Finally, I had found the financing for my first feature, "Shriek." We started hiring a crew, casting the picture, and focused on creating the all-important creature/monster.
My search for the best (and most affordable) visual effects designer I could find led me to the Roger Corman Company. Corman is famous for making a lot of movies on very cheap budgets, employing first-timers who become big-timers -- from Scorsese to Coppola to Howard.
Also read: How Andrew Breitbart Makes James Cameron Look Like an Ass
Everyone there was raving about a young hotshot who was the art director and visual-effects guru on Roger’s latest $3-dollar (as in extremely low budget) sci-fi epic "Battle Beyond the Stars." So I arranged to meet with him.
His name was James Cameron.
Jim showed me a very impressive 10-minute short he had made called "Xenogenesis." It was a futuristic sci-fi robot/laser battle done for about a nickel on his kitchen table using miniatures.
You just knew this young guy had one hell of a visionary mind and his tech genius would shine in the visual effects world. Jim reeked talent. Still, no one would have guessed he was going to become one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.
Jim has said that he had "Avatar" in mind for many years and was waiting till the visual effects world caught up to his vision so he could make the film. It’s true.
Pictured: Me and the creature Cameron built for my movie "Shriek."
The short film I saw had a walking robot machine driven by a human inside it. It was the initial primitive model which became the dazzling human-driven machine we all ogled in the final battle of his unforgettable, jaw-dropping "Avatar" wonder when it premiered around the world in December 2009.
Jim liked the "Shriek" project, and was willing to leave Corman and come on board as my production designer and visual-effects specialist. He designed and built a very scary, hairy creature, complete with an expressive facial apparatus that was remote controlled.
It was probably the most advanced and inventive creature ever built on the pennies we had. He even built the giant box to ship it to New Orleans. Cameron was incredibly resourceful and a very hard-working guy. His focused dedication to his work, even then, was mind-boggling.
Pictured left and below right: Conceptual design creature drawings by Cameron for "Shriek."
At the time, I was living in Laurel Canyon with roommates, and we had thrown a kick-off party the Saturday before we were scheduled to leave for New Orleans. James showed up at the party looking bummed out.
