James Cameron Calls Facebook's $2 Billion Virtual Reality Headset "A Yawn"

The maker of Avatar says he finds virtual reality goggles too limiting when shooting for his virtual-reality heavy films. He made the comments at the WSJD conference.
















Via wsj.com











James Cameron, the maker of Avatar, is apparently not a believer in the Oculus Rift, at least for filmmakers.

The virtual reality headset maker that Facebook bought for $2 billion is something that Mark Zuckerberg called "a long-term bet on the future of computing" on the company's most recent earnings call. He said that in total the company has shipped more than 100,000 Oculus Rift developer kits.

"There is a lot of excitement around something that is to me is a yawn," Cameron said on stage at the Wall Street Journal's WSJD Live conference.

"I'm moving and navigating through that world, I don't use goggles because I find that too limiting," he later said during the panel. "And also my intention is to make shots so I have to be able to have my head free to look around and not have my head movements describing the shots."

Cameron is known for creating movies that are heavy on special effects, with Avatar being the best example of a blockbuster that was primarily built around computer-generated imagery. "We call it virtual production but there's no real difference. We're in a kind of synthetic reality that surrounds us, the actor's characters are taken in real time to their environment," he said.

A representative from Facebook declined to comment on Cameron's comments.




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