James Cameron's Avatar is a success by almost any measure. It became the highest-grossing film of all time, received rave reviews, and received a whopping nine Academy Award nominations. As many have pointed out, while Avatar's story is fascinating, its groundbreaking visuals set it apart from other blockbusters. So how did James Cameron and his team create the vibrant, expansive world of Pandora? In this article, we'll take a look at Cameron's game-changing approach to Avatar, and how he raised the bar for the film's highly anticipated follow-up, Avatar: The Way of Water.
Avatar: The Way of Water
Avatar's high standards
Avatar's pregnancy period is long. James Cameron first wrote about the story back in 1994, before he made Titanic. When he was working on the Titanic, he announced that filming Avatar would be his next film.
Of course, the Titanic itself did a great job (it became the highest-grossing movie of all time). Cameron seems to be getting all the funding he needs to create his Pandora saga. But the writer/director quickly understood that money would not be his limit.
Cameron on the Titanic
Cameron was supposed to start filming Avatar in 1997. But when he realized that technology only existed to do justice to his vision, he decided to put it off. Instead, he focused on making documentaries and developing the hardware needed to make his dream project. Finally, in 2005, Cameron felt that the technology was ready and he could start working on Avatar. The only question now is whether he can convince the studio. Fox gave Cameron $10 million to shoot a test scene so they could see if he could actually succeed.
Cameron did just that and ended up with one of the biggest movie budgets ever made possible to realize Pandora's world. He recruited experts in various fields such as linguistics and plant physiology to construct the universe in his mind.
So now that he has money, what did he do?
A new approach to virtual filming of Avatar
No movie tries to create such a realistic world as James Cameron did in Avatar. Cameron explained that he wanted the film to be "a real hybrid — a full live-action shot with CG characters in both CG and live environments." The goal, he said, is "at the end of the day, the audience doesn't know what they're looking at."
Avatar shooting scene
To achieve this, Cameron partnered with Weta Digital, a groundbreaking digital effects company founded by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. Along with Weta and virtual production director Glenn Derry, Cameron invented a new way of shooting.
Glenn Derry and the special effects team created a virtual reality camera that allowed Cameron to see in real time how actors interacted with the digital set. The "camera" has no lens, just an LCD screen and markers that can read its position relative to the actor. As a result, the actors are recorded in 360 degrees, not knowing where the camera will end up in post.
As Cameron said, "If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can." Shooting Avatar with this setup was crucial to the production process, as how much of the content in the film will be created digitally. According to some reports, only about 25% of films use traditional live-action sets.
The Making of Avatar
The rest was filmed on a motion-capture stage, where the actors will wear suits with markings that reflect infrared light back to fixed cameras. When filming Avatar, 120 such cameras were set up around the stage to capture every detail of the actors' movements.
All told, Weta Digital created more than 800 computer-generated characters, as well as 1,800 visual effects shots with detailed CG settings.
To give the actors greater freedom to explore the space, Cameron's team built a motion-capture stage that was six times larger than anything Weta had used before.
Avatar and performance capture
Whenever James Cameron discusses filming Avatar, he emphasizes one phrase: performance capture. For Cameron, the term "motion capture" minimizes what actors actually do on a digital set. It's a conversation that is still going on in Hollywood, as motion-capture actors like Andy Serkis are snubbed when it comes to acting awards.
"This is not an animated film," Cameron said again and again. "Every performance is made by the actors."
But how does Cameron capture the nuances of an actor's performance without a traditional camera?
The effect after CG synthesis
Similarly, Cameron and his team must innovate. In order to get details of the actors' facial expressions, the "Avatar" film crew got up close. Each actor wears a small video camera that is mounted on a helmet and pointed at their face.
One might think that placing the camera a few inches from your face might be a bit ... Distracted. But Cameron insists that the technique actually gives actors more freedom than before.
Facial expression capture
"This technique eliminates the time the actor spends in the makeup chair, as well as all sorts of other discomforts," Cameron argued. "Previously, actors needed to glue hundreds of tiny spherical marks to their faces, so they couldn't touch their faces for the entire filming day. With the new system, lightweight headgear can be worn minutes before shooting.
The footage of these face-cams is paired with Weta Digital's custom-made software that tracks the muscles of the actors' faces. This data then builds an animated version of the performer's expressions.
Capture Avatar - The Way of Water in 3D
Another key visual element of the film is 3D, and Avatar prompted a massive renaissance in 3D filmmaking, which for decades was seen as a tacky novelty.
James Cameron insists that when 3D is done well, it can provide an immersive experience, which is the future of cinema. So what does "doing 3D right" look like?
Well, first of all, that means shooting in 3D. Instead of retroactively adding a third dimension later (a technique that became very popular after the success of Avatar). Cameron and his team filmed the live-action sequences with his own Fusion 3D camera.
Multi-lens camera to shoot 3D stereoscopic effects
The Fusion 3D is a rig that uses two Sony F950 cameras, one for the left eye and the other for the right eye. To achieve this, the rig will mount one camera horizontally and the other vertically. Both cameras shoot through beam splitters, so they will take images from near both human eyes.
Although Cameron was excited about the 3D progression he oversaw in Avatar, he was disappointed with most of the 3D films that followed. According to Cameron, the studio's greed hurts the technology, making it look like a cheap money-making scheme.
Imagine this 3D picture
Cameron claims that this is why 3D fashion annoyed viewers and eventually died in the early 2010s. In Avatar: The Way of Water, he hopes to correct this record again and release the project in 3D.
Speaking of the way of water...
Where was Avatar 2 filmed? - Underwater shooting
James Cameron didn't rest on his laurels when it came to Avatar's much-anticipated sequel, The Way of Water. By all accounts, the writer/director is once again pushing film technology forward to realize his vision.
As you can probably tell from its title, much of the sequel was filmed underwater, which offers a whole bunch of complexity. For example, how to do 3D shooting underwater?
Underwater shooting of "Avatar 2"
Shooting underwater means bulky camera gear, which often results in distorted images because the camera has to shoot through a port on the housing. To solve this problem, Cameron hired DP and camera tech guru Pawel Achtel, who developed a 3D underwater camera that had never been used in a feature film before.
Achtel's rig is called DeepX 3D, and it works similarly to the Fusion 3D rig in that it also includes two cameras and a beam splitter. But crucially, Achtel uses Nikonos dive lenses, which can be used underwater without a casing. Goodbye distortion.
Underwater shooting and CG capture
But the camera is only the first obstacle to underwater shooting. The team also had to figure out how to shoot motion capture underwater (or rather, show capture – sorry, James).
There are many difficulties in shooting motion capture underwater. First, the interaction of light with water can mess up the markers. Reflections create false markings that disrupt the performance capture camera.
To solve this problem, the surface of the 900,000-gallon fuel tank is covered with white balls, which will eliminate light reflections while also allowing the cast and crew to surface unhindered.
Small balls on the surface of the water
Secondly, facial performance capture cameras mean actors can't use diving gear — you know, the way they breathe. Cameron said: "Scuba bubbles create too much noise in our performance capture system.
The solution here is not so much a technological advancement as a physiological endurance test. The actors just need to hold their breath.
Cameron hired underwater experts, including underwater gymnast and world champion freediver Kirk Krach, to teach the actor how to hold his breath for long periods of time. For example, Kate Winslet trained so that she could hold her breath for more than seven minutes.
All of this is unheard of, because usually, movies shot underwater – especially those that require a lot of CG – are shot in dry for wet, meaning they are not actually shot underwater.
CG graphics of the water surface
When asked why he wouldn't do it like Aquaman or The Live Action The Little Mermaid, Cameron's answer was simple: "Oh, I don't know, maybe it looks good?" Come on!
Finally, like its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water is a big bet. As Cameron himself said of the film, "If Avatar hadn't made that much money, we'd never have done it — because it was a bit crazy."