Hollywood director James Cameron is well known for his heavy use of special effects and techtastic techniques in his movies, which include “Titanic,” “Aliens” and the first–and best–two “Terminator” blockbusters.

In a few weeks, Cameron is hoping to hit geek gold again with a 3-D sci-fi juggernaut called “Avatar.”

Set to come out in mid-December, it is full of all kinds of fancy and innovative CGI animation.

And the use of blue-colored avatars–essentially digitally animated likenesses of the real-life actors–is a big plot point in the movie, which is about a soldier caught in a war between a greedy mining company and a heroic indigenous tribe on a planet called Pandora.

Here’s one of the trailers for “Avatar”:

And, of course, here is a video of a hysterical recent spoof of the movie done by “South Park”–with a little “Dances With Wolves” tossed in, because it is the same exact plot–called “Dances With Smurfs”:

But that’s just the feeling I got when I read the always sharp Joseph Menn of the Los Angeles Times, who penned an interesting piece earlier this week about writers in Hollywood turning to venture capitalists as the strike drags on.

Wrote Menn: “At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.”

That includes meetings with Silicon Valley VCs like Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, whose investment in Facebook gives it insight into the creation of new audiences.

The hope for the–let’s just say it, shall we–unnatural pairing of tech VCs and Hollywood folks?

That the sour lemons being thrown between studios and writers–ironically over future Internet revenues–will actually yield delicious lemonade, spurring the creation of quality online programming using the Internet’s massive distribution system that could also make lots and lots of money.

“Could” is obviously the operative word here, because–as we have noted many times in this column–very little original content created on the Web has had any true payoff yet.

Um, well, none, actually. (Save porn, which is an almost perfect content format for the Web.)

To be fair, there have been promising signs.

Ex-Yahoo exec and Hollywood player Lloyd Braun struck a deal with PepsiCo to pay for and create online content.

MySpace has been backing a range of online-only shows made by Hollywood types (although none has shown strongly increasing popularity and even seem to display worrisome declines in viewership, despite the justified potential touted by creators).

Of course, there’s the high-profile Sequoia Capital-backed and Will Ferrell-fronted FunnyorDie.com, as well as MyDamnChannel.com, from former MTV executive Rob Barnett.

And Viacom agreed this summer to create a new online entertainment studio in a 50-50 split with the creators of the popular “South Park” TV program.

Finally, Creative Artists Agency, which is the biggest talent agency in Hollywood, is apparently working with Silicon Valley VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson to raise up to $200 million to invest in the digital entertainment sector, even as other such firms as UTA and William Morris are making similar moves.

While that is a very little amount of money considering the billions of dollars that slosh around Silicon Valley to fund things like dopey widgets and yet another movie-comparison site, it is still a start.

The presumable goal is that by creating and distributing content for the Web in a lower-cost way, many kinds of revenues could be garnered via everything from advertising to getting back investments by selling the online material to television and the movies.

That sounds like a plan, except for the fact that the current state of advertising innovation related to Web videos is quite nascent, even pre-fetal.

While a lot of companies are focusing on this and advertisers seem willing to move in the direction of more online ad spending, it will simply be a long time before these investments pay off.

Which is just not part of the no-risk-and-all-reward mentality of most players in Hollywood, who wouldn’t know a start-up unless it took their prime table at the Ivy.

In all seriousness, it seems unlikely that the high cost of production now in place in the entertainment industry would in any way lend itself to the critical need for that kind of massive shift in economics required to make online content pay off now.

Currently, studios still only grudgingly want to consider sharing ownership of content, and the talent seems even less willing to take the burden of risk required onto its shoulders.

Still, I admire all the efforts on the part of writers to not just strike, but strike out from their current comfort zone and move into the future, where online entertainment production and distribution seems obviously inevitable.

The problem is that it might take a longer while than those creators have patience for and they will prematurely abandon their efforts and return to propping up a system that is destined for, while not oblivion, then certain diminution.

So what’s needed–as in all marriages–is a crazy leap of faith, like this one from “Heroes” Peter Petrelli on NBC.

I am definitely no expert on this topic, except to say that the problem is that the delta between falling flat and succeeding is frighteningly close.

In other words, I Has No Idea what to do.

In my post yesterday about the deal “South Park” creators Stone and Parker (pictured here) made with Viacom related to creating a new kind of digital hub for the show and also other content, I used a Stone quote from a New York Times interview in which he noted that the only quick place to get an episode of the raucous animated series in some places was to download it illegally.

I then slightly mocked him for not getting on the fast-moving viral bandwagon sooner and coming up with legal and easy ways for fans to get great copies of shows.

Sam (who apparently has no last name) of the Web site South Park X, where one can apparently get such copies he notes, took exception, pointing out that the pair has always been pirate-friendly.

Wrote Sam to me in an email:

Many many times in the past Matt Stone and Trey Parker have defended our sites, and while many believe we are ‘illegal download sites,’ we have not once been contacted by ‘South Park’ or Comedy Central lawyers or representatives.”

Well, Viacom, owner of Comedy Central, where “South Park” airs, might have had its hands full with suing someone with a bigger wallet, like Google, but Sam’s point is well taken.

From an interview in December 2006 with Reason Magazine, Stone and Parker had the following exchange:

Reason: When it looked like Comedy Central wasn’t going to rerun the Mary episode, people were still able to download it illegally online. Did you see that as a victory for free speech, or did you think, ‘My God, these people are stealing our intellectual property’?

Stone: We’re always in favor of people downloading. Always.

Reason: Why?

Stone: It’s how a lot of people see the show. And it’s never hurt us. We’ve done nothing but been successful with the show. How could you ever get mad about somebody who wants to see your stuff?

Parker: We worked really hard making that show, and the reason you do it is because you want people to see it.

That’s pretty clear, though I am sure Viacom’s busy lawyers might beg to differ.

Also, I might add that these parody videos posted below–a mashup of the ribald animated series and the Apple ads and another with “Harry Potter”–are chock full of jacked material!

Oh yes, I just grabbed this fine picture of the “South Park” character right off the Web without a problem.

I await Viacom owner Sumner Redstone’s wrath and expect his legions of lawyers to come raining down on me asap.

Herein lies the problem and the impetus for a new–and I would say not insignificant–deal just signed by the creators of “South Park” with its principal distributor, Viacom’s Comedy Central, which a New York Times report outlined in today’s paper.

According to the story, “South Park” creators and executive producers Matt Stone and Trey Parker, sick of seeing their valuable content ripped off pretty much everywhere it can be digitally ripped off, have decided to get into the viral video game themselves, which should have occurred to them, oh, many, many moons ago.

“If I’m overseas and have to get an episode right away,” Stone said to the Times, “you literally have to go to an illegal download site.”

I cannot imagine what a “South Park” character would do with an obviously obvious statement like that, but it would surely involve a bodily function.

Under terms of the deal, in which it appears Comedy Central (a division of MTV, which is a division of Viacom, which is a division of owner Sumner Redstone’s increasingly pissed-off-about-YouTube brain) will be footing the bill, they will create a Web hub to get “South Park” material out there before all the piraters can (and will still continue to, by the way).

To combat that too, the new unit will try to create new material well beyond the show. New television concepts, perhaps even bigger than the massive “South Park” franchise, could even emerge.

As part of the arrangement, they’ll all apparently split any ad revenue from SouthParkStudios.com, which should tell you all you need to know about the mood of Hollywood right now.

Studios are justifiably scared of the digital onslaught and actually have started to imagine funding talented people to create material to compete and to share in the ventures’ success might be a good idea.

While that’s business-as-usual in tech funding, the idea is an anathema to the entertainment industry, which likes to keep its talent happily overpaid with pap (though giant) salaries, all while keeping the really good and lucrative stuff–the actual ownership of the creative product–to itself.

The artists are no better, accepting the pricey pay-off in exchange for their work. Or as Stone said in an interview with the Times: “People always ask us, ‘You own it, right? No? Why’d you sign that deal?’ And I have to say, ‘Because I was sleeping on my friend’s couch.’”

Thus, the Google twins are billionaires many times over and the “South Park” dudes are merely really rich.

That’s achingly typical, and Hollywood execs argue that it’s because they take all the risk by funding, distributing and marketing the various entertainment projects. But with the advent of digital distribution and creation, it obviously all needs a bit of retooling.

Not that Viacom has not tried everything, in a panic after the not-buying of MySpace, which has definitely been a flash point for the company. Another, of course, is the $1 billion lawsuit it is waging against Google over copyright infringement on YouTube.

But I like this kind of move a lot better, even if it is a big flop and even if it is only reserved for giant rainmakers like Stone and Parker. While Hollywood powers like Viacom surely won’t allow others in on the game quite yet, it is an encouraging and even bold direction to the usual picture of Redstone (pictured here) harrumphing about digital piracy of its material.

While I agree that that is a problem that tech companies like Google need to address and have been arrogant about not addressing quickly enough, new CEO Philippe Dauman (whom I interviewed at D5 in May) is obviously a good influence.

It’s a move that should be replicated to make Web content as important as it could be. Hollywood needs to make more smart moves like this or else they are cooked.

Or maybe they are already, in the words of Cartman:

Stan: Dude, dolphins are intelligent and friendly.
Cartman: Intelligent and friendly on rye bread with some mayonnaise.

Now that’s funny, as are these two parody videos:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google (owner of YouTube).