James Cameron Preaches the 3D Gospel for "Avatar"

I just recently rewatched Terminator 2 with a friend who, for some reason, had never seen the film. My friend ended up loving the film for all the right reasons, and I was struck by how well it aged. While much of the references certainly date the film, it remains a singularly awesome action romp from a time where CG was only beginning to find its way into feature films.

After seeing T2 once again, I found myself longing even more for news on Cameron's upcoming sci-fi epic, Avatar. Luckily, Cameron recently did an interview with Variety that appeared online today, and it certainly quenched my geek thirst. While we barely hear anything on Avatar specifically, we do get some great insight into his views on 3D filmmaking and the future of cinema.

While recent films like Beowulf have attempted to tap into the 3D market, Avatar has long been heralded as the first step towards the next generation of cinema. Cameron helped develop 3D technology specifically for the film, and he seems quite certain that once people see what his tech can do, it will spread like wildfire. His 3D is beyond the realm of just throwing objects in the audience's face, and in fact it seems to be quite the opposite -- it's more about creating realistic depth in films

He also mentions the desperate need for higher frame rates beyond the standard 24 frames-per-second. Apparently, the deficiencies in 24fps (i.e., the awful strobing effect you see when a camera pans left or right) are even more apparent with his high-definition cameras. Roger Ebert has long thought that the future of cinema depended on higher framerates -- just look at his ceaseless support for the now-defunct Maxivision 48 technology, which aimed to double the resolution of film to 48fps.

I've geeked out enough about this already, but I'll echo the sentiments of our friends at First Showing and reiterate: This interview is required reading for anyone the least bit interested in film.

[Source: Variety via First Showing]