All language subtitles for MasterClass James Cameron Teaches Filmmaking_Full

[FOOTSTEPS]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[CHEERING]

[SCRAPING]

[DIGITAL BEEPING]

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

JAMES CAMERON: There's a
moment when you're just a fan.

And there's a moment
when you're a filmmaker.

And the one moment can follow
the other by about 1 minute.

Because all you have to
do is pick up a camera

and start shooting something
with the intention of making

a film, and you're a filmmaker.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

[GLASS SHATTERS]

[SCREECHING]

JAMES CAMERON: There's a
moment where there's no idea.

And then there's the moment
where there's the idea.

And I think of it almost the
way we assemble images and bits

of narrative in our dreams.

Maybe it's in another time.

Maybe it's in another place.

Maybe it's an entirely
different world.

It's up to the filmmaker
to create that little bit

of an alternate reality.

And then we get to
feel kind of alive

through a completely
different set of eyes.

That's an amazing thing.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

I'm James Cameron.

And this is my MasterClass.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

NARRATOR: Whatever you have
imagined in your wildest dreams

now becomes a visual reality.

JAMES CAMERON: I
had loved films.

I always loved films.

Like, I remember particularly
when I was in the third grade,

I saw "Mysterious Island,"
a Ray Harryhausen film.

And it had lots of wonderful
sort of little boy fantasy

adventure stuff in it.

I came back, and I started
drawing comics, comics

about "Mysterious Island."

But it wasn't the same story.

I made up my own creatures.

And I made up my own scenarios.

And I started to
think in a frame.

And I started to think--
well, I didn't realize it--

but I was doing wide shots.

And I was doing close-ups. And
I was doing reverse angles.

And I was doing all the
things that a filmmaker does.

So I was doing all those
things, graphically, on paper.

But it didn't translate
to I want to make movies.

So cut to years later, I'm very
excited to see this new film

that's just come out--
this is in 1968--

called "2001-- a Space Odyssey."

Because I love space.

I love science fiction.

I'm an avid reader
of science fiction.

And it looked from the
images like it was really

a quantum leap in terms of
the type of space imagery

that I was going to experience.

So I went and saw that film.

And it had such a visceral
impact on me that by the end,

I was probably almost
alone in the movie

theater for some reason.

It was a matinee during the day.

I stumbled out of the theater,
I sat down on the curb,

and I threw up.

Not because I didn't
like the film,

but because when the
stargate sequence began,

I felt like I was falling down
an infinite corridor of light.

And I got airsick.

I was so subjectively
present for that film.

And when I see
the film now, it's

a very hard film to be
subjectively present for.

It's a very cold and
intellectual film.

But I loved it visually.

And it was the first
time I really--

at the age of 14--

made the connection that a
movie can be a piece of art

and can be an experience.

And it was the first time
I noticed film music.

Because obviously,
images and music

went hand in glove in
that film in a really kind

of almost unprecedented way.

So I started getting really
enthusiastic about how

did they do that.

And it just so
happened that that

was one of the first films
that had a book, a companion

book, that was published
and widely available,

"The Making of 2001."

And I remember it was written
by a guy named Jerome Agel.

And I got the book.

And I read it cover to cover.

And I understood
about a quarter of it.

So I read it again.

And I started making notes.

And I started thinking about,
well, how could I do that.

So I got my dad's
Super 8 camera.

And I'd take a sheet of glass,
and I mount a model on it.

I'd buy a kit model of one of
the spacecraft from the film.

And I put it together.

And I'd glue it onto the glass.

And I'd put a piece of
black velvet behind it.

And I'd put a light on it.

And it looked terrible,
because the model

reflected in the glass.

Then I thought, well,
what if I take the model

and put it behind the glass
and glue it on from this side

and then put, like, one
little tiny piece of detail

over where that glue spot
is, and then light it.

And I won't see the reflection.

Now, all of a sudden, I'm
with my Super 8 camera,

I'm making a spaceship
fly through space.

Well, I don't think I ever
looked back from that point.

I always think of it
as the door is going

to open for a split second.

Whether you choose to
jump through it or not,

it's not going to be
there for very long.

Another door will come
along sooner or later,

if you stay at it.

When you jump through that
door, and you say, I'm here.

I'm ready to do this.

You have to have prepared for
that moment for literally years

by being a sponge,
by being curious,

by absorbing everything that
you can to prepare yourself

for that moment.

I think every filmmaker
stands essentially

on the shoulders of the
filmmakers that went before.

We see what they've done.

We react to it.

It's like, that was interesting.

And then we start to
create our own aesthetic.

And every individual
will take what's

been done by other
filmmakers and filter it

through their own lens, their
own subjective experience,

their own opinions
about the world.

And it'll come back
in a different form.

And so it's endlessly renewing
and endlessly invigorating.

And I think it's the
duty of filmmakers

that have been
down the road ways

to turn around and
say, all right, there's

a landmine over here.

There's a landmine over here.

Don't step on it.

You know, if I can't do that
after 40 years in the business,

then I'm not giving back enough.

So why not share that?

So in this class, I'm going to
talk about what I've learned.

And one of the
things I've learned

is that you never
learn everything.

And it's a constant
process of learning.

So you're constantly
humble before the craft.

And you're constantly learning
from other filmmakers.

If I had known when I started
out what I know now, of course,

I would have done a lot
of things differently.

But I think my films
would have been slightly

different, but not that much.

What I would have
done differently

is I would have respected all
the crafts people around me

more.

I would have learned the
leadership lessons earlier.

And I think that that's
something hopefully

that I can impart
in this class--

the importance of the
role of leader of a group.

It's not dictator.

And it's a very
collaborative medium.

And your film will benefit
from that collaboration.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

I think the important
thing to remember

is you can make a great
film without a huge budget.

[LASERS BLASTING]

I've done low-budget films.

[EXPLOSIONS]

I've also done very
high-budget films.

[ROBOTIC MOVEMENT]

I've been lucky enough
to be able to do that.

[WINGS FLUTTERING]

But you can definitely
optimize your budget.

And there are ways to do that.

And I'll share with you
what I know about some

of the tricks of the trade.

And I wanted to share
what's been learned.

Because we had to
learn it the hard way.

And there's no
reason why I can't

share what's been learned in
a way that can benefit you,

as an up and coming filmmaker.

And hopefully then you'll go
ahead, and you'll innovate,

and you'll do things.

And I'll follow your work,
see what you've done,

and maybe learn from you.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

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.

JAMES CAMERON: When
we buy a movie ticket,

we're putting our--
we're creating

a little bit of
a social contract

with a bunch of people we never
met to go into a dark room

and experience something and
be quiet and be passive and be

submissive and not stop,
not stop the experience.

The experience is in
a dominant position

relative to our consciousness.

And we do it
willingly because it's

one of the few times in
our lives where we do that,

and where we stop our
phone from ringing,

and we give ourselves
that respite,

and we give ourselves a moment,
might be a two-hour moment,

might be a three-hour moment,
to experience something

uninterrupted and unbroken.

And if we have to get up
and go to the bathroom,

you run because you don't
want to miss something.

And that's a unique experience.

I think as a filmmaker,
you know that you

have a dominant or
authoritative position

relative to the
audience's consciousness.

And you have to
honor them, which

is, I'm not going
to do something

that-- that's so obvious you
can figure it out exactly.

And you get to the end.

And it's been predictable.

But I also don't want to do
something that's intentionally

obscure to where I'm just sort
of pirouetting how smart I am

and all the big words I
can use, and you're lost.

And we've all seen the ones
that strike that perfect balance

where you're rewarded
for having paid attention

and picking up the clues.

And you go, aha.

And I think there's one thing
that a lot of filmmakers

take a while to
figure out, which

is it's okay for the
audience to be ahead of you.

It's okay because
the tension that

goes before a reveal
or a cathartic moment

is so much more delicious when
it's actually paid off in a way

that you hope for than
some utter surprise that's

not satisfying at all.

Sometimes, filmmakers
create too much importance

around the idea of
surprise versus paying off

in a satisfying, satisfying way.

It's all about this contract.

It's about this dance
with the audience

and honoring them and
encouraging them to participate

and pay attention.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

Well, I can drive that loader.

I have a class 2 rating.

Be my guest.

[LOADER WHIRRING]

JAMES CAMERON: And
part of the way you

do that is you plant something,
and then you pay it off.

And you say, see how it works?

I want to put something here.

And you're going
to think about it,

and then-- and then it's
going to be satisfying here.

[SCREAMING]

Get away from her, you bitch.

[END PLAYBACK]

JAMES CAMERON: So that
creates a bit of a promise

that we're going to
continue to do that.

We're going to do that right
through to the end of the film.

The plant might be something
that only the audience knows,

that that character needs
and wants and can't express.

And you feel that I wish I
could just walk into the screen

and shake that other person
and say, look at what

this character's going through.

You know, you want to
create that tension.

You want to create that-- that
sense of wanting to be involved

and playing and participating.

It's participatory.

People say that that
film is not interactive,

that only games are--

are an interactive medium.

I don't think
that's true at all.

I think films are
highly interactive.

You can't change
the outcome, but you

can imagine various outcomes in
real time as you're going on.

You're playing out
those possibilities.

It could go this way.

It could go that way.

It could be this, could be that.

And if you play against
the audience's expectation

in a satisfying
way, that's good.

Keeps them playing the game.

If you play to the
audience's expectation

in a satisfying way, something
that they want to see

happen, and then it happens--

maybe it doesn't
happen the way they

thought it was going to happen.

Maybe it has to be earned
in a difficult way that's

hard for the characters,
or maybe the character

has to make the
sacrifice that you

didn't see coming to get
that result that you wanted,

you know.

But this is all
part of the dance.

They know all the gags.

So the question is, how do
you play against it slightly?

Or how do you use a little
bit of sleight of hand

to disguise what you're doing?

Or how do you lead
them on thinking

that it's going to be one
thing and then switch track

into something else?

You know, you're doing
it at the writing stage.

You should be going through the
script and saying, you know,

what--

what am I giving
the audience here?

What expectation
does that create?

How am I paying that off?

Or how am I working against
that expectation later?

It's very important
for filmmakers

to ask themselves
these questions.

Well, I think one of the first
principles of building tension

is you have to care
about the character.

And you have to
understand the jeopardy

or at least that there is
jeopardy for that character.

That might be anything from
a free-floating anxiety

that something is
going to happen.

And you don't know what it is.

Because you've just walked
into an alien spacecraft.

Or you just walked
into a haunted house.

Or there's some kind of
really bad, negative outcome

that's tied to a ticking clock.

You know, the classic example
is the bomb under the table.

Because I think time is a
factor on building tension.

You have to believe
that it's not

going to happen in two
weeks or in an hour.

It's going to happen in the
next few seconds or maybe

the next minute.

So you have to be
invested in the outcome.

You have to care
about the character.

You have to be brought
in subjectively enough

into the moment that
you're moving through the--

the world, the space, the
journey with that character.

And you have to have
enough outside information

to know that that character is
going into increasing jeopardy.

So crosscutting is a
good way to do that--

cutting away to the
adversary or the train

coming or whatever, whatever
the thing is that escalates,

creating a constant
sense of escalation,

creating a sense of frustration.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

Don't make me
bust you up, man.

[GROANING]

[GLASS BREAKING]

[GROANING]

JAMES CAMERON: You're cutting
to a very mundane scene.

But in the context of it
being a attention crosscutting

scenario, it's a solution
that might happen but isn't

gonna happen.

And they could
have been saved but

for had they just
answered the phone,

or something has happened.

The ringer got turned off.

And you've established that.

You're building tension
in all these ways.

You have to be led to
believe as the audience

that something is
going to happen soon,

and then you prolong it.

You don't just make it happen.

You prolong it.

So you've informed the audience
in some way stylistically

that something bad is going to
happen, or something very bad

could happen to your character,
and then you prolong.

So you've told them
to be in that state,

and then you suspend that
state and then hold them

in that state.

So they don't feel like it's
getting just snatched away

from them before they've had a
chance to experience and feel

it.

Now, that might be a happy--
a state of happiness,

might be a state of wonder.

You don't want to give them
a little taste of wonder

and then take it away.

You want to stay in it.

So tension is the same thing.

So there's a
prolongation of tension,

and that's usually done with
crosscutting two narratives

that you feel are
converging to each other.

There are entire films
that build tension

across the arc of
the film, or there

are films that build
tension across an entire act

of the film, let's say.

So "Titanic" would be an
example where tension slowly

builds over time.

Here's a clue.

They got the iceberg warning.

Captain puts it in his
pocket, doesn't do anything,

tells them to speed up.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

Oh, not to worry.

Quite normal for
this time of year.

In fact, we're speeding up.

I've just ordered
the last boilers lit.

[END PLAYBACK]

JAMES CAMERON: It's like,
well, wait a minute.

There's an iceberg ahead.

So you're building tension
at a relatively mild level.

Once they hit the
iceberg, now you're

building tension for
your main characters.

Who's going to get off?

How are they going to be saved?

What are the obstacles that
are going to be in their path?

Bad stuff is coming, and we
move relentlessly toward that.

And we even, you know, release
the tension for a while.

You know, Rose gets in the
lifeboat, and it's very sad.

But you know at least
she's going to get away.

Then she jumps back on the ship.

Now you've just
ratcheted it up again.

It's important to understand
the sort of the meta tension

that can rise across an
entire section of a movie

until it has some kind of
cathartic or pivotal ending.

In that case, the ship
plunges, the scene on the raft.

And Jack dies, and then
you get into the kind

of series of codas
that kind of resolve

the film emotionally
and thematically.

But-- and the tension is
released at that point.

And a great example, recent
example, is "Dunkirk."

That's two hours-plus
of just rising tension.

And it's very skillfully done.

And the score is a
major component of that.

It just builds and
builds and builds.

And there's just this
feeling of dread and anxiety

that builds across
that entire film

until those characters
finally get pulled off

that beach at the end.

And they're on those
boats going home.

And you feel like you've won.

You've earned this feeling
of-- of delivery, of transport.

And so, you know, that's
a case where it just

was unrelenting across the
entire movie on a-- on a rising

curve.

And that's an
incredible thing to be

able to modulate
that-- that way.

So tension is an art,
and it's a discipline.

And it can come
in small amounts.

It can come in longer sections.

And it come-- and it can
come across an entire--

entire story arc.

[CHEERING]

[DANCE MUSIC]

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

JAMES CAMERON: In
this scene, what you

have is the convergence of
three separate plotlines.

So that was a structural motif
that was used for that film.

We follow in a third-person
omniscient way,

jumping back and forth,
between three storylines--

Sarah, introducing her
and getting to know her

and presumably like
her to some extent.

And then we see the Terminator
arrive through time.

We don't know it's through
time, but we sort of know

he's come from somewhere,
and see him start

hunting down and killing--

brutally killing
people with her name.

So even though they haven't met,
and the two storylines haven't

converged yet, there's
already an interrelationship

between those two storylines.

Kyle Reese comes
through time same way.

Although his arrival is much
messier and rougher on him

than it is on the
Terminator, we can

make the assumption he has
come from the same place.

He is from whatever
that world is.

So there's already a connection
between the two of them.

And we don't know if he's a
good guy or another bad guy.

He certainly acts
very, very sinister.

But I think we innately
sense that he's probably

a protagonist.

And he goes through getting
weapons, getting clothes,

doing the same things
the Terminator does, just

in a different way.

He's more furtive.

He doesn't hurt anybody.

The Terminator just
bulldozes through whatever

to get his objectives.

So they're contrasted
to each other.

So even though they're
clearly both soldiers,

they're both sinister,
the Terminator

is the more is the more
disturbing of the two.

And they're both stalking Sarah.

Terminator's is moving toward
her in this relentless fashion,

Reese is following her.

So is he-- we don't know
if he's a protector,

or if he's a good guy,
if he's a bad guy.

But we feel a relentless sense
that the three storylines

are converging.

[DANCE MUSIC]

The music is pounding.

So she sits down.

She's nervous.

[DANCE MUSIC]

And--

[DANCE MUSIC]

--Terminator walks in.

[DANCE MUSIC]

The music tells me,
I'm in the same club.

I'm at the door of the club.

He's there.

He's in the room with her.

The killer that
we've seen brutally

kill two other people
in his hunt for her

and kill the gun shop owner
to get the weapons to do so

is now in the room.

So it's going to happen.

It's going to go down.

So we've just started the
clock on our chess move.

We've just started the clock.

And the audience knows it.

And they know that this is the
beginning of a thing, a set

piece, if you will, a scene.

It just started.

The second you put them
both in the same room,

or in the same
space, you've just

said to the audience,
all right, guys, it's on.

Right?

Now what's going to happen?

So the jeopardy just shot up.

The jeopardy's been
slowly building.

It just shot up to a new level.

[DANCE MUSIC]

Terminator moves in his very
machine-like like fashion

searching.

Right?

The clerk tells the
bouncer to stop him.

He just crushes the guy's hand.

He doesn't even look at him.

He just glances at him
and then moves away.

Now he's in scan mode.

The hunter, killer, machine
scanning like a surveillance

camera.

[DANCE MUSIC]

His eyes scan,
then his head turns

to give him more compliance.

Then his eyes scan
the other way.

Then he has to move his head.

It's unnatural.

It's not human.

It's machine-like.

It's like a surveillance
camera scanning.

So that's something that
we worked out together

in rehearsal.

Now here's Sarah.

You cut back to the victim,
the innocent victim, Bambi.

You know?

Here comes the hunter
tromping through the woods.

Here's Bambi.

It's intercutting.

The intercutting intensifies
the sense of expectation

and builds suspense.

Something is going to happen.

It is inevitable.

He will find her.

He's very thorough.

So we've established
him searching

in a very machine-like
and thorough fashion.

And we've established her
sitting there and essentially

helpless and worried.

Back to him scanning some more.

Same principle.

Back to her.

Rising tension by intercutting.

Right?

[DANCE MUSIC]

Here comes the big move.

She knocks the water
bottle off her table.

And we go into slow motion.

We're telling the
audience something.

The Terminator walks into the
frame scanning relentlessly,

doesn't see her,
misses her completely.

The timing was-- we had to
do this shot a few times,

obviously, to get
the timing perfectly.

The way he appears
through the dancers.

The waitresses cross.

It's very stacked.

This is using a long lens.

If I had done this on a
short lens, a wide lens,

I'd have seen too
much background.

I wouldn't have been
selective enough.

My waitress crossing
in the foreground

would have been the
size of the Hindenburg.

Sarah would have been a big.

Terminator would
have been little.

The farther I move back, the
longer the focal length I use.

The more I stack
the shot, the more

I compress the space,
the bigger he is.

And the more I'm able to look
through a number of dancing

bodies and sort of
graphic forms that

are out of focus to see him.

He's the plant of focus.

She's not.

She's not.

Right?

So this is selective.

This is being highly selective,
leading the audience's eye

in a selective fashion, by using
composition, lighting, focus.

He misses her.

She comes back up.

She didn't see him--

not that she even knows
what he looks like.

Innocent victim, again.

We're just reminding
the audience who

our protagonist is,
and the fact that she

doesn't know what's coming.

And it just missed her.

But we have another escalation.

In her eyes, in that
moment, and it's

aided and abetted by a little
flush of light from the dance

floor as two dancers part.

In slow motion,
she sees something.

Now I haven't seen
what she sees yet.

She could be seeing
the Terminator.

But why would she be
alarmed at the Terminator?

She's never seen the Terminator.

She sees something, and
we see it in her face.

And this is a beautiful piece
of editing by Mark Goldblatt.

He holds on it just
enough frames for you

to see her see something.

And we don't know what it is.

And these are magical shots
when you're able to get them.

When the character--
she's not doing anything.

It'd be very hard to
express it in a storyboard.

It's something changes.

And what she sees is Reese,
the person that she knows,

that she's seen stalking her.

Now she is afraid of this guy.

She doesn't even know
about the other guy yet.

Reese's eyes come up.

[DISTORTED DANCE MUSIC]

And he sees something.

He sees her.

Their eyes meet in a mirror.

It's a love story.

Their eyes meet
across a crowded room.

It's a love story with shotguns.

Another long lens shot that
this suggests-- and to this day,

I don't remember if this is
supposed to be Sarah's hair

or not.

But I'm shooting over her,
and it's a stacked shot.

Or there's just some
random foreground.

I think it's a bit
of random foreground.

But it's a long lens shot.

So it suggests
that her brain has

excluded the entire environment
in between her and him

and gone--

[BIG WHOOSH] --like that into--

and this is how lens
choices are very subjective.

If I were to duplicate
my experience right now,

my subjective
experience right now,

my vision stretches out
to where my hands are.

Way out here.

And way down here
and way up here.

If I were to duplicate
that with a lens,

I'd need to be on like a 10
or 12 millimeter fisheye lens.

It would look ridiculous.

It would look highly distorted.

But I'm seeing all this.

But it's not what my
brain is focused on.

And it's not what
I would remember.

So lens choice is
about the memory you

would have if you were there.

So if I saw something
really interesting,

my focus, my
attention, would go--

[SMALLER WHOOSH] --just to
that thing, a very tiny amount

of my visual field.

If I walk into a new room, a
place I'd never seen before,

my attention gets much wider.

I want to take in
the whole space.

I want to feel where I am.

I want to feel the
environment around me.

Right?

That's how we perceive.

That's how we go
through life perceiving.

And you look at
the whole picture,

and then you see
something interesting.

Maybe you walk into a
big room that's a party.

And maybe across
the room you see

somebody you recognize
in your attention goes--

[QUICK EXHALE] You just went
from an 18 millimeter lens

to a 175 millimeter lens.

You just did it in your head.

And it's not that we have
such a mechanism, but we do.

It's in our visual
cortex, in our processing.

And if you remember that
moment six months later,

you would remember it that way.

I walked in, I saw
the whole place, boom.

I saw Bob.

And I focused on him,
and I crossed the room.

Now I'm in a tracking shot
going over to Bob, or whoever.

So the point is that
cinematic language maps

to human perception.

But if you want to really
resonate with an audience,

you resonate based on how a
million years of evolution

have programmed our brains
and our visual cortexes--

cortexes?

--to be the way they are.

So we're now in Sarah's
reality, looking across the room

and zooming in-- not literally
zooming in-- but switching to--

I think this was shot
on 135 millimeter lens.

And she's looking at him.

And then she doesn't want him
to see her, so she looks away.

Meanwhile, Terminator
has completed his scan.

This is intercutting.

It's all done in slow motion.

She's moving in slow motion.

The dancers are
dancing in slow motion.

It's taken on a
dream-like aspect.

On the Terminator's
turn, the source music,

the pounding '80s
synth dance music

starts to fade away
and get very echoey.

And the score, which
is saying the--

which is saying the narrative,
the driving force, comes up.

[DANCE MUSIC]

Club music's jamming.

[DANCE MUSIC]

A low beat starts to come in
here, a threatening energy

on his eyes.

[DISTORTED DANCE MUSIC]

And there's that
heartbeat underneath.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

And by the time the Terminator
turns, the Terminator's motif,

if you will--

the clanging, metallic rhythmic,
relentless sound comes in.

The source music in the
club is almost gone.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

So I'll pot that out so
you guys can hear me.

And he starts his move.

He's seen the target.

He starts his move.

Now we see what he sees.

Now, at the time I shot this,
I thought, well, maybe I'll

even go into what we called
"Termovision," Terminator

vision.

I'll go fully subjective.

I'll have him analyzing
the whole scene.

We tried it.

I didn't like it.

Because it broke the flow.

But we still know
we're in his vision.

And we're pulling
back in front of him.

And we're seeing her revealed.

It's all in slow motion.

So we're stretching time.

We're stretching
time, because we've

put you in a state of dread.

We've done it with crosscutting.

We've done it by converging
the three storylines.

We've done it with music.

And now we want to
stretch that moment.

We want you to continue
to feel that grit

as long as we can stretch it
out in a nightmarish fashion.

In real life,
something like this

might have happened in
two or three seconds.

We want to stretch it
out as long as we can.

Because once you've gotten
the audience to a place

that they're enjoying, because
perversely people actually

enjoy being scared,
they enjoy being tense,

they enjoy having an
emotional reaction.

They also enjoy laughing.

They enjoy crying.

They enjoy the warmth of a
great relationship moment.

All those things.

But they're here to enjoy
all of it in all its colors,

in all its dynamics.

Once they're enjoying
something, you'll

let them stay there
as long as you can.

You sustain the state.

So the slow motion
is used to continue

to build tension by
sustaining and crosscutting,

building the tension.

Something's going
to happen right now.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

And her eyes see the Terminator.

Reese sees the Terminator.

He's the first one
to take action.

It's in slow motion.

It's all happening
in a dream state.

It's horrifying.

Can he get these idiots
out of the way in time

before the Terminator
puts the laser dot on her?

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

Yes.

Barely.

And it's split-second.

And I just want to
compliment Mark Goldblatt

for doing a remarkable job
on the cutting of this scene

and refining it down to
one split-second shot.

I think Kyle Reese is probably
on screen in the pivotal moment

of this scene--

we can find out right now--

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7--

[MOUSE CLICKING]

10 frames.

After all these long
slow-motion shots,

it all pivots on 10 frames.

And now watch what happens
next, here in real-time.

She falls out the way.

He starts shooting.

We pop back and forth.

These are 10 frame, 16
frame, 18 frame shots.

It all happens like lightning.

It even seems faster
because of the fact--

the juxtaposition that you're
coming off of slow motion

into action.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

So just to see it again.

We're building.

We're building in slow,
nightmarish, dream-like moment

to Reese pulls the trigger.

Everything pivots on that.

And then it's just boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Shot.

Shot.

Shot.

Shot.

Shot.

Shot.

Cut.

It's 18 frames per cut.

And it doesn't stop again
until we find out what

happened to the Terminator.

And he's on the ground not dead.

Is he dead?

And he's completely still.

So what the shot is
saying is, he's dead.

Or is he?

No he's not.

I could have gone straight
to him opening his eyes.

But it was more
interesting to do the hand.

So now the whole thing just
escalated to a new level.

We cut to Sarah to show that
she saw the result of him

taking six 12-gauge
rounds at close range

and falling to the ground.

She saw that he's getting up.

Because it's important
later that she saw it.

[GUNFIRE, SCREAMING]

This is a case
where a low angle--

a low wide-angle lens,
an 18 millimeter lens

right on the floor,
makes him seem huge.

Because now you want
to give him the power.

Power has shifted.

Reese had the power for a
moment, but it was ineffective.

Now the Terminator has ascended.

He's that which must be feared.

He's that which is implacable
that can't be stopped.

So you want to make him big
and powerful at this point.

Here's a shot
that's, you know, I

could have done this on a
different choice of lenses.

This is actually a
relatively short lens

very close to the weapon.

And I found this out
when I was storyboarding,

when I was photographing
my friend Bill Wisher

and having him stick shotguns
out of my car in the--

out in the-- out
at the city dump,

that if I got a long
lens, I saw a small gun

in the actor's hand relative
to the size of their face.

If I moved in on a wider
lens, I saw a big gun

that was right in front of me.

It was scarier.

So the instrument of
death became as important

as the Terminator.

And he sort of
becomes one with it.

And it's because the wide
lenses seem to enhance

the power of the shot.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Everything you do, every
decision you make, every lens

choice you make, everything
that you ask an actor to do all

adds up to a total
effect of a film.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

The moment in aliens
when Ripley's running

through the station and
everything's blowing up

and it's on fire and she runs
through a kind of wall of steam

and she finds herself in a
room, a big chamber surrounded

by alien eggs and looking at
the egg laying creature itself,

seeing its giant egg sack,
seeing the creature itself,

and everything goes very quiet.

And you're in this kind of
a dream within the greater

dream of the movie, this kind
of very dream-like out of body

kind of moment where
everything's in slow motion,

and it gets very quiet.

Even though you know the
explosions are going off

and all sorts of
stuff, you're suddenly

in this subjective reality.

That came from a dream where
I went into a dark room,

I walked to the center of the
room, and I looked around.

And as my eyes adjusted
to the darkness,

I realized that
every square inch

of the walls and the ceiling
were covered by wasps,

and I knew I couldn't make it to
the door before they got to me.

So I just froze.

And I don't remember what
happened next doesn't matter,

but the point is that
idea of suddenly realizing

you're in an extremely
threatening space

and the only thing you can do
is freeze and think your way out

of it was the nucleus of an idea
that then got turned into what

ultimately became the first
encounter with the alien queen

in the egg chamber,
which stylistically

is an interesting
scene, because I

wanted to capture that feeling.

Know what it is
that you're feeling,

that you want the
audience to feel, and then

start talking to people
and figuring it out

and experimenting
around and figuring out

how to convey that
feeling to your audience.

All right so we're jumping
way forward in the film now.

There at the atmosphere
processing station.

Everything's blowing up.

So it's very loud.

I

Mean, we're literally
spinning the needle

in the sound design in the mix.

We're in the red.

Explosions are happening,
and she's running.

We're mixing very subjective
handheld moving shots

with fire, with explosions.

Were blowing cork
chunks from air mortars,

and we're blasting
her with shots

from CO2 fire extinguishers.

And we've got fire
gel burning, and we're

shaking the camera
to suggest that it's

a kinetic, very frenzied
kind of sequence.

We're on a fairly
long lens here.

It's hand-held,
fairly long lens.

I can't tell you right now.

I don't remember.

It might be a 50 or 60 mil.

We're handholding it, and we're
walking backwards with her.

So it's very shaky.

We feel that sense of the
energy of the whole place coming

apart.

Sound design has been
very loud and concussive

and lots of camera shake.

And it all fades away, and
the only thing that's left

is this kind of droning
sound and the breath.

Now the whole place is still
shaking and blowing up,

but we've just gone into an
altered state of awareness.

And the speed ramp--

we used to call it a speed trap.

Now you do it as a digital post
effect to change the speed.

So we've gone from 24
to 48 frames a second.

So we're in slow motion.

We're in an extreme
close-up on Sigourney

that she's walked
into, and she's looking

around seeing something.

She's seeing it before.

We're seeing it.

So it's the same thing in
the audience's interest.

They're leaning forward.

What is it that she's seeing.

What has stopped her?

She's been running
as fast as you can.

If you're running with the
little girl to get out,

we know that seconds count.

We know the whole place
is going to blow up.

What she's doing doesn't
seem to make any sense.

So there's a strange
nightmarish quality to it.

It's that same
nightmarish quality as

in the nightclub in terminator.

The slow motion is
telling you something,

and it puts you into an
altered state of awareness.

And the sound design is
doing the same thing.

All the explosions
have gone away.

All the steam blasts and fire
effects and deep subwoofer

shape, it's all
gone away, and it's

gone very clear and very thin.

And the only thing you
hear is your breathing.

So something is going on.

What has she seen?

Shit balls.

100 alien eggs and
she's standing right

in the middle of them.

So it's a nightmarish--

it's a nightmarish image.

It's, kind of, her
worst nightmare.

So now so we have the
wide shot, the wide reveal

shot with all the eggs.

And this is like all the eggs
we could afford to build.

If we could do it now
digitally same scene,

it would go on there.

There'd be more eggs.

We'd do a digital extension.

We'd build 10 eggs,
and we'd digitally

extend it with another
couple of hundred

to really hammer the point.

But it plays, and I think
that's a good lesson.

If you can't afford to do a
digital extension of 100 eggs,

make as many as you can,
and it'll still work.

The concept will still work.

So now we just hear
this very echoey kind

of drone and her breathing as
her eyes slowly track around,

and again we're
still in slow motion.

I want you to feel the
anticipatory whatever it is.

It's a joyful experience to
feel strange, anxious emotions

in a movie.

That's what you paid for.

That's what you came here for.

So if you're giving the
audience what they came for,

you extend it.

You stay in that state.

So she doesn't see it yet.

She still hasn't seen it.

Now we're really milking it.

She's turning.

We're still in slow motion.

What are we hearing?

The little pilot light
of her flamethrower,

and that strange machine like
droning that tells you she's

deep in the heart
of the station,

but it sort of
reminds us that we're

deep in the heart
of this insect hive.

She still hasn't seen it, but
she knows it's behind her.

And it's that feeling in a
dream in a nightmare where

you don't want to turn
and you don't want to turn

and you don't want to turn, but
you know you're going to turn.

And the audience plays
the game, and they

know the language of this.

They know it's there.

They know it's there behind her.

So we're even milking
the turn farther.

Now I've punched in, and the
moment where I see her eye

see it is going
to be the payoff,

but we've built to it with,
I think, six shots already.

So I'm focused on her far eye.

When you're on a
lens this long, you

have to pick which
eye's in focus.

And sometimes it's a question
of some debate with the camera

operator.

You got to pick an eye.

Well, we picked that eye,
because we could see it better.

This one's hidden in darkness.

We're not interested
in Newt here.

We're following Sigourney.

So Newt even though she's
right there in the shot,

she's out of focus.

We're following Ripley.

Ripley is about to
meet her nightmare.

So the shot ends when
she has seen something.

We're going to cut to it.

Now we may expect to cut to
something that we recognize,

an alien, but that's not
what we're giving you.

What we're giving you
is something mysterious.

It's the thing that's laying the
eggs, so now that's progress.

Now we're seeing where
the eggs come from.

Her eyes go up,
follow it around.

We see the eggs inside it.

We see it glistening.

We see it moving.

It's a biological thing.

It's not like anything
we've seen before.

We're curious.

We're afraid.

It's still got a
nightmarish quality,

but we're getting there.

We're coming toward
the answer, and we're

several shots into the
sequence of this reveal now.

We're about to reveal
the thing itself.

She keeps looking.

It's mysterious.

It's alien.

It's enigmatic, and it's big.

What this shot tells you,
because we jump back over

her is it's big.

Whatever it is it's big,
and it's mysterious.

I can't even tell
what I'm looking at.

Maybe it's bones.

Maybe it's an insect.

Probably alive, and
yes it's moving.

So now it's going to reveal
itself not only to her

but obviously to us.

And the teeth extend, and
yes it's definitely an alien,

but it's not like anything
we've seen before.

And we immediately go from
that reveal to the reveal

that there's not just one, but
there's a whole army of them.

Ripley immediately knows
that for Newt to survive,

she has to survive.

She has to get out
of here somehow.

And she's surrounded
by alien warriors,

and they're faster than she is.

And they're far more
powerful than she is.

So she's not going to
fight the warriors.

She's going to negotiate
with the alien queen,

and that's exactly
what she does.

So she sees the threat.

She's surrounded by the type
of alien we've seen before.

The setting down of Newt is the
gunslinger pushing their cloak

open to reveal their sixth gun.

She's going to fight.

Or is she?

Now we're in the
queen's perspective.

Now we're seeing the little
human in the egg chamber

from the Queen's
perspective, and she

does something we don't expect.

She opens fire on the eggs,
and the queen's response

is instantaneous.

And the audience
understands what it means.

Ripley's going to burn the eggs.

She hasn't done it
yet, but she can.

She's found the
queen's weakness,

and she points the
gun at the eggs.

There's not a line of
dialogue in the whole scene,

and you see by the gesture
that the puppeteers were

able to create-- now remember,
this is all practical effects.

This is not CG.

You could do it
with CG, and there's

no reason not to or you can
do it with practical effects

like we did here.

And there's a place for--

place for both.

The way the alien queen
lowers its head tells you

that it's intelligent enough to
understand, and she's resolute.

The way Sigourney played
it was that's right.

That's right.

I mean business.

Do we have a deal?

An the alien queen
looks one way,

and Ripley follows and
that warrior backs off.

She looks the other
way and hisses.

She tells the other
warrior to back off.

It's all in gesture.

And Ripley says, OK, I'm
going to take this equipoise,

and I'm going to use it.

And I'm going to get
the hell out of here.

And again, we milk it.

We fetishize the moment.

We make it palpable by doing
an insert of the feet walking

through the slimy roots of
the egg, so that we feel it.

We feel what she's feeling.

We're with her.

We hear what she hears.

We see what she sees.

We feel what she feels,
so we're there with her.

Our hearts are pounding, and
she knows that this truth

isn't going to last.

And then an egg opens.

Now does the queen control
the eggs and when they hatch.

Is to queen is about to
unleash 100 face huggers?

She doesn't trust that the
truce is going to last,

so she says fuck it.

And then it's on.

So from this moment,
because in the queen's mind

Ripley broke the truce it
becomes a revenge story.

It's revenge for her burning--

for Ripley burning her babies.

And what's the
principle at work here?

It's not to two men going at
it to see who is most macho.

It's two women
protecting their children

with the fury of the
protective mother,

and so the conceit here was
it's a different motivation.

It's a different motivation
for a heroic action character

and in this case
Sigourney's character.

It's a different
motivation for a monster

than you've seen before, because
I don't believe in villains.

I believe everybody's got a
reason for doing what they do.

So what was the alien queen's
reason for relentlessly

hunting her down?

This was-- this became a
personal story at this point,

and I think a lot of the
power of it came from that.

So you have to
understand it's not

like I knew going in
exactly every beat of how

this came out.

It was an exploration.

I did a lot of coverage on this.

I tried some things.

I didn't know it was going to
work, trying to speed ramp,

trying this slow motion thing.

I wanted to do something.

I had a goal,
which was to create

that subjective kind of out
of body dreamlike nightmarish

experience.

I didn't exactly know
how to go about it.

I experimented,
talked to the DP.

We figured some stuff
out, and it evolved.

And where it really kicked
up to the next level

was in the sound
design in the mix,

and I remember
right now it was one

of the most satisfying
experiences I've ever

had on a mixing stage
was mixing this scene.

And when we finished it, we
all looked at each other,

and we knew it we'd
done something,

because we had fulfilled the
promise of that nightmare.

[CREEPY MUSIC]

NARRATOR: So here's a
scene from "Aliens."

And they've gone into
the colony base that's

on the planet where we
know from the first film

that the aliens have existed.

And they've already seen
face huggers in jars.

So Ripley is already
very nervous.

And they've gone in, the whole
base seems to be deserted.

There's evidence of violence,
evidence of weapons being used,

but there are no people.

We've been in a kind of
anxious, suspenseful state.

We've come in, we've
been very subjective,

we've searched the place.

We keep expecting
something to jump out,

keep expecting something
to jump out but it doesn't.

And now we're going to win
things a little tighter.

And this is a long game.

We've been building and building
and building for a long time

here.

So how do we signal
to the audience

that there is an escalation
or there's a swerve,

something new is happening?

Our character gets a signal.

They've got these trackers.

They've been walking around
the base with these trackers.

Nothing's shown up.

All of a sudden
there's movement.

We got something here.

He says we got something,
something moving.

Where is it?

Behind us.

One of us?

MAN: Hey [INAUDIBLE].

Where are your people?

You're 20 minutes
into a long game

kind of suspenseful
sequence at this point.

And now it's going
to come to a head.

MAN (ON RADIO): Uh,
that's a negative.

We're rolling operations.

It's all up to me, Frosty.

Just keep moving, baby.

NARRATOR: He moves forward with
his gun, which is basically

just a steadicam on.

But I made the
assumption at the time,

and this was in 1985, that the
steadicam was a tool that we

used behind the scenes.

But it wasn't well known.

So we just basically
took a steadicam

and dressed it up with a big
machine gun sitting on it.

And it was Hell to operate
because it was really heavy.

But the two actors that had
carry it did a great job.

Okay, so we're in
a tracking shot.

The lighting is very low key.

We've got some sense of
source lighting here.

And we've got source lighting
coming from their lights.

So it feels very, very dim
and dark and suspenseful.

These are just basic
ways of selling

that you're in sort of a haunted
house, the spooky environment,

as opposed to the brightly
lit kind of sterile lab

that it could have been.

I mean, it's a lab.

It's a medical space, could
have been brightly lit.

But it isn't.

So the power is failing.

There is the suggestion that
violence has happened and could

happen again in a split second.

Now we don't know
how jumpy Ripley is,

so I did a little thing here
where he brushes the microscope

arm, or whatever
it is, and there

was this carefully balanced
flask sitting here.

And Sigourney jumps.

And it puts you subjectively
in her character for a moment.

It's not meant to make
the audience jump,

because they see it in progress.

It's different
than a jump scare.

In a jump scare the
audience doesn't know

what's going to happen next.

And something
moves very quickly.

And there might
be a music sting.

And we jump.

This case is not us jumping,
this is her jumping.

And it's to externalize
her mental state, which

is hair trigger.

She's trying to
process rationally,

she's trying to be the
rational person that she

imagines herself to be,
but her heart's pounding.

Because she's the only one there
that's encountered this species

before.

So she's more keyed up
than everybody else is.

They should be more
scared than they are.

They're just treating it
as professional soldiers,

military guys
doing what they do.

So he's looking at the screen.

He says it's straight in front
of us so we're going to move,

we're going to go
in that direction.

Because of course that's what
you do in a horror movie.

You're going to go toward the
danger because of their hubris.

So thematically, that was a
theme throughout the film.

These guys thought
they were undefeatable.

They had the big guns.

They were against a non
intelligent species that

had no weaponry whatsoever.

What's to worry about?

And it was always
in my mind writing

this, kind of a metaphor
for the Vietnam War,

where the big stomping
superpower was going

to go into the little
backward developing country

where all they had was a
bunch of hand-me-down AK 47s

and they were running through
the jungle in bare feet.

And we were going to go
in with our helicopters

and our missiles and our
defoliants and our B52s.

And we were going to bomb
them into the Stone Age

and we were going to
win in six months.

Cut to 10 years later, and the
US is pulling out of Vietnam

with its tail between its legs.

And that was 10 years
before this movie was made.

The fall of Saigon was in 1975.

So it was recent
history, it was something

that I was paying attention to.

And it was resonating into
a science fiction film that

took place on another planet.

We never specifically say
that these guys are Americans.

In fact, you can
imagine that they are.

Or do we?

Wait a minute.

Does he have an- oh, sorry.

I take it back.

There are a few extra
stars in the number

of states because
presumably, America

is a colonial superpower
in this imagined future.

But we never say it
in dialogue, they're

just the colonial Marines.

And at the time, I didn't really
know any Marines personally.

I didn't know their ethos.

Later on in my life, my younger
brother would join the Marines,

serve for six years.

And I learned a whole new
appreciation and respect

for the US Marine Corps.

And I actually wouldn't
make this movie this way

now, because of what I
know about the US Marines.

But every filmmaker evolved.

They learn, they observe
life, and sometimes

their opinions on things change.

So this is all classic suspense.

So we have the moment where
you're at the door, the corner.

The pieing of the
room, as they say

in a police show or
something like that,

where you sweep the space.

Now we've just gone
into a subjective shot.

We don't quite know why
we're in a subjective shot.

But the camera's moving.

Why is the camera moving?

Is it something hiding?

This foreground object is meant
to suggest that there's a place

to conceal, and we're looking
out from behind concealment.

It's totally subconscious.

It's not meant to be
a conscious statement.

It's a subconscious statement.

The camera just came to life.

So these guys are
moving forward.

The sound design, the
chirp of the tracker,

it's getting louder.

And it's getting faster.

It's an increasing tension
through sound design.

We want to milk out that state.

We want the audience to be
on the edge of their seats.

So here in the graphic,
is it moving toward us

or are we moving toward it?

But again, the
underpinning to this scene

is the presumption going
in that this is an alien.

And that presumption
is fed at least,

I would say, 50% by our
knowledge of the prior film.

So this is a sequel
intentionally

resonating with the film
that came before it.

Intentionally and I
think successfully.

Not overly so, but
definitely that's a factor.

So now we've just
gone subjective again.

We're handheld from behind
the Marine, Hicks, moving up.

So we're with them.

We're moving with them.

We're on their journey
just for that moment,

which is the point of the shot.

To be there and to see that
there's nothing ahead of them.

They can't see
anything ahead of them.

But here is this foreground
thing, the shadowy foreground

thing.

And they're not looking at it.

The camera's moving
ever so slightly.

And then something shadowy
breaks across the frame.

Sudden lunge and a
sudden music sting.

Classic.

Classic music sting.

And Drake, this was a tough one
from an editorial standpoint.

Drake, our smart gun
operator, opens fire.

But Hicks, with lightning quick
reflexes, deflects his weapon.

A little hard to see, and if
I'd had a little more money

or maybe I'd seen the dailies,
if I was looking at a monitor,

I'd say, I don't see his gun.

I don't see Hicks hit Drake.

I probably would
have gone again.

But this was in the day of film.

So you waited the
next day and then

there was no time to go back.

But the audience still gets it.

Because two shots
later, you see Hicks

having blocked Drake's gun.

You're seeing the questions
being answered after the fact

but that's okay.

That's okay.

So there's an interim shot of
the rounds hitting the wall.

And we see the destructive
power of the smart gun.

And then we see that Hicks
has deflected his weapon.

And Drake's pissed off about it.

Because he would
have made the shot

if Hick's hadn't done that.

But Hicks has clearly
seen something

to stop him from shooting.

And then he does
something strange.

Ripley.

NARRATOR: He calls to Ripley.

So now you know
it's not an alien.

But what is it?

So now you've just toggled
out of suspense mode.

The suspense has
been alleviated.

It's now dropped to zero.

Now you're into curiosity.

It's been replaced by
curiosity different emotion.

Different
physiological response.

Now you're leaning forward.

What is it that Hicks has seen?

We're not telling you.

We saw something, but we
don't know what it is.

And we're not going to answer
the question right away.

Now she's seeing something.

And we can tell
by her expression

that it's interesting.

But we don't know what it is.

Holy shit.

Now to me this is the
right order of information.

You see the character
see something.

And it's clearly
there in her face.

Unmistakable.

I'm looking, I'm looking,
and I see something.

Sigourney was not looking at
Carrie Henn, who played Newt.

She was probably looking
at a dot on the wall

and creating that in her mind.

If she had felt that she
needed Carrie to be there,

we might have had Carrie there.

I don't remember.

But it depends on
the individual actor.

But she might have been
reacting to nothing.

And this is what she sees.

And so now we have the reveal.

We've just introduced
a character.

Now as the film was written,
we've already met her.

And there was a whole sort of
eight minute sequence with her

when she was not the unkempt
little savage animal.

My intention there
was to draw a contrast

to see her before and after.

As the film was finally
cut and released,

we took out all of reel
two and basically threw it

in the trash.

And so we didn't see Newt.

This is now her
introduction shot.

So this was an
unplanned introduction

that works very well.

But I think it's critical to
understand that every shot is

always doing something.

The audience is learning.

And once the audience
jumps hip to the fact

that the film is
teaching you things

you need to know
further on in the film,

you'll continue
to pay attention.

You start to play the game.

The art of low-budget
filmmaking is the art of being

thoroughly prepared and
maximizing what you have.

And your preparation is at every
level of design storyboarding,

technical scouting,
selecting your locations,

trying to get the most bang
for the buck out of a location,

versus having to build a set.

You'll sacrifice some control.

You'll sacrifice
some design elements

that you might have if you'd
had the budget to build

a million dollar set.

But it's okay.

The essence of the story
will come through regardless.

And you're going to select
a crew for their ability

to move fast and
take no prisoners,

but still generate
images of high quality

that are punching
above their weight,

so that the film that you
end up with looks great,

and you don't see and
feel the compromises

that you know you've made.

You're not going to
have a movie star, which

can be a blessing in the
sense that it forces you

as a filmmaker to
earn the audience's

interest in that character.

So I think it builds craft.

And maybe you have to make two
or three films at a more modest

budget to prove--

to prove yourself, and
to learn the craft,

and to prove that the craft
that you have learned to,

you know, the powers
that be, that sign--

that sign the checks.

Pick a subject that can be done
within the budget constraints

that you have.

And let me give you an example
from my own experience.

When I was breaking in,
I made "The Terminator."

That was my first
directing credit.

And I knew when I
was writing it that I

had to write it for a budget.

So I knew I was going to
be on location, so I wasn't

going to be able to build sets.

Now, the difference between
building a set of a castle

and going to a castle or a
large building or large mansion

and using the location is
a difference in control.

You can knock out a wall.

You can go back
on a longer lens.

You can stylistically do things
in a set that you cannot do

on a location.

Does the audience care?

Probably not that much.

You might not win
an Academy Award

for cinematography or design
because of the limitations,

but you'll still make
a damn good film.

So it's a question
of, when are you

getting diminishing returns for
where you're spending money?

And so with "The
Terminator," the idea

there was to be very everyday,
very commonplace, not exotic,

for a specific reason, then
drop the exotic element into it.

And that was really a motif
throughout "The Terminator"

films, for the most part.

Certainly, the first
film was about,

this is everyday Los Angeles.

This is a restaurant.

This is a nightclub.

This is a city street.

And the extraordinary
elements came into it

from the future, Kyle
Reese, and the terminator.

And even then, they
were forced to deal

with contemporary elements in
terms of weaponry, and so on.

And that was done by design
for a very simple reason.

We couldn't afford
anything else.

That script was
carefully written

to be something
that was affordable.

Because I knew I was coming in
as an entry level filmmaker.

I knew that I was
going to have to pick

my battles with the
visual effects in a very

controlled way, so that it was
manageable within the budget.

So we'd do a few
prosthetic effects.

We saved up all our big guns for
the end, where the endoskeleton

is revealed by the fire.

We had a few prosthetic
gags along the way,

and we had a couple of future
sequences that could be bigger

or could be smaller, that
the film didn't hinge on,

where I could do some
of the effects work

that I had learned how to do.

Because I asked myself, what do
I bring to this specific story

other than that I created it?

Well, I know
tactical filmmaking.

I know visual effects.

I've done a bit of action
second-unit direction.

With an early project, you want
to come in with something that

speaks to the strengths that
you've already developed,

or it better be the best
damn screenplay in history.

It's really more
important, I would say,

than the technical understanding
of the art of photography

and lighting, is to have that
communication with the director

of photography.

If you're working with
someone you've never

worked with before,
spend a lot of time

with that person looking at
films and saying what you like

and what you see and
what's important.

And ask the director of
photography, how do I do that?

How will we do that?

How will we get that--

that sort of highly
directional soft cross light

coming in through the window?

How can we get that?

How can we get that richness of
tone based on your experience?

How have you done
that in the past?

And what will that
involve for me technically

during the shooting day?

And if I want to
change my angle--

let's say I'm going to
go outside the window,

and the person
comes to the window,

how does that not
suddenly look very flat?

Because I'm literally-- I've
got the lights right behind me

at that point.

Well, how will we cheat that?

How will we manage
window reflections?

How will we shoot in cars?

How will we do all these things?

So get that dialogue going
as early as possible.

When I made "Terminator,"
I hired Adam Greenberg.

And I sat down with him, and
we watched two films together.

One was "Blade Runner," and
one was "The Road Warrior,"

so "Mad Max 2."

And we watched both those films.

And I said, I want both of
those films put into a blender.

And he said, but they're
completely different.

I said, exactly, exactly.

How do we create a common
ground between those two films,

the kinetic, moving camera,
wide lenses, hauling ass before

and following cars, very
dynamic, but at the same time,

that moody, sort of almost
noir, film noir quality,

German expressionist
quality-- strong shadows,

deep blacks, hard
edge lights, where

you need very precise lighting
control to get that effect?

I said, we need to figure
out how to do that.

And we talked about it a lot.

And we even went out and
drove around the town

with a light meter to find out
what streets were bright enough

that we could shoot essentially
natural light at night

or available light at night.

Because we wouldn't
have to bring

in condors and lights and
things that we couldn't afford.

So we just found
mercury vapor lights

on streets that were brighter.

And a good tip there is
car lots, used car lots

or new car lots.

They always have bright lights.

In every city, there's a row
of, like, car dealerships.

Just shoot on that street,
because everything's all

lit up.

And you won't need
any additional lights.

Of course, these
days, the cameras

are much more sensitive.

But we were shooting on
negative at the time.

So you know, we had to--
we had to find a way

to shoot without
a lot of lights.

And Adam said, we're going
to be shooting wide open.

We'll be shooting at
F1.4 on prime lenses.

So you know, I had
schooled myself

on the nature of lenses
and photography enough

by that point to understand
I won't have a zoom lens.

So if I need to change lenses,
that's going to take us time.

I have to factor that
into my shooting day.

And you know, I
wanted a Steadicam.

We couldn't afford a Steadicam.

So the DP made a rig
with some speed rail

tubing to drop the
camera down into it,

like a Steadicam
low-mode type position.

And he just kind of wore it with
some straps over his shoulder.

And he happened to
be an extremely good

handheld operator.

So he created, essentially,
low-mode Steadicam shots,

and we just did it that way.

And so you know,
you have to use--

you have to use every trick in
the book and invent new ones.

The whole film was
shot in about 42 days.

And when I got it done, when I
got that body of shooting done,

there were still
some shots I needed.

So I snuck back out
with five people

and shot for a
week, five people.

And I operated
the camera myself.

I lit it myself.

I did all that.

So you have to be prepared
to accomplish your goal

in ingenious ways and know
where it's okay to compromise

and where it isn't.

And rehearse the crap
out of it ahead of time.

Because rehearsals are cheap
or free, and they pay off.

And have very, very
good communication

with your director
of photography,

so that you know
exactly how you're

going to shoot everything.

And be prepared with a plan
B and a plan C, in case

it's raining, or there's
something else that

stands in your way on the day.

Because at that kind
of budget, you're

not going to be able
to get to go back.

And you know, I go on for
hours about all the cheap house

tricks that we used on
"Terminator" to tell that--

to tell that story.

But the important
thing is to serve--

is to serve the story.

Find a way to serve the
story and give it some style.

If I were shooting a very
low-budget film right now,

and I need to get a
lot of setups a day,

I would have a game
plan for every day

of shooting that involved
the nature of the lighting.

Because you lose a lot
of time to lighting.

And it's technical.

It's understanding it's
going to take time to move.

If you've designed the
scene in such a way

that you have a big lighting
change, that lighting change is

going to take time, you know.

Typically, people call
it turning around.

You've shot the scene
in this direction,

and the same lighting
can't be used.

If you bring the camera
around to do your 180

reverses or your reverse
over the shoulders,

it's going to look flat.

It's going to look horrible.

And the lighting has
to be all cheated

so that that reverse actually
looks pleasing to the eye.

I remember once, just to
prove the point to myself,

after I had made "Titanic" and
done these big films, "Titanic"

and "True Lies" and
films like that,

I did the last
episode of a series

that I was producing
called "Dark Angel."

And just to prove
that I could do it,

I did 117 setups in one day.

And I did it in
the following way.

I said, you will not
bring a C stand or a flag

or a sandbag or any lighting
instrument into the set.

We will light the set
from across the street

with four 10k Xenons, and I will
move every shot to the light.

We won't move the
lights to the shot.

And it was a big kind of
suspense action fight scene.

It was 117 setups in one day.

I shot it all handheld.

It was myself and
another operator.

We kept the crew out
of the workspace.

We had the stunt
people standing by

to pop in for the actors
at a moment's notice

within the fight choreography.

We had all our multiple takes
of our effects breaking glass

and breakaway wood
doors, and things like

that, all set up in advance.

I never did a second
take of the same gag.

But I did have five takes of the
gag ready of somebody getting

thrown through a window.

We threw them
through one window,

and then we threw them
through the next window,

and we threw them
through the window.

And I made sure that it
would all cut together.

So there are tricks like
that that you can do.

And it was a little bit of
a competition with Robert

Rodriguez, because I
think he had done, like,

105 setups or something in
one day on one of his films.

And Robert, of course, has
written much and done much

to disseminate his ideas
for how you do low budget.

So the point is it
can be done, and it

can be done with relatively
low level of compromise.

JAMES CAMERON: Arnold
Schwarzenegger sucked up

a whole bunch of our budget.

What we had left to make
the movie wasn't a lot.

It was around-- around, as
I said, around $4 million

for a-- for a pretty ambitious
film of a lot of big action

sequences.

And, as anybody knows,
night street photography

can be expensive, big action
sequences are expensive,

big stunts are expensive.

Visual effects, creating a
future world is expensive,

and doing prosthetic
makeup can be expensive.

But, you know, I
also knew that it

could be done on a
shoestring because I'd

worked for Roger
Corman for a few years

and we'd done all that stuff.

So, once again, the
key was preparation.

So clearly these
storyboards were

drawn in that-- in
that six-month interval

after I knew I had Arnold
and I had time to plan.

So this is clearly--

Arnold has been-- his
likeness has been incorporated

into the storyboards.

So he enters the room.

He's a shadowy figure.

He turns on the light.

We see the effect of
Reese's firing back at him

and the car chase and
the crash and everything.

His eye has been smashed,
it's swollen shut.

We're starting to realize that
he's partially biological,

that he's a cyborg.

And-- but we don't know exactly
why he's-- we don't know yet

why he's bulletproof.

We don't know he has this--

we don't know that he has
this endoskeleton inside him.

We just know that he seems
to be kind of bulletproof,

but we don't know why.

And we're being led
to believe that he's

a biological organism.

He's bleeding, he's
swollen, and so on.

So it's-- in a funny way,
it's kind of a misdirect.

So he sits down,
he looks at a place

where his arm was hit by
Reese's 12-gauge shotgun.

And he's prepared
himself in advance

in case he needs repairs.

He reaches over, picks
up an X-Acto knife,

and it begins to
cut his wrist open.

And then I even took the liberty
of working with my friend

Stan Winston to figure out
how we were going to do it,

because we wanted to see
his hand moving, we wanted

to see the actuators, the
hydraulic actuators moving

in his forearm.

And so we came up with
the idea that he would--

he would hide his real arm.

He would have a false
arm, and there'd

be a puppeteer underneath
the table coming up

through a hole in the desk.

His hand was inside a sort of
glove that continued this way.

It was actually quite
a clever solution.

I incorporated that
into the storyboards.

That's how Stan and I decided
that we were going to do it.

So he cuts his
wrist, and then he--

you know, we see him--
we see him working.

We don't see what he's doing,
we don't see the surgery step

by step.

He puts down the X-Acto knife.

A little bit of blood on it.

And then we see
the result of it.

Now I had elected that he
basically kind of flayed open

all of the skin of his
forearm and we all--

we see the mechanism underneath.

And this was meant
to be the big reveal.

He's a cyborg.

He's a machine with some
kind of fleshy outer coating.

When we actually
did the scene, we

wound up with it being a
more contained surgical site,

and I don't remember
the reason for that.

Maybe they just decided
it was easier to do

or maybe we were
a little concerned

about our-- the graphicness
of that for the rating.

So now let's take a
quick look at the scene.

Let's see where the
storyboard led us.

So I'll go back to the
beginning storyboard here.

All right.

So we've got the character
coming in a window.

The character appears, throwing
their shadow on a window.

For a lighting effect, we
went with a Venetian blind

so that we could get that kind
of German expressionistic kind

of feeling with the shadows
thrown by a Venetian blind.

There's a fire escape ladder
here, fire escape ladder here.

Different orientation, but
it's the same visual cue.

We're in a higher
level of the building.

He's coming in the
back way, so we

didn't have to go through the
lobby and up the elevator.

He's come up the fire escape.

There's some kind of
neon sign outside.

It sort of tells us
we're still urban

and we're in some flophouse
that's on-- on an upper level.

We can tell it's
kind of a flophouse

because it's-- it's decorated
in a very crude way.

He walks in as a silhouette.

We don't see much.

And he puts on the light,
and we go to the close-up.

Light bulb is in frame.

This is tracking very
closely to the storyboard.

Here's the storyboard.

Light bulb's in frame.

Naked light.

And we see his injuries.

And that's very
much what we shot.

So we had a very clear
intention with the scene.

We knew beat by beat
what we were doing.

So stylistically we're
right in the zone,

we knew what we were doing
because we drew it up.

It starts with the art.

And so these-- these drawings
are not only storyboards,

but they're also, in a sense,
design drawings or style guide.

So go to the next-- next series.

He reveals the injury and
he starts to do the surgery.

And that's literally
the next cut.

So here, he sits down, and the
reason we decided to do this

was to show the audience
that there wasn't a hole here

with a puppeteer underneath--
to implant subconsciously

in the audience's mind that
it is just a normal table.

He puts his hand on the table.

He reveals the wound.

And then he reaches
for the X-Acto knife.

And I knew that that
was a critical cutting

piece that we needed.

That's this shot.

So this was just a, you
know, 100-millimeter macro

shot that we did deep
in post-production.

I probably-- I probably
did this shot for 20 bucks.

Shot it myself, you know?

I didn't waste
time on my inserts

when I was shooting with
Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I picked my battles.

And I knew that I could
pick up all kinds of stuff

later down and
dirty on the cheap

just by renting a camera
and a couple of lights,

and I think we--

I think we shot this on
my desk at my apartment.

But, knowing that you
have that cut, now

in the next shot we see, geez,
it looks the same, right?

Except it's not.

We've gone to this other setup.

We've gone to this setup.

And now you could
use and blend it.

He could put his
hand down and then

you could literally blend to
the-- the other practical gag

and it would be seamless.

But who cares?

It worked.

So he starts to
cut that same arm

that you think is Arnold's
arm that he just set down.

Now he's-- now he's
hogging into it.

We cut to Arnold.

There's a known cutaway
that was known ahead

of time, planned ahead of time.

He sets the knife down.

That's this shot.

There's Arnold working,
there's the knife going down,

and then we're going to reveal
what it is he's been doing.

And he reaches in with
a pair of forceps.

Again, using inserts to create
tension and a sense of detail.

And he's opened
up his arm and we

see the actuators
moving inside the arm

and we actually
even punch in on it.

But the key to it was to hold
in this tilt down where we're

coming off his face
down, down his arm.

We have no reason to think
it's not Arnold's arm,

and we see it moving,
and through the hole,

we can glimpse the actuator.

So how'd they do that?

I mean, you've got to
remember, this is 1984.

So I think anybody that studies
a sequence can kind of see

how it's done now,
but the point is,

that with a little planning,
a little ingenuity,

working with the right
people and Stan Winston--

he was just coming
up at the time,

he became one of the top
world-class prosthetics

and makeup effects
designers, you figure it out.

You figure it out ahead
of time, you draw it up,

and if it works in a drawing,
it's going to work on film.

Because film is also
about image replacement

and image retention.

So seeing Arnold put his arm
down and then cutting back

to a very similar angle where
it's not his arm, it's now--

it's now your effects gag,
creates the impression that

it's still his arm, and when
you cut it open, you're--

Arnold's cutting his arm open.

So once again, the emphasis
here is on-- is on planning.

When we go to the next
sequence where he operates

on his eye, very similar thing.

The payoff is the moment where
he sticks the exact knife

into his eye.

Well clearly we're not having
Arnold Schwarzenegger stick

an X-Acto knife into his eye.

So this is what we came up with.

That we'd have a
puppet head that

was actuated by a puppeteer's
hand inside the head.

And there'd be one
person who was pretending

to be Arnold's right arm and
a completely other person

was pretending to be
Arnold's left arm.

And as memory serves, I
think Arnold was actually

one of the people.

So we actually got his real
hand on-- on one of them.

And so once again,
the frame is--

it's what's outside of the
frame you're not processing--

you're not able to process.

You're only given what's
inside that frame.

So here he is cutting
into his eyeball,

and this is the puppet head.

And here's-- here's one person's
hand and here's the other

person's hand.

And you can see that they--

they map very well to
each other in terms of--

of how the shot was done.

And you're led to
believe that it's Arnold,

or at least you're not quite
sure of how it's being done.

And then here, he's
just faking it.

If you look very carefully, if
I were to stop it on a frame--

and this is just kind of
looking behind the scene,

there's no blade in
that X-Acto knife.

We're not going to
have Arnold screw

around with an X-Acto
knife up next to his eye.

Safety was more important
than us being seen.

And there was no digital way
to put the blade in back then.

Now, you could have
him poke himself

in the face with a-- with
a bladeless X-Acto knife

and put the blade
in later and even

see it come out of
his skin or whatever,

it'd be very easy to do.

In those days I
just took the chance

that people wouldn't see it.

And they don't see it.

Because they see
what they expect

to see, up to a certain
point, unless you really

play fast and loose.

There's even one shot earlier
in the sequence that's even more

blatant, and it's this one.

He literally is just
raising an X-Acto knife

that has no blade in it.

But we want there
to be a blade there.

And I don't remember anybody
raising a fuss about it

at the time.

Now, of course, with
internet trolls,

it'll be all over the
place within 24 hours.

Aha, those idiots.

But at the time, there
was a willing suspension

of disbelief, because effects
were cruder back in that day.

And as-- the farther you go
back, the cruder they were.

The willing suspension
of disbelief was greater.

Now, the willing
suspension of disbelief

is not as great, so you've
got to be even better.

But the good news is, the
effects techniques are better

and they're cheaper.

So you meet-- you
meet the demand.

It's a constant dance.

But, you know, just
full disclosure,

there's no blade in
the X-Acto knife,

and it's right there in
front of God and everybody,

and people want to see
that there's a blade there,

and so they do.

So once again, a
very low-budget film

that was trying very, very
hard to punch above its weight.

And when I see it today, you
know, it more or less holds up.

There's a lot of little
cringey moments, you know?

But I think it did
manage to punch

above its weight for
its-- for its time period.

And that's what you
always want to aspire to,

I think, as a filmmaker
working on a low budget.

Try to look like more
than what you had.

JAMES CAMERON:
Generally speaking,

a lot of visual effects
works against you

for a lot of reasons.

It can be numbing.

You can kind of debase the
value of a given effect

by having too many of them.

They can blow your budget.

It's better to have a
few memorable set pieces.

From a writing standpoint,
I sort of treat it

as a standalone thing.

I'll figure out where it's going
to start, what the kickoff is.

You know, what the kind of
opening bell of the set piece

is and where the resolution is.

I'll figure out where my--

my out point is.

And then I'll work within that
so that it's not too long,

it-- it stays focused
and it stays of a piece.

And, I mean, I think there's--

just like there's an
art to scene writing,

I think there's an art
to creating a set piece.

It's kind of a
film within a film,

and it kind of has
its own-- own rules,

and it's got a beginning,
a middle, and an end,

some kind of resolution.

That end may or may
coincide with an act break

or it may not.

But, you know, a
suspense sequence

or a scene, a dramatic
scene in a film

might be a four or
five-page dialogue

scene that's done in
some stylized way,

maybe without any cuts.

Maybe some circulating Steadicam
shot that moves sinuously

through some dramatic moment.

That would be a-- that
would be a set piece.

So then you have to pick
your battles carefully.

What's the narrative
purpose of the set piece?

So to use the example
from "Terminator"

of the first future
flashback, it was actually

just to build character.

For Michael Biehn's character.

It was to show his
traumatic world

and why he was basically a
walking, physically-scarred,

and mentally-scarred example of
post-traumatic stress syndrome.

He was the living embodiment
in the present day

of how bad that future was and
why you needed to prevent it

from occurring, right?

So it had a powerful
narrative and character

purpose in that
film, but it was also

just stuff I wanted to see.

And that's another thing.

Is there are a lot of kind
of rules and advisories

about why you put
things in movies, and--

and they all have to serve a
purpose, except they don't.

Sometimes it should
just be something

you want to see as a filmmaker.

And sometimes the
only way to see it

is to make it and show it.

And I remember having
this discussion

with one of the heads
of 20th Century Fox

when "Avatar" was almost done
and they were complaining

about the flying scenes.

Why does this flying
scene go on so long?

And you've-- you've
already proved the point.

It doesn't advance
the narrative,

it doesn't advance
the character.

I said, you're right
on every count,

you've ticked every box like
a good studio executive.

But guess what?

I want to see it.

And I extrapolate from
that, and Stanley Kubrick

was a firm proponent
of this principle.

If I want to see it,
my cognitive leap

is, there are going to be lots
of people that want to see it.

I want to see it for itself,
not for its purpose, right?

Because there is a purpose to
the things you want to see.

The purpose is to be
present, to be in that world,

to be enjoying what's
happening, to sustain a feeling.

So those flying scenes actually
did have a big purpose.

That's when Jake and
Neytiri fell in love.

And I got into a big fight
with the studio over that.

And I'd like to say fortunately
I prevailed, because I

love those flying scenes.

They're great.

But life is a whole lot
easier if you can actually

dig deep and examine why
you've made a decision

or why you have that instinct.

Because it's going to cost
somebody else a bunch of money

to follow up on that instinct.

And so the more
you can share it,

the more you can
inspire others with it

and why that choice makes sense,
the better life is going to be.

Set pieces often are good
candidates for previs.

Chances are, you're not
going to have a budget

to previs the entire
picture, nor do you need to.

You should only have to
previs the things that

are extraordinary
and require really

tight, interdepartmental
planning well before the fact.

So in terms of the previs
process, you've got to--

you can't just
start storyboarding

until you know what
things are going

to look like, because what
are you going to draw?

Is the character wearing a
trench coat or a loincloth,

you know?

So you have to do some
design before you can even

start storyboarding,
otherwise you're

just going to do
stick figures, which

isn't going to tell anybody
anything, yourself included.

So I say start the
design process,

start to evolve the storyboards.

Now some people work
with storyboards

and some people work
more with previs tools.

You can use a-- a suite of--

of keyframe previs.

You can do a little
animation pieces.

Put a blank face,
but at least it

gives you the-- the
dynamics and the framing.

And you start to think
about composition,

you start to think
about cutting.

And now you'll-- you'll
essentially do some kind

of a pre-cut of the scene
with your-- with your previs.

It doesn't mean you're
bound to shoot it that way.

You're always going to be open
to inspiration of the moment,

but it's a good
jumping-off place

so people know how
much you have to build,

what does the director expect
here in terms of the action?

How long am I going
to be on something?

How much detail do we need?

What kind of action are we going
to try to do/ How are we going

to move the camera?

How are we going to
support the camera?

Is it on a crane, is
it on a Steadicam,

is it being handheld?

You know, it starts to
trigger a thousand questions.

And a good team around
you will start to hit--

hit you with those
questions, you know?

The DP's going to want to know,
are we on a wide lens style

or are we on a
longer lens style?

Are we on a backlight
style or are

we on a diffused light style?

What's the style, you know?

Because there's a
thousand different ways

to light a scene, there's
a thousand different ways

to shoot a scene.

Presumably the filmmaker, if
they don't come in with a style

initially, they're
going to have to find

one that suits the piece,
that suits the story.

That's-- that's a
critical part of it.

And when those questions
start to get answered,

then you can start
saying, okay, I

need this shot, this
shot, and this shot.

Just from my own experience,
a good example of a set piece

that was done on a film that
was made on a very low budget

is Reese's flashback of the
future, of the traumatic future

that he comes from in the
first act of "The Terminator."

And I say the first act because
Reese hasn't met Sarah yet

and he hasn't met--

he hasn't met the
Terminator yet.

So this is all sort of
in the character setup,

and I wanted to see this
future soldier in his world,

and I wanted to go into it
through his fatigue-induced

dream state and come out
of it where he's shocked

and disoriented and back in
our present, which is his--

his past.

I knew it was going to
involve visual effects models,

you know, miniatures,
miniature explosions,

and some full-sized
live action elements

that were done in a-- in a
set of some-- some ruins,

some post-nuclear
holocaust ruins.

So I thought, I'd a
better draw this up.

So I approach it in a
very disciplined fashion.

I got my roommate to put on
some kind of military uniform.

I went and bought some guns.

We went-- we went out
in a field someplace,

and I took pictures of him
in all the different poses

that I wanted.

And I also did that for the car
chases as well, which I also--

also storyboarded.

Had him, you know,
hanging out the window,

I wanted to be able to
see what kind of positions

you could get into with the
weapons, what kind of lenses

I wanted to be on.

Did I want to be on telephoto
lenses or close lenses?

Wanted to make the guns
look big, so shorter--

shorter lenses.

And start to think, well,
how am I going to shoot this?

How can I get the
Insert car there?

So I started going
through the whole--

whole exercise.

I got my long-suffering
roommate to basically play

every character in the
film except for Sarah.

I think he played
Sarah a couple times.

And then I brought it all back.

I printed up all the photos.

This is back in the
days of photochemistry.

So I had a bunch of
prints all over my desk,

and I just started
drawing it all up.

JAMES CAMERON: What we have here
is the entire first future war

sequence storyboarded
from end to end.

So what I was thinking
is, we take the movie

and look for the commonality.

So here in the
storyboard, I imagine

that Reese kind of
lays his head down

on the side of the car
door and goes to sleep,

and then this is a dream, as
opposed to what we wound up

doing in the film, which
is that he's waiting--

sitting, waiting in the car.

And he looks over and sees
the construction vehicle.

We do this kind of instant
transition to the future,

but we don't know we're
in the future yet.

But we are.

We're now on a--

the vehicle that has
treads in the future,

it's called a hunter-killer,
and we tilt down,

there are a bunch of
skulls on the ground.

So clearly we've done some
kind of dreamlike transition,

but we haven't seen the
moment where he fell asleep.

And we don't even know
that that's happening yet.

And now or in the future.

So if you look at-- at
the storyboard for that,

it looks like this.

Here's the vehicle
with the treads

near the skulls down below.

Here's a fairly
abstract shot looking up

at the hunter-killer.

And then if you
progress the film,

here's that-- here's that shot.

Now I'm not seeing the
spotlight or the searchlight.

And then we see
Reese in the ruins.

He's established coming up here.

It wound up being a
little bit different,

but, you know, here we establish
Reese in his future world.

You don't have to follow
the storyboards exactly.

So here's the hunter-killer
crushing the skulls,

and here's the hunter-killer
crushing the skull.

So there are certain
images that survived

through the process and certain
ones that were either winnowed

out and we wound up not doing.

For example, the
way I imagined it

is that it's all very
abstract at first,

and we see Reese
introduced by his legs

running as he's getting
shot at by this machine,

and we think he's
gotten killed, but he's

hiding behind a column.

I wound up not shooting that.

I don't remember exactly
why at this point.

Maybe because we
didn't have time,

maybe I felt it just
wasn't necessary.

But where we get into a
similarity to the sequence

again is him taking cover.

Ah.

So here, we introduce this
young female resistance fighter,

and then that moment is here.

Now you can see that the
camera wound up reversed.

Probably just simply because
of the way the set laid out,

you know?

And where the key light was.

And me not having the time--

and it really didn't matter.

And so Reese signals
to her, and this

is him signaling to her here.

And then they run together.

He signals and they run.

But first they
crawl, then they run.

So I think the fact the
idea of him crawling

through the wreckage
is actually indicated

in the next storyboard
while we see the--

the hunter-killer
in the background.

So it was all fairly well
thought out ahead of time,

but the important thing
about storyboards is

they're-- they're not--

they're not an
absolute blueprint,

they're a departure point.

And what you shoot in the moment
is what becomes the final film.

So you can see that the
idea of seeing the-- seeing

the hunter-killer up
through the wreckage as it

towers over them, I
believe that-- that concept

was retained.

Ah, there it is.

So maybe-- maybe
in the cutting we

decided it was better to put
that shot a little bit later,

but you can see, there's
a fairly close correlation

between a concept,
which is that there's

some post-nuclear holocaust
wreckage in the foreground

and this big chrome
machine with these lights,

and it's kind of Reese's POV
as the little rat running

through the maze and
seeing it up above,

and that's more or less
what you have right here.

So this was very useful
to the miniature unit

when they were trying
to build on this.

So they knew they had to
build a model big enough

that they could put a foreground
piece and it would hold focus.

So they wound up building
quite tall models.

I think it was almost four
feet tall of the hunter-killer.

So they get a lot of
information from these.

And then we see Reese take
shelter behind something.

Now they're running
through open space here.

That's accounted for here.

So we get the same idea.

So again, this is just
an idea for a shot.

This is the execution of
it, but what's locked in?

The edgy lighting,
the spotlights,

the emphasis on the kind
of blue night light,

the cold feeling of it.

The bright magnesium-like
explosions on the ground.

So those ideas were already
embedded in the-- and these are

sort of a combination of
storyboards and design

drawings, really, because
they're-- they're giving a lot

of information to
the model unit.

There's a big shot where
they cover a lot of ground,

and they run-- they run
across a large area.

So here, you can see little
tiny figures running.

Big machine in the
background and ruins.

And-- and then they
reappear in another plate.

So a plate is a live element.

Sometimes the background
element, sometimes it's

a foreground element.

In this case it's a foreground
element of our characters.

In this case, there are
actually two plates.

There's one over here before
they go behind the car and one

over here after they come
out from behind the car.

And then there's
another big plate

in the background that's of
the-- of the miniature, right?

And then some optical lasers
are put across the foreground.

And you can see that
that concept exists

in the storyboard and
it's in the description

of the storyboard here,
that that's one plate.

The car is the breakpoint,
and that's another plate.

So the other thing
that I think it's

important to remember
about "The Terminator"

is that it was done at a time
when we didn't have CG at all.

So we were using
tools like miniatures,

front screen projection,
rear screen projection.

So this is a cheap,
low-budget, but high epic--

you know, attempting to
be epic on a low budget

and doing it with
rear projection.

So literally, this
was a rear projection,

this was a rear projection, and
that was a rear projection, all

on a big miniature set.

And that's how that was done.

To me, the power of
rear screen projection

was that you could
hand-hold the camera,

and you could even
zoom in or move around

and made it feel
very subjective.

It didn't suddenly have
to become a lock-off,

because a lot of visual
effects suffered from,

all of a sudden you knew you
were watching a visual effects

shot because the camera
locked off so that they

could composite in things.

It was all very crude.

And nowadays it's not a problem.

You just shoot--
shoot it handheld

if you want a blue
screen shot, and you just

make sure you've got
your tracking dots around

and then they can
extract that camera move

and apply the same camera
move to the background.

So you're in a car,
and you're supposed

to be driving down the freeway.

There's nothing outside the
window but a blue screen.

And the camera operator sitting
in the right seat-- well,

I say this in New Zealand here,
they'd be sitting in the left

side--

shooting-- shooting
the actor driving.

And the camera's
kind of shaky and you

pan over and look out the
window and you come back.

And there's nothing
there but blue.

But it's relatively
easy to add a background

plate of what's outside that--

outside that window these days.

It's-- it's not a big deal.

I wound up with six
months to sketch out

all of the key scenes and to
really refine all the designs

and be ready.

And when I got to shoot that
film, every second counted.

We had 42 days, and a
lot of them were nights.

And even on a guerilla
filmmaking schedule,

I'm working 14-hour days,
it was a lot of material

to shoot in that amount of time.

But I was ready.

I knew what to shoot.

I knew every shot that I needed.

And I was just a machine.

Just going from shot to
shot to shot, you know?

It's critically important
to know your film

before you shoot your film.

And everything
starts with the art.

Spend a good part
of your time just

looking at how things really
are with an artist's eye,

like you're going
to try to paint it.

Like Vermeer.

You know.

There were thousands of years
of painters before Vermeer,

and Vermeer suddenly
figured-- he looked at light

the way it came in a window
and the way it lit a scene

or lit a figure of a woman
standing at a counter.

And all of a sudden he
saw what that light did.

How bright the
source was, the fact

that you didn't see
the source, you just

saw the effect of the source,
how it bounced around,

how it lit her, how
it lit the wall, how

the bounce from
the wall lit her.

And all of a sudden he was
able to do something nobody

had ever done before, which
is paint light the way

it really worked.

And he just did it
with the wetware.

He didn't have any software,
he didn't have any computers,

he didn't even have a camera.

It didn't exist yet.

But he saw how light worked.

So, I happened to be an artist.

Great.

A lot of-- some-- some
other directors are artists.

Ridley Scott's a
good sketch artist,

Guillermo Del Toro is a
very accomplished artist.

Great.

If you're not an
artist, study art.

Learn to draw on a
very rudimentary way,

and I don't care if
it's balloon heads

with smiley faces on them.

Learn to draw so that
you force yourself

with a pencil and paper
to think compositionally.

Do I want the character
in the middle of the frame

or do I want them on the
left side of the frame,

leaving the rest of the frame
open in a cinemascope aspect

ratio like Sergio
Leone used to do?

What style am I going to do?

What's my compositional style?

So that you can have
that conversation.

First with yourself, then with
your director of photography,

and then subsequent to that,
in the moment on the set.

I like this, I don't like
that, pan more right.

Study art so you
understand perspective,

so you understand
light, so you understand

these ideas of what's
going on in that frame.

Because figurative art, painting
has all been about the frame.

What's in and what's not.

And filmmaking is all
about what's in the frame

and what isn't in the frame,
and what you need in the frame,

and what you can safely
exclude from the frame

and get by inference.

You don't have to see the
sun to know it's there,

it's coming in the window.

That's an extreme example.

You don't have to see the
other characters to know

they're still in the room
when you cut to a close-up.

But what's in the frame
and why is it in the frame?

And that's a question that I
ask myself a hundred times a day

when I'm composing a shot.

To this day.

There's nothing automatic
about any of it.

All of those decisions
are fresh decisions

and they have to be
made every single day.

So study art.

Study photography.

Still photography.

Black and white photography.

Understand light,
understand how it works.

Those are great--
those are great basics.

Before you ever pick up a motion
camera, study perspective.

Study aerial perspective.

What makes things look far away?

So the most important thing
as a filmmaker in general

is your power of observation.

What you learn about
people by observing them.

And participating with them.

But there's a part of your
mind that's always observing.

Even interactions where
you're directly involved, even

in a heated argument or
in a torrid love affair

or whatever it is, there's
a part of your mind

that's a video camera that's
recording and making notes.

Because ultimately you're going
to have to create something

in a highly artificial
environment surrounded

by lights and people
like we are right now,

looking through
cameras, and you're

going to have to create
a bit of reality that

is credible to an audience.

And it's especially
true in visual effects.

You have to understand
how light works.

You have to understand what
things really look like.

Now that's if you're trying to
make a realistic visual effect.

Some-- some people aren't
interested in reality,

they might be going for some--

some kind of heightened
or stylized look, or maybe

it's a Pixar animated
film and the characters

don't really exist and
everything is kind of

heightened or stylized.

That's great, but know the rules
before you break the rules.

And these days with--

with visual effects,
with the quality

that's available
right now, there's

nothing that can't
look 100% real.

It's not-- it's not
about the tools,

and not about how
expensive the tools are.

It's about how good the
power of observation

is of the people
manipulating the tools.

And obviously that
buck finally stops

on the desk of the director,
because the director's

got to approve the shot or not.

And it's going to cost you a
ton of money if you literally

say,it doesn't look
real, try it again.

And any filmmaker
should feel comfortable

being able to do that.

And then you have control.

It's safer.

You can control the lighting.

It can always be exactly
the right time of day

with the sun in exactly
the right position.

But you have to be
very-- you have to be

observant of the natural world.

The key to visual
effects, I believe,

the one great fundamental is
observe reality carefully.

If you don't effects but you
want to do an effects film

and you want to do
it on a low budget,

get really chummy with some
aspiring visual effects

people that have been noodling
around with this stuff,

maybe doing it--

maybe doing it at a
boutique effects house

where they've actually been
hands-on and done shots,

maybe working on
their own with apps

like After Effects
and things like

that where you can do
relatively simple composites.

Tracking-- tracking software
is readily available

now so that you
can track images.

You can do composite work.

You could even set up your
own facility if you wanted to.

You could probably
put five or six seats

in of Maya and Nuke
and things like that

and just be able to do basics.

So you've got a network.

You've got to have
like-minded colleagues.

You have to build your
little revolutionary army.

You don't just
spend all your time

knocking on doors trying to
have lunch with people that

are way above you
in the food chain,

you're wasting your time.

You've got to work
at a peer level.

There's no sort of inside
knowledge that so--

that's a magic
bullet that's going

to leap you up three levels
in the film industry.

You have to work your way
up through those levels

and you have to do it
by learning the craft.

So it's a chicken
and egg problem.

Who's going to give
you the budget?

Well, probably nobody.

So you have to figure
out how to do it

for basically almost
nothing and build

the skill set that is scalable
once you do get a little money.

You've already done it.

You've already done
examples of it.

I'd already done,
working for someone else,

working for Roger Corman
on super low-budget science

fiction films, I'd done examples
of all the types of shots

that I had in mind
for "Terminator."

So I was taking what I
knew, I was meticulously

planning how it was
going to be done,

and-- and what that allowed
the-- the-- the effects

people to do was to budget
very close to the bone.

Because normally,
visual effects budgets,

they have to pad them up
because they don't know

what the director really wants.

And that lack of precision
translates to additional costs,

like a lot.

They'll put in a
big fudge factor.

It might be 30%, it might be
40%, because they don't know.

But here, they could literally
budget almost to the dollar

how much it was
going to cost them

to do these shots because I
had been so precise in my--

my previs.

And that's what allowed us
to do the film for basically

$4 million below the line.

So I felt I was
presenting a package

to a low-budget producer
that was actually

attractive and made sense.

There was logic behind every
decision that was made.

There was logic to shoot the
vast majority of the film

on the streets of LA
with available light,

and to only dip our toe into
the exotic environment that

required the visual
effects sparingly.

Pick our battles.

It's absolutely critical in
any film to have a character

that you're willing to
go on the journey with.

And people use the term a
fully-realized character.

But I think it's important
to understand that film

is a very stylized art form.

It it's not capable of the kind
of novelistic detail of a 600

or 1,000-page novel.

So you're never going
to know everything

about that character.

You have to fill in
the blanks with bits

and pieces of your own life,
and those of your friends,

and so on.

So how do you do all that?

Well, you have to find
little, universal things

that you can relate
to from one's life,

as an audience member,
and have the character do

something or do things
that you recognize.

You can set huge
challenges for yourself

if it's a nonverbal character.

And you're putting
so much on the actor

to express with their
eyes, with their face,

with their yearning
expression, or whatever it is.

But every character is a
creation that exists between

the screenplay-- the
imagined character--

which is still out of focus,
we don't apply a face yet,

and then the director's
imagination of what

that can be on the screen.

And then the actor fills in the
final and, ultimately, the most

important piece, what does
this person look like?

How do they move?

How do they speak?

So a character is really
never more than a sketch.

But it has to be a
very compelling sketch.

Giving an average person, a
relatable, average person,

an enormous problem
and seeing how

they solve that problem
or process that problem

is a good way to get buy-in.

You basically want the audience
to buy into the narrative.

And they usually buy
into the narrative

through the characters.

It's key in the way that
you introduce a character

to understand where they are
in their life, what they're

feeling, and what
their problem is.

Any character that you're going
to follow has got a problem.

And that problem needs to
be declared fairly early on.

Sometimes you can do it
in the very first scene.

And then the whole movie should
ultimately be about somehow

that problem gets addressed,
gets resolved, or at least

we understand that
it's the thing that

drove that character into
whatever situation evolves.

And the problem may
escalate as well.

But I do believe in the kind
of principle of character

is destiny.

That character winds up in a
situation of their own creation

in some way.

And it's somehow related to
them solving their problem,

whatever their problem might be.

It might be that
nobody sees them,

that they're kind of invisible
to the people around them,

that they haven't
found who they are

yet or a way of expressing it.

It may be that they don't have
love, or that they've lost love

and are now incapable
of opening themselves

to a new relationship.

Whatever the
character's problem is,

you need to define it early on.

And you need to do it in
an interesting way where

the audience can
sympathize because we

have this capacity for
empathy and for understanding

other people.

It's innate to who we
are as human beings.

So you introduce a character.

And then we somehow
relate to that character.

Even if that character
is Frankenstein's monster

and the story is told from the
perspective of the monster,

we must somehow find a
way, a sense of empathy.

The film must create that in us,
an interest in that character.

I think it's about
expressing something

that the audience can relate to
and you care about the outcome.

Or at the very least,
you care about seeing

what this person
is going to do next

and what they're what's
around the corner for them.

In the case of "The
Terminator," the initial idea

was that there was an
entity sent from the future

to kill somebody in the past
whose life had great meaning.

I pretty quickly went
to a female character

whose son, in the future, will
become a great sort of prophet,

so basically a kind of
Virgin Mary character,

because that's an archetype
that we all get quite quickly.

And she was, in the biblical
story, of very humble origins,

basically a kind of a peasant.

Her husband was a
tradesman, a carpenter.

So I said, all right, a
waitress, a very common job,

a very dismissible person.

I wanted the most dismissable
person you could imagine.

It could have been a secretary.

It could have been a
waitress, somebody like that.

It like, they
couldn't possibly be

an important,
earth-shaking existence.

And I thought that's
good because that's

how most people feel.

Most people going
to a movie theater

are not presidents, or
heads of major corporations,

or big, important people.

They're average people.

And they could,
I thought, invest

in the idea of an average person
who is suddenly snatched out

of their daily
existence and finds out

that their life has great
meaning in another framework,

in another frame of reference,
which the film supplies.

And all of a sudden, not only
is she fighting for her life,

but she's fighting for the
future of the entire world.

She becomes the most
important person

in the world for a
moment in history.

So now I'm telling the story
from a female perspective.

So now I have to draw
upon all the women

that I've ever known
in my life and/or read

about in anything from comic
books, to novels, to the news.

Now, it just so happens that
just before I wrote that,

I was married to a
Bob's Big Boy waitress.

So I went, Bob's Big
Boy waitress, perfect.

Write what you know.

So I basically wrote my
first wife, which was plucky,

a lot of humor, kind of
cynical, but likable.

And so, boom, there's
your character.

Now put that character in an
extraordinary circumstance.

And I think what
I would advise is

that people be kind of authentic
to their own life experience,

but not to the extent that
you're literally just telling

your own life story.

I happen to enjoy writing
female characters.

That's controversial now.

There are people
that say, oh, well,

female characters and films
about female characters

should be directed
by women and they

should be written by women.

It's like, okay,
so I can only write

paunchy, middle-aged
Canadian white guys?

I don't think that's
how art works.

The whole point of acting, the
whole point of storytelling,

I think, is to live
outside yourself.

But you have to do it
with some connection

to your own personal experience.

You have to make it personal.

But that shouldn't prevent you
from writing a character that

is not like you.

How am I going to introduce
my main characters?

And how am I going to
do that in a way that

is the quintessence
of that character?

What is the quintessence
of that character?

And how can I encapsulate
that in a kind

of almost a synecdoche.

A synecdoche is-- if
I get this right--

it's like if you
call somebody a suit.

You're using the
suit as a stand-in

for an entire
description of them

as a corporate
executive or whatever.

It's basically taking a
person or reducing them

to a single object or principle.

But you want a kind of creative
synecdoche of your character

when that character's
introduced.

So I think that there are
interesting ways to do that.

Colonel Quaritch in "Avatar,"
he was a military guy.

He was very formal.

And he was in a position
of command and authority.

And he was introduced with the
image of his military boots

on a steel floor.

We hear the creak
of the leather.

We hear his voice.

He was a very verbal character
and he carried a lot of power

in his voice.

We see his pistol.

We see his broad shoulders.

We see the back of his
tightly-clipped Marine Corps

haircut.

And we think we
know who the guy is.

And then he turns to us and
he's got these massive scars.

And he delivers a
line on that turn.

Wants to kill you and
eat your eyes for jujubes.

I was reasonably pleased
with that as a as a character

introduction because,
once again, he

was reduced to that synecdoche
of his greater character.

He was also a character that
didn't exist in shades of gray,

kind of to a fault. He was,
what you see is what you get.

And there wasn't a lot of
nuance to his character.

There was just a lot
of flourish in creating

that relatively simplistic
character, which

is another way to go.

I use the Darth Vader example.

Darth Vader didn't
have a lot of shades

of gray in the first movie.

But there was some
subtlety that was

brought into it later,
obviously, which

was interesting then.

But he was kind of archetypal.

And that was okay
because it was just

do the archetype really, really
well and in a new creative way.

You also look
forward to the moment

where that main character
meets that main character.

So that moment of introduction
is also very important.

So when you went to
Titanic, and you probably

knew from the poster,
at least, that there

was going to be a girl
and going to be a guy.

And if you knew more about
the film, that there was Rose,

and there was Jack, and
Leonardo, and Kate Winslet.

Well, how are they
going to meet?

Are they going to meet cute?

Which is the sort of classic
screenwriter term for,

do they get in a car crash,
and have a big argument,

and then realize they
actually like each other?

And there are infinite
number of variations of that.

And people generally look
forward to that moment

when the characters collide.

In "Terminator" it was
interesting, structurally,

because it was
the end of act one

was the three main
characters meeting.

And they met in a violent
life-or-death confrontation.

But we had been following them
as individual story streams

for an entire act, and literally
just jumping back and forth

between three plot lines,
and watching these plot lines

slowly converging to a
point in space and time

where everything exploded.

[SHOTGUN BLASTING]

And that turned out to be a
powerful storytelling method.

There's a stylistic
cinematic relish

in how you introduce
Character A and Character B.

And then you look forward
to the inevitable moment

where Character A meets
Character B, interacts

with Character B. And then
you, I think, as a filmmaker,

as a screenwriter, you
have fun with that.

And as actors, you
have fun with that.

And typically, where the
characters are going to wind up

is not where they are initially.

There's the classic sort of,
you get two characters together

that you know are going
to be together later

and you create conflict.

And there's an art to
that because the audience

can smell that a mile away if
that conflict feels forced,

like the screenwriter
really needed them to fight.

So put a lot of
obstacles in their path.

And if it doesn't
feel authentic and it

doesn't feel natural
to the situation,

it feels overblown, the audience
goes, yeah, predictable,

I knew that.

If you're doing a character
from a certain period,

a historical period or a
certain specific situation

that you're dramatizing,
do your research.

Learn everything you
can about that world.

And if it was a real
person, learn everything

you can about that person.

Ask yourself what
was really going on.

Because we can't even
get the facts right

in a news story about something
that happened the day before.

And different outlets
will argue with each other

over what actually
happened and what it means.

Now imagine history
as a distillation

of a little bit of coming down
to us of, basically, a bunch

of news stories from back then.

How much can we trust that?

So as you go into history--
and I found this on "Titanic"--

you have to ask yourself
questions about like,

what was really happening?

Who was really doing
what to who here?

So you got to do your research.

You got to understand
the character,

if it was a real historical
person, really understand them.

If it's a made-up person in
a real historical setting,

what would the forces be
at work on that character?

What would expectations
of them be?

How is this character unique?

What makes this
character interesting?

It's relatively
easy, in a sense,

to write outstanding women
outside of the present time

because they were always
misunderstood and dismissed.

And audiences hate
it when they're

investing in a character and
that character is dismissed,

or misunderstood, or
judged harshly, or not

seen for how great they are.

So these are all techniques
for getting your character

to be interesting.

Ultimately, what's important
is that your characters

come to life in your mind.

And then they're going to
come to life again when

you cast the film.

How you imagine
that character is

going to find its final
expression through a living,

breathing human being who has
a look, has a physiognomy,

and has a skill set.

And they are going to
change that character.

The key to it is to get
the actor to a safe place

where they can explore and
they can feel empowered to go

as far as they feel like going.

Maybe later in the
cutting room, you

say that might be a
little bit too much.

Or maybe on the set, your
own instinct kicks in

and you say, you know,
maybe let's try muting that.

And let me feel that that crazy
energy is going on in your mind

but there's something
holding you back

from saying it quite that way.

And let's feel that tension.

I mean, after a
while I think one

learns to speak a language
that actors can hear.

Because I think the most
sacred part of the job,

ultimately, is to help the
actor achieve their best work.

I like to have done rehearsal so
that we can talk through ideas,

not lock them in,
but stand them up.

Try it, workshop.

But I think of it more as sort
of work-shopping the script.

And often I'll find the
dialogue shakes out.

Because I'll say,
all right, just

forget about the written word.

Forget about the page.

Just improv the scene.

This was very
helpful in "Titanic"

because some of the
language was a bit stilted

because it was of its period.

And I wanted these
two young actors

to get a sense for,
well, just play

the scene the way you'd play
it now in your current idiom,

the way you would speak.

And so they just played it
as themselves, essentially.

I mean, the sort of halfway
between the character

was the character,
but interpreted

through contemporary language.

And some interesting
ideas came out of that.

An interesting dynamic
came out of it.

I said, all right,
I'm going to go off

and I'm going to
rewrite the scene.

And I'm going to put it
into the idiom of the time.

But it'll be these ideas.

It'll be these things that
we discovered in rehearsal.

I mean, a really good
example that I think really

added value to a particular
scene in "Titanic,"

we were rehearsing the scene
where Cal, her fiancee,

grabs her arm and tries to
drag her aboard the lifeboat,

tries to control her, not
listen to her, as usual.

And the way I had
written it, she

pulls a hatpin out of her hair
and sticks him in the arm,

forcing him to release her.

And she runs away
into the crowd.

But then we were
talking about the hatpin

and Kate said, well, why
don't I just spit in his face?

And it was so brilliant.

I don't even think she
realized how great it

was because it was a callback
to a previous scene, the scene

in the film where Jack--

Leonardo's character-- teaches
her how to spit like a man.

So it was a perfect
closure of the ellipse.

It was something Jack
taught her how to do.

And she used it in
that moment to break,

to end the relationship, or at
least she thought so, with Cal.

Where are you going?

What, to him?

To be a whore to a gutter rat?

I'd rather be his
whore than your wife.

No.

I said no.

WOMAN: Rose, please stop.

It was perfect.

It was like it was like a
moment a writer would go aha,

this is great.

I've solved the problem.

And she solved it.

So that's how we did it.

Now, poor Billy Zane
didn't particularly

like having a big old loogie
shot into his face 50 times.

By the time we were done
shooting that scene,

he was well over the idea.

But I think it turned
out to be a nice moment.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

JAMES CAMERON: The first
moments of a character

should somehow resonate with
the entire rest of the film.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

So we talked about
character introductions

and a few different ones.

I love stylistically interesting
cinematic introductions

of main characters
or main adversaries.

So here's one that
I'll use as an example.

This is in "Titanic."

And let's say we'll
start with this shot.

It was a big crowd getting
ready to board the ship

and say goodbye
to the people that

are already boarding the ship.

And so a thousand extras,
and the camera's coming down,

and we're coming on to
a small group of people.

And then we see
this little girl.

And meanwhile, we
hear a horn honking.

And she turns and looks.

And here comes this beautiful,
glittering, otherworldly car.

And then the doors open,
and we see a figure.

A hand comes out, and
then a foot comes out,

and then a hat comes out.

And then the hat wipe reveals
Kate Winslet's face as Rose.

And then we hear her
first line of dialogue.

KATE WINSLET (AS ROSE): I don't
see what all the fuss is about.

It doesn't look any bigger
than the Mauretania.

Which is very sort
of blase and diva-like.

(STUFFY ACCENT) "It
doesn't look that big."

You know?

Kind of dismissive.

And she sort of
immediately sort of

declares herself as a bit
sort of posh and above it all.

But we also get to see her
entire ensemble, which is

beautifully pulled together--

Edwardian day coat
and her gorgeous hat.

So she's kind of defined
very, very, very quickly.

But the cinematically
interesting thing

is the first thing we
see of Rose is her car.

And we see it from
the perspective

of a little girl who's a
steerage class passenger.

And to her, it's like a fantasy.

What she sees is the fantasy.

She sees the princess.

I've gone from the wide shot
with literally, I don't know,

it might have been 1,200,
it might be 1,500 extras

that were on call that day.

And we built this huge set.

And we come down with the
crane, across the entire crowd.

Everybody's waving.

And then we introduce
little Cora.

Daddy, it's a ship.

And just a relatively
inconsequential line from her.

It's not important.

But she creates a
subjective point of view.

And then here comes the car.

The car honks.

It's clearing a path.

And now we see it from
Cora's perspective,

the beautiful, golden
glittering chariot.

And not just one car, but a
fleet of cars that show up.

And this is a very
long lens shot.

This is probably a 150
millimeter lens shot.

And it's designed
to stack the frame.

Now a lot of this sequence
was shot with long lenses.

And it's hard to
imagine "Titanic"

as being a low-budget movie.

But if you looked 10
degrees over that way,

or 10 degrees over that way,
it was Baja, California.

We were down in Rosarito Beach.

So we had a piece
of backing that

was supposed to look like
the city of Southampton

at the Southampton docks.

And if I moved off
that backing, I

was looking at scrub
brush and hills.

So not exactly a
low-budget film,

but every film has
its limitations.

Now we're creating
an anticipation.

Somebody's coming.

Who is it?

Somebody-- the
door is being open.

We see a hand come out.

So Rose's introduction is her
hand, her calfskin glove hand.

And her foot delicately comes
out, and her little parasol,

and her hat.

Right now, she's a hat,
you know, in the same way

that [INAUDIBLE] you know,
the [INAUDIBLE] principle

that the character is
reduced to an object that

represents that character.

It's a highly fashionable hat.

It's a rich girl hat.

It was a very expensive hat.

It was probably a unique
hat from a couture designer

in London.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

And then we meet her.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

And she's absolutely gorgeous.

And I think for the
average audience member,

this is a moment that says,
okay, she's the character.

She's the one I'm
going to follow.

We also have a foreknowledge.

We've seen this character.

We've seen her at the
age of 103 in sort

of the prologue of the film.

And we've been taken back in
time through her narrative.

She's the storyteller.

So what did she look
like when she was 19?

You know.

We've seen her as the old lady.

Now we're going to go back
and see her at this age.

And so there's actually
a few layers playing

at this exact moment,
even before the hat

reveal takes place.

And there's just something quite
elegant about that hat reveal.

And, of course, it was
a fair number of takes

to get the crane move just right
and landing at the right time,

and Kate's timing,
and what she looked

at with kind of interest, and
how she kind of hit that pose.

And so, to me, maybe it's
a little too classic.

Or maybe it's just
classic enough

to set a tone for
this film, which

plays by very classic
rules of cinematography.

It's not an iconoclastic
film in that way.

It's not trying to play by
some very stylized rule set.

It's trying to use classic
cinematic technique

to tell the story.

We cut away to something else.

We cut away to two of the shots.

We introduced Cal,
that's important.

He is, in a way, the
adversary, or one

of the adversaries of the film.

And then we come back.

We come back to
Rose, and she speaks.

It doesn't look any
bigger than the Mauretania.

JAMES CAMERON: And she's
a spoiled little brat.

In a way, almost off-putting.

She's not very nice.

(STUFFY ACCENT) "It's
not that much, is it?"

You know, she's above it all.

Yeah, okay.

She's a spoiled
little rich girl.

I get it.

I know who the character is.

She's not the character
I've already met.

She's not that
103-year-old lady.

All those years that have
intervened have changed her.

And she speaks with
kind of a spirituality

and a deep wisdom in the
scenes that we've already met.

That's not the girl that
we're meeting right here.

So, to me, in just
a few shots, we've

learned a tremendous
amount about the character.

But we also haven't learned the
most important thing about her.

She's that desperately
unhappy, depressed woman

that looks at herself in the
mirror and says to herself--

you can see it in her eyes.

Kate doesn't say it out loud--

what the hell?

I'm in hell.

And then the next
time we see her,

she's running down the deck,
getting ready to climb over

the railing.

She's impetuous.

She's impulsive.

These are things
that are revealed.

So obviously a lot of
time in the writing,

a lot of time in the casting,
and the rehearsal, then

the production design,
the design of the hat.

A lot of things go into the
creating of a character.

But I do think there's
something sacred and important

about the way you
introduce a character.

You could be blase
about some things, Rose,

but not about Titanic.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

I don't really love
the term "villain."

Because I don't
think people ever

think they're villains,
even people that are doing

horrific things, cruel things.

They have their own rationale.

We may not agree with it.

And it may be warped
or delusional.

But they have their
own rationale.

They don't think they're
villains, for the most part.

So I like the term "adversary."

So an adversary can
be nature itself.

It could be the tornado
in "Twister," for example.

But generally, we like
human adversaries.

Because, first of
all, they're more fun.

And we see interesting
interpretations by actors.

So you can go from a relatively
simplistic adversary,

like the Terminator, who
basically is just death.

He's just unstoppable.

He's just very clear.

And you take a
very simple concept

and you execute it in
a disciplined way that

becomes extraordinary, because
of the perfect synchronicity

between the actor,
Arnold, and his character,

and the way that
that was realized,

and the fact that he's
an unstoppable force.

And it's stated by
one of the characters.

It can't be bargained with.

It can't be reasoned with.

It doesn't feel pity,
or remorse, or fear.

And it absolutely
will not stop--

ever-- until you are dead.

JAMES CAMERON:
You've just made him

a very, very simple character.

So that's kind of the
opposite of subtlety.

That's simple in extremity,
which is kind of terrifying.

Because humans are complex,
and there's always the chance

that we could maybe
talk our way out of it,

or we could negotiate,
or we could buy them off,

or something like that.

Not going to work
with the Terminator.

When I got the great opportunity
to direct the sequel to Ridley

Scott's classic film, "Alien,"
where I went for the detail

was the Alien Queen.

The Alien Queen was not
quite so simple a character.

Because there's an
interesting scene

in that film where Ripley does
negotiate with the Alien Queen.

[SNARLING]

JAMES CAMERON: She says,
I've got the flamethrower.

There's a lot of
eggs in this room.

I know you care,
because you're a mother.

So already, that
simple character

was made more complex.

Even though we never heard
the Alien Queen utter

a line of dialogue,
we knew exactly what

she was thinking, which
was interesting and fun.

Who was the villain
in "Titanic?"

The fiancee?

I mean, I think he was
an interesting character.

There were a number of
people who were adversarial

to our main characters.

But really it was fate.

It was circumstance.

It was destiny.

So to say that there was
a "villain" in that film,

I think the villain was death.

[BELL RINGING]

The villain was
the death that you

knew was there from the
beginning from the moment

you bought a ticket to go
see a movie called "Titanic,"

where thousands of people died.

You could say, us against
nature, but it was really--

nature wasn't the enemy.

It was human mismanagement
that created a catastrophe.

So that's a villain in
its own sort of category.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

The introduction
of the adversary

is I think as important
as the introduction

of the protagonist.

We need to invest in
the adversary, as well.

We have to imbue that
adversary with power.

We have to feel that they are
a worthy adversary, that this

is someone who can be very
threatening-- maybe threatening

to everybody, or maybe
just specifically

threatening to our character.

If we don't believe in their
power, their lethality,

or their ability to do
harm to our character,

then we're not
invested in the story.

So we have to spend
time with them.

And I believe that
any character you're

spending time with in a
movie should be interesting.

They should be unique.

They should be different.

They should be quirky.

Or they should be
fascinating in some way.

So Arnold's Terminator character
was introduced essentially

appearing in a ball of
lightning from somewhere else.

Just-- [POP NOISE]
--he's just there.

And he's crouched in this
kind of almost Greek God

sculptural way in a cloud
of smoke, rises out of that,

and all of a sudden
you're interested.

Like who is this guy?

Why is he naked?

And who is he?

What's he do?

And then he walks forward, and
he looks out over the city.

And there's-- to me, even that
shot is an implied threat.

He's about to go out
there into that city

and do something harmful.

You just know right away
he's there to do bad.

And then that question gets
answered within the next minute

or so, where he encounters
these guys hanging out

up at Griffith
Observatory and kills them

all for one simple thing--

Your clothes.

Give them to me.

Now.

JAMES CAMERON: He needed their
clothing so he could blend in.

So he could perform his mission.

So you start to very quickly
declare that he's relentless.

He's mission-focused.

He has-- he kind of stands out.

He doesn't blend in.

So his attempt to basically
kind of camouflage himself

is always going
to be challenged.

I think the more an actor tries
to make a villain "scary,"

the more they fail.

Sometimes it's the absolute
banality of how they talk

and how they express
themselves, and the fact

that they seem real,
they seem to be

a real person makes it scarier.

Because it seems more plausible.

You know?

I think that it's important
to resist the desire

to do Dracula, or Darth
Vader, or the Terminator

unless you're really
confident that you

can sell that in an
extraordinary way that

hasn't been seen before.

I think quirkiness,
nuance, detail, humor--

you create an adversary
that's humorous,

now you're getting
conflicting signals.

Because you innately
like funny people.

But wait a minute?

This guy's a killer.

You make them compelling.

You make them not necessarily
subtle, but detailed

and a little bit against
the simple expectation.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

With the Terminator, I think
you knew what was on his mind.

You even went inside his mind.

We did an interesting
thing there,

which is we literally go inside
the Terminator's processing.

You see what the outside
world looks like to him.

And you see all the
graphic overlays

of the processing
that's going on.

So it's a metaphor for
how his mind works.

He's working from
a visual basis.

He's processing it.

He's identifying targets.

It's sort of printing out what
his analysis of that target is.

And people were
interested in that.

So once again, it's engagement.

It's making the villain
subjective for a moment.

You're briefly in the
Terminator's reality.

You're in the reality of a
machine killer for a moment.

And I think that that's
a very powerful tool.

Put your audience
subjectively in the reality

of the adversary, and the
adversary becomes real.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

In the case of
the Alien Queen, I

was trying to create a character
whose motivation I understood,

but who was terrifying
and very other--

other from us-- and dangerous
and terrifying in a very almost

subconscious way
because of that.

So the Alien Queen, following
on the motifs of the first film,

doesn't have eyes.

She's all mouth.

She has no eyes at all.

And so we think of the eyes
as the window of the soul.

We think of the eyes as being
an incredibly expressive part

of the face.

But the mouth is the way
we communicate verbally.

And so much of our expression,
really more so than the eyes,

is in our mouth.

So the Alien Queen had
an exaggerated mouth.

She even had a mouth within
her mouth that extended out.

So she didn't use
language, at least not

a language we could understand.

Although, presumably,
she had a way

of communicating in
complex symbolic forms

with her other Alien warriors.

Because she basically hisses at
them, and they understand what

she means.

Now when my mother
used to hiss at me,

I understood what she meant.

But I think the implication
was there was probably

some high frequency coded
data in that hiss, and/or, who

knows, a telepathic connection.

Whatever.

But the point is we
couldn't understand what

the Alien Queen was saying.

But it didn't matter.

[SNARLING]

[HISSING]

[NERVOUS EXHALE]

JAMES CAMERON: When the term is
a computer-generated character,

there's the impression
that the computer's

creating the character.

Computer's not
creating anything.

Computer is doing the number
crunching to generate an image.

But character is being
created by the actor.

It's not animation, it's
performance capture.

We've talked about
low-budget filmmaking.

Now we're going to talk
about the opposite end

of the spectrum.

In "Avatar," we were-- it was a
highly experimental production.

So one of the things
that's unique about it

is that we went into it starting
years before the release.

We started in 2005, and the
film came out in late 2009,

not knowing exactly
how we were going

to solve most of the problems.

We had a general idea
of how to do things.

We were pretty
thin on specifics.

And I had actually
written "Avatar" in 1995,

as a challenge to my
digital effects company,

Digital Domain.

And they said, we
can't do it yet.

We don't have the
tools to do the muscle

rigs, and the
facial muscle rigs,

and the eyes, and the hands.

And we can't do it.

It's too much.

It's beyond us right now.

I said, all right,
I'll just put it--

I'll just put it in a
shelf for a few years.

And I waited, and I
waited, and I waited.

And then I was watching
"The Two Towers."

And there's the scene where
Gollum talks to himself.

And he's in two places at once.

And he's having this kind of
schizophrenic, out-of-body

experience.

And it's highly expressive,
highly emotional.

It goes on for several minutes.

And it's 100% CG character.

And I said to
myself, if they can

do that, I can make "Avatar."

And that's what set me down
the path of making the movie.

So I was inspired by the
work of another filmmaker.

I was building on what
Peter Jackson had done

and what WETA Digital
had already done.

So I came in with a whole
new set of challenges

and a new high bar they
had to get through.

And they loved that.

They loved that challenge.

We just studied a lot
of close-ups, really

big close-ups of men and
women and looked at them

in different kinds of lighting
and said, well what do you see?

What do you see about
the way they move?

What do you see about the
way they take the light?

What do you see
about the skin pores?

What do you see about the eye?

You know?

And one of the breakthroughs
was the eye is not dry,

the eye is wet.

That's kind of obvious.

But it also means that the
upper part of the lower eyelid

is actually a wet surface.

And there's a little meniscus of
tear fluid between that eyelid

and between the eyeball.

And it catches the light.

And there's a little glint
there, and it's always there.

But if you're not looking
for it, you'll never see it.

The second we put the meniscus
in, the eye came to life.

I know, it sounds like a
little tiny thing, something

you'd never think about.

But when it's missing,
you sense the lack.

And I always felt that
CG characters fell down

around the movement
of the mouth.

It always felt mask-like.

It always felt sort of too
thin at the corner of the mouth

and not interacting
properly with the teeth.

It didn't feel like those
muscles really exist,

like the dimensionality
of the mouth

and the face really existed.

So we spent literally a couple
of years figuring out how

to do this with WETA Digital.

And WETA Digital did the
heavy lifting on this.

And it was iteration after
iteration after iteration

and coming up with
little things.

So the most critical thing
about all visual effects,

and certainly any kind
of CG character design,

and especially if you're trying
to emulate photo reality,

is to observe.

Observe, observe, observe.

In a nutshell, the
methodology was

that we're going to capture
the performance using

a collection of data.

The idea of motion
capture where we

capture the body movement of
a character had been around--

I used it on "Titanic" for
some of the crowd scenes.

So that had been
around for a while.

It had been around
for at least 10 years.

The idea of how you
were going to capture

the specifics of a
facial performance, which

is where you see the majority
of the emotion in the eyes,

the mouth, all the many,
many muscles in the face.

So it's almost it's
own separate world

from the full body performance.

People that have tried
to do this in the past

tried to do it by using markers
that they put on the face

and capturing the face
the same way they captured

the body, with a bunch of motion
capture cameras and a big array

around it.

But the detail
wasn't fine enough.

They could only work
in very small volumes.

It really limited the action.

It limited how they
were going to-- you

know, the type of action
that they could stage.

And it was very--

I mean you had to literally glue
like 80 little, tiny glass bead

balls onto the actor's face.

It was horrible.

Actors didn't like it.

The end result
wasn't that great.

So we proposed a completely
different solution,

which is to take something that
looked a lot like a boom mic

for a singer in a concert
and put a little tiny video

camera out on the end of
it on a pretty wide lens

and shoot the face, film
the face, or video the face,

while the actor is
doing the scene.

And it's knolled out to them.

It stays with them
wherever they go.

And it's getting a 100%
recording, a close-up

recording, of their performance,
their facial performance.

So now you've got a video data
stream coming out of the face,

and we called that image-based
facial performance capture.

Right?

And that set a trend that's
still in motion to this day.

A lot of other
people have used it.

Different people have
brought different refinements

to the process.

But it hasn't fundamentally
changed since 2005 when

we first launched the concept.

So now you have two data streams
that are recording the actor's

performance.

You're getting the
body performance

off a standard
motion capture system

with a lot of really
tricky bells and whistles

on it to make it better.

And you're getting
the facial performance

from this little camera that's
on this little camera boom.

Here's me with my virtual
camera on "Avatar."

And I'm working with the
actors in their capture suits.

You can see that they
have marker suits.

We're just in a big lit stage.

There's no jungle
there whatsoever.

They're running on a log.

So I think these are
probably more stunt

doubles than anything.

And they're running on a log.

They're just running
basically across the floor.

It's very safe.

And I'm looking--

I'm not looking at
them with the camera,

I'm looking at the
characters that they're

playing in real-time
in the world,

in the CG world all
at low resolution.

It almost looks like an
old, crappy video game

from the '80s.

JAMES CAMERON (ON
VIDEO): (SHOUTING) And 6.

And 7.

And 8.

We're much better at it
these days than we were--

this is all, you know,
obviously 11 years old.

Here's me.

And, once again, I'm
not looking at them.

I'm looking at my image.

But I'm near them, so
I can talk to them.

And I'm seeing what they
look like in the world.

And then here's me playing back.

And what I'm seeing
is they're up

on what we call a vine bridge in
between two floating mountains,

and they're 1,000
feet above the ground.

But, of course,
because the characters

are very mountain goat-like
and can run around

1,000 feet above the
ground, it was okay for them

to not be scared and
balancing and wobbling along.

And it was completely safe.

And so we're creating
a fantasy image

and using relatively
simple setups to do it.

And basically, we found out
that it worked very well.

You could do just
about anything.

You could run, you could
jump, you could ride a horse,

you could have a big argument.

You could even, if
you were careful,

you could drink a beer.

You could do whatever
you needed to do.

The only thing we couldn't
shoot using the system

was a kiss, for obvious reasons.

Because the two booms
would be in the way.

So we had to use a different
kind of harder technique that

was more labor-intensive to
do the kiss scene and a couple

of other moments.

But for the most part
it worked for I'd

say 99% of what we
were trying to shoot.

We had a lot of
proof of concept.

We spent a fair bit of
the studio's money--

the studio being
20th Century Fox--

to prove that we could do it.

And to do that, we did a test.

We did a 1 and 1/2 minute test.

Boy meets girl in the jungle.

And they talk.

He only come
and make problems.

Only.

MAN (AS JAKE): Okay, fine.

Fine.

Fine.

You love your little
forest friends.

So why not just let
them kill my ass?

What's the thinking?

Why save?

MAN (AS JAKE): Yes.

Why save.

You not fear.

You strong heart.

And it was compelling enough
that Fox was willing to pull

the trigger on a $200-plus
million project that then went

somewhat over that budget.

And it was three
years later that we

had the first shot that really
proved that we could do it.

So think about that.

We had our proof of
concept done in 2005.

We got the first shot
that we could actually

use in the movie in 2008.

And everything in between
was a gigantic leap of faith.

And it's easy to look
back on it and say, oh, it

was all a no-brainer.

Come on, that world building,
those great designs,

all that stuff.

Yeah.

That's true.

World building was
a big part of it.

This was the most
important part,

because the audience enters
the film through the eyes

and hearts of the characters.

So we had to have
the characters.

The key for me is, if the
actor did the performance,

we've captured it, it's going
to be in the character later.

If we want to run a
little splitscreen here

where you can see
Zoe Saldana in one

of her big emotional moments in
the film with Sam Worthington.

Emotional moment for him, too.

I trusted you!

Trust me now.

Please.

[SPEAKING IN NA'VI] That is
why you not Na'vi [INAUDIBLE]..

(ANGRILY) You will never
be one of The People!

He tried to stop them--

ZOE SALDANA (AS NEYTIRI):
[SPEAKING IN NA'VI]

Neytiri, please!

Please!

JAMES CAMERON: So
she's freaking out,

and it's the end of
the relationship.

But I think what's
interesting here

is to look at how
closely we were

able to capture her expression.

It's not perfect, because
her character is not exactly

physiologically
identical to her.

Her nose is very different.

Her eyes are very different.

Her forehead's very different.

But her mouth is very similar.

And you can see that the
performance capture technique

captured what she did.

It's an actor-driven process.

Everything that she does,
everything that Sam does,

translates into the character.

And this is what we hope for.

This is what we worked toward.

And, of course, this
is the head rig.

And this facial performance is
being captured by this camera

and by a video feed,
a live video feed,

we broadcast it off the
body to a record deck.

So you can see that he blinks,
his lips are pulled back

in that exact moment
exactly the same way.

It maps through frame
by frame by frame.

And we don't take
liberties with this.

It took us a long
time to figure out

how to create the
neuromuscular rig, which we now

call the algorithm for Zoe.

Because Zoe's face
did a lot of things

that a lot of people's
faces don't do.

The way in which her
lips would curl out,

and her-- the tension,
and the way her lips

would thin out over her
teeth in a very feral way.

It's a very expressive face.

And we needed to figure out how
to get the pseudo-muscles that

exist entirely
mathematically to do that.

And that was our goal.

And that's what the technical
teams at WETA were able to do.

But the hand motion,
everything, you

can see how it maps
frame by frame.

And there's absolutely zero
compromise in that system.

You have to get the
performance in the moment.

You can't make it better later.

There are a couple
of times where

we tried to alter
a moment slightly,

maybe to have a tiny bit more
of a smile or a little bit

more fear.

[SCOFFS] It was a
horrible failure.

It has to be the
actor has to do it.

And then it's just
up to us to honor it

in the downstream pipeline,
which takes about a year.

From the moment you
capture it, you're at least

a year away from
seeing a shot, which

is a thing in and of itself.

I don't recommend making
a movie like "Avatar,"

but it's good for
people to know,

even if they're just starting
out, what can be done.

If you're shooting a scene with
camera, a photographic scene,

you're going to shoot a
master, some kind of wide shot.

And you're going to probably
shoot some kind of a two-shot,

or a closer shot that
ties both actors in.

And then you're going to
shoot an over-the-shoulder.

And then you're probably going
to shoot either a tighter over

or a tight single
on this side of it.

Then you're going to turn
the lighting all around,

you're going to come
around over here,

then you're going to shoot
the corresponding tight over,

and then probably
a tight single.

That's classic coverage.

A lot of filmmakers
don't like to do that,

because it's too classic.

But it works.

And there are
reasons why it works,

and people still
do it all the time.

But let's just take
that as an example,

because it is classic coverage.

So that's six setups.

Across those six setups, maybe
you do five takes of each shot,

just for the actors, just to
figure out in the master what

you're doing, figure out
in the two-shot the timing,

figure out in the
close-up the emotion,

the moment that
somebody is going

to cry or have some big
reaction or whatever it is.

The actors need time.

They need to work
their way to it.

And so let's say five--
let's say five takes.

So that's six setups
times five takes.

That's 30 times that the actors
have to do it the same way,

so that you can cut it together.

On the other hand, I could do--

I think I did seven
takes of this scene.

And none of them were the same.

But it didn't matter,
because for this scene--

I'm gonna show you something
really interesting here.

And this is the
fundamental difference

I think with the
performance capture.

All right.

So we start in a
fairly tight two-shot.

They're both barely in
frame with each other,

but it emphasizes the way
he's trying to hold on to her,

and she's pushing him away.

All right?

Now we're going to
cut to her close-up.

All right?

That's a separate set up, right?

Then we're going to
briefly be on that two-shot

again while she slams him away.

Then we're going to
continue with her

in a slightly looser close-up.

And then we're going
to cut to his reaction

as he tries to explain it.

And then we're going to
cut to a medium shot,

so that we could see
her hand and her gesture

as she pulls away.

Again, I went wider here
to suggest distance.

She's already pulled
away from him.

We see a little
bit of her mother.

Her mother tries to stop her.

She pushes the mother away.

Guess what?

It's all from the same take.

All those shots are from
the same take-- take seven.

I happen to remember that,
because I was very happy when

I realized that there was one
take that had everything in it

that I wanted, where Sam
was great, Zoe was great,

everything was great.

We had good reference coverage.

So all of those
shots were extracted

from the same captured take.

Now we had done other takes.

I didn't like them as well.

And so I didn't want to
shoot my virtual camera

coverage from those takes.

I did it all from that one take.

We don't always do that.

But it shows what's possible.

I can't emphasize enough
the importance of curiosity.

I think curiosity is how you're
going to find your stories.

Curiosity is how you
interact with the world

and observe how people are.

Before you can make a film,
you have to have observed life,

you have to have
lived some life.

And you have to have to
have been in relationships,

and you have to have
noted things about people

and found people just
endlessly fascinating.

Before you can radiate,
you need to absorb.

You know, it's the
law of thermodynamics.

It's the creativity
law of thermodynamics.

So, you know, you have
to get good people.

So all right, so you
want to understand

the basic technologies
of computer animation.

How does it work?

What are the steps involved?

It doesn't just
spring full blown.

You're going to
start with ideas.

You're going to
start with design.

Sometimes it's character design,
sometimes it's creature design.

Sometimes you'll go through
performance capture.

Maybe someone is playing
a creature or a character.

You need to know how to
integrate these things

with live action
elements if you choose

to go down that
path of doing highly

effects oriented filmmaking.

It's really-- I don't want to
say it's a separate art form,

because there's a lot of--

it's a gradient.

You could be making the most
humanistic simple drama,

but in order to create
that scene in 1954

that you want to do, suddenly
you're in the effects world.

So how are you going to
learn about that stuff?

Well, to start a lot of the
tools are readily available.

You can work relatively
cheaply in some

of the newer visual
effects apps,

so get some nerdy
friends to come in

and show you how to do
that, or just sit and watch

over their shoulder
while they do something

and learn the language.

Personally, I think
it's really important

to understand all the jobs
on the set and all the jobs

associated with making a film.

So as one is coming
up and trying

to find your place in the
ecosystem of filmmaking,

I think it's a really good idea
to try a bit of everything.

Be the boom operator for
one of your friend's films.

Understand how cameras work.

Learn to understand
how lenses work.

Don't, I think-- don't
fall into the trap

that a lot of
filmmakers do early

on when they come to it
from, let's say, writing,

or they come to it from acting.

You know-- because there tends
to be this sense of dividing

the process of filmmaking into
the humanistic, empathetic,

sort of internal--

you know, actor and
writing kind of side of it.

And then there's all that
technical stuff that people do.

I think it's important to
remember that first of all,

it's a fusion of
both of those sides.

And you have to
inhabit that dualism

where you can speak
to the actors,

you can talk to the writers, you
understand the inner landscape

of all the characters.

And at the same time, you
can ask for a certain lens

and know what it'll do.

You can talk to the DP about a
backlight, you know, a desat--

you know, whatever it is,
whatever stylistically you're

trying to do.

I think it's really critical
to not sort of categorize

oneself going in as
a technical filmmaker

or humanistic filmmaker,
but understand that they

are two sides of the
same coin, and you really

can't be operating in
the role of filmmaker

without understanding
both sides of those.

And that's one of the things
that I believe in and try

to do in my own life--
not get too drawn

into the technical side of it.

So the more you have of
the technical expertise--

it doesn't have to be
expertise like you're

going to go out
and offer yourself

to the industry as a top sound
person or a top dolly grip

or whatever.

It's enough to be able
to speak the language,

because the art
of film directing

is the art of making
it happen in real time,

at that moment, when
everything has come together.

I think people who are
coming in to film these days

are shocked to find
out how much is really

a visual effect these
days, how much of maybe

the view outside the
window is entirely

done with green screen,
wasn't there at all.

So you really can't be--

this is going to be
a sweeping statement,

and there will be
people that reject it--

but it's pretty hard to
be a filmmaker these days

without being conversant
with simple visual effects,

putting something
outside a window,

putting something outside
a car, that sort of thing.

So you really need
to understand--

you know, like right now, it
may not look like it because I

don't know what they're going
to do later in composite,

but I'm sitting on a green stage
where they can put anything

they want behind me later.

So maybe you guys can
switch that off, we

can see that it's just
a blank green stage.

And then you can switch it back
on and show what it's like,

and maybe you didn't even
know that was happening,

or you suspected it.

And I think it's important
to know what level of realism

is required.

It's important to find
good visual effects people.

It's important to speak their
language enough that it doesn't

sound like Greek to you
when they're talking about,

you know, what they're going
to use as a key-in color.

Is it going to be green?

Is it going to be blue?

How does that affect
your lighting?

What are they going to need
in terms of the on-set lining

up of the shots,
because you're going

to be putting
things in later that

have to go in the right place.

So you become very
reliant on those people.

And if you're not--
if you haven't come up

in the technology of
visual effects, like I did,

for example-- because I come
from the technical side--

you need to find
good people that

have done good work
on the type of film

that you're trying to make.

I've heard filmmaking
described, I think best,

as you're laying track in
front of a moving train.

The train is not going to stop.

And so the decisions that
you make in that real time

are going to be the
sum total of everything

you've learned along the way and
your instinct, which I've which

I've already talked about.

And to a large extent,
they're kind of irrevocable.

And it's important
to come prepared.

Fortune favors
the prepared mind.

So what's your preparation--
well, you're storyboarding,

and you're writing,
and you're pre--

I'd don't want to say
pre-visualization,

because that's a process
and it's a process

shared with other people.

I'm talking about your
pre-imagining of the scene.

Run that scene in your mind.

Imagine what it can be.

Once you're cast, imagine
it with those actors.

Maybe you don't
have to imagine it.

Maybe you do a fair
bit of rehearsal,

maybe you even tape
some of the rehearsals.

Maybe you tape the
auditions and actually cut

the scene ahead of time.

I've done that as well.

Cut the scene, understand your
scene before you go into it.

Know what your
important scenes are,

make sure everyone
else is prepared.

And I'm not just talking
on the technical side.

I'm talking with the actors.

Make sure they're prepared
mentally and emotionally

for that scene and they
have whatever they need.

They've had the rehearsal
time that they need

and that they want.

And so the more you understand
the trades, the more you

understand the craft of it--

work with a DP or become
a DP on a low budget film.

Understand lighting.

So this is all the craft.

This is the technical
craft of filmmaking.

And I think there are lots of
great books on the subject.

You can read "American
Cinematographer,"

which is a good source.

And there are other
magazines, trade magazines,

on cinematography.

Absorb it.

Be a sponge.

Learn it all and make
friends with people

who are interested in
those specific aspects

of the art, someone who is
an aspiring cinematographer.

Make friends with
that person and say,

hey, let's make a film.

Doesn't even matter-- let's
just make up a story real quick

and go make a film
and experiment around,

and get other people
enthusiastic about that

and come in.

The only way to learn
it, really, is by doing.

I think the thing that's
important to remember

about film is that it's
a collaborative meeting--

so it's a team, a
bunch of people.

But somebody needs to lead
that team in real time.

So the director is kind
of like a war president,

you know, in the sense
that you don't have time

to take it out of committee.

You're dealing with stuff
that's coming out you,

1,000 questions a day,
1,000 little decisions

a day-- do another
take, don't do

another take, do this, do that,
red wardrobe, green wardrobe,

whatever.

So it's a system
that sort of rewards,

in a sense, a kind
of autocratic system.

And for me
personally, my journey

around the leadership
of how you do this

started with me being
you kind of a tin pot

dictator, because the movie
was the most important thing.

And everything, everybody
serves the movie.

And I was the
representative of the movie.

And so I think I
was rough on people.

I don't think I was cruel.

I was just rough because
the pace of events

demanded it and all
that sort of thing.

But what I've
learned over time is

that people don't
do their best work

if they're not respected and
appreciated and have a voice.

And so if I've learned
one thing that I

would like to go back
and do differently,

It's not necessarily
the choice of lenses

or the choice of
dialogue or anything

within the films themselves.

It's the nature of the
working relationship.

I could have listened more.

I could have been
less autocratic.

I could have not
made the movie more

important than the human
interaction of the crew.

And it shouldn't be, because
I think when we start out

as filmmakers, we tend to think
that the movie's the world,

and it isn't.

And years later, you realize,
well, I'm still here,

and all those people are still
around, and the movie is--

everybody's forgotten it.

You know, I think somebody
like Ron Howard, who

is innately a team
player, who came up

in the culture of
a television show

from the time he was a
kid, he's great at it.

When I first saw him
work, I was dumbfounded.

It's like, wow, he takes a lot
of time complimenting people.

You know, what's
he on about here?

And I aspire to,
even to today, to try

to be my inner Ron Howard.

Thanks guys.

Well done.

Fun, fun, fun.

And I've told him
this, by the way.

This is no secret--

because I think
that's how it's done.

And he's a great filmmaker,
he's a fine filmmaker.

So the two are not
mutually exclusive.

The other aspect of leadership
is you have to inspire.

And you inspire
by communicating.

If you're not
passionate about it,

if you're kind of
phoning it in or you

don't know how to express
that, or you sit back

with a kind of a blank
face, why are other people

going to be excited about it?

You've got to get
people excited about it.

And you-- and I don't care
if it's day 100 of a shoot.

And if you're
starting out, you're

probably a ways away from that,
but trust me, you'll get there.

I don't care if it's
day 100 of a shoot.

You got to come in
with that enthusiasm.

You got to have that
lightness in your step.

You've got to see the wonder
that's happening right in front

of you and be excited by it.

You know-- and run in.

I've run into a shot
when the camera's still

rolling and hugged the actor.

You know, what you
just did is fantastic.

You know-- oh, cut, by the way.

Share it.

Share the joy of creation.

And I think it takes a
while to be secure enough

to be able to do that.

Film is about compromise.

It's all about compromise.

But it's not compromising
from some crystal

vision that already exists.

I always say it's a process of
working with a group of people

to get that picture to come
more and more into focus.

So I can use the
example of creating

elements for a fantasy
world, or a science fiction

world, and a whole bunch of
designs start to come in.

And you work with artists.

And you look at
something and you

say, oh, that's interesting.

I hadn't seen it that way.

Let's pursue that idea.

And somebody else would
come with a different try,

and say, well, that's
kind of interesting too.

Let's pursue that idea.

At a certain point,
one speaks to you

a little more than the other
and you make a decision.

And ultimately, all those
decisions are binary.

They're one or the other
and they're forever.

You know, and you can't let
the forever of it weigh on you.

You just have to
make it a fun, kind

of vigorous creative process,
because the second you bog down

on--

shit, what I just
decided I'm going

to have to live with
for the rest of my life,

you'll never get anywhere.

You just have to kind of
keep your heart in the game.

You make it fun.

You encourage other people.

And you make decisions at a
kind of instinctive level.

But that instinct is well
cultivated over time.

It really consists of every
film you've ever watched

and either enjoyed
or didn't like,

but saw something in
it that was cool--

every book you ever read,
every dream you've ever had.

And by dream, I
don't mean ambition.

I mean, the actual
mental process

of stringing together random
images and bits of narrative

in your head all night
long every night.

And I think that's
something that one

needs to learn to believe in,
to listen to and believe in,

because it's really the sum
total of all your inputs

and all of your likes
up until that point.

It's people that are
rabid scared and rigid,

and holding onto
their storyboards

like this, that can't see the
magic and can't incorporate it.

So you got to get past that.

Yes, you got to be prepared.

You've got to come
in with a plan.

And sometimes that's
the only thing

that keeps the day going along.

You know, go to--

we're doing shot five
on the shot list,

it's right here in
the storyboards.

And everybody's happy because
they know what you're doing.

But it doesn't have to be that.

It's your film.

You can do anything you want.

You can take that out or you
can do something different,

or maybe the actors come in
with some really cool idea,

or something happens
in rehearsal.

Rehearsal's a great, highly
fertile time to see new ideas.

So you let the cast
off their leash

and they'll come up with
all kinds of crazy stuff.

And I've always been
attracted to the actors that

are the most inventive.

You know, Bill Paxson
being a very good example.

He'd come in, he'd have thought
for months about the dialogue

he wanted to do.

He'd be constantly saying, I
could do this, I could do that.

I'd throw out nine tenths
of it and keep that 10%,

and the movie was better for it.

You know, when he says,
what are we going to do now,

we're in some real
pretty shit now--

you know, that whole rant
that he does in "Aliens,"

he just kind of riffed that up.

You know, you got to keep
your eyes open for the magic.

And I think the most important
thing is every single day,

working with your actors,
lightning is striking.

How do you bottle it?

How do you bottle
that lightning?

You can't predict
what an actor is

going to do or say, or just a
little gesture that they do,

or color that they add to
a line that was not maybe

the intention of
the line at all,

but it comes out of left field
and all of a sudden, that fits.

That fits.

That's better.

And when they sit around
in film studies classes,

and you read all the
cahiers du cinema stuff,

and they talk about all
these brilliant things

that filmmakers do, they
tend to forget the fact

that most of those movies
didn't have very big budgets.

And people were just doing what
they could do in the moment,

and something great
came out of it.

It's not quite the
highly precise process

that people think it is.

And a lot of the things
that we applaud in movies

were basically happy
accidents on the day.

And I don't want
to say accidents.

I want to say they were moments
of taking the opportunity,

seeing something
happening, maybe

some particular configuration
of where the sun was

at the location, at the time.

And instead of doing
the shot that way,

you decide to move
everything over to here

to take advantage of it.

All filmmaking is kind
of combat in the sense

that you're going into a
highly fluid situation.

Instead of having a defined
enemy, your enemy is entropy.

Your enemy is that
tendency of the universe

to go from a state
of order to disorder.

But you can be prepared to the
extent that you have confidence

and you have options.

You can switch, you can switch
track, you can go around.

I mean, I think of filmmaking
like water flowing inevitably

downhill.

It goes around rocks,
doesn't go through,

so you've got to go
around the obstacles.

You've got to be
that flowing water.