Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away 3D \u2013 Q & A with Executive Producer James Cameron<\/b><\/p>\n
From the big top to the big screen, visionary filmmaker James Cameron and director Andrew Adamson (Shrek, Narnia) invite you and your family on an all new 3D adventure: Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away.\u00a0\u00a0 A young couple who is separated, must journey through the astonishing and dreamlike worlds of Cirque du Soleil to find each other, as audiences experience the immersive 3D technology that will allow them to leap, soar, swim, and dance with the performers.\u00a0\u00a0 Cirque du Soleil brings their world to your city!<\/i><\/p>\n
For <\/b>Cameron, Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away<\/i> \u201cwas a dream come true. <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
I had actually been trying to talk to the Cirque people for years saying, \u201cWhy aren\u2019t we doing your shows in 3D?\u201d And I finally met with Danielle when I was finishing Avatar and I said, \u201cWe could be doing this with your shows\u201d.\u00a0 And when he started to see the possibility of what 3D could really be then we got serious.<\/p>\n
How does 3D enhance the spectacle?<\/b><\/p>\n
The Cirque du Soleil shows are so gorgeous, so colourful, so dreamlike \u2013 the 3D just puts you right in the show in a way that I believe is even better than sitting in the audience.\u00a0 You sit in the audience and you see it from one perspective but you go in with the 3D camera and you get in amongst the performers and you get into those high angles where you really see the jeopardy of those aerial acts, how far above the ground they are and you can feel that sense of vertigo. You appreciate the performance so much more.<\/p>\n
How did you direct a director, Andrew Adamson, for this film? <\/b><\/p>\n
Andrew is strongly visual, understands the visual effects which are used to create the wrap-around story but also had a great sensibility about what this is \u2013 this is a circus in a dream. You\u2019re kind of in a dream-state when you watch a Cirque du Soleil show anyway, now you\u2019re being asked to go a journey between these circus tents if you will in this dream-like state. So he approached it as art, as beauty, as a dream-like enigma because ultimately it\u2019s not about that story, it\u2019s about the design and the characters and all of the unanswered questions. There are so many things in Cirque du Soleil shows that are never answered for you \u2013 it forces your imagination to kick into gear.<\/p>\n
How did you film the live show in a different way?<\/b><\/p>\n
The challenge was that a lot of the power of the Cirque shows is that they\u2019re performed live so there\u2019s always the possibly that the performer might fail. I don\u2019t think people want that to happen but they celebrate it when it doesn\u2019t because it\u2019s a live show, it\u2019s really happening right in front of them. So we have to do something different with a film and the 3D provides a level of physical presence as if you\u2019re really there, it kind of convinces the brain at a subconscious level that it\u2019s really happening right in front of you. And it also makes you feel as if you\u2019re right there with the performers, you see the power of the athleticism in their performance and the grace and the beauty, it all just feels enhanced.<\/p>\n
How did you select amongst the arsenal of 3D camera equipment?<\/b><\/p>\n
We had a huge arsenal of camera equipment coming off a number of movies, Avatar among them but also coming off a lot of the live sports events that we\u2019ve been shooting so the question was, looking at that arsenal, what\u2019s going to work for these shows. Really it was a little bit like a concert film which we had done because there\u2019s a live audience while we\u2019re shooting parts of it and we have to have the cameras be unobtrusive and yet we also had the opportunity to go in and restage parts of the act without the audience there and get the camera right in close to the performance, so it was a little bit like shooting a movie. So we knew we had to have tools that were like the long-lens camera and cranes that we would use for a concert film. We\u2019d also get in there with the steady-cam, dolly and so on \u2013 a mix of the entire tool set that Cameron Pace <\/b>Group has available. It was the first time we ever put together all of those pieces on one project.<\/p>\n
Was there extra pressure put on the performers?<\/b><\/p>\n
All the Cirque performers are actors, they\u2019re performers, they\u2019re show people so I don\u2019t think it was tough for them \u2013 they understood there was a lot of pressure on them because they were elected out of not just the troop of their shows but all the troops of the different shows to represent Cirque du Soleil in this film. They worked really hard, they tried really hard but that\u2019s what they do every day \u2013 that\u2019s what these people do every day. Erica in her day job is up spinning around 50 feet above the floor at high velocity, being held there by someone with just one hand so I think they know how to deal with pressure.<\/p>\n
Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away 3D (rated G) opens in Cinemas in Digital 3D and 2D in Australia on 21 February 2013.<\/b><\/p>\n