The Point Radio: James Cameron On Life With ‘Avatar’
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Transcript
Hello, it's Mike Raub. Welcome to The Point where all parts of pop culture come together. It's Avatar all weekend long. We've got James Cameron to sit down and explain just where those creatures came from. It's funny at Chuck on the Way for Christmas, Marvel gives it up for the girls and there's lots of Iron Man to see on the internet. It's Friday, December 18th, 2009 and we get to The Point right now.
This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point, baby-o. There's no doubt that this weekend the box office will belong to Avatar. How much remains to be said, we'll cover that in a few days, but in the meantime as you step into the theater, you've seen trailers, you've heard things, you've probably read some reviews, but what can you expect? It's been the hope of creator James Cameron that the visuals are what takes
you into the story and takes you in there quickly. The look of the aliens is certainly something that's not been done on the screen before. So where did they come from? We went to James to get the answer to that. You know, I mean we spent a lot of time on the character design and we based them closely on the actors. We found out in our very early testing, this is going back almost four years,
that the closer the architecture of the face was to the actor playing the character, the better the performance translated. In other words, it didn't have to be interpreted by key frame animation. So when we actually cast this film, looking at making sure that there was a face that we wanted. In other words, we originally had this conceit that, well, it's going to be a CG character, it doesn't have to look like the actor. But that turned
out not to be the case. So we cast actors that in the case of, let's say, Zoe for example, in theory she doesn't appear photographically in the film. But we wanted the character to be based on her, on her, the way her mouth and face and eyes look. And then we just kind of stretched and dilated her. Her eyes are four times the size of a human eyeball. By volume, you know, they're huge. But we knew that being driven by the performance that
she gave, it would still have heart and soul, which was the critical thing. I don't think people are going to, I think after the first few minutes, you forget that they're blue. You know, really, I mean, you know, it was a fine line to walk between making them too alien. And I think there was, when some early images started to leak and even with the banners, you know, some of the fans are saying, gee, I thought they'd look more alien if you're
going to go to all this trouble with CG and everything. But if it wasn't a love story, if it was more a film about first contact with an alien race, I think it would be. But this is really a story about assimilation and Jake becoming one of them and started to see through the eyes of people who are culturally different. So and it's a love story. So the physiological differences, you know, the more the more alien we made them in the
early design phase, we just kept asking ourselves, you know, basically the crude version is, you know, would you want to do it again? No doubt. They certainly are different. We want them to be scary and freaky. So the older Navi are a little stranger than the other Navi, Navi like, like the interior. So we had a lot of fun with the design, but we never asked ourselves a question of whether people would accept it or not. And that's, I think
that's the huge advantage of actually being a geek fan yourself is you don't ask yourself questions like that. That, you know, I mean, the studio guys got love them. I mean, they signed up for a to write a big check for this movie. And, you know, they've backed our play a hundred percent all the way down the line, thicker thin. But at the beginning, they would ask questions like, do they need to be blue? Do they need to have a tail? You know, things
like that. And I thought, yeah, of course they do. Like most of the big projects that James Cameron's been involved with, he's had a long relationship with Avatar. Look, this thing's been generating in fragments for a long time, even since sort of the mid seventies, when they first started trying my hand at screenwriting, I was, I was creating stories with spacecraft and other worlds. And some of these creatures actually are the distant
descendants through a long Darwinian process of creatures that I was creating in the bioluminescent world. I wrote a script called Xenogenesis in 76 or 77 co-wrote that script never got made, but had a bioluminescent forest in it. So, you know, I don't even remember the transition point from being a fan, reader of science fiction and, you know, and as an artist, drawing things, drawing spacecraft, drawing aliens to actually, you know, putting them into scenes
and so on. And when I sat down, honestly, when I sat down as the CEO of digital domain in, in 95 to, to package a story, uh, that would push us ahead in, in, uh, 3d character development, I just took all these floating kind of fragments. I did the same thing on aliens. You know, I had already written story fragments prior. And when I got the gig to write alien two, I just grabbed a bunch of stuff. I'd already been thinking about it,
slammed it together. It felt very kind of mercenary at the time. I was just throwing crap at it, you know, and, but what happens is, you know, over time, you write it and you massage it and you improve the storyline and all those sorts of things. If you think that James involvement with the characters in Avatar is personal, well, you're right on target. Any writer, I think falls in love with their characters, sometimes to their
detriment as a film, they get a little precious with it or whatever, but I fall in love with my characters and I fall in love with them all over again when they're cast. You know, now I have, now I have my cast and now that all those, that tough process of, is this the right person and what do they bring versus this other person? And, and you're always just absolutely dreading that you're going to screw it up because you learn over time
that you might be the best director in the world, but you cast a picture wrong. You're screwed because people have to go on the journey with, with, with those, with those characters and those characters have to be played by somebody that somehow affects you, affects you emotionally. I think Sam does that and Zoe does that. So I fall in love with my characters on the page and then I fall in love with them again later. And at that point I give them
up. So after all this time, what was it like letting go of Avatar? I think you want to be dealt with it at a certain point and you want it out there and you want to start getting some feedback, you know, and hopefully if it, if it, if it floats, if people like it, if they like the world, if it, if they, we want them to like the world enough for it to become a persistent world that exists in other media, whether it's, whether it's games,
books, graphic novels, all that stuff. So it takes on a, it's a life of its own. And at a certain point you do kind of, you know, give it over to the world and then you know that other, other designers and other creators are going to come in, whether it's the design team at Ubisoft that we're designing, you know, other creatures and environments and vehicles and stuff, you know, and then, and then you're just sort of, you know, making
sure that it's got a consistency to it. As we tally up the box office on Monday, we're back with James and some of the stars of Avatar as well right here. It's Friday, December 18th, 2009. Here's what's going on in pop culture. Here's something good that came out of the Avatar press line. Brian Singer reported to a number of different sources that he has just signed a contract to direct X-Men first class. Singer also confirmed that the story
would be an origin for the X-Men, which means at least according to the way things have been laid out so far, we'll see early adventures of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm and Beast, all of which makes sense for the studio who is dealing with the fact that some of the actors who were playing him in the regular X-Men films are getting a little too far along to do so. Singer also, by the way, don't forget, is involved with a couple of other projects
between now and X-Men and that includes Jack the Giant Killer and then there's got to be word on that Battlestar Galactica relaunch as well. By the way, Josh Swartz, the co-creator of Chuck and the OC, also has written the script to X-Men first class. Iron Man 2, the trailer is out and boy could you be more excited about an upcoming movie. There's a lot going on in the few minutes that we get a chance to visit our old friends,
Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and new ones like Black Widow and Whiplash. And there's a lot to dissect as well. Catch the trailer, it's running right now on our website, GetThePointRadio.com and then be ready for our sit down with Robert Downey, Jon Favreau, Scarlett Johansson and more coming up in just a few weeks right here at The Point. Having a little stress because well Chuck is going to premiere right after the beginning of the year and you're just
not caught up. Well, the Sci-Fi channel comes to your rescue with a special eight hour marathon of Chuck's second season. Not the entire season but at least to premiere the final episode and another six hours in between. It begins on the Sci-Fi channel on Thursday, January 7th. Check your local listing for that or catch our TiVo tips for an update. And of course Chuck returns to NBC on January 10th. Disney is now joining the Digital Comics
Revolution with a new application for the iPhone and the iPod and the Sony PlayStation Portable as well. However, it starts in Italy. It's not available yet in the US or the UK but that should change soon sometime early in 2010. To begin with, they're going to offer some 50 downloadable comics featuring the main characters Mickey, Donald and other familiar faces. And you'll be able to buy comics right from within the app which is
a good thing. There'll be about five to ten new comics a week, some with continuing storylines, no talk about whether or not this will be vintage material or new but at least the initial releases are all pretty much new material including Ex-Mickey, Wizards of Mickey. That's a book to be published by Boom Studios by the way in a short time. The Cannaville Ghost and Phantom of the Opera as well. By the way, Disney also has 500 titles available online
to anybody for a subscription fee of about 80 bucks a month and more being added there as well. We should hear word on exactly when a US iPhone and iPod users will get a chance to try some Disney comics online sometime early in the new year. To be honest, the season has not been quite what we expected with Fringe but there's some good news on the horizon. No, it is not in order for a third season at least not yet but there is an unaired
episode from season one out there and that will turn up on Fox, allegedly on January 7th although the network has not confirmed that. Right now the rest of season two is set to pick up also later in January on Fox. For a long time now we wondered what happened to the talk about a sequel to 300. That appears that Frank Miller has been working on a new story set in the 300 universe. It takes place 10 years previous to the original 300 and
it's called Xerces. Xerces of course the name also have a character from 300 so we'll assume that he's involved in that as well. According to Miller he's finished the plot and getting started on the artwork right now. So that's your graphic novel but what about a motion picture? Well of course Zack Snyder's already expressed interest in the project as well. Of course there's no dates announced on this one but hopefully sometime during 2010
we might see at least a few pieces of sample artwork. So if you were poking around on the internet this week you might have come across a mysterious new website called the Center for the Study of Supernatural Study or CENSA. It's a new site there's nothing known about it until you scroll all the way down to the bottom and then you discover that it's some viromarketing for the return of being human to the BBC. That British series that we talked
about so much earlier in the year is back on BBC with season number two coming in January and it may have an American cousin sooner than we think being human has been optioned by American television with no word on exactly where that stands yet but we should hear something more than likely by the spring of next year. Marvel is launching a new three issue anthology series in the spring called Girl Comics and it's exactly what you think. Comics created
exclusively by women. They're pretty much doing everything here writing penciling, inking, coloring and lettering, even the logo, interior design, proofreading and of course the editing which is why it's called Girl Comics. There will be appearances by regular Marvel characters in this as well kind of like there has been with Strange Tales and Girl Comics number one will be out in March. Moonstone has announced they're going to be publishing the Green Hornet
Chronicles an anthology of stories taking place in the 60s and featuring of course the Green Hornet. A little confused, well you should be. Also Dynamite Entertainment as we pulled you about has planned no less than three different Green Hornet series including one by Kevin Smith, some dating back to stories from the 40s and some featuring some rather big name artists and writers as well. Moonstone series is said to kick off in June and will also feature an introduction by
Van Williams the actor who played the Green Hornet in the 1960s television series. Well we're a hand flow of weeks away from the return of Chuck to the NBC schedule and to help make the way go a little easier there's a game called Mission Chuck Me Out available at NBC.com. Here's how you play every time you mention Chuck on Twitter, Facebook or Myspace you get a point and the fan with the most points earned between now and March the 10th will have their photo appear in an episode during
one of Chuck's metal flashes. Pretty simple to play you just have to sign up now and you can do that at NBC.com. It now looks like there will be a couple of bright spots in that period between Christmas and New Year's at least in the comic shops. As you know well looked like for a while there was going to be no comics distributed by Diamond during that period of time which meant no new comics in your local stores in that period as well. Right now Marvel is doing a couple of
different things including the Marvel New Year's Eve party event which actually takes place on Wednesday the 30th which makes it a New Year's Eve Eve party. There are free giveaways available to stores including a new book called The Origins of Siege which is written by Brian Michael Bendis as well and should be pretty interesting to those following that. There's all sorts of other giveaways as well in the meantime there's lots of independents who are shipping via the direct route
to stores as well. If you want to find out exactly what's going on in your neck of the woods check with your retailer this week to see what you could expect in your local comic store between Christmas and New Year's. The end of the year rush for all new trailers is already happening we're looking for some footage for Iron Man 2 to appear possibly on television and then in the theater sometime in the next few days. In the meantime there's a new trailer for the Disney
remake of Alice in Wonderland it's kind of interesting. You can check that out on our website givethepointradio.com. In the meantime Alice in Wonderland from Disney hits theaters on March the 5th of next year. How many times can they show us the old footage and still keep us excited? Well at least a few more in the case of Lost season 6 on the way but nothing new being shown. However some great teaser trailers are out there featuring scenes we've seen before just repackaged in
different ways. There's a new one featuring Willie Nelson's version of Amazing Grace check that out right now on our website getthepointradio.com. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. This is my goal let's talk about kids and drug abuse. Personally I'm against the abuse part now let's dig a little deeper. First my street cred. I spent years laboring in the youth social services fields much of that time as director of education and communication of Chicago's
alternatives incorporated drug abuse prevention programs so I'm not just pulling stuff out of my ass. No doubt you've heard on commercial radio the spot about home drug testing kids for parents who do not trust their children. If you think your kids using something you get him or her to pee in a cup and you use the kid on them. I'll tell you one thing if you do this you damn well better hope and pray your kid is using something and I mean that.
We just say no no no no no no no. Go ahead and fire me from my job. There's a little thing you ain't gonna rock. That's my freedom. It's very simple the most important tool a parent has in raising children is trust. If you as a parent blow that trust you're destroying your relationship. That relationship is more important than testing positive for drugs. And unless you know the problem is so bad that you don't need to test in the future. In the first place your kid isn't doing anything that you didn't do or his aunts and uncles didn't do or his grandparents didn't do. We've got tens of millions of successful adult drug users out there former and active include alcohol and you should as it's the most dangerous and it's more like a hundred million. And your kid knows it. So if your child has positive you were right and he was wrong and you've got a hope of saving that trust. But if your kid has clean say goodbye to all that. Go ahead roll the dice. It's your family. This is Mike Gold on the pop culture channel. Get the point radio dot com. A couple of days we sit down with David Tennant and Russell T Davies and find out exactly how the end of doctor who plays out in the meantime this podcast is heard twice every week and produced by Malgus media for great websites like ComicMix dot com. Michael Davis World dot com ZZ comics dot com and Raven's Wolf studios dot com.
Get just the podcast directory and iTunes under the point radio and get in touch. Love to hear from you. Holidays are after and listen at get the point radio dot com. Have a great and a busy free holiday weekend. We'll see you right back here on Monday.
