James Cameron is the latest addition to the Masterclass family, and /Film has a great rundown of highlights from the “Avatar” and “Titanic” director’s three-hour-and-20-minute filmmaking course (there are 15 videos total in Cameron’s Masterclass program).
During a course on crafting the perfect movie set piece, Cameron reveals there was some studio pushback against the Mountain Banshee aerial sequence in “Avatar” because it did not serve a purpose on the main storyline.
The scene in question finds protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) learning to ride the eponymous winged creature and taking the Banshee out for a ride.“There are a lot of rules and advisories about why you put things in movies, and that they should all serve a purpose,” Cameron says in the Masterclass.
“Except, they don’t.
Sometimes it should just be something you want to see as a filmmaker…and sometimes the only way to
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