A lot of people know [James Cameron]() as the director that makes the best films. But a lot of those people don't realize that his films aren't actually the best. I would always consider [Steven Spielberg]() a far better director. And people like [Aaron Sorkin]() or [Quentin Tarantino]() far better writers, than James Cameron. His movies are not even the hardest out there. Just take [Werner Herzog]()'s *Fitzcarraldo*, for example. But, that said, a lot of people still have this elevated idea of James Cameron. An idea that makes him a lot of money. So how does he do that?

Watching a "making-of" featurette about the making of Cameron's *The Abyss* made me understand James Cameron's technique.

At one point he compares the few CGI shots of the water-creature in *The Abyss* to CGI in films like *Avatar: The Way of Water*. And the comparison makes it feel like contemporary CGI is far-far easier to do than CGI in 1980s. Which is a straight-forward and self-explanatory observation. The technology got better. The tools improved. Computers got a lot faster. What is there even to argue about?

But as soon as he says that, he corrects himself. He says "It doesn't mean that Avatar was easy.".

He realized that whatever he said might have diminished the view of how important Avatar might be in the perception of the audience. And he immediately course corrected for it.

It doesn't actually mean that he is lying. That *Avatar* is actually easy, or anything. It is a complicated endevour. But it is not the hardest CGI productions out there. Just compare it to *The Hobbit* by [Peter Jackson]() which happened a few years later. And where the same Weta Digital was involved. *Avatar* 2009 is one movie. *The Hobbit* is 3, 3 hour long ones. Both in 3D. Both directed by a crazy film-maker that likes to push their visual storytelling to the max. But yet, even though *The Hobbit* must have been about 3 times larger of a project, it doesn't feel that large. *Avatar* feels much larger and way more important.

James Cameron sells his movies in 3 steps:

 - Come up with an insane challenge.

 - Make an actually descent movie through that challenge.

 - Tell everyone how insane the challenge was. And how hard the project was. And therefor how much effort there was in the project.

Cameron, being a tech-nerd, at one point, sided with AI companies. Claiming things like that AI might help the visual effects pipeline, or whatever. Later he changed. Switched his gears entirely. 

He realized AI is too simple. Prompting a bot is way too easy. If there is no challenge. If people see that there is no challenge. There is no way to sell this movie. You can't claim it to be the most important film in the history of humanity, if your movie was easy to make. 

He might still unfortunately push for the AI tech. But he knows to never use it in his films.

**Happy Hacking!!!**