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posted by azrael on Monday August 04 2014, @02:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the films-that-sink dept.

Forbes has an interview with James Cameron about his upcoming movie Deepsea Challenge 3D.

The PG-rated flick documents the director's March 2012 dive to 35,787 feet below sea level into a desolate place in the Pacific called the Mariana Trench. The journey equaled Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard's record set in 1960, but Cameron was alone for the seven-hour excursion, making him the first to solo the Earth's deepest point. It also solidified Cameron's creds as a serious adventurer.

A good part of the 90-minute film shows how Cameron secretly built and tested his submersible, spending millions of dollars of his own money. That amount may seem meager compared to his net worth, estimated at north of $800 million recently, but the breakthrough techniques he used in construction have oceanographers scrambling to copy them for their own underwater vehicles.

So, yet again, he pioneered something that will set the stage for further development. What have you personally done that set the stage for others to embark on a new line of thinking/doing? Alternatively, are you planning on seeing the film when it comes out on Friday, August 8th?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 04 2014, @03:11AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday August 04 2014, @03:11AM (#77074) Journal

    I don't have $800 million, you insensitive clod!

    If I had that kind of money at my disposal, I too could do all kinds of cool things. I wonder about the value of stunts like flying around the world and diving to the bottom of the ocean. And building Biosphere 2. They're spectacular. Maybe good for publicity. Hard to say what value that has, but it's not nothing. Worked well for the US in the race to put a man on the Moon. But I doubt they advance science as well and usefully as plain old "boring" research.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Monday August 04 2014, @03:22AM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 04 2014, @03:22AM (#77078)
      Changing the way people think or how they do things doesn't require millions of dollars. At least I don't think it took $800 million to get Linux off the ground.
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 2) by AnythingGoes on Monday August 04 2014, @04:10AM

      by AnythingGoes (3345) on Monday August 04 2014, @04:10AM (#77089)
      Seriously, you don't need to think in terms of advancing science. Just think in terms of getting people interested - how many of us were interested in science because of the space shuttle, hubble space telescope, saturn 5 rockets, submarines, back to the future, etc?
      As long as this helps in gathering interest and putting science and technology on the front page of the news, it will be a good thing.
      Someone, somewhere will be interested and maybe this initial interest can become a profession and career later.
      I would rather have this than reading the latest celebrity drivel!!! If this is made into good "Circus", then maybe not all "bread and circuses" would be bad for the future, much better than watching "Idol XX".
      • (Score: 2) by tathra on Monday August 04 2014, @07:01AM

        by tathra (3367) on Monday August 04 2014, @07:01AM (#77114)

        Just think in terms of getting people interested

        out of all the people who bitch and complain about the kuiper belt object Pluto no longer being classified as a planet, i wonder how many will even pretend to care when New Horizons [nasa.gov] gets there next year.

        maybe its because i grew up in the 80s, but i still get the impression that intelligence, curiosity, and lust for knowledge arent all that popular, and in fact typically met with contempt.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @03:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @03:19AM (#77077)
    "What have you personally done that set the stage for others to embark on a new line of thinking/doing?"

    I was part of the team that developed the pipeline now commonly used in Hollywood called "Virtual Production". It has dramatically changed how films are made by showing everybody the first draft of a complete picture WHILE everybody is still on the project. In other words, the Director, Production Designer, VFX Supervisor, Editorial, the Director of Photography, etc are all looking at the same monitor at the same time and are able to thumbs-up moving the shot to the next phase. This is important because usually after filming is done a fair chunk of those people have left the project to work on the next film, leaving a huge burden on post to seek the approval they need. Before VP this required a lot more revision during the post-production phase. Additionally, the combination of technologies used to achieve the final result were used from day to both conceive of and finish off the film. This gives the production team the ability to try out different approaches to a scene, this means solving problems before the money is committed into developing the final product. In one example we built an environment that the art department had designed and had mocap actors play out the scene. It was discovered that the door the actors enter on the set needed to be moved to the opposite side of the room to be consistent with the shots coming up before it. That change was made to the design before the set builders hammered in the first nail. The change this is making to the industry is that it is blurring the lines between pre and post production.

    I helped them develop this process, i.e. work out the various trade-offs in workflow and visual quality to get the most bang for their buck, and I have continued to help this process evolve through several movies. In many ways it is becoming my legacy in Hollywood. The punchline of this statement, though, is that the first film I worked on that pioneered this technique was Avatar, directed by James Cameron. ;)
    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @07:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @07:18AM (#77115)

      Yada yada... *yawn*

      I drank 6 pints of beer without going to the toilet. Inspired yet?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @07:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @07:42AM (#77122)

    I have to work to earn money to put food on the table....

    There is not much room for multi-dollar playtime this way.