All language subtitles for 02.Pursuing And Developing The Idea

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JAMES CAMERON: One of
the biggest questions

in creativity-- any
form of creativity

is, when is an
idea that you have

that pops up like a little
champagne bubble in your mind

worth pursuing?

The answer to that
is highly subjective.

What appeals to you?

What are-- are you interested
in as an artist or as someone

aspiring to be an
artist in cinema?

What compels you
to tell a story?

Is it the visual aspects of it?

Is it the world that you
want to immerse people in?

Is it a particular character?

Is it a particular
problem for a character

that you want to explore maybe
based on how it resonates

with something in your life?

Or maybe it's a story
that you've read

and say, I want to do
something like that,

or it's a film that
you've seen and say, I

want to do something like that.

Maybe it's very
unformed at first.

Okay, there's this--
this woman does this.

I want to tell this
story, you know?

Put some detail on it, you know?

Who is she?

What time-- what time
in the world is it?

What's the setting?

And how does that resonate?

And maybe-- maybe you put
her in Cincinnati in 1962

and all of a sudden, ah,
too limiting socially.

Maybe it needs to be in some
dystopian future, you know?

And so just let it swirl around.

And don't lock in on
anything right away.

I mean, I think that
one of the keys to this

is to be open and
flexible and always--

always keep an openness.

So really, it's a question of
after that initial process,

is the-- does the idea
stand the sort of sniff test

for something that you want
to really devote your time to?

And I think the answer to
that is it just won't go away,

you know?

The idea just won't go away.

It starts to
resonate with things

that are happening in
your life or in the news

or in another film that--

that you see and it starts
to get more detailed,

it starts to come into focus.

And then there'll would be a
certain point where you say,

I've just got to sit
down and write this.

The imagination never stops.

It's always working.

And I think ideas come
to any kind of artist

from-- from different
sources, and the subconscious

is one that certainly the
surrealist artists back

around the turn of the
last century believed in.

They believed in dream imagery.

They believed that it was an
unmediated, unintellectualized

version of their subconscious
creative force or imagination,

and I believe that
to be true also.

It's my zero-cost subscription
to a streaming service

that's all my own.

Every night I get all kinds
of entertaining stuff.

I know I've-- I've woken
up having leafed through

sketchbooks or-- or paintings
and thought to myself, man,

I wish I could paint like
that, then realized I just did.

And then scramble around
and try to draw it out,

draw out the ideas
that I've seen.

And every once in a while
something stands out.

Whether it's a scene
in a narrative sense

that might be-- it be
tragic, it might be joyful,

or maybe it's just an image.

To pick an example, "Terminator"
started as a dream image.

The actual terminator
itself and the--

the image of it as a
chrome metal skeleton

emerging out of a fire
with the certain knowledge,

in the same way that you have
a certain knowledge in dreams

about something,
about what the thing

you're seeing means or the
person that you're seeing,

what they mean to
you in the dream,

I knew that it once
had skin over it, which

was burned off by the fire and
it was walking out of the fire.

So I woke up and I said,
that's a pretty good idea,

and I started drawing
what I had seen.

And that was the nucleus
for "The Terminator."

Then I had to
justify, where am I?

Why is there a metal skeleton?

Why was-- why did it
have skin over it?

Well, obviously there
was a purpose to that.

And we don't have that, so
that comes from the future.

And hey, maybe I
could make a movie

about that in the present
day if there was time travel.

So boom, boom,
boom, all the pieces

assembled around that
nucleus of a dream image.

You have an idea,
what happens next?

Well, there's this pesky little
thing called the written word.

You've got to write a story.

Somebody has got to write
a story at some point.

Now maybe-- maybe it's
a five-page outline,

maybe in my case it's
a 75-page outline,

because that's how I work.

I work at a very novelistic way.

Because I have to build the
world around the characters

as--

as I'm generating it, and--

because otherwise
it's too vague,

it's-- it's too imprecise.

So in my particular case, I
write a very long treatment.

In fact, people used to
joke that it was more

of a script than a treatment.

We at first jokingly, and
then ultimately just adopted

the term scriptment,
because it had all of the--

had all of the scenes and
had a lot of the dialogue,

it just wasn't in
proper script form

because I held on to that kind
of novelistic way of writing

prose and dialogue, because
it was freer, it was looser.

I could say an argument happens.

Or I could actually
write the argument out.

So I tried to take the
formality out of the process.

This was just-- I'm speaking
for my own development,

and all writers develop
differently, all screenwriters

develop differently.

But I think anyone aspiring
to be a filmmaker, you know,

the person sitting in this
chair still needs to understand

the writing process,
even if you know that one

of your limitations is you're
not great with dialogue

or you-- you can't--

you don't think structurally
like a writer does.

Or mastering the
art of the scene

because scene writing is--
is an art in and of it--

in and of itself.

Maybe that's not your thing
and you're more visual,

and you just want
to grab a camera

and go and let somebody else--

somebody else write it.

That's fine.

But you still need to know
how to work with the writer

to get the story to be
what you want it to be.

I believe in the
three-act structure,

I've just never
succeeded in doing one.

"Terminator's" five
acts with a coda.

"Aliens" is four acts.

None of my stuff ever fits
the three-act structure.

I think thinking an act
is good up to a point.

It disciplines you
to know that you're

coming up to a transition
point in the film.

If you think in
terms of act breaks,

you'll create transitions
that are interesting.

They always say
that you want to end

act one with some kind
of sense of-- of stating

the main character's
main problem,

and if there's an adversary
pitting the main character

against the adversary,
there's certain things

that need to be accomplished.

Or the journey begins.

You can follow different--
different schools of thought

around that.

You can-- you know, Shakespeare
worked in a five-act structure

very often.

So there are no
hard-- hard rules.

Quentin Tarantino
takes the action

and just moves them around into
different orders, you know?

So there are no-- there
are no real rules,

but I think it's good to
know the rules before you

break them.

When I'm standing on a
whiteboard in a writer's room

with other writers,
it's very helpful

to think in a
three-act structure,

because everybody
gets that, you know?

What's my first act act out?

What is the big thing I want
to do to set up-- to really set

the story in motion?

All my kind of throat-clearing
and my establishing in my world

building all has to
culminate to some point

where we define
the conflict, we've

set the character's
problem, and now

the story's in motion at high
speed beyond-- beyond that.

So that's helpful.

And then what do I need to
accomplish in my second act?

And then what's my--

what's my kick-off
for my third act?

And then-- because I often
find that third acts are kind

of a story within the story.

That third act reiterates
a lot of what's

been-- been seen previously
and brings it all to a head

and to a-- to either a final
conflict or a final culmination

or some kind of
emotional catharsis,

and then it resolves.

Or in some cases
it doesn't resolve,

and the not resolving is
part of the comment or part

of the-- part of the message.

So I think-- you
know, read the books,

there are plenty of books on--

on screenwriting.

Read the books, know the rules,
and then just break them.

All art has meaning, and
that meaning may be overt,

it may be a lesson, it might
be a social object lesson

for something that needs
to be understood and felt

and requires an
empathetic response.

And maybe it has a meaning
for you individually.

Some kind of object lesson
about the value of duty

or the value of friendship
or the value of love

or the price of love, you know?

I read an interesting thing--

interesting quote-- grief
is the price of love.

It was a mother--

not-- not an artist,
not a writer.

It was a mother who had lost
someone very close to them--

I think a child.

And it was just a
quote in a newspaper.

You know.

She was-- she was hurting,
she was in deep pain.

She said, it's
the price of love.

And I thought, that is profound.

That is really profound.

Of course, I mean, we all--
love is a good thing, right?

Right up until it isn't,
when it-- it hurts.

Hurts because you lose
someone close to you,

you lose contact with them, or
they reject you or they die,

whatever-- whatever
it is, you know?

And there is a price to be paid.

There's a price to be
paid for everything.

And so maybe that's the
object lesson of the film.

And maybe that allows
us to go on that journey

without having to go
through the actual loss.

So films are a way to
kind of experience things,

like, you know, kind of a
training simulation before we

actually get there.

So it's up to the
filmmaker, I think,

to be authentic about emotions.

I mean, the actors, of
course, they-- they live,

eat, and breathe authenticity.

And it's all about
the research for them

and-- and the truthful
moment and all that.

And I think it's
up to the filmmaker

to protect that and
nurture that, and make

sure it's there-- that
the authenticity is there

in the writing.

I had a studio executive--
top, top studio executive

say on "Avatar," we really like
this script, but is there a way

that you can take out some
of the kind of hippie,

tree-hugging kind
of-- kind of stuff?

And I said, no,
because it's exactly

the hippie tree-hugging
stuff is the reason I

want to make the movie.

So if that's important to you,
then we're kind of done here

and I'll have to take
it somewhere else.

Oh no, no, no!

You know.

So anyway, film
got made with all

the hippie tree-hugging
stuff in it.

But, you know, it
was a Rubicon moment.

I could have been jeopardizing
the financing for a, you know,

$100-plus million
movie, but, you know,

I found that as I
developed my-- my stories,

there are certain things
I never let go of.

There are certain
fundamental principles

that I never let go of.

Maybe it's a redemption
story, and that never changes,

you know?

So then it's a fine equipoise
between being open and being

fluid and being able to
take an idea-- maybe not

your idea, but an idea
that fits and resonates

and incorporate
that without losing

the sight of that core thing
that you came there to do.

All my films express
thematically my perspective

on existence, and a
lot of those ideas

were formed when I was
just kind of wide-eyed,

looking around the world.

JOHN F. KENNEDY:
Within the past week,

unmistakable evidence
has established the fact

that a series of
offensive missile sites

is now in preparation on
that imprisoned island.

JAMES CAMERON:
Remembering distinctly

as a-- as a kid at
the age of eight,

seeing my dad going through
how to build a fallout

shelter in your basement at
the peak of the Cuban Missile

Crisis.

[CHANTING]

Seeing the rise of
environmentalism

in the early '70s and seeing
the world potentially becoming

a toxic wasteland.

All those sorts of
dystopian anxieties.

So for me, the-- the nuclear
holocaust of the future

in "Terminator" maps directly
thematically to the destruction

of "Titanic" where people
just kind of blithely sailed

on right into an iceberg, and
their world, the microcosm--

the world of that
movie, because you

see very little besides the
ship itself in that film,

sinks out from underneath them.

It's destroyed,
and it takes down

the rich with the
poor as well, which

obviously is a metaphor for our
world right now with climate

change.

All the rich people that are--
that are propagating climate

change, all the big
corporations, and people

who think they're going to
be above the consequences

will not be, you know?

We're all in one world and
we're all in it together.

So, you know, I think that the--

but I think the films, I try to
keep them from being preachy.

I try to keep them from
being too on the nose.

But the message is there if
you-- if you want to see it.

And I think it's
consistent about the power

of the individual,
the strength of women.

You know, my-- my
kind of jaundiced view

of organizational
systems and authority.

You know, being a
child of the '60s,

I have an innate
dislike for authority.

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