Yesterday evening I was immersed in a multidimensional universe that literally blew my mind; creating new mental pathways and neurons in my brain, so much so that I dreamt in vivid 3D all night.
As a film maker I can only give you a limited description of the most amazing filmic experience I’ve ever had in years; one that transported me to a whole new universe that left me wanting to migrate to … Pandora.
Avatar is the career making film I would have loved to make, but I don’t yet have Cameron’s gazillions of dollars that paid for the the performance-capture soundstage, and budget to pay for the intricate computer-generated (CG) scenes, which make up about 60% of the finished film, and milions more for software and special cameras created for the film.
That said, I was in heaven for the three odd hours it took to get into Avatar’s world. Every one of the 2,500 special-effects shots, took my breath away as the ground beneath me literally shook (excellent sound design and score!) and I almost touched the jungle beauty of Pandora with my own hands. I was immersed in a rich sensual environment and story that melded the real world and the fictional one with not even the tiniest sense of dislocation – however I’ll have to watch it again, in 3D, to see if I missed anything. It’s the director in me.
“And as much as he could, Cameron tried to place the cast emotionally inside the environment of Pandora. He took the actors to Hawaiian rain forests and shot reference footage for them to use as sense memory. To help them feel an explosion, he boomed a noise over amplifiers, threw foam particles at them and whacked them with a padded jousting pole. To approximate Pandora’s moss-covered terrain, he laid plastic sheets on the floor, forcing the cast to walk gingerly. When Zoe Saldana, who plays Jake’s Na’vi love interest Neytiri, was “riding” a flying creature, she clung to a giant gray hobbyhorse rocked on a gimbal by grips. For scenes that combined live action with CG, Cameron used a new tool called a Simulcam, which allowed him to see actors playing in exotic CG surroundings in real time. It was the kind of filmmaking environment that required both imagination and patience.”
Cameron’s dedication to the art of film making means that he has again broken new ground for onscreen storytellers like myself. Inspite of the naysayers he pushed for the making of Avatar and staked his reputation on a fantasy. I’m thankful that his crazy dream has come true and that Avatar’s muted prophecy of man’s future demise (unless we get our act together; take care of Planet Earth, choose peace, listen to the most wise amongst us who don’t necessarily look or play the part and quit the war mongering) rings home and true for many.