James Cameron’s films are often pioneers in visual effects technology – particularly the “Avatar” films, in which his heroic blue Na’vi characters are brought to life through performance capture.
But that doesn’t make Cameron a fan of generative AI.
In CBS Sunday Morning Interview The director, who is attached to the upcoming release of “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” acknowledged that performance capture (where an actor’s performance is recorded as a template for digital artists) could sound similar to GenAI. But in fact, he said it is “the opposite”.
“For years there was this perception that, ‘Oh, they’re doing something weird with computers, and they’re replacing the actors,'” Cameron said. “When really, once you really dig in and you see what we’re doing, it’s a celebration of the actor-director moment.”
Indeed, the CBS segment featured “Avatar” cast members performing underwater scenes in a 250,000-gallon water tank.
“Go to the other end of the spectrum and you’ll get generative AI, where they can create a character, they can create an actor, they can create a performance from scratch with text prompts,” Cameron said. “No, that’s horrible…that’s absolutely not what we’re doing.”
