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. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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 am 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， 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， “Okay， 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 these expeditions. 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 spoolled 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 vehicle through 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 telepresense 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 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 animals. They are basically aliens right here on Earth. They live in an environment of chemosynthesis. They don，t survive on sunlight based system the way we do. And so， you，re seeing animals that are living next to a 500 degree Centigrade water 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 to 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. 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.
