Last night’s Bill Weir interview with James Cameron on Nightline wasn’t just the first on-camera look at the filmmaker’s 100-acre off-the-grid oceanfront compound north of Santa Barbara. It was also a fantastic commercial for the Chevy Volt, albeit engineered from a much broader initial segment blueprint.

“ABC News approached us a couple of months ago with the idea that they wanted to do a story on electric vehicles,” explains Rob Peterson, a spokesperson for Chevrolet Volt, on the phone with FishbowlLA from Detroit. “They asked us if there was a high-profile Volt owner we could recommend.”

“Mr. Cameron has been an advocate of plug-in hybrid vehicles for many years,” he continues. “We knew that he could be the right person for the story. We had a contact in California who could reach out to him and find out it was alright to put ABC News in touch. From that point forward, it was between Nightline and Cameron.”

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James Cameron and his production company Lightstorm Entertainment will be moving the production of the next two Avatar flicks to Orange County the South Bay. Manhattan Beach’s MBS Media Campus will be the site of Cameron’s blockbuster sequels, which also houses the headquarters of Marvel Studios. MBS bills itself as eco-friendly, but Cameron is apparently footing the bill to install solar panels to handle the making of the films.

Interestingly, MBS Media Campus is owned by the Carlyle Group, and is managed by Raleigh Studios, whose president is named Michael Moore. Fahrenheit 9/11 irony much?

And in other film news, Chewbacca reads the newspaper.

*Post altered for fairly major geographical brain fart. We’ve lived in Southern California off and on since 2002, but we’ve only been to the South Bay twice in our entire life. Give us a break.

It’s a long way from Dublin’s Ballyfermot College of Further Education to Glendale, but that – per a highly entertaining Sunday, February 20th article in London’s Daily Mail – is the trajectory followed by a number of same-year classmates. Led by Richard Baneham (pictured), an Oscar winner last year for his visual effects contributions to Avatar.

Baneham spent five years working on the James Cameron blockbuster and expects to spend the next five supervising two simultaneous-shooting sequels. The 40-year-old husband and father of three is currently enjoying the fruits of his labor, alongside his transplanted Irish mates.

Baneham can’t stop laughing as he crosses his arms and poses for the camera, much to the amusement of the Armenian contractors working on the palatial former artists’ residence he recently bought in Glendale. The family hopes to move into the hacienda-style house this spring, and continues to live in their smaller house in the same suburb until then. Many of their Irish friends live nearby.

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You’d think that a short film taking Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford to task for a questionable Utah land deal would get its fair share of across-the-board media coverage. Especially when the short in question was unleashed to coincide with the final days of this year’s Park City event.

But save for some UK press as well as coverage at FOX News and Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government, there has been nary a peep so far from less right-leaning domestic media types about Phelim McAleer‘s Robert Redford: Hypocrite. Are these folks perhaps afraid that writing something up will risk the loss of media accreditation for the 2012 edition?

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Torrent Freak reports that James Cameron‘s Avatar was far and away the most pirated film of the year–downloaded 16,580,000 times on BitTorrent. Kickass was a distant second at 11,400,000 downloads.

Despite the pirating, Avatar still made over $2 billion worldwide. So, don’t feel too bad for Mr. Cameron.

H/T THR, Esq.

Tomorrow will see the release of a new album from the very ebullient Jaeson Ma. To celebrate, the San Francisco bred, LA located pastor, entertainer and entrepreneur plans to host a live stream, “GLORY Album Online Release Experience”, beginning at 8 p.m. PT on Tuesday December 7th.

MC Hammer‘s former right-hand man tells AllKPop.com that he spent two years working on his “GLORY” spoken word rap album, with first single “Love Featuring Bruno Mars” having already garnered three million hits on YouTube. Ma also offers this intriguing idea of the second coming of his messianic muse:

I tell people all the time, “I believe if Jesus was alive today living in Los Angeles, he wouldn’t be a pastor preaching behind a pulpit. I believe he would be the greatest Hollywood director making films bigger than Avatar!” Why? because if you read the life of Jesus, he spent most of his time telling stories or parables, relating to common people, engaging culture personally and directly to communicate his message.

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Newly minted LA Times film writer Rebecca Keegan is off to a good start. After her item on the seemingly rare availability of the original Tron DVD got picked up by several fan boy blogs, she checks in today with a Hero Complex Q&A with departed Twilight auteur Catherine Hardwicke.

The trick these days with any big movie is to get to the writer and-or director before the cavalcade of set visit journalists and long-lead time magazine correspondents publish as well. Keegan does this with Hardwicke, ahead of next spring’s Warner Bros. revamp of Red Riding Hood, and right off the bat has some interesting info.

Apparently, says Hardwicke, it all started with Leonardo DiCaprio.

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The important thing about this story is the EPA also met with scientists…and James Cameron. We apparently will only care about the filmmaker much to the chagrin of the scientists.

CBS News reports:

The “Avatar” and “Titanic” director was among a group of scientists and other experts who met Tuesday with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies for a brainstorming session on stopping the massive oil leak.

The Canadian-born Cameron is considered an expert on underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies. “Avatar” and “Titanic” are the two highest-grossing films of all time.

Can’t say the government isn’t trying to save the gulf now!

Previously on FBLA: BP Interested in Waterworld Star’s Idea for Cleaning Up Disaster

MySpace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe and president and co-founder Tom Anderson are not only phenomenally rich after their lucrative sale of the kid-friendly site to News Corp. three years ago, now they’re scooping up awards starting with the Producers Guild of America Vanguard prize.

They join YouTube Founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen as 20-something recipients of the accolade. On the slightly more elderly side of the coin, director/producer George Lucas and director James Cameron also took the Vanguard.

The Vanguard, which recognizes achievements in new media and technology, will be presented at the Producers Guild Awards ceremonies Jan. 24 at the Hollywood Palladium.

“Tom and Chris created a lifestyle portal that redefines the Internet for people around the world,” said awards co-chairs David T. Friendly and Laurence Mark. “Their vision resulted in an environment where society interacts at a whole new level.”

DeWolfe and Anderson created MySpace in 2003 and sold it two years later to News Corp. for $770 million.

Kid-friendly (?) News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch is having the last laugh. The company is now worth well over $1 billion and climbing.

Seething with jealousy over William Donahue’s victory over feminist bloggers, fellow religious crackpot Donald Wildmon and his American Family Association have taken on The Discovery Channel and James Cameron over The Lost Tomb of Jesus.

The documentary investigates ossuaries (bone boxes) discovered in Jerusalem that have inscriptions allegedly relating to Jesus. The film also reveals new evidence that throws light on Jesus’ relationship with Mary Magdalene, with cheesy recreations. Cameron is the EP, not the director, so no danger of Jesus looking like Leonardo DiCaprio.

Wildmon (we can’t get over the aptness of that name) is launching another email attack:

It is time for Christians to send a message to The Discovery Channel and Hollywood that enough is enough! Don’t stay silent while The Discovery Channel and Hollywood continually attack our faith and our values.

You can’t buy advertising like this.

Wildmon is also very distressed about magazine covers at the supermarket, Ford Motors, and Disney.