James Cameron returns to abyss with Reality Camera System

After storming box offices around the world with Titanic (1997), Oscar-winning director James Cameron spent four years in preproduction for a hugely ambitious, 3D documentary exploration of the world's most famous shipwreck. Intended for screening on eight-story tall IMAX theatre screens, Ghosts Of The Abyss was an immense technological task as well as a considerable artistic challenge.

Realising Cameron's IMAX-sized vision demanded nothing less than a quantum leap over the technology used for Cameron’s previous 3D project, Terminator 2: Battle Beyond Time – a $60m combination of live action and 3D footage for the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida. For that shoot, Cameron had relied on massive camera rigs that needed huge amounts of light (f 5.6) for what were actually night sequences. Quite clearly, this equipment was entirely useless for a shoot conducted 2.5 miles under water, so talks began with Sony based on the HDCAM format.

The result of those talks was the Reality Camera System, invented by Cameron in collaboration with Sony and director of photography Vince Pace, who'd previously worked with Cameron on The Abyss and Titanic. Pace received a technical Academy Award for his efforts in designing a unique underwater lighting system for The Abyss.

“Movies are artificial,” says Cameron. “We all see in 3D. We’re used to seeing the world that way. With movies in 2D, flat on a screen, that’s an artificial experience. That’s not how we experience life. With 3D, we’re taking away the screen. You are looking through a window into a reality. That’s why we call the camera the Reality Camera System – we’re trying to share the reality we had, when we were on the expedition, with the audience.”

To simulate human stereoscopic vision, the camera lenses need to be just 70mm apart. The equipment also had to be capable of fitting inside a compact housing capable of withstanding the immense pressure at the depth of the shoot. To meet these requirements, Sony decided to produce a special version of the HDC-950 high definition studio camera. The 3D-T camera, with the ‘T’ standing for ‘telescoped’ – in this case, meaning the imager heads were separated from the camera electronics in very narrow housings for maximum flexibility.

This is the first large-format capable camera system to place the focal planes in exactly the same location as that of human eyes and the results are stunning. To further the camera system’s ability to mimic human vision, Cameron and Pace devised an “active convergence” system that would allow the lenses to cross and uncross much as our own eyes do when tracking objects moving closer or far away. Amazingly, the entire package weighed in at 19.5lb as compared to a 329lbs IMAX camera.

The custom HDCAM system was paired with a unique lighting system, and then deployed with manned Mir submersibles or robotic units which typically took two and half hours to descend to the required depth.

Format of choice
In an interview conducted after the shoot, Cameron was very enthusiastic about the technology. In fact, during his vacation Cameron had taken a conventional HDW-F900 CineAlta Camcorder to Truk Lagoon and spent a week shooting underwater.

The best footage was edited into a ten minute package, colour corrected in ‘about an hour’ and transferred to film using an E-Film laser recorder. “We projected it in 35mm and it was absolutely gorgeous,” Cameron says. “The one thing I can say definitively, whatever your choice may be for shooting above water, if you have any intention whatsoever of shooting underwater, never shoot film again.”

The advantages of HDCAM for this type of specialised shooting, not least the ability to capture an hour of footage rather than a few minutes of film, are clear. However, Cameron is impressed by the format for conventional shooting as well.

“HD is much more immediate, you don’t have dailies, so dailies are a thing of the past. You look at the monitor and what you see is what you’re getting. So you can fine tune the lighting, and make all your decisions in the moment, so this in a way changes the normal paradigm of photography, because now the director is directly involved in the cinematography, which some cinematographers don’t like and others may welcome, because there’s also the possibility of recriminations the next day, at dailies. ‘How come you didn’t have more fill light? I can’t see her eyes.’ So this is an opportunity to avoid that unpleasant aspect of the process.

“Of course, there are a few cinematographers who are so good, that it’s always perfect the next day, but if you’re not in that one percent, I think it’s good to have a dialogue with the director or the producer, whoever the other creative force is, if it’s television or if it’s film. And have that dialogue at the time, looking at the monitor, and getting exactly what you want, before walking away from that set-up.”

At the time of the interview, Cameron was considering HD for his award-winning sci-fi TV series, Dark Angel, which was shot in Vancouver for a Los Angeles studio. The advantages of HD for reviewing dailies via broadband were clear. Although Dark Angel was unexpectedly cancelled, Cameron remains committed to using HD for his next feature film.

Asked whether HD was good enough to replace 35mm, Cameron is unequivocal; “I think we’ve soundly and quietly passed that mark, and it’s so far in our rear-view mirror that it’s not really an issue of whether it’s the equivalent to 35mm. It’s an issue of ‘Is it the equivalent to 65 original negative, or beyond that?’ because that’s the kind of data that you’re getting.”

Cameron also remains enthusiastic about 3D and the Reality Camera System. “I would encourage film-makers to tell stories – dramatic films, fictional films, any kind of film-making, including sporting events – with this format. There have been many problems with 3D photography, but we’ve really solved all of them.”

While the subject of Cameron’s next film remains subject to speculation, Ghosts Of The Abyss was featured in the Cannes 2003 Official Selection and shown in 3D at the Grand Amphitheatre Lumiere.

Update: This acquisition system has also been used for Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids 3D and Borg Invasion 4D, a state-of-the-art Star Trek attraction in Las Vegas which opened in March 2004. The latter project actually used a 'Steady-cam' style implementation of the twin camera head system. Aerial Camera Systems have also made the camera available for hire in Europe.