complex characters - He says “strong female characters” is a misleading phrase; what matters is “complexity and trying to understand the female psyche as a male writer.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He writes characters he wants to understand better and draws on his proto‑feminist mother and strong women in his life as models.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Advice implied:** - Aim for nuanced, complex characters rather than simplistic “strength.” - Use your curiosity about people as fuel for character writing. ## On nature, imagination, and inspiration - After seeing Jacques Cousteau specials, he had an epiphany: “That’s an alien world and I can go there… I’m not going to be able to get on a spaceship… but I can go there.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - “Nature’s imagination is much greater than ours, and all you have to do is snorkel on a coral reef in 15 ft of water and you will see it.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Advice implied:** - Treat the natural world as a primary creative reference. - Recognize that reality often outstrips what can be invented. ## On technology, ethics, and AI - He characterizes his relationship with technology as a “love‑hate relationship,” showing it as both empowering and dangerous in his films.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - Regarding future Avatar films and AI: “Does generative AI play a role in that? It may well as long as we stay within the ethical boundaries of never replacing the actors, never replacing the artists, never replacing me as a director or the writers.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Advice implied:** - Use technology as a tool to extend human creativity, not to displace it. - Set clear ethical boundaries before adopting new tools like generative AI. ## On ambition, risk, and fulfillment - On fulfilling work, he says: “You set a hard goal and you get a group of people… that have a lot of talent and a lot of innovation [and] imagination and make the goal really really hard and then accomplish most of it and in that little increment of failure you’re achieving above everybody else’s success.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) - He says that however Avatar: Fire and Ash performs at the box office, he is “very satisfied artistically that we did what we set out to do,” emphasizing the collective “we.”[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) **Advice (fairly direct):** - Set goals so ambitious that even your “failure” surpasses others’ successes. - Measure fulfillment by artistic integrity and the shared effort of the team, not just commercial outcome.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4) 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_jBby5Lo4)