James Cameron

So seeing Mysterious Island, which was a Ray Harryhausen film, I probably would have been seven or eight.

And coming home and wanting to do my own version of Mysterious Island, so I started to draw essentially a comic book.

But it was my own story.

The animals were different.

They wound up cast away on a raft as opposed to in the movie it was a balloon.

And I just started telling my own story.

So technically that would be the first case I can remember of world building inspired by something else but not copying something.

And of course, Ray Harryhausen was always inspiring to me as a kid.

You know, I mean, the technique that he used of stop motion animation is considered quite quaint now, you know, and we can do things that are far more realistic.

But at the time, there was nothing like that in terms of his art, his craft.

And that blew my mind at the time.

And look, it doesn't take much to inspire.

Kids are imaginative.

And when you get something that impacts your imagination and triggers it, and then you start to draw, all of a sudden my hand's going.

You know what I mean?

I'm drawing.

I'm choosing colors.

What color do I want the giant turtle to be?

I picked green.

No big surprise there.