The inimitable James Cameron is an individual I admire a lot. This - TopicsExpress

The inimitable James Cameron is an individual I admire a lot. This is a very inspiring talk he gave at TED about how his lifes work was driven by curiosity, and how becoming an explorer after filmmaking made his life come a full circle. Some choice sound bites: We found ourselves lagging in the creatures and character design stuff that we had actually founded the company (Industrial Light & Magic) to do, so I wrote this piece called Avatar, which was meant to absolutely push the envelope of visual effects. And the envelope pushed back, and I was told by the folks in my company that we werent gonna be able to this for a while. So I shelved it and I made this other movie about a big ship that sinks. I went to pitch it to the studios—Romeo & Juliet on a ship. Its gonna be this epic romance, passionate film. But secretly, what I wanted to do was I wanted to dive to the real wreck of Titanic. Thats why I made the movie. Thats the truth; the studio didnt know that, and I talked them into funding an expedition. Dont put limitations on yourself; other people will do that for you. Dont bet against yourself. Take risks. Failure has to be an option in art and exploration, because it’s a leap of faith, and no important endeavour that required innovation was done without risk. Failure is an option, but fear is not.”