以下这篇由范文大全站整理提供的是《阿凡达》、《泰坦尼克号》的导演詹姆斯·卡梅隆(James Cameron)的一篇TED演讲。在这个演讲里，卡梅隆回顾了自己从电影学院毕业后走上导演道路的故事。卡梅隆告诉你，不要畏惧失败，永远不要给自己设限。更多演讲稿范文，欢迎访问范文大全站!
I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction. In high school, I took a bus to school an hour each way every day. And I was always absorbed in a book, science fiction book, which took my mind to other worlds, and satisfied, in a narrative form, this insatiable sense of curiosity that I had.
And you know, that curiosity also manifested itself in the fact that whenever I wasn't in school I was out in the woods, hiking and taking "samples" -- frogs and snakes and bugs and pond water -- and bringing it back, looking at it under the microscope. You know, I was a real science geek. But it was all about trying to understand the world, understand the limits of possibility.
And my love of science fiction actually seemed mirrored in the world around me, because what was happening, this was in the late '60s, we were going to the moon, we were exploring the deep oceans.Jacques Cousteau was coming into our living rooms with his amazing specials that showed us animals and places and a wondrous world that we could never really have previously imagined. So, that seemed to resonate with the whole science fiction part of it.
And I was an artist. I could draw. I could paint. And I found that because there weren't video gamesand this saturation of CG movies and all of this imagery in the media landscape, I had to create these images in my head. You know, we all did, as kids having to read a book, and through the author's description, put something on the movie screen in our heads. And so, my response to this was to paint, to draw alien creatures, alien worlds, robots, spaceships, all that stuff. I was endlessly getting busted in math class doodling behind the textbook. That was -- the creativity had to find its outlet somehow.
And an interesting thing happened: The Jacques Cousteau shows actually got me very excited about the fact that there was an alien world right here on Earth. I might not really go to an alien world on a spaceship someday -- that seemed pretty darn unlikely. But that was a world I could really go to, right here on Earth, that was as rich and exotic as anything that I had imagined from reading these books.
So, I decided I was going to become a scuba diver at the age of 15. And the only problem with that was that I lived in a little village in Canada, 600 miles from the nearest ocean. But I didn't let that daunt me. I pestered my father until he finally found a scuba class in Buffalo, New York, right across the border from where we live. And I actually got certified in a pool at a YMCA in the dead of winter in Buffalo, New York. And I didn't see the ocean, a real ocean, for another two years, until we moved to California.
Since then, in the intervening 40 years, I've spent about 3,000 hours underwater, and 500 hours of that was in submersibles. And I've learned that that deep-ocean environment, and even the shallow oceans,are so rich with amazing life that really is beyond our imagination. Nature's imagination is so boundlesscompared to our own meager human imagination. I still, to this day, stand in absolute awe of what I see when I make these dives. And my love affair with the ocean is ongoing, and just as strong as it ever was.
But when I chose a career as an adult, it was filmmaking. And that seemed to be the best way to reconcile this urge I had to tell stories with my urges to create images. And I was, as a kid, constantly drawing comic books, and so on. So, filmmaking was the way to put pictures and stories together, and that made sense. And of course the stories that I chose to tell were science fiction stories: "Terminator," "Aliens" and "The Abyss." And with "The Abyss," I was putting together my love of underwater and diving with filmmaking. So, you know, merging the two passions.
Something interesting came out of "The Abyss," which was that to solve a specific narrative problem on that film, which was to create this kind of liquid water creature, we actually embraced computer generated animation, CG. And this resulted in the first soft-surface character, CG animation that was ever in a movie. And even though the film didn't make any money -- barely broke even, I should say -- I witnessed something amazing, which is that the audience, the global audience, was mesmerized by this apparent magic.
You know, it's Arthur Clarke's law that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. They were seeing something magical. And so that got me very excited. And I thought, "Wow, this is something that needs to be embraced into the cinematic art." So, with "Terminator 2," which was my next film, we took that much farther. Working with ILM, we created the liquid metal dude in that film. The success hung in the balance on whether that effect would work. And it did, and we created magic again, and we had the same result with an audience -- although we did make a little more money on that one.
So, drawing a line through those two dots of experience came to, "This is going to be a whole new world," this was a whole new world of creativity for film artists. So, I started a company with Stan Winston, my good friend Stan Winston, who is the premier make-up and creature designer at that time, and it was called Digital Domain. And the concept of the company was that we would leapfrog past the analog processes of optical printers and so on, and we would go right to digital production. And we actually did that and it gave us a competitive advantage for a while.
But we found ourselves lagging in the mid '90s in the creature and character design stuff that we had actually founded the company to do. So, I wrote this piece called "Avatar," which was meant to absolutely push the envelope of visual effects, of CG effects, beyond, with realistic human emotive characters generated in CG, and the main characters would all be in CG, and the world would be in CG. And the envelope pushed back, and I was told by the folks at my company that we weren't going to be able to do this for a while.
So, I shelved it, and I made this other movie about a big ship that sinks. (Laughter) You know, I went and pitched it to the studio as "'Romeo and Juliet' on a ship: "It's going to be this epic romance,passionate film." Secretly, what I wanted to do was I wanted to dive to the real wreck of "Titanic." And that's why I made the movie. (Applause) And that's the truth. Now, the studio didn't know that. But I convinced them. I said, "We're going to dive to the wreck. We're going to film it for real. We'll be using it in the opening of the film. It will be really important. It will be a great marketing hook." And I talked them into funding an expedition. (Laughter)
Sounds crazy. But this goes back to that theme about your imagination creating a reality. Because we actually created a reality where six months later, I find myself in a Russian submersible two and a half miles down in the north Atlantic, looking at the real Titanic through a view port. Not a movie, not HD -- for real. (Applause)
Now, that blew my mind. And it took a lot of preparation, we had to build cameras and lights and all kinds of things. But, it struck me how much this dive, these deep dives, was like a space mission. You know, where it was highly technical, and it required enormous planning. You get in this capsule, you go down to this dark hostile environment where there is no hope of rescue if you can't get back by yourself. And I thought like, "Wow. I'm like, living in a science fiction movie. This is really cool."
And so, I really got bitten by the bug of deep-ocean exploration. Of course, the curiosity, the science component of it -- it was everything. It was adventure, it was curiosity, it was imagination. And it was an experience that Hollywood couldn't give me. Because, you know, I could imagine a creature and we could create a visual effect for it. But I couldn't imagine what I was seeing out that window. As we did some of our subsequent expeditions, I was seeing creatures at hydrothermal vents and sometimes things that I had never seen before, sometimes things that no one had seen before, that actually were not described by science at the time that we saw them and imaged them.
So, I was completely smitten by this, and had to do more. And so, I actually made a kind of curious decision. After the success of "Titanic," I said, "OK, I'm going to park my day job as a Hollywood movie maker, and I'm going to go be a full-time explorer for a while." And so, we started planning theseexpeditions. And we wound up going to the Bismark, and exploring it with robotic vehicles. We went back to the Titanic wreck. We took little bots that we had created that spooled a fiber optic. And the idea was to go in and do an interior survey of that ship, which had never been done. Nobody had ever looked inside the wreck. They didn't have the means to do it, so we created technology to do it.
So, you know, here I am now, on the deck of Titanic, sitting in a submersible, and looking out at planks that look much like this, where I knew that the band had played. And I'm flying a little robotic vehiclethrough the corridor of the ship. When I say, "I'm operating it," but my mind is in the vehicle. I felt like I was physically present inside the shipwreck of Titanic. And it was the most surreal kind of deja vu experience I've ever had, because I would know before I turned a corner what was going to be there before the lights of the vehicle actually revealed it, because I had walked the set for months when we were making the movie. And the set was based as an exact replica on the blueprints of the ship.
So, it was this absolutely remarkable experience. And it really made me realize that the telepresence experience -- that you actually can have these robotic avatars, then your consciousness is injected into the vehicle, into this other form of existence. It was really, really quite profound. And it may be a little bit of a glimpse as to what might be happening some decades out as we start to have cyborg bodies for exploration or for other means in many sort of post-human futures that I can imagine, as a science fiction fan.
So, having done these expeditions, and really beginning to appreciate what was down there, such as at the deep ocean vents where we had these amazing, amazing animals -- they're basically aliens right here on Earth. They live in an environment of chemosynthesis. They don't survive on sunlight-basedsystem the way we do. And so, you're seeing animals that are living next to a 500-degree-Centigradewater plumes. You think they can't possibly exist.
At the same time I was getting very interested in space science as well -- again, it's the science fiction influence, as a kid. And I wound up getting involved with the space community, really involved with NASA, sitting on the NASA advisory board, planning actual space missions, going to Russia, going through the pre-cosmonaut biomedical protocols, and all these sorts of things, to actually go and fly to the international space station with our 3D camera systems. And this was fascinating. But what I wound up doing was bringing space scientists with us into the deep. And taking them down so that they had access -- astrobiologists, planetary scientists, people who were interested in these extreme environments -- taking them down to the vents, and letting them see, and take samples and test instruments, and so on.
So, here we were making documentary films, but actually doing science, and actually doing space science. I'd completely closed the loop between being the science fiction fan, you know, as a kid, and doing this stuff for real. And you know, along the way in this journey of discovery, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about science. But I also learned a lot about leadership. Now you think director has got to be a leader, leader of, captain of the ship, and all that sort of thing.
I didn't really learn about leadership until I did these expeditions. Because I had to, at a certain point, say, "What am I doing out here? Why am I doing this? What do I get out of it?" We don't make money at these damn shows. We barely break even. There is no fame in it. People sort of think I went awaybetween "Titanic" and "Avatar" and was buffing my nails someplace, sitting at the beach. Made all these films, made all these documentary films for a very limited audience.
No fame, no glory, no money. What are you doing? You're doing it for the task itself, for the challenge --and the ocean is the most challenging environment there is -- for the thrill of discovery, and for that strange bond that happens when a small group of people form a tightly knit team. Because we would do these things with 10, 12 people, working for years at a time, sometimes at sea for two, three months at a time.
And in that bond, you realize that the most important thing is the respect that you have for them and that they have for you, that you've done a task that you can't explain to someone else. When you come back to the shore and you say, "We had to do this, and the fiber optic, and the attentuation, and the this and the that, all the technology of it, and the difficulty, the human-performance aspects of working at sea," you can't explain it to people. It's that thing that maybe cops have, or people in combat that have gone through something together and they know they can never explain it. Creates a bond, creates a bond of respect.
So, when I came back to make my next movie, which was "Avatar," I tried to apply that same principle of leadership, which is that you respect your team, and you earn their respect in return. And it really changed the dynamic. So, here I was again with a small team, in uncharted territory, doing "Avatar," coming up with new technology that didn't exist before. Tremendously exciting. Tremendously challenging. And we became a family, over a four-and-half year period. And it completely changed how I do movies. So, people have commented on how, "Well, you know, you brought back the ocean organisms and put them on the planet of Pandora." To me, it was more of a fundamental way of doing business, the process itself, that changed as a result of that.
So, what can we synthesize out of all this? You know, what are the lessons learned? Well, I think number one is curiosity. It's the most powerful thing you own. Imagination is a force that can actually manifest a reality. And the respect of your team is more important than all the laurels in the world. I have young filmmakers come up to me and say, "Give me some advice for doing this." And I say, "Don't put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you -- don't do it to yourself, don't bet against yourself, and take risks."
NASA has this phrase that they like: "Failure is not an option." But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration, because it's a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. So, that's the thought I would leave you with, is that in whatever you're doing, failure is an option, but fear is not. Thank you. (Applause)
译文：我是看科幻小说长大的。高中时，我连坐校车上下学时都在读着科幻小说。这些书将我带到另一个世界，满足了我无止境的好奇。每当我在学校，我总是在树丛中寻找一些“标本”——青蛙、蛇、昆虫……我把它们放在显微镜下观察。我总是试图认知这个世界，想找到它可能的边界。
我对科幻小说的热爱或许是那个时代的写照。60年代末期，人类登上了月球，去了深海。通过电视，我们看到了不同的动物和地方。这都是我们不曾想象的。这种氛围中，我不知不觉地喜欢上了科幻小说。
每当我看完小说，故事中的影像就会在我脑海中不断放映。或许是因为创造力必须找到一个发泄方式，我开始画外星人、机器人、飞船……我甚至会在数学课上在课本的背面画画。
对科幻小说的不断接触让我想到：外星人不一定生存在外太空，他们很有可能就生活在我们星球上。所以15岁时，我决定成为一个潜水员。而当时实现梦想唯一的问题是我生活在加拿大的一个小山村，离最近的海有6英里远。
但我父亲并没有让这成为我梦想的障碍，他在边境对岸的美国纽约州布法罗找到了一个潜水培训班。于是我便在布法罗的一个泳池里获得了潜水证书。直到两年后，当我们全家搬到加州，我才第一次有机会真正地潜水。
在这之后的40年里，我在海底大约总共花了3万个小时。大海如此丰富多彩，众多神奇的生物生活其中。比起我们的想象力，自然的想象力完全没有边界。我想，至今我对大海的了解还是很少，但我对海洋的好奇却一直延续着。
电影魔法师与科学体验
但长大后，我并没有成为一名潜水员，我选择的职业是电影。我喜欢讲故事，画图画，电影看起来是最合适的工作。当然，我讲述的故事都是科幻的——终结者、外星人等等。
我也将我对潜水的热爱和电影融合在了一起。拍摄《深渊》时，我有了一些有趣的想法。当我们要塑造一个水状的生物时，我们使用了“计算机生成动画”——CG。CG的应用产生了电影历史上第一个软表面、电脑制成的形象。虽然这部电影使公司差点亏本，但全世界的观众被这种新技术所震撼。
根据亚瑟·克拉克定律——任何高难度的技术和魔法没有什么区别，很多人觉得自己看到了一些“神奇”的东西。这使我感到很兴奋。我想CG应该被用到电影艺术中去。
所以，在我接下来的电影《终结者2》中，我把这种技术又推近了一步，创造了一个金属人。我又变了一次魔术。这部电影很成功，我们赚了一些钱。
作为一个电影人，我看到了一个全新的世界，一个全新的未来。于是我和好友斯坦·温斯顿创立了一家公司，叫做“数字领域”。公司的概念是要跳过普通的电影制作直接进入数字电影制作。我们也是这么做的，这也使得我们在一段时间内有了一定的优势。但在90年代中期，我发现我们有些落后了。
我写《阿凡达》这部电影，就是想要推动整个视觉体验以及动画效果的进步。让电影人物跳出人们想象的框架，完全用动画效果诠释人物表情。但一开始，员工告诉我，他们还没有能力做到。于是我把《阿凡达》放在了一边，转而制作了另一部电影——《泰坦尼克号》。
在为《泰坦尼克号》寻找投资商时，我告诉制作人这是一部关于爱情的电影。它的故事就像罗密欧与朱丽叶一样凄美动人。而事实上，我自己真正想做的是，潜入海底探寻真正的泰坦尼克号。这是我的真心话，电影公司并不知道。
我告诉他们，我们要沉入海底，拍摄泰坦尼克号真实的画面。我们将把这个片段放在首映式上展现，这将会引起很大的轰动，票房也会很好。令人意外，电影公司真的同意出钱，支持我去探索泰坦尼克号。
虽然到现在我仍觉得有些疯狂，但这就是“想象创造了现实”。两个月后，我在北大西洋的一艘俄罗斯潜艇里用肉眼看到真正的泰坦尼克号。
《泰坦尼克号》的拍摄体验给我很大震撼。虽然我们要做很多准备工作，但令我震惊的是，这次深海拍摄就像是一次外太空旅行——尖端的科技，繁杂的计划，环境的危险，我仿佛置身于一本科幻小说中。
我发现我们可以想象一个生物，但是我想我永远无法想象出透过潜艇窗所看到的那些生物。我看见了一些我从未看见的东西，也看见了一些从来没有被人看见过的东西，因为当我们拍下它们时，他们还没有被科学所描述。我被震撼了。我必须做更多。
在《泰坦尼克号》成功后，我做了一个决定：暂停我的主业——好莱坞导演，做一段时间全职探险家。于是我们开始策划一些探险。在自动探测车帮助下，我们去了些危险的地方。我们发明了技术，对泰坦尼克号残骸做了一次全面勘测，使它再次重现在人们面前。
通过一种会飞行的自动探测仪，我可以坐在一个潜艇里探索泰坦尼克号的内部。当我在操作仪器时，我的脑子就像是在这些探测仪中。我感觉我自己真的到了泰坦尼克号上。这是一种最令人兴奋的似曾相识的感觉。我知道假如我在这里转个弯，我将会看到什么。因为我已经在另一个完全一样的泰坦尼克号复制品上工作了好几个月。
这是一次不同寻常的体验。它让我感觉到，远程监控的能量。你的意识可以被注入这些机器或注入另一种存在中。这种体验非常深刻。或许几十年后，当半机器人出现，或者任何后人类生物出现时，人们会对这种感觉习以为常。
在这些探险之后，我开始真正感谢这些存在于海底的生物。这些生物基本上对于我们来说就是外星生物。它们生活在一个化学合成的环境之中。它们无法像我们一样存活于太阳之下。同时，从小被科幻小说影响的我对于太空科学也非常感兴趣。
我进入了NASA的顾问委员会，策划真正的太空行程，让宇航员带着3D摄像机进入太空站。这些非常有趣，但我真正想做的是将这些太空专家带入深海，让他们看看深海，取一些样本。所以我们既做了纪录片，也在做科学。这些事业将我整个人生很好地整合了起来。
发现团队的力量
在发现的旅途中，我学到了很多。我学到的不仅仅是科学知识，还有领导力。很多人以为作为导演，就一定具有很高的领导力。但我却是从这些探险中学到如何带领团队。
在探险时，有时候我会问自己，我为什么会在这里?为什么要做这些纪录片? 我从中得到了什么? 我们并没有从这些纪录片中赚钱，还差点亏了本。我也没有赚到名声。很多人以为我在《泰坦尼克号》之后就一直躺在沙滩边享受。
那我在做什么呢?我做这些其实只是为了这件任务本身。为了挑战——海洋是现存最危险的环境;为了发现;也为了一种奇怪的关系——一个由很少人组成的紧密团队。我们这10到12个人在一起工作了很多年。有时要在海里一起工作2到3个月。
在这种关系中，我发现最重要的东西就是尊重。我在这里为了你，你在这里为了我。每个人做的工作都无法向其他人解释。我们必须建立起一种关系，建立尊重。
当我开始拍摄《阿凡达》时，我试着将这种互相尊重的领导力原则应用在电影拍摄中。很快情况就改变了。在《阿凡达》拍摄过程中，我的团队也很小，也在未知领地工作，创造新的科技，这非常有意思，非常有挑战。四年半时间，我们成为了一个家庭。这完全改变了我以前拍电影的方式。
有评论文章说，卡梅隆把海底的一些生物放到了潘多拉星球上是其影片成功的原因，而对于我来说，做事的基本法则以及过程本身改变了事情的结果。
最后，总结一下。我学到了什么?
第一：好奇心，这是你拥有的最重要的东西;
第二：想象力，这是你创造现实最重要的力量;
第三：对团队的尊重，这是比世界上其他定律更重要的定律。
有不少年轻电影导演向我讨教成功经验，我对他们说：“不要给自己划定界限。别人会为你去划边界，但你自己千万别去。你要去冒险。失败是你其中一个选项，但畏惧不是。从来没有一次探险是在有完全安全保障的情况下完成的。你必须愿意承担这些风险。”谢谢大家!(掌声)