James Cameron is a successful Producer, Director and Screenwriter.
According to Imdb James was born in Ontario, Canada but later moved to the US.
He started out at university studying Physics.
He had a job driving trucks.
His first professional film job as art director and set builder on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980).
James has been married 5 times, currently married to actress Suzy Amis since 2000.
His Screenwriting:
James has had a strong ambition to be a screenwriter. He wrote Xenogenesis in 1978, a short sci-fi film. His first feature both as Director and Screenwriter is Piranha Part Two in 1981. He wrote the film in the form of H.A. Milton. Other films he has wrote include The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997) and the popular Avatar (2009).
His style of screenwriting is his experience. Studying physics at university he went on to deep-sea exploring. Researching for underwater locations to use in his screenplays. Majority of the time James writes what he sees and turns it into moving image, which he then directs. Before filming Titanic he went underwater to the remains of the ship and filmed footage which he added to the final film. He came up with the dialogue during his time exploring.
When writing he has a lot of 'trademark' to his name. James likes to feature elevator lifts with some danger in or near them in his screenplays. Aliens, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic have scenes with a lift. Titanic being one of my favourite films I remember the scene clearly. Rose goes down the lift to the ground floor getting stuck due to the flooding deck. James likes to have characters dreaming into the plot. In all his films at least one character yells "go, go, go!". This is something I did not know about, I find this interesting as James wants to indicate simple but effective drama with such a character to yell out this.
I had a look on Imdb to search for other facts about his work. The scene in Titanic when Jack was drawing Rose was actually James himself. The shot was a close up of his hand drawing, but the image is flipped as James is left handed. One of his many quotes is 'People call me a perfectionist but i'm not. I'm a rightist. I do something until it's right and then I move on to the next thing.'
Having watched some of his films, mainly Titanic and Avatar, I am impressed with his work and screenwriting. The story comes alive so much, his work is entertaining. I am influenced to portray his skills in my projects, coming up with stories around water and ocean. Maybe Sci-fi too.
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