JAMES CAMERON BUILDING BETTER WORLDS

HIGHLY EVOLVED

Cameron spent most of his childhood in Chippawa, Canada doing two things: reading science-fiction novels and drawing. The influences on, and evolution of, his style – plain to see in Tech Noir – led directly to a career as a filmmaker.

“In those early years, you could see a steady progression of technique. That’s just about drawing all the time, and you get better. Your eye-to-hand coordination; your ability to convey lighting, composition and so on. It peaked in my mid-twenties. And then my artistic expression shifted to cinema. But all those lessons were there. How do you compose an image? What has the greatest narrative impact? I go back to learning to draw from comic-books. I think that’s a really good proving ground for any artist that wants to go into filmmaking. I went in through the side-door of design. I worked as a production designer and art director for a while. And then I jumped to directing. But I think that all of that drawing and painting technique… I know that I was really exercising all those muscles long before I got to have a crew and cameras and actors. When I was doing all that drawing