Photo Courtesy: irish examiner

LOS ANGELES

Ace Hollywood director James Cameron is set to head the interesting project for National Geographic titled 'Mission OceanX' which will follow a groundbreaking ocean exploration mission.

The 'Titanic' director is no stranger to the deep, having dived down to the Mariana Trench in a submarine in 2012, among other aquatic adventures.

The upcoming project will follow the maiden voyage of the Alucia2, a next-generation exploration ship belonging to underwater exploration organization OceanX.

Cameron said in an exclusive interview with Variety that he is motivating the team to take a different approach from regular natural history series by understanding the mission well.

"We want it to be character-driven," Cameron said during a break from the shooting of his forthcoming film 'Avatar 2'. "One of the things I have pushed everybody towards, maybe even a little bit to the extent [that] they are outside of their comfort zones, was to make it kind of reality TV, meaning I want to follow these people. I want to know how they think; I want to understand their passion as explorers and as ocean scientists...that burning curiosity."

Nat Geo is launching a social-media campaign to rename Alucia2, which is expected to move to the Indian Ocean with its new moniker in mid-2020. It will carry highly qualified marine biologists and experts, but the entire information about any discoveries will only be known when it is in the field.

"That's part of the excitement - you go out there and you don't know what's going to happen. The ocean hasn't read your script and there's no Take 2," Cameron said. "It's not going to render down to some perfect shooting schedule."

The director said that the approach and inspiration to film 'Mission OceanX' was driven by Jacques Cousteau, a pioneer of underwater filmmaking. "Cousteau did it first," Cameron said. "It's not a new model. It's just a model that has been forgotten, but we knew his crew and what drove them and we were interested in them as much as what they were seeing and finding."

The hectic shooting schedule of 'Avatar' will not allow Cameron to be on board the Alucia2 for the full expedition. He will fly in at key moments - and said he expects to get in the water soon for its shooting.

Cameron along with his team has helped develop some of the filming techs which will be required during the filming of the series, which includes cutting-edge remote cameras, low-light cameras, and critter cams. On-board capabilities will enable footage to be edited at sea, allowing Nat Geo to tease footage and findings ahead of the series going out.