James Cameron on January 13, 2023.Photo:Jon Kopaloff/Getty
Jon Kopaloff/Getty
“We had the ‘angels,’ which were the safety divers that were right there, and each one was assigned to one or two of the actors and just kept them in sight the whole time," Cameron told the audience, per the outlet. “[But] they weren’t watching me.”
The Oscar winner, who is an experienced diver himself, told the crowd that he was filming scenes 30 feet underwater and “wore heavy weights around my feet, no fins, a heavy weight belt around my waist,” in order to move the camera.
Cameron recalled that at one point, his oxygen tank ran out of air while “everybody’s setting lights and nobody’s watching me.”
Courtesy Everett
“I’m trying to get [underwater director of photography] Al Giddings attention on the p.a. but Al had been involved in a diving accident and he blew out both eardrums so he was deaf as a post,” he said. “And I’m wasting my last breath of air on an underwater p.a. system going ‘Al… Al…’ and he’s working away with his back to me.”
The director then said that he was able to remove his equipment and began to resurface when a safety diver on the production “sticks a regulator in my mouth that he didn’t check.”
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20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock
“It had been banging around the bottom of the tank for three weeks and had a rip through the diaphragm — so I purged carefully and took a deep breath… of water,” Cameron said, perVariety. “And then I purged it again, and I took another deep breath… of water.”
“At that point it was almost check-out point and the safety divers are taught to hold you down so you don’t embolize and let your lungs over expand going up. But I knew what I was doing,” he added. “And he wouldn’t let me go, and I had no way to tell him the regulator wasn’t working. So I punched him in the face and swam to the surface and therefore survived.”
20th Century Fox/Courtesy Everett
“That scene made an impact and showed people what was possible and I think it kicked in the door to the start of the CG explosion,” he said, perVariety.
source: people.com
