TED talk notes #1, James Cameron: Before Avatar…a curious boy

I’m adding more TED talk notes to my master list. The talks themselves are rather dated by TED standards (circa 2015 and earlier), but I just discovered them while going through some old files…so they’re new to the blog :)

NOTES

grew up in Canada, then California

as a boy, he liked to draw, loved sci-fi, wanted to scuba dive

lifelong love of the ocean

got into filmmaking to put pictures and stories together

Arthur Clarke: “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

wrote Avatar to push film state of art (with tech as lead, instead of the story/narrative), but when he first wrote it, it was too early and so he shelved it to make Titanic!

…which he also made because he secretly wanted to dive to wreck

fell in love with deep sea exploration, combining science and discovery

the most important bond between people is a respect that’s earned through tough times