James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ Tech Talk
The new film from James Cameron is still tightly under wraps but he talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the technology of the film and the details he’s focusing on:
With 17 months to go before the release of James Cameron’s sci-fi epic “Avatar,” his first narrative feature since 1997’s “Titanic,” anticipation already is enormous. The wildly ambitious project will be made in stereoscopic 3-D and combine live action and computer animation using visionary new filmmaking techniques.
Slated to open Dec. 18, 2009, the production already has been in the works for 2 1/2 years. When completed, Cameron expects “Avatar” to be about 60% CG animation, based on characters created using a newly developed performance capture-based process, and 40% live action, with a lot of VFX in the imagery.
“It is the most challenging film I’ve ever made,” Cameron said.
Still, the innovative filmmaker and digital 3-D pioneer and champion has never shifted his emphasis from storytelling.
“You have to make a good film that would be a good film under any circumstances,” he said. “You have to put the narrative first. The reality is no matter how many (3-D) screens we get, you are still going to have a large number of people — possibly the majority of people — who see the film in a 2-D environment.”
The live-action principal photography for “Avatar” was shot in New Zealand last fall and winter using the Fusion 3-D camera system. Cameron first used the Fusion to make his 2003 Imax 3-D film “Ghosts of the Abyss”; he and “Ghosts” director of photography Vince Pace invented the camera system for the project.
Read the full interview here. This should be interesting, but it’s still a long time before we’ll see many images from Avatar.
POSTED BY: Nick Wolfwood
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