SCI FI PI

At 2009's 'Produced By' Conference, in Los Angeles, James Cameron's packed session revealed some pretty juicy stuff about Avatar, Terminator

Reports from Nikkie Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily include the startling revelation that "Jim Cameron acknowledged he's still in post-production on Avatar and has been since March 2008 even before live action photography ended."

Here's the good stuff from her report from notes taken within the closed door seminar.

"I feel like I've been living in a cave for a year," he told the "Produced By" Conference. No kidding!

He also enthusiastically endorsed the Avatar videogame which debuted at E3. "I'm not personally a gamer, but my younger brother Dave is a big gamer," Cameron noted, and together they made sure they liked it. He noted that "in some cases the videogame branded with film hasn't been as good as a film." He didn't name names, but he said the Avatar game will be "the same quality level" as the movie.

Cameron also told the audience he is up-converting Terminator 2 to 3-D if it’s cost effective.

But he didn’t mention Titanic even though that 3-D possibility was floated on the Internet this week. (apparently some people HAVE made enough money out of the film!)

Cameron talked again about how he wrote the script for Avatar back in the mid-1990s when he and Stan Winston co-founded Digital Domain. But when he took the screenplay to their special effects lab, Cameron was told it was just not possible to make the film with the current technology. So he sat on the project for more than a decade.

Cameron and his people on the panel expressed confidence that, by the time Avatar is released by 20th Century Fox on December 18th, there will be "several thousand 3-D screens" capable of showing the film.

Cameron also explained that so much has changed since he shot the Universal Studios Tour's Terminator 3-D ride: back then in 1995, each camera weighed 235 pounds and he had to shoot it wide open so he used so much light no one else could do night shoots at the same time. For Avatar, he created the Fusion Camera System technology for photo-realistic computer-generated characters through motion capture animation.

Though claiming reluctance to slam another filmmaker, Cameron bad-mouthed Lionsgate's My Bloody Valentine 3-D because it was a step backwards to the old 1970s model of "3-D shock horror where they're jabbing stuff in your face".

Cameron said that, by contrast, he wants 3-D to be less noticeable so it doesn't "take people out of the experience". He stressed that Avatar is not going to hit audiences on the head with #-D even though almost every shot is green screen. But not 3-D constantly. He wants "one immersible experience" with 2-D and 3-D together and the audience so engrossed that they "won't notice the difference" .

'Christmas' could very well be soon known as 'Avatar' in the true Sci Fi households. Only six months to go! We're hoping to get some early footage (hoping). Keep your eyes peeled, right here.