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Avatar

Although Avatar was conceived in 1995, it was shelved for want of the right technology to bring James Cameron’s vision to fruition. When the idea was revived a decade later, several technologies helped make it a masterpiece.

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Although Avatar was conceived in 1995, it was shelved for want of the right technology to bring James Cameron’s vision to fruition. When the idea was revived a decade later, several technologies helped make it a masterpiece.

James Cameron’s Avatar was a visual delight that took us to a spectacular world way beyond our imagination while it was also a testing ground for several new 3D technologies. It would be accurate to say that with Cameron, the technique of moviemaking is inextricably linked with the art itself. He created history with Titanic and again, with Avatar.

In Avatar, he helped create the Fusion 3D camera system in partnership with director of photography Vince Pace to give the desired 3D effect. Although the Fusion was used on some previous productions, it was in effect being tuned for the tough production demands that Avatar would have. Pace even called them ‘Avatar’-specific rigs”.

Avatar is truly an example of a film that has pushed the boundaries for many technologies and changed forever the way 3D movies or animations will be made. It has become a yardstick for other filmmakers.

One groundbreaking tool in Avatar was the Simul-Cam, which integrated, in real time, CG characters and environments into the film’s live action Fusion camera eyepiece. This technology essentially treats a photographic camera like the virtual camera, taking the virtual production toolset and superimposing it on the physical production.

Together, these tools helped to capture the imagination that Cameron had put to paper in 1995 but had shelved for lack of good technology to create the visual impact he had conceived.

Avatar is also a good example of the power of digital cameras. Cameron and his team used the Sony HDC-F950 and the HDC-1500 cameras for this production. They were paired with Fujinon lenses — the HA16x6.3BE (6.3-101mm) and the HA5x7B-W50 (7-35mm) – the latter was specifically designed for this project.

Perhaps one of the most distinguishing features of this film is how lifelike Cameron made his CG characters look, thanks to help from Peter Jackson’s special effects powerhouse, WETA Digital, in New Zealand.Rather than bore his characters and viewers with the rubber appliance make-up routine, he chose to create CG characters that closely resembled the actors they played. The efforts paid off. CG gave the Na’vi’s blue skin a translucent appearance very similar to the human skin.

A new “image-based facial performance capture” system, which used a head-rig camera to accurately record the smallest nuances of the actors’ facial performances, helped to augment the reality of the Na’vi.

Instead of using motion capture, the actors also wore special headgear to which a tiny camera was attached. The rig were turned towards the actors’ faces and the camera recorded facial expression and muscle movements to a degree never before possible. Most importantly, the camera recorded eye movement, which had not been the case with prior systems.

Essentially, all of this gave life to the Na’vi.

Another important tool was the use of the Virtual Camera, which allowed Cameron to shoot scenes within his computer-generated world, just as if he were filming on a Hollywood soundstage.

All of this was then beautifully brought together on screen by WETA Digital.

We see animation in a truly superior scale out here as the Na’vi look lifelike. The scale and depth of Pandora is equally impressive. While the Avids were a common element at the editing phase, colour grading and fill 3D stereoscopic effects were created with the help of four Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve systems by Modern Videofilm, a post house in the US.

To handle the immense scope and complexity of colour correcting the alien worlds of Avatar, Modern Videofilm developed a network of DaVinci Resolve systems all connected via optical fibre. Three systems were installed at Modern Videofilm’s main office in Glendale, CA, while a fourth was installed 56 miles away at the Fox Studio lot. By building a colour correction suite directly on the Fox lot, Modern Videofilm was able to handle the enormous number of real-time colour corrections and 3D transfers between facilities. These requirements included up to 120 colour changes on some EDLs, using hundreds of nodes and creating multiple versions for the theatrical release.

The result, of course, was a stunning and rich world never seen before in film.

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