James Cameron: Scientist, Creator, Artist & Visionary

I had the fortune of seeing and hearing Canadian-born James Cameron speak at the D: All Things Digital Conference, last week in southern California.

Not only is the man a director, producer, editor, inventor and screenwriter, but an award-winning one who is also known for co-developing the 3-D Fusion Camera System. He says 3-D is on the rise and studios are telling people to make their films in 3-D, not an easy or inexpensive endeavor if you don't have the weight and resources of James Cameron. That said, he brought Avatar to the screen and I thought about its magical impact weeks after seeing it.

Below are some images I captured on-site which are accompanied by some pithy things Cameron had to share with the D8 audience. I loved his energy on and off the stage, where he graciously took questions and engaged one-on-one before heading out.

"There's something to be said about working with people who know the system and how it works."

"Asset management is a huge huge deal."

"I like a certain amount of autonomy in a production so we can go to a number of vendors and it can work seamlessly on other platforms."

"For 3-D, you can put the left and right image on top of each other at the same time - you couldn't do that before."

"Every breakthrough comes with a breakthrough for the pirates. You have to come up with a time synched image and transfer it over - it's harder."

"The more that things change, the more things remain the same."

"Augmented reality is a great bag of tricks but its still something that is on the side."

"Movies are a passive experience. Games are where you lead."

"I want to merge games and movies in a way that support each other."

"At the end of the day, it's still about taking you outside of yourself."

On Microsoft: "They approached us to be part of a 3-D project."

"Studios want to see more films in 3-D. They're asking people for it."

On Avatar being his closest connection of all his movies: "I always liked nature as a child."

"It's still all about the story at the end of the day."