How has Avatar changed the way film is made?

How has James Cameron and specifically the film Avatar changed the way film is made?

 

James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster Avatar has become the biggest film ever made, with a budget of $273 million and grossing more than $2 billion. With a budget so large it has allowed Cameron to use the most advanced film making technology such as virtual and 3D fusion cameras, by far surpassing the film making technology of pre-Avatar cinema.

The use of motion capture in Avatar allowed the actor to act out the scene whilst being filmed by a virtual camera. A computer creates a skeleton of the actor and the alien is created around it. The alien’s appearance can be altered but the movements of the actor stay the same. As it is almost impossible to capture emotions on a completely computer generated being, full CG emotion capture technology was used. This allowed Cameron to change the acting without changing the actor. Most of the performances were done in front of a mixture of virtual (green screen) and real set designs. This meant that Cameron was not restricted in the amount of space he had to shoot and could achieve a world that seemed infinite. These techniques and effects could not have been achieved back in 1995 when the idea of Avatar first came about as the technology did not exist so a world so rich and diverse could not have been created from nothing but a green screen.

Even though the film is set on a fictional planet (Pandora) Cameron has tried to make the environment as relatable to the spectator as possible. Although it is not obvious at first, certain details of the landscape are familiar. For example, the dense forests of Pandora have been inspired by the rainforests of Venezuela and the floating mountains inspired by the cliffs and mountains of China. These environments could almost be plausible if it wasn’t for the eerie, other-worldly quality of the floating mountains and luminescent botanic life. However, Cameron thought that it was feasible for the plants to light up as the low levels of light would mean that the plants would have to evolve luminescent. At this Cameron has shown that each detail of the ecosystem, however insignificant, has been carefully thought through and is important to create a world that is as realistic as possible. Cameron has managed to create a world that has a perfect balance of fantasy elements and realistic environments you might see on Earth.

Not only has the environment been created to feel realistic but also the props, costumes and performances as well. Cameron wished to make the people of Pandora different from anything we had seen in cinema before. However, this meant starting from scratch. The costumes and props were all hand made out of materials like wood and hair and bone; materials that the natives would be able to find in a richly forested world, to give them an authenticity that could not have been achieved had they been created by computer. To make the performances more authentic Cameron put the actors through a series of physical and language training exercises to make sure they were moving and talking in a way that reflected the natives way of life and matched their appearance. It was clear to Cameron that their feline features and tall lean bodies meant that they would move silently and gracefully, so he put all his actors through workshops to develop their movements into something that would both distinguish the aliens from anything we have seen before and work in motion capture.

Cameron’s use of advanced technology, authentic props and performances and relatable environments all combine to make a film that is rich in science-fiction and has influenced film making in the four years since it was released.