Filming Avatar in ‘real-time’
Over at the Animation World Network, senior editor Bill Desowitz writes about the technology behind Avatar which is changing animation film-making; providing more options and putting the power and creative choices back in the Director’s hands.
“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.”
“This was a total revolution in that these environments of Pandora could speak to him in the moment and changed how he actually shot a scene, ” boasts Rob Powers, who first served as animation TD before becoming virtual art department supervisor. “So final scenes in the movie were affected and changed because he was able to live and explore things as if he were really in the jungle. He could place characters where it was the best place to put them because it existed. It wasn’t something where he would just shoot them bare and then, later on, Weta would create something from that. He was in the environment and those key creative decisions that previously would’ve been done by animators and visual effects houses at a later point –and who knows how many hands would’ve touched it at a later point — were done by Jim Cameron himself. He didn’t have to rely on other processes to complete the vision.
“The fascinating thing is, if that realtime environment had not been there for him to explore and shoot in, the film would have been immensely different because it was a process that is timeless — it is the filmmaking process in its essence that he was able to tap into. This has not been the case ever before with these heavy visual effects films. And there’s been no film like Avatar to this degree. It’s definitely changed the art of digital filmmaking, and especially visual effects, which are increasingly part of our movies. It’s never going to be the same because once people grasp what Avatar represents– and the majority of the industry is still struggling with what this new paradigm shift is — they’ll understand how Jim’s vision propelled the process and the hard work of everyone involved [executed it].”
Article and images from http://www.awn.com/articles/visual-effects/avatar-game-changer