Scuba Experience Creates
Entertainment for the World 
LOS ANGELES - In case you haven't noticed
lately, scuba diving is taking ov er the world of entertainment. Avatar,
which stands to be the highest grossing motion picture ever, is not only
directed by a scuba diver, James Cameron but includes many underwater like
aspects of marine life. In addition, the film owes it's 3D results to it. Frustrated
by the chunkiness and limitations of existing 3D cameras Cameron has spent much
of the last ten years trying to cajole the engineers at Sony's high definition
division in Tokyo
to develop a portable 3D camera. Cameron then went scuba diving and on fighter planes to put a prototype through its paces. Eventually
Cameron announced that he did have every intention of making Avatar and it
would be in digital 3D and that it would herald the next big revolution in
cinema.
James' motion pictures including the Alien series, Titanic, The Abyss, Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, and more, include vivid action of our ocean world. Look closely at Avatar's Helicoradian flowers and the seeds of the sacred tree Eyraand, and divers see Christmas Tree Worms and jellyfish.
 From a past interview he says - "I just swept in every design influence in my life. I've always had this deep respect for nature and a lot of my youth was out in the woods hiking around. I was a total science geek. I spent over 2,500 hours underwater and I've seen things that are absolutely astonishing on the bottom of the ocean. It really is like an alien planet. I've always felt like that's something I've been able to do was live out a science-fiction fantasy adventure for real in my diving work. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff there. There's even a lot of stuff in the shallow ocean that's influenced things. The Banshee wings are based on the colourations of tropical fish, for example. We were a little concerned that these large creatures wouldn't scale with these incredibly vivid colour patterns, but we managed to make that work." (interview) "I learned to scuba dive in a pool. It wasn't until I moved to California that I ever even scuba dived in the ocean. But I just loved it. I loved this idea that there was this alien atmosphere right here on planet earth. I knew that I was never going to be an astronaut and visit another star system or land on another planet, but I knew I could explore an alien world right here."
 - James Cameron
You will see more underwater action in Cameron's next movie "The Dive" based on a true story of a Cuban free diver Francisco "Pipin" Ferreras and Frenchwoman Audrey Mestre who broke several world records before dying in 2002 while competing. "It's a drama, a love story," Cameron said. "This will require underwater photography, which will look gorgeous in 3-D." Of course, you can be certain that the sequel to Avatar will continue to explore an alien world quite similar to our underwater world.
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