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Avatar - The Movie

Posted Wed, 02/24/2010 - 15:08 by Makana

Avatar's director, James Cameron, used new technology to make Pandora come to life.

James Cameron developed stereoscopic cameras, which are the equivalent of two cameras strapped together, each providing a slightly different perspective on the scene, mimicking the way human eyes view the world in three dimensions. The effect is not like some 3D movies where things fly out at you, but rather gives the picture a depth, a foreground and background and not just a flat, moving picture. The result is you feel as though you are on Pandora, flying, running and immersed in the beauty and effect of the landscape of this other world.

The second was a Performance Capture camera. This allowed the actors to be completely CG, or computer generated. They were not wearing masks or prosthetic pieces or blue body paint, but their entire "costume" was completely CG (computer generated.) They used a head-rig, which is a tight, form-fitting, slim headpiece that has a built-in camera that captured all facial movements. To make the Na'Vi tribe come to life, they used special black suits and a special CG computer to animate the characters.

All of this was done very secretively. Most of the film was shot in an abandoned airplane hangar and not one technician worked on more than twenty minutes of the movie at a time to prevent the story from being leaked to the public during the four years that it took to make the movie.

Personally, having just watched the movie this weekend, I thought the visual effect was awesome and I want to go back and watch it again. I was sucked into the movie and I am sure that I missed something- there was so much going on and to look at. It was hard to look at everything at once. Really, the film was just beautiful- a visual spectacular.

Makana, KidReporter from Sunrise Elementary

Very good job Makana!! There is a lot of cool detail in this and it makes me want to go see Avatar, just as movies review should! I like how, instead of just summarizing the plot, you worked around that and described how the movie was made and why people get so attached to it and enjoy it SO much and you didn't give away the plotline. Good work!
-Kaci