Avatar's Cameron calls for 3-D watchdog

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/article/799551--cameron-to-hollywood-we-need-3-d-watchdog

But Avatar creator is fearful of making Hiroshima movie in third dimension

Published On Thu Apr 22 2010

 

By Peter Howell Movies Columnist

 

Avatar creator James Cameron wants to create a voluntary movie industry watchdog group to maintain 3-D movie momentum and to avoid “stupid stuff” like the recent Clash of the Titans makeover.

Having set a new benchmark for 3-D realism with techniques his team developed for Avatar, Cameron told The Star he wants to encourage other filmmakers to make the best possible use of the third dimension. He perceives fears about the current 3-D revival that he’d like to address.

 

“What I’d love to do is put together some kind of a forum with the DGA (Directors Guild of America), let’s say, and maybe the ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) and we’d have to do it in Canada, too,” the Ontario-born Cameron said from Los Angeles.

 

“And let’s just have a dialogue with the creative community. On the one hand, to allay their fears, because a lot of people are stepping back from 3-D and they’re afraid of it. They think it’s complex or they think you have to have a budget like Avatar to be able to do it. That’s not the case.

 

“And on the other hand, I think some quality standards do need to be discussed. I think the studios and big distribution companies need to be included in that dialogue. Let’s not do stupid stuff that’s going to hurt this burgeoning marketplace.”

 

As an example of “stupid stuff,” he pointed to Warner Bros.’ after-the-fact transformation of its current Clash of the Titans remake from a 2-D release to a 3-D one, using a controversial post-production process that took just seven weeks but which failed to impress either critics or moviegoers.

 

“They worked against themselves with that film,” Cameron said.

 

“I’ve heard people say that they couldn’t watch (Clash of the Titans) in 3-D and thought it looked better in 2-D and they enjoyed the film more. I haven’t seen the film, so I don’t want to say too much, but I heard from enough sources that it was borderline unwatchable.

 

“And I have to say, I predicted that. When they said they were going to try to convert it to 3-D in seven weeks, I said it’s not possible. You can’t do it. You can slap a 3-D label on it and call it 3-D, but there’s no possible way that it can be done up to a standard that anybody would consider high enough.”

 

Cameron said he anticipates a day in the not-too-distant future when 3-D films will be “more the rule than the exception.” Ironically, one of the films he’s planning to make in the next few years would probably be in 2-D, but for a very specific reason.

 

He wants to make a movie out of Last Train From Hiroshima, author Charles Pellegrino’s recent best-seller about the U.S. nuclear assault on Japan during World War II. The horrific images of burn victims described in the book may just be too visceral for the public to stand in 3-D, Cameron said.

 

“That’s a big question. I think it’s one of the creative decisions that need to be made.

 

I made a promise to myself that I was going to make all of my future films in 3-D, but that one might want to be an exception simply because the 3-D might make it a little too visceral. It’s such a horrifying event, it might artistically not benefit from 3-D.”