James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, and inventor. His writing and directing work includes The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009). In the time between making Titanic and his return to feature films with Avatar, Cameron spent some years creating documentary films, and also co-developing the digital 3-D Fusion Camera System. Described by a biographer as part-scientist and part-artist, Cameron has also contributed to underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies.
In total, Cameron's directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$1.84 billion in North America and US$4.6 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing directors of all time. Cameron's Titanic and Avatar are the two highest-grossing films of all time.
Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, the son of Shirley (née Lowe), an artist and nurse, and Phillip Cameron, an electrical engineer. His paternal great-great-great-grandfather emigrated from Balquhidder, Scotland in 1825. Cameron grew up in Chippawa, Ontario and attended Stamford Collegiate in Niagara Falls; his family moved to Brea, California in 1971. While studying physics and English at Fullerton College and California State University, Fullerton (see 'Awards' section below for honorary doctorate), Cameron used every opportunity to visit the film archive of the University of Southern California. To the surprise of many people, although Cameron had a large educational background in the natural sciences, he chose a philosophy major from Fullerton College in 1973. Cameron says of his time there that he was,
"completely self taught in special effects. I'd go down to the USC library and pull any thesis that graduate students had written about optical printing, or front screen projection, or dye transfers, anything that related to film technology…if they'd let me photocopy it, I would. If not, I'd make notes."
After dropping out, he worked several jobs such as truck driving and wrote when he had time. After seeing the original Star Wars film in 1977, Cameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry. When Cameron read Syd Field's book Screenplay, it occurred to him that integrating science and art were possible and he wrote a ten minute science fiction script with two friends, entitled Xenogenesis. They raised money and rented a camera, lenses, the film stocks, studio and shot it in 35 mm. To understand how to operate the camera, they dismantled it and spent the first half-day of the shoot trying to figure out how to get it running.
In June 2005, director Cameron was announced to be working on a project tentatively titled "Project 880" (now known to be Avatar) in parallel with another project, Battle Angel. Both movies were to be shot in 3D. By December, Cameron stated that he wanted to film Battle Angel first, followed by Avatar. However in February 2006, he switched goals for the two film projects and decided to film Avatar first. He mentioned that if both films are successful, he would be interested in seeing a trilogy being made for both.
Avatar had an estimated budget of over $300 million and was released on December 18, 2009. This marked his first feature film since 1997's Titanic . It is composed almost entirely of computer-generated animation, using a more advanced version of the "performance capture" technique used by director Robert Zemeckis in The Polar Express. James Cameron wrote an 80 page scriptment for Avatar in 1995 and announced in 1996 that he would make the film after completing Titanic. In December 2006, Cameron explained that the delay in producing the film since the 1990s had been to wait until the technology necessary to create his project was advanced enough. The film was originally scheduled to be released in May 2009 but was pushed back to December 2009 to allow more time for post production on the complex CGI and to give more time for theatres worldwide to install 3D projectors.Cameron originally intended Avatar to be 3D-only. The film went on to break the record for highest-grossing film ever, beating Cameron's previous film Titanic. Avatar also became the first movie to ever earn more than $2 billion worldwide. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction.
