It’s the job of the Avatar filmmakers to make us believe Pandora exists when we watch James Cameron’s films, but wow, is it a grueling process to do so! CinemaBlend just got the chance to go to Lightstorm Entertainment in Manhattan Beach, California earlier this week to learn how those blue aliens get made thanks to the art of performance capture, and we got schooled by Fire And Ash producer Rae Sanchini.
While we were there, we witnessed a live camera demo with VFX supervisor Richard Baneham on the same stage where the likes of Zoë Saldana, Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver did their performances with dots on their faces during the production of Fire And Ash. We also sat down with Sanchini, and here’s what the producer had to say about performance capture:
We think [Fire And Ash] is really the most emotional of the Avatar films to date. And, that wouldn't be possible without these incredible performances that we capture and translate with a 100% fidelity into their CG characters, which we don't think is well understood by the general public or even within the industry. We made a real effort this time around to invite people into our process and to put out materials that showed the side-by-sides of our actors' performance and then the finished rendered CG character in that same moment to try to get that message out.
After being at the studio in person, I can finally say I have an understanding of the process myself. But even with that said, I’m mind-blown over the whole thing. As Sanchini spoke, it all starts with the actors coming together to film the scenes on a massive soundstage in Manhattan Beach with performance capture suits on. As she continued to explain:
It is very bare bone. If you've ever been on our performance capture stage, it's a volume. We create a topology for them so that if they're walking uphill, they're actually walking uphill. And if there are obstacles they have to avoid, they're actually there. So it's to give them some sense of the terrain that they're on, and we try to give them some props.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend watching the bonus features of the Avatar movies. Fire And Ash just dropped on digital, and if you buy a copy, you’ll also get over three hours of bonus features that cover the making of these movies from every stage. Before we go on with Sanchini’s comments, take a look at this visual slideshow of how it’s done:
While a typical movie shoot involves the filmmakers setting up how every shot will look like and shooting a series of close ups, longshots and so forth with the actors, it’s very different for Avatar. A bunch of cameras film them all at the same time like they are literally living each moment, except they look kind of ridiculous. As Sanchini added:
I know they really enjoy the process because it is so pure. It's really just these actors together, using their imagination to put them in this far away distant place, and they can see kind of a low res version of the kind of environment they're in just to hold in their mind and sort of extrapolate from there. But I mean, it's really extraordinary what they do without many of the trappings.
Jack Champion, a.k.a. Spider, had it even harder because he had to shoot his scenes twice: for motion capture with the rest of the cast and then in live-action in New Zealand since his character is human. Anyways, once the actors have filmed their scenes, James Cameron and the other editors will go through all the takes and start editing the movie into a “performance edit” out of the best moments from the coverage. They’ll send that over to VFX, which creates a “template” of how they look in Pandora. I’ll let Sanchini take it from there with these words:
Our process sort of separates the performance aspect from the camera aspect. So, they don't have to deal with ‘Oh, now we're gonna do your closeup.’ ‘Now we're going to do a two shot.’ ‘Now, you've gotta be on this mark.’... They're just working with each other and with Jim directing the performance. And then, after we are finished with our performance capture process, we load up the camera loads with the selected performances that Jim has chosen, and we play them back in that volume. And that's when Jim does his closeups, his two shots, his coverage.
Once that’s all done, the Avatar movies move to a new phase of post-production at WETA FX back in New Zealand where the movies become what we saw in theaters over the holiday season. Pretty cool, right? You can watch Fire And Ash at home right now, and check out what Oona Chaplin told us about the making of the film as well here on CinemaBlend.
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