Al Gore warns on latest climate trends Al Gore, who has given three TED Talks in total, won Best Documentary for An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. Three years later, at TED2009, he showed the latest climate data, revealing that damage to the planet was accelerating more quickly than expected. He also offered a potential solution: clean coal.

Rob Legato: The art of creating awe Rob Legato has won multiple Oscars for Best Visual Effects — for Hugo, Titanic and Apollo 13. At TEDGlobal 2012, he gave the talk “The art of creating awe,” revealing snippets of how the memorable effects in each were created. He also shared his penchant for recreating moments that actually happened on film. (See Legato’s picks for the 5 movies that floored him visually.)

Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story Director Andrew Stanton won Best Animated Feature for WALL-E and Finding Nemo. He also gave the talk “The clues to a great story” at TED2012. His bold idea: starting at the end and working back to the beginning.

James Cameron: Before Avatar ... a curious boy James Cameron has been nominated for six Academy Awards and won three. Known for his ability to create engrossing worlds, in the talk “Before Avatar … a curious boy” at TED2010, Cameron shares why he has long been enthralled by the fantastic.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy: Inside a school for suicide bombers The 2012 documentary Saving Face follows a plastic surgeon as he journeys through Pakistan, performing reconstructive surgery for women who’ve been the victims of acid attacks. The powerful film won the Oscar for Best Documentary. At TED2010, director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy — a TED Senior Fellow — shared footage from another project, taking us “Inside a school for suicide bombers.”

Jane Fonda: Life's third act Jane Fonda won her first Oscar for Klute in 1971, and her second for Coming Home in 1978. At TEDxWomen 2011, the actress and exercise video enthusiast shared her thoughts on “Life’s third act.”

Jeff Skoll makes movies that matter At TED 2007, Jeff Skoll gave us the one rule he has for picking projects to produce: that they must be movies that matter. Skoll’s film company, Participant Media, has made five Oscar winners, including Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth and The Help.

Don Levy: A cinematic journey through visual effects Don Levy took us through a cinematic journey of visual effects with the help of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at TED2012. The head of marketing and public relations for Sony Pictures Imageworks, he led the awards campaigns for the studio’s first win, for the short The ChubbChubbs in 2003, through their win for Best Visual Effects for Spider-Man 2 in 2005.

Other TED connections worth noting:

• Producer Jake Eberts — known for taking on bold projects like Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Dances with Wolves and March of the Penguins — has been involved with the making of movies that garnered 66 Oscar nominations, including nine Best Picture nominees. Eberts sadly passed away in 2012, but before his death, often showed film clips at TED — generally unposted because the footage was embargoed. Here, a recap of his talk from TED2009.
• Morgan Spurlock, who gave the talk “The greatest TED Talk ever sold” at TED2011, was nominated for his documentary Super-Size Me.
• Composer James Horner won two Oscars for his work in Titanic, including Best Original Song for “My Heart Will Go On.” Horner desconstructed a scene from the epic film at TED2005.
• Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder and CEO of DreamWorks Animation, spoke several times at TED in the early days. His company made Beauty and the Beast, the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture, and won Best Animated Feature Film in 2001 for Shrek.
• Producer Lawrence Bender, whose films have gotten 29 Academy Award nominations in total, has also spoken briefly at a TED.
• Ben Affleck, who created a playlist of his favorite TED Talks, directed and starred in Argo — nominated for seven awards this year, including Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay.
• Longtime TED community member Philipp Engelhorn got a Best Picture nod this year for Beasts of the Southern Wild, which he executive produced.

Photo: James Cameron / Deepsea Challenge

Update: This Storify tells the story of the descent in tweets from around the world …

If all goes as planned, today James Cameron (watch his TEDTalk) begins an epic dive to the deepest point in the ocean — taking the director almost 7 miles down into the Mariana Trench.

Follow the Deepsea Challenge expedition >>

The Mission Blue ocean news site offers context on the expedition:

Cameron spent the last six years researching submersible technology and coming up with solutions to negotiate the Mariana Trench’s crushing 1,086 bars of pressure (roughly 1,000 times the pressure at sea level). He began building his vessel—dubbed the Deepsea Challenger—in secret in Australia. His effort resulted in a 24-foot-long craft that seats only one person and has no amenities. Now, he is ready to put that vessel to the test in a 6-hour solo dive.

On the ocean’s floor, Cameron plans to film what he sees (the sub is designed not to kick up clouds from the ocean floor) and turn his deep dive into a 3D film to share the wonderment of this almost-unknown part of the ocean.

Mission Blue asked ocean legend and TED Prize winner Sylvia Earle for her thoughts on Cameron’s epic exploration:

Earle thinks Cameron should receive the same level of recognition as the pioneering astronauts who returned with images of the Earth from afar. “The ocean is relevant to every breath we take, every drop we drink, and this provides incentive to solve problems and take the ocean seriously,” she said. “There’s a sense of urgency for exploring and gaining knowledge about the ocean so we can take action,” she added.

One other TED-related side note: Only two other humans have ever made this dive, US Navy lieutenant Don Walsh and oceanographer Jacques Piccard, in the Trieste in 1960. And now Piccard’s son, Bertrand Piccard, is attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a solar-powered plane — a plan he shared at TEDGlobal 2009. Watch Bertrand Piccard’s TEDTalk >>

Watch James Cameron’s talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 600+ TEDTalks.