How to evaluate the new film “Avatar: Way of Water” directed by James Cameron?

Thanks for the invitation of Zhihu.

To facilitate more Zhihu netizens to read, I specially invited the Zhihu team to translate my answers into Chinese, and the following answers will be presented in both Chinese and English.

I think “Avatar: The Way of Water” is an adventure first and foremost it’s very emotional, it’s more emotional than the first film. I think it focuses more on character and relationship dynamics than the first film did, but it definitely delivers on the spectacle and my love of oceans. It’s a family story and an emotional story, a love letter to family and how family makes you stronger. It is not a film that beats you over the head with its message, but it asks you to feel for the ocean and then maybe a few people can translate that into action, containing a strong environmental message.

Compared to the first film, Jake and Neytiri fell in love in the first movie, so obviously the first one is about a love story. The natural progression of Jake and Neytiri was for them to start a family, raising children in a time of war and great turmoil. You can still find joy while teaching them (the children) skills to stay alive, questions human greed in mining or extraction projects.

The second film talks about the exploitation of the ocean. “Avatar: The Way of Water” centers on Jake Sully and Neytiri, now parents to five children, who try to protect their family from a new threat to Pandora. They seek refuge with the Oceanic Menkalinan clan and learn the way of water to survive.

The oceans are very important to me. I’ve been passionate about the ocean before I ever met the ocean. I learn to scuba dive in rural Canada, and I love to what it means to us symbolically. Subconsciously we all know that the ocean is like our mother. At least by making a film, I can give something back from the standpoint of conservation and preservation of the ocean. “Avatar 2” combines two great loves of my life: the movie telling stories with pictures, and the ocean . Everything just happened naturally.

I am also very proud that we have captured the facial performance of non-human characters. These characters are similar to us, but not human beings. This effect is not achieved through makeup, but a character generated by CG. We hope that the effect of the character is 100% real, and at the same time, the emotion expressed by the actor is 100% conveyed.

People say – my work is often the most expensive and most ambitious production to date. And if the current filmmaking technology doesn’t match my vision, we have to create our own technology. When we made “Avatar” it was a quantum leap forward in performance capture photography. And now with “Avatar 2”, I and our team have done it once again. This is “how we shot it”, we try our 110% off what we can do. In this series, we’ve covered movies like “Titanic”, “Top Gun: Maverick”, and have done everything, everywhere, all at once.

We’ll be using Studio Binder shot list feature fully populate our shot spaces. I had been dreaming of “Avatar” for decades. I wrote the original treatment before making “Titanic”, but the technology at the time could not match my vision. I was on a quest for the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail was to be able to reproduce full human emotion in a CG character. So, I waited, and over the next few years, I over saw the development of the tech and processes required .

In 2007, we finally cracked the code. For my sci-fi epic, three different camera systems were used for three different shooting scenarios. CG Performance Capture. Live action. And a hybrid of the two. The fist was a virtual system used for motion capture scenes. Basicmotion capture technology works like this. Actors wear suits with makers that reflect infrared light back to stationary cameras. While HD reference cameras provided animators with detailed coverage to complete the physical performance, a reported 120 stationary positions actors cameras the captured’

Once the performance capture was complete, the crew packed up and headed to New Zealand to shoot all the live-action footage with the Fusion 3D Camera. The Fusion camera rig had two Sony F950s cameras to shoot native 3D. This meant that one camera shot left eye footage and the other shot footage for the righteye. This creates a more natural 3D effect that matches our own vision.

“Avatar” saw a leap forward in technology and filmmaking. And 13 years later, I and my team did it again for the sequels. Following the first film, the sequels would be shot in 3D. But what about shooting 3D underwater? The camera options were three times larger and difficult to operate. The beauty of it, if you can solve the water, then you will never worry about it anymore. You can do everything and have freedom with it.

The key to do was – to shoot really underwater and really at the surface of the water, so people were swimming properly. you know, and they were taking their own way to get out of the water properly or diving properly and it just looks like real because the motion was real. because these kids have to learn how to be underwater, they don’t know how to be underwater, they were raised in the forest, their fear factor probably helped. although everybody was very well trained and we used a very safe and systematic way to allow them to dive, they were all scuba trained. But we didn’t use scuba, so they got used to being underwater for long periods of time and we went to Hawaii, and we got everybody on scuba we’ re also doing free diving training at the same time.

The more you expand you disbelieve, the more you will enjoy the fantasy. We are all join hands and skip off to Pandora together.

Thank you Zhihu for the invitation.

In order to facilitate more Zhihu netizens to read, I specially invite the Zhihu team to translate my answers into Chinese, and the following answers will be presented in both Chinese and English.

I think “Avatar: The Way of Water” is an adventure first and foremost, and it is full of emotions than its predecessors. I think it pays more attention to the character and relationship changes than the first film, and conveys my love of the ocean through spectacle. This is a touching story of family, a love letter to family and how it makes a person stronger. This is not a movie that instills information into your brain, but requires you to feel the ocean, and perhaps turn your emotions into actions, conveying a strong message of marine environmental protection.

In contrast, the previous film, where Jack and Neytiri fell in love, was clearly a love story. Jack and Neytiri’s relationship develops, starting a family and raising children during a time of war and turmoil. It’s a lot of fun teaching them (the kids) survival skills while revealing just how greedy humans are in resource extraction projects.

The second film discusses the issue of ocean development. Avatar: The Way of Water follows Jake Sally and Neytiri – parents of five as they try to protect their family from a new threat to the planet Pandora. They sought refuge with the Menkalinan tribe of the sea and learned how to survive in the water.

The ocean means a lot to me. Even before I met the ocean, I had a love for the ocean. I learned to scuba dive in remote parts of Canada and I love the symbolism of it. Subconsciously, we all think of the ocean as our mother. At least by making this movie, I can give back from the perspective of marine environmental protection. Avatar 2 is a fusion of two of my lifelong loves: cinema and the ocean. So everything just happened naturally.

I’m proud that we captured the facial expressions of non-human characters. These characters are similar to us, but not human. This effect was achieved not through makeup, but through CG-generated character presentations. We want the effect of the character to be 100% real, and the emotion expressed by the actor to be 100% conveyed.

It’s often said that my work is often the most expensive and ambitious big-budget production to date. If current filmmaking technology doesn’t do what I envision, we’ll have to invent the technology ourselves. When we did the first Avatar, it was a huge technological leap forward in performance capture photography. Now with Avatar 2, my team and I have once again created technology. That’s how we shoot it, our team is always giving 110%. We’ve brought movies like Titanic and Top Gun: Maverick into the franchise, and we’ve done it all in one go.

We’ll use Studio Binder’s snapshot list feature to completely populate our shot space. For decades, I have dreamed of making Avatar. Before making Titanic, I wrote the original story outline, but the technology at the time was not able to realize the picture I envisioned. I’m looking for the Holy Grail (follow the dream). The Holy Grail is the reproduction of full human emotion in CG characters. So, I waited for the next few years, watching and watching the development of the required technology.

In 2007, we finally cracked the code. In this sci-fi epic, CG motion capture, live action, and a hybrid of the two, three different camera systems were used for three different shooting scenarios. FIST is a virtual system for motion capture scenes. Here’s how motion-capture technology basically works: Actors wear special clothing that bounces infrared light back toward a fixed camera. Meanwhile, high-definition reference cameras provided the animators with detailed coverage of the full action performance, and 120 fixed cameras were used to capture the actors’ positions and movements.

After the show was filmed, the crew packed up and headed to New Zealand to capture all the live-action footage with Fusion 3D cameras. The Fusion Camera Rig consists of two Sony F950s cameras for native 3D shooting. This means that one camera captures the left-eye footage and the other camera captures the right-eye footage. This ultimately creates a 3D picture that more naturally matches our binocular vision.

“Avatar” witnessed a leap forward in filmmaking technology. After 13 years, my team and I have made another leap forward with the sequel. Continuation of the previous work, the sequel is shot in 3D. But what about shooting 3D underwater? With three times as many camera options as a normal camera, it is difficult to operate. But the beauty of it is, if you can fix the water problem, then you never have to worry about anything else. You can photograph anything water-related, and do as you please.

The focus of the film is to shoot on the bottom of the sea and on the surface of the sea to show people swimming freely in the sea. That is, they have to jump out of the water or dive into the water in their own way and it’s very realistic, because it really comes from real movement. Because these (Jack and Neytiri’s) kids had to learn how to survive underwater, they grew up in Pandora and couldn’t dive, and the water fear factor was played out just right. We have each actor receive good water training and use a very safe and systematic way to let them learn to dive. They are all scuba diving trained. But instead of scuba diving we got them used to spending long periods of time underwater naturally. We went to Hawaii and had each actor do freediving as well as scuba diving.

The more doubts you have in your mind, the more you can swim in the fantasy world. Let us join hands and jump into Pandora together.

Source: Zhihu www.zhihu.com

By James Cameron

[Zhihu Daily] The choice of tens of millions of users, to be a big cow in the circle of friends to share new things.
click to download

There are 119 answers to this question, see all.