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Avatar Raises the Bar for Moviemaking Tech
By Neil Peterson | January 12, 2010
Following up Titanic was never going to be an easy task. Director James Cameron’s 1997 ‘star-crossed lovers on a doomed ocean liner’ saga shattered existing box office records, netting $1.8 billion worldwide and earning 11 Oscars. He accepted his Best Director award with the memorable ‘I’m the king of the world!’ quote from the film, and against all expectations promptly disappeared from Hollywood. 12 years would pass before he would release another movie – a lifetime in the entertainment business – and it would be a film that required no less than the creation of an entire world.
Cameron has a well-earned industry reputation as a perfectionist. And nowhere is this more apparent that in the years-long production of his recent film, Avatar. To fully realize his vision for this 3-D sci-fi epic, Cameron would go back to the drawing board – adapting, refining and in some cases – inventing, every single aspect of production. From cataloging the flora and fauna of the film’s alien world, Pandora to pushing the limits of performance-capture technology, the finished product is like nothing you’ve ever seen. And it could change moviemaking forever.
Even before production started, Cameron realized that to create the immersive experience he envisioned, he would need 3-D camera technologies that hadn’t yet been invented. In recent years we have seen the return of 3-D films in movie theaters – but none have yet been able to break down the ‘screen plane’, the imaginary wall between the viewer and the action. Cameron would enlist Vincent Pace, an acclaimed underwater photographer, and together the two men (in collaboration with Sony) would invent the Fusion 3D camera system, a light, twin-lens, hi-def digital camera. Unlike its precursors, the Fusion system was capable of shooting minutely measured details, and uses the twin lenses to replicate human vision.
With the camera system perfected, Cameron addressed the difficulties in blending performance-capture tech with computer-generated imagery – calling on the creative masterminds at director Peter Jackson’s New-Zealand-based Weta Digital. In an empty aviation hanger in Los Angeles, the actors performed in body suits covered with 80 metallic dots. The cameras would read the actors’ movements and translate them immediately, via specialized image-rendering system, into the lush, dangerous world of Pandora – and giving Cameron the ability to choreograph the camera movements on the fly. Additionally, each actor was fitting with a customized head unit, equipped with a mini hi-def camera to record each subtle facial movement – giving a seamless realism to each of the CG Na’vi characters.
Avatar movie trailer
Avatar’s technical genesis was complete, but as impressive as the visuals may be, Cameron’s virtual world was not yet finished. To obtain the nth degree of realism, the director hired experts of every possible ilk – including botanists, astrophysicists, composers and archaeologists – to address the minutiae of the alien planet. Paul Frommer, a USC linguistics expert, developed the nonexistent Na’vi language and taught it to each of the film’s cast members. During filming, all of these details would be compiled in a 350-page Pandorapedia – documenting all aspects of the fictional planet.
Now in it’s third week of release, Avatar is fast approaching Titanic’s record-setting numbers – and is being touted as nothing short of groundbreaking by critics and moviegoers alike. But for Cameron, this new approach to entertainment has been over three decades in the making – since his first viewing of George Lucas’ 1977 blockbuster, Star Wars. For Cameron, Star Wars represented what was possible in filmmaking, a feat he viewed as a cinematic call to arms. With Avatar, he has raised the bar for the entire industry – and one can only imagine what future blockbusters it will inspire.
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