The Making of James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’

Last month, in an effort to both promote, and illustrate the purpose of, the release of the Avatar Collector’s Edition Blu-ray/DVD, James Cameron held an event called the Avatar Global Media Day - where reporters from across the globe were invited to an in-person tour of all the stages involved in the creation of Avatar.

I was lucky enough to attend the event, which was akin to taking an in-person tour of “Capturing Avatar” – the feature-length documentary about the making of the film, which will be available with the Collector’s Edition Blu-ray.

Throughout the day we were taken to a series of ten stations which represented the various departments, steps, creative and technological processes involved in producing Avatar.

The stations were manned by the actual people responsible for creating the film – men and women who often likened the production to various treacherous scenarios such as “building an airplane in flight,” “stitching the parachute on the way down from the plane,” and the less deadly “trying to paint while paintbrushes are being invented.”

The stations included a look at the creation of the creatures and vehicles (including the AMP suit, and a glimpse of an “unobtainium” sample), a 3D camera demonstration, a look at the sound design (including a chat with composer James Horner), and a tutorial in virtual camera and simulcam technology.

James Cameron Demonstrates The Virtual Camera

I had the opportunity to operate the virtual camera, and experience the magic myself. Operating the camera was absolutely amazing. Imagine a 3D video game with almost infinite possibilities for movement and scope, crane shots, extreme close-ups, zoom-ins from a hundred (virtual) feet away, with the wildly imagined characters live and in front of you.

Film fanatics will enjoy this video with highlights from the day:

The concept for the event arose because James Cameron was dreading another press junket, where there is no real time to get down to “the cool stuff.” He felt that it was impossible to convey the “the purpose of the special edition disk set in the small interview time that each reporter would be allotted.” The purpose of the junket, for Cameron, was “to celebrate the team, and the effort behind the film, and help the fans and the film community at large to understand how the film was made, with all of these new pioneered techniques.”

Several messages came through in the course of the day, some of which we may be familiar with, some of which may be a surprise:

One: Performance was highly valued in this film, and the creators want us to know just how the technology works to enhance and support those performances, so that we do not relegate the actor to a (falsely) limited role in the production. This was stressed in every station, by every department. For myself, I believe that Zoe Saldana absolutely deserved at least a best supporting actress nomination for her role in this film, but that is a matter for another post.

Two: The simulcam is the piece of technology that the team feels has the greatest implications for the film industry going forward. Many people feel that it was the 3D that was revolutionary in Avatar, for Cameron, however, “that was already a mature technology” when they began production. He goes on to say that:

This is one of the hardest things to explain about this movie. One of the leading questions is: ‘So you created your own camera for this movie?’ Well, no, actually we created three cameras; which are all completely separate. One is the virtual camera, which is basically just a TV monitor with handles that allows us to see into a world that you can’t see in any other way. It’s all around you, you can point it up, you can point it around, you can look around at the environment that you are standing in, but can’t see. You are actually in this immaterial world, and it allows you to see that. It’s a pretty amazing process.

A completely separate camera that took seven years, and ten million dollars to develop, prior to making Avatar, was the 3D camera.

The cameras have nothing to do with each other. We could have chosen live-action 3D like Step Up 3D, or any other live-action 3D.

Or we could have chosen to do completely virtual performance capture like Beowulf with the virtual camera, but we chose to merge the two technologies together to create a hybrid movie.

Now, here’s where it gets squirrely.

I was working with the virtual camera and I said to the tech team: ‘What if this was not a virtual camera? What if this was in fact a real camera, pointing at real actors, and we could also plug in virtual subjects simultaneously, by shooting the actor in front of the green screen, or by comping them in in real time?’

So, we took the two separate cameras and merged them together into one system; and we call that simulcam.

And the idea would be that I could simultaneously have an actor performing nearby (in the virtual world) and we could take that character and feed it into the eye piece of my camera while I am working on a live-action sequence, and shooting actors with real lights and so forth.

An example is when Jake wakes up for the first time in the lab.

We are in a lab, and I am operating a camera hand-held following a character, who is ten feet tall who’s not there – but I can see him.

And he is operating on a set that is a half scale set nearby; and I had to cue the actors who were live about where he was moving, because they couldn’t see him of course, but I could see him, so the validity of the camera placement and the shot design was informed as if he was right there.

So it was a pretty remarkable process; in terms of being revolutionary, we think that that is one of the things that is really going to change how visual effects are done going forward.

Three: James Cameron is a director who pays meticulous attention to the details; a trait that inspired a few grumbles from the members of the crew over sleepless nights, and the high tension deadlines they were under to meet the directors exacting standards. It is also a trait he seems well aware of, and even displays some self-deprecation about.

One of the stations included linguist Paul Frommer, who developed the Na’vi language for the film. The process of (initially) developing the structure and philosophy of the language took six months of work, and continues to this day.

Cameron joked that people felt that — this is where he had really gone “off the deep end”, that it was akin to “getting the carpet the exactly right pattern on Titanic.”

Yet the director felt he had to “invest Paul with a mandate to say to the actors; Na’vi is a real language and you must learn it as if you are learning French or Russian.”

In addition to what a fully-formed language brings to us, the audience, in terms of worldly dimension, the actors were more invested in roles that gave  them something to chew on. Cameron went on to elaborate how building this language lent itself to the creation of a textured and fully realized world.

Actors love that kind of challenge. Way in the back of their mind they know its gobbledygook; but they know that it will make the film better and it also gives them something to commit to in terms of creating the character. That is a very important thing for the actor, and in the psychology of actors, to give them these challenges. Especially when they are going to a performance capture stage when they don’t even look like the character will finally look. They look like they are wearing a black Lycra leotard, so they need as much confidence and sense of ownership of the character as possible. So Paul, because of his obsession with detail, fed into that in a way that I think really lifted it all to another level.

When he was making his Seminole film, Gone with the Wind, producer David O. Selznick insisted that the actresses playing the (initially) spoiled daughters of the south don pure silk petticoats. Actress Ann Rutherford (who played Scarlett’s sister) told O. Selznick that “he could save a lot of money if he used flannel petticoats as I (Rutherford) did in westerns.” She wondered at the expense, and told the producer that “no one would know the difference”; to which O. Selznick replied simply,“you would.”

Now, that relentless attention to detail may seem wasteful to some, or borderline psychotic to others; but to me, when it comes to the art of filmmaking, I find it to be the mark of a craftsman with great passion. In the making of Avatar, every CJ costume, headdress and piece of jewelery was physically made at least once by Academy Award-winning costume designer Deborah Scott. Botanist Jodie Holt was hired  to serve as a consultant for Sigourney Weaver’s character, Grace Augustine, and eventually created Latin names and general descriptions for every single plant on Pandora–and so on.

There are strengths and weaknesses to Cameron as a filmmaker, but one thing that makes his movies stand out from the crowd is the sheer amount of passion he puts into them. Cameron puts serious intention and intensity into his work, and that translates in a visceral way to me as an audience member. I may, ultimately, be drawn to a different type of film as my absolute favorite, but I always respond to Cameron’s films on an instinctual level and his relentless and passionate drive gives me a good sense of why that is.

James Cameron exhibits the same drive towards perfection that David O. Selznick did – perfection in the sense of the most fully-realized version of his vision. (Note — before you comment, this is not a comparison of their work, this is a comparison of their work ethic).

Cameron also has a relentless drive to educate. He wants the film community, and the movie going audience at large, to understand what it took to make Avatar, where the focus of the creators was, and how other filmmakers can use the technology in a way that he feels is responsible and makes sense for the story they are trying to tell. There is an inherent sense of irony in the fact that the man who so often pushes the technological envelope, also makes films about the dangers of irresponsible technology. Perhaps that is part of what drives his desire to educate and sometimes, well, reprimand.

However, while the goal of the Avatar Global Media Day was to give participants a hands-on interaction with the technology used in the creation of the film, Cameron and his team always stressed that story was, and is, primary for them. There was a constant stress on how to use the technology properly. An example of an irresponsible use of motion-capture would be to falsely inject an actor who has passed away (like, say, Marilyn Monroe) into a film using capture. An appropriate use, according the Cameron and his team, would be to age a living actor from ten to 100, in which case, Cameron feels that the capture is a support for the story, not unlike prosthetic makeup.

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To know more about the features of Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, read the second part of our report by going HERE.

The Avatar Collector’s Edition Blu-ray/DVD will be released on November 16th.

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Why The ‘Avatar’ Extended Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Is Worth It

In his welcome to the press, for Avatar Global Media Day James Cameron said that he felt the the experience of the day was a great opportunity “whether you are fans of the film or not, to get behind the curtain behind some processes that are really revolutionizing how films are being made.”

I couldn’t agree more, and this, is in essence, is the reason that I feel that this Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition Blu-ray is more than worth it for people who are genuinely passionate about, and interested in the filmmaking process.

The 3 disk set includes the following:

3 versions of the film.An alternate opening depicting life on Earth.Capturing Avatar a documentary on the making of the film (see more about that by going HERE) as well as several other support pieces on the filmmaking process itself.45 minutes of deleted scenes.An “Interactive Scene Deconstruction” option, in which viewers can experience the various stages of production through 3 different viewing modes, and more.

The opportunity to delve into the technological processes involved in the making of this film is an absolute treat for film lovers, as Cameron says, “whether you are a fan of this film or not.” If you want to read more about my tour behind the scenes of Avatar, the be sure to READ THIS.

The footage of life on Earth adds a whole new layer to the film, it gives a sense of desolation, of overpopulation and suffocation. A sense of  consequence, a reason for the plunder of Pandora, and enhances the feeling of freedom that comes later for the character of Jake (Sam Worthington).

One of the greatest features for film fans is the “Interactive Scene Deconstruction”, in which the viewer is able to switch between three different levels in the production process, for over sixty minutes of footage. The first is the reference level, showing the record of the actors performances; the second is the template level, which is akin to what you would see in the virtual camera; and the third, is the final, finished shot.

This film went through two full editing processes, once with the reference material, the record of the actors performances, and then again when the actual shots were created.

This is how Cameron describes the process:

When you capture the performances, you make a performance cut; but that cut is not frame accurate to what the final cut will be because it is not made with true images. It is only made with reference camera images, and their job is just to make sure that we have a good record of whats happening facially for the actors. Then we take those reference camera images and we start to imagine what the shots might be.

Maybe as much a year after we’ve captured the scene with the actors, I would go back and work with the virtual camera have them bring all these ghosts back to life. I would then create the actual shots; maybe a slow creeping move in close up, or a high crane shot…

That’s the first moment that they (the editors) have essentially dailies or shots to cut with. They would sit on the stage and begin to assemble the scene in real time as I was doing the virtual cameras. And because we didn’t have actors, make-up, wardrobe, sets, sun going down, all of those pressures, I could actually stop shooting and walk over, look at the cut, work with them for awhile, and then go back up, maybe see an angle that might improve the cutting pattern, and go back out to shoot.

This feature gives you a real sense of how these processes blend together to create the final product; it is, as Cameron rightly states,“geek heaven.”

To get s sense of some of these features, take a look at the trailer for the Collector’s Edition here:

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Avatar can often be a point of contention amongst film fans. There are those who stand behind the film as powerfully moving, and yes, technologically revolutionary; then there are those who could not move past the archetypal nature of the story, and some of the film’s flaws.

My personal taste in film varies greatly. I love many different kinds of films, for many different reasons. When it comes down to absolute favorites, I tend to lean more towards what many might consider “art-house”, though they may be visually expansive or even epic in scale.

Having said that, I personally loved Avatar. I don’t think it was without flaws, but I don’t think many things are without flaws. I was completely enchanted by the immersive experience of the film. I felt like I had seen a movie, taken a ride, and lived a bit of a fantasy and hero’s journey, all at once.

My response to peoples’ complaints about the archetypal nature of the story is that we, as humans, tell the same tales over and over again -- it’s part of how we understand ourselves. So what if the story was reminiscent of other tales? In many ways, it needed to be, or people would miss the meaning entirely. If Avatar‘s story was not so archetypal we may have been mired down in a bunch of intellectualism, and missed the point entirely. Mythological tales are designed simplistically for a reason, and often, serve a very great purpose.

In any case its all about the execution, and this film truly was, and is, revolutionary in terms of the technology and use of the technology. MORE IMPORTANTLY – the technology was in the service of the story, and not the other way around. Which is key to the films success.

I do not pretend to be blind to the film’s flaws; nor do I necessarily put it into my list of top twenty films of all time. However, I do see it as having a vast impact both culturally in terms of the subject matter, and technologically in the film industry — which will have its own broad cultural effect. It is certainly a film with far-reaching and varied significance.

To me, the most interesting character in the film was Pandora itself, and I think it is very telling that people have such a resistance to that. In terms of dimensionality, for me, it goes from the least to the most developed characters within the film -- the humans -- the Na’vi -- and then, Pandora. I think our egos resist the idea that we are not the most important thing in the universe, but rather part of a greater, far more complex whole. Personally, that is one of my favorite aspects of Avatar.

Given the response to the film, no one can deny that this hits a very deep, global chord.

Well okay, that chord was attached our funny bone. But the truth is that Avatar sparked a lot of dialogue, and strangely, a lot of fear. China and the Vatican both spoke out against the film (the levels of irony in that connection tickle me endlessly); and certainly, it has sparked a great deal of conversation in the realm of environmentalism.

During the Global Media Day event we had the opportunity to meet with a group that Cameron has worked with since the release of the film, called The Amazon Watch. They spoke with us about the way this film felt relevant to them, in terms of their work with indigenous cultures threatened by a massive dam project in Brazil. I am unable to delve into the layers of complexity involved in this project, and it’s potential consequence, in this post; however, there is a seventeen-minute documentary available on the Collector’s Edition about Cameron’s work with Amazon Watch.

Cameron is certainly passionate about the environment, and has found the film to be a great jumping off point for dialogue. When asked if he had a dream as a filmmaker, he responded:

I dream of a world in which we evolve to respect nature enough to stop doing things like off shore drilling and (things of that nature). That’s where my dreams are, and those feel a lot more impossible than the stuff that we are doing on Avatar, and require a lot of work on everybody’s part. In terms of the movies, I think that anything we can imagine, we go after it, and eventually we will get there.

Cameron is aware, as are we all, that a “movie is not going to change the world”, but it cannot be denied that a movie can open the door to discussion. You may be an environmentalist, you may not be; either way, the best thing we can do is to begin to sort through the issues that effect us all, and initiate a conversation.

This is, amazingly, just a snapshot of all that I was exposed to and learned from the Avatar Global Media Day. One thing I did come away certain of, is this: If you are a film lover, a person who craves knowledge about the cutting edge of filmmaking, then this Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition Blu-ray will be worth it to you. The level of information you will receive on the fimmaking process is immense, and the process itself is very fascinating.

If you are a die-hard Avatar fan, then this will be an even sweeter treat for you.

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To read about our visit to Cameron’s Avatar studio and all the new filmmaking technology we got to play with, read the other part of report by going HERE.

The Avatar Collector’s Edition Blu-ray/DVD will be released on November 16th.

Follow me on twitter @jrothc and Screen Rant @screenrant

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‘Avatar’ Producer Addresses Sequel Rumors

Only months after the release of Avatar, director James Cameron was already dropping hints about what fans could expect from the inevitable sequels. One of his earliest declarations was that Avatar 2 would take audiences into a region of Pandora unexplored by the original film – the oceans.

It’s been confirmed that Avatar 2 will be Cameron’s next project and that it will be shot back-to-back with Avatar 3. Although screenplays for the sequels have yet to be written, there are some factions of the Internet rumor mill that seem to believe the first sequel will take place entirely underwater.

Empire recently caught up with Jon Landau,  one of the Avatar franchise’s producers, while he was out promoting Avatar‘s upcoming Extended Collector’s Edition. Landau revealed that the oceans of Pandora will indeed be featured in Avatar 2, but they won’t be the focus of the film:

“Water will be a part of the movie, but it won’t be all of the movie … There’s been a lot of rumours that it’s an underwater movie – it’s not. Just like the Floating Mountains, and the Na’vi’s interaction with the mountains, were a part of Avatar, it’ll be the same type of thing.”

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise since Cameron previously stated that Avatar 2 would definitely expand the scope of the first movie, but not at the expense of revisiting established locations. Yet, the innovative filmmaker clearly has a larger story in mind – one that goes beyond Pandora and involves other planets in the Alpha Centauri AB system.

If the franchise does indeed wind up traveling to other worlds, it won’t be until the third film. Landau indicates that Avatar 2 will likely take place entirely on Pandora:

“I think the next movie will stay on Pandora. That’d be my guess. Not all the answers are there yet, but I think we’re happy with Pandora.”

James Cameron and Jon Landau

Landau also insists that even though the sequels are shooting back-to-back, it’s important that they stand on their own. So don’t expect Avatar 2 to end with a cliffhanger à la Back to the Future Part II or The Matrix Reloaded:

“The next [film] will kick off where the  last one ended, but just like Avatar resolved itself and doesn’t feel like a set-up to another movie, you don’t want Avatar 2 to feel like a set up for 3.”

Not only does that decision seem creatively stronger, in my opinion it also shows more respect for the audience. The majority of Avatar fans are already passionate and no one needs to be baited into seeing another film. Franchise or not, I think each film should tell a contained story – even if there’s a larger arc in place.

Finally, Landau touches on two other long-gestating Cameron projects – The Dive and Battle Angel. While they’re obviously a ways off, it doesn’t sound like interest has waned:

They’re further-out projects … Neither one has that shooting script yet and both are really worthy projects to make.”

My list of criticisms for the first Avatar is largely the same as everyone else’s, but I really do have high hopes for the follow-ups. Landau previously discussed Cameron’s successful track record with sequels and the pressure that created for  Avatar 2. Here’s hoping they knock it out of the park.

Source: Empire.

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Windows: Hey Mac, how do you like your Avatar?

November 12 2010 by admin in News |

We love snark in all its forms, especially when we know both of the parties involved. Microsoft has just released a rather comical video depicting a rather mundane situation: a long plane flight.

Starring a Windows 7 laptop and a Macbook Pro (we think), the two embark on a Blu-Ray fueled romp through Avatar. Just watch it, if you like Windows, you will smile. If not, don’t watch it, you’ll thank me later.

Oh, and if you don’t get the back story, let us help you out. Steve Jobs once called Blu-Ray a “bag of hurt” and claims that “it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats.” We agree, but for many consumers, Blu-Ray is a rather important component of their digital lives. Queue Microsoft poking fun, go!

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