Daughter, with Hamilton, Josephine Archer Cameron born. [15 February 1993]
Brother of Mike Cameron.
According to Cameron, he got his big break while doing pick-up shots for Galaxy of Terror (1981) as 2nd unit director. He was shooting scenes of a dismembered arm teeming with maggots (actually mealworms). In order to make them move, he hooked up an AC power cord to the arm, and an unseen assistant would plug it in when the film was rolling. Two producers were strolling through, and when Cameron yelled "Action!" the worms began to writhe on cue. When he yelled "Cut!" the worms stopped. The producers were so amazed at his directing prowess that they began talking with him about bigger projects.
His production company is 'Lightstorm Entertainment'.
One of the founders of visual effects company 'Digital Domain'.
While editing Titanic (1997) Cameron had a razor blade taped to the side of the editing computer with the instructions written underneath: "Use only if film sucks!"
Jokingly refers to Titanic (1997) as his 190 Million Dollar "Chick Flick".
First director to film both a $100 million (_Terminator 2: Judgement Day
(1991)and a $200 million (Titanic (1997)) movie.
Cameron is in talks with RKK Energia and MirCorp to pay his way on board the Mir space station (or the ISS, should Mir be deorbited). He has been given the medical green light, and has already ridden aboard the Ilushin-76 jet used to train cosmonauts for space missions. [September 2000]
Daughter Carol, with wife Suzy Amis, born. [4 April 2001]
Has a stepdaughter, Lolita De Palma, from Gale Anne Hurd's marriage to Brian De Palma.
Has a stepson named Jasper, from Suzy Amis' marriage to Sam Robards.
Lost a plagiarism lawsuit brought by Harlan Ellison involving the movie The Terminator (1984). Newer prints of the film acknowledge Ellison.
Went to elementary school in Chippawa, Ontario.
His films frequently depict children in some kind of danger.
First wife Sharon Williams got just $1,200 from Cameron in their divorce settlement.
The eldest of five children.
He has written a script for a film called Avatar. The script is 85 pages long and tells the story of Josh, a man who agrees of becoming a 'controller' on a distant planet populated by an alien race. However, the huge budget of $350 million grounded the project and it has yet to be produced (it would have boasted a photo-realistic CGI cast). This was one off the scripts on Empire Magazine's "Twelve Greatest Unproduced Scripts In Hollywood" list.
Security is provided by Gavin De Becker, author of "The Gift of Fear."
He and Suzy Amis are owners of Childspot!, an early childhood center in Wichita, Kansas which is operated by Suzy's sister, Rebecca Amis.
Wrote a screenplay for Spider-Man (2002) movie, but was turned down by the studios, due to the fact that his version of Spider-Man was "too violent". Sam Raimi's version got the green light instead.
Married one of his producers and two of his actresses.
Has made 4 films involving water: The Abyss (1989), Titanic (1997), Expedition: Bismarck (2002) (TV), and Ghosts of the Abyss (2003). His _Untitled James Cameron Project (2007)_ will be his 5th movie involving water.
His practice of testing his DPs by darkening the film originated on Aliens (1986). Cameron wanted to use a particular type of film stock, but cinematographer Dick Bush ignored him and used a different type. The end result being that the footage shot ended up being unusably dark. After Bush was fired due to an unrelated incident and Adrian Biddle took over, Cameron found some of the film in a storage cupboard and had the camera operators use it instead of the film Biddle had told them to use. Biddle noticed what was going on after the first take, and compensated with extra lighting, hoping to hide his "mistake" from Cameron, who owned up at the end of the day. Cameron later did the same to Mikael Salomon on The Abyss (1989) and to Russell Carpenter on True Lies (1994).
He is a huge Japanese anime fan, and the releasing studios often uses his opinion about the film on the DVD and VHS covers.
On the 14 March 2004 episode of "Inside the Actors Studio" (1994), Kate Winslet claimed her nude portrait for Leonardo DiCaprio in the Titanic (1997) was drawn by Cameron. She also said the artist's hand shown in a close-up was Cameron's.
The mandibles of the Predator from Predator (1987) were his idea.
One of only two people to have both written and directed an Alien movie. The other is 'Paul W. S. Anderson' .
Co-created the newly high-definition video system with cinematographer Vince Pace that was recently used to film Ghosts of the Abyss (2003).
Got the nickname "Iron Jim" because of his stern, stubborn ways as a director.
A magazine article written about him in the 1980s described how he had three desks set up in his house. At one desk, he was writing the script to The Terminator (1984), on another, he was finishing the script to Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and on the third, he was writing Aliens (1986).
Often uses a helicopter in his films.
When he wrote an early script treatment for Spider-Man, he had the idea of organic web-shooters. This was later included in Sam Raimi's film.
Usually uses composers Brad Fiedel and James Horner.
Born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, James Cameron grew up near Niagara Falls. In 1971, he moved to Brea, California where he studied physics at Fullerton College while working as a machinist and, later, a truck driver. Setting his sights on a career in film, Cameron quit his trucking job in 1978 and raised money from a consortium of local dentists to produce a 35mm short film. He served as producer, director, co-writer, editor, miniature builder, cinematographer and special effects supervisor on that production.
Cameron's maiden film project led to a position at Roger Corman's New World Pictures, working on Battle Beyond the Stars, on which he served in multiple capacities, including production designer. He was soon able to parlay this experience into a stint as Second Unit Director on Galaxy of Terror. Convinced that he'd found his calling, Cameron decided to write his own script and attach himself to direct. That fateful decision led to Cameron's 1984 sleeper hit, The Terminator, which launched his directorial career.
Since that time, Cameron has served as writer, producer, director, and/or editor on such films as Rambo: First Blood Part II, Aliens, The Abyss, Point Break, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, and Titanic. His films have blazed new trails in visual and sound effects and set numerous performance records both domestically and abroad. Titanic, which Cameron wrote, produced and directed, currently holds both the domestic and worldwide box office records, having grossed over $1.8 billion at the global box office. Cameron's films have also earned numerous nominations and awards from a variety of organizations, culminating in Titanic's record-tying 11 Academy Awards, including Cameron's three Oscars for Best Picture, Best Direction and Best Editing.
In recent years, Cameron has explored other entertainment avenues, including a small screen maiden television effort, the one-hour dramatic television series Dark Angel, which won the People's Choice Award for Best New Television Drama.
Cameron is continuing his passion for exploration by immersing himself in the study of man's potential next great step in the exploration of space: Mars. Through extensive research, and working closely with experts at NASA and throughout the private sector, Cameron has developed a wholly feasible near-term mission architecture, which could put man on the red planet within the next 15 years. These central plans provide the spine of a group of related entertainment projects that Cameron is currently working on, including a novel, which he is co-writing.
Cameron recently produced an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's science fiction classic Solaris, which was written and directed by Steven Soderbergh, and he produced and directed James Cameron's Expedition: Bismarck, a two-hour documentary on the German battleship for the Discovery Channel. He is also in various stages of development and pre-production on a number of feature film projects. Cameron has yet to identify his next directorial feature film effort.
