Avatar: The Game Changer
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With its revolutionary virtual production techniques, Avatar has broken the wall between director and viewer, allowing us to experience a whole new visceral and immersive kind of stereoscopic cinema. According to James Cameron and his colleagues, Avatar is thus a game changer for the way VFX movies are made and watched, discussed and written about. No wonder Steven Spielberg proclaimed it "emotional spectacle."
And with an opening weekend of $77 million domestically and $241.5 million globally, Avatar is wowing viewers, too, getting the largest 3-D boost ever, including an IMAX record of $9.5 million, or about 13% of the total domestic gross: "It looks like we made a good bet," boasts Greg Foster, chairman and president of IMAX Filmed Ent., who has ridden this IMAX 3-D wave since The Polar Express. "We worked really closely with [Cameron] on this one. He's basically been over here or someone from Lightstorm every day for the last six months. The aspect ratio, the color grading, the audio, obviously the DMR, they've all had the IMAX DNA in it. And he's made three different versions of the film: the 2-D version, the Digital 3-D version and the IMAX 3-D version. The content is the same but each has its own nuance. He's such a perfectionist and what he's done is to customize everything to take advantage of the specific venues, so for us, what he's really been making sure is that every seat in the auditorium is a sweet spot."
Thus, thanks to the virtual cinematography workflow created by Rob Legato, allowing Cameron to observe directly on an LCD monitor how the actors' CG characters (or avatars) interact with the CG Pandora in realtime and direct scenes as though he were shooting live action, digital and live action moviemaking have become one. In other words, everything you've heard or read about the new digital paradigm or 5D has now become a reality. Which also means that pre and post are obsolete, compositing will have to be redefined and so might previs.
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You certainly deserve a round of applause for your post and more specifically, your blog in general. Very high quality material
Yeah, I agree that this film is insipirational. I am a film director myself, and i've always made films without ANY visual effects, being completely against it. After watching Lord of the Rings - i started THINKING about VFX as a very powerful tool. Its very powerful. After watching Avatar, I was convinced that only films that involve VFX will be interesting because finally, a director has no limits to his imagination , and it is the imagination and limitless fantasy that is of interest to the audience. The only question is the price.
it's an fantastic articles, thanks Letteri for providing the in-depths into the making of this amazing film. Really wonderful!
WOW Wow...
Thanks for the great fantastic article.
James Cameron and everyone who worked on this incredible movie
Thank you very much for my biggest inspirations
Strangely, this is exactly why I have written an article on this subject (Virtual Cinematography). While no one would want to hear that what was done with those truck loads of equipment, can be done with a car load today... it actually can be done.
Avatar just re-coined terms like virtual cinematography to something fancier like "simul-cam" and Hybrid cam etc.
Trackable physical cam rigs were there since way before, here's some links in this article on the subject especially for indie film makers to investigate.
http://realvision.ae/blog/2010/02/virtual-cinematography-was-the-matrix-...
Hope it helps.
Only really rich people or high budget productions can pull things like this off. Even a really low quality 3d production takes ALOT of money because it requires a full motion capture studio. Not only do you need a few cameras, but if you're going to be running and doing long distance things the equipment will be way too much money for any indie film maker to even think about. You can argue that motion capture is becoming cheaper, but really its not going to be anywhere near what we can afford for a long time. So no, I don't think its a game changer because only top studios will be messing with this tech. I wish I could make a 3d show, but you cannot do that simply from your mac g5, maya, final cut pro, and after effects. You need millions =(
Yeah, I agree that this film is insipirational. I am a film director myself, and i've always made films without ANY visual effects, being completely against it. After watching Lord of the Rings - i started THINKING about VFX as a very powerful tool. Its very powerful. After watching Avatar, I was convinced that only films that involve VFX will be interesting because finally, a director has no limits to his imagination, and it is the imagination and limitless fantasy that is of interest to the audience. The only question is the price. Its so expensive! ssso expensive!
you have made a good job for many of us, vfx enthusiastics, students and pros.
Thnak you
This movie is really beautiful and a big thank to James Cameron for offering us such a masterpiece.
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Wow, I have yet to see this movie and I am so excited to see the new elements being implemented into live action/CG. James Cameron has done the unthinkable, well the unthinkable to most. Cant wait to see this movie!
I wonder if he has any thought on a 2d production like this and could it even work?
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