JAMES CAMERON
Producer / Director

James Cameron was born in Ontario, Canada in 1954. As a young boy he was creating 8mm movies as a hobby and studied art. After attending California State University at Fullerton for physics, Cameron changed his major to English and then finally just dropped out to pursue a career in screenwriting. During these times Cameron worked odd jobs from being a machinist to a bus driver. 

In 1977 after watching George Lucas' science fiction hit feature Star Wars, he decided to pursue a career in film making. On his own he studied information about special effects and movies in the library at the University of Southern California - while experimenting with his own camera equipment. James Cameron was picked up by New World Pictures (run by filmmaker Roger Corman) after making a ten minutes filming featuring models, sets and mattes. 

Cameron's first big directing gig came with the horrible Paranha II: The Spawning in 1981. There were so many problems with the producers of the film that he was determined to never again work for someone else. It was during this time that he came up with the idea for Terminator and sold the script on the condition that he would have complete and total control of the films production.  

Terminator would be done on a hairline budget of just $6.5 million ($3.5 million less that Star Wars was done on it 1977). Needless to say the film was a financial and critical success. The film would also create an action hero named Arnold Schwartzenegger.  

Cameron's next film was also a monster success in the sequel to Alien. Aliens was followed by "The Abyss" and "Terminator 2". The screenwriter and director had established himself as one of the top directors in the business. 

During the Abyss Cameron developed a digital morphing technique that he again used in Terminator 2. The enormous potential of this technique lead to the creation of Cameron's special effects company, Digital Domain.  Joining Cameron in this business venture would be another special effects master "Stan Winston" and a corporate sponsor in IBM. He also created his own production company during T2 in Lightstorm Entertainment.  20th Century Fox immediately signed a three picture deal with Lightstorm. 

The first picture for 20th Century was another Arnold hit with True Lies and the second coming with Cameron's critically acclaimed feature Titanic. With a budget of $200 million the film became the all time money maker as well as earning the director the Academy Award for Best Director. 

The down side is that beyond directing the final 90 minute episode of his Fox series 'Dark Angel' the director has yet to step behind the camera for a big budget feature. He is currently working behind the Cameron doing mostly documentary work. 

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