‘Avatar’ – Movies will never be the same again

There have been moments in cinematic history where invention transformed how we watched films – ‘Cupid Angling’, a silent film in 1918 introduced colour to the big screen, ‘The Jazz Singer’ in 1927 ended the era of silent movies, the move from film to digital, computer-generated imagery, motion-capture, IMAX cameras and now, James Cameron is pioneering technology that would bring photo-real 3D images to the screen without the need for those funny-looking glasses!

James Cameron is no stranger to re-writing the rule book when it comes to what you can see on a movie screen.  After all, he brought us the amazing sequence of the ‘water tentacle’ on ‘The Abyss’ – that seamless blend of CG and real-life was unheard of at the time.  He also gave us the liquid metal Terminator that blew everyone away – on-screen and off – and he brought the Titanic back to life to capture our hearts and…break it all over again.

Cameron’s 12-year sabbatical is about to be broken as he prepares to unveil ‘Avatar’, starring our very own Sam Worthington as ex-marine, Jake Sully.  After a planetary mining operation raises objections from the local aliens, Jake joins the Avatar program where his consciousness is projected into a human-alien body, or avatar, so that he can walk freely among the natives. 

“Now an actor can be any character they can imagine. And a director can create any world, any time, any space.” If one watched the special features on ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’, you’ll see that Bill Nighy never had to put on the whole costume to become Davy Jones – CG experts ‘painted’ the character over his performance later on.  Cameron is essentially taking that technology up 10 more levels – not only by making the movie 3D but also by making the characters ‘photo-real’, that is, the actor’s digital counterpart has every facial expression, tick, wrinkle movement that the actor does. 

It will be an immense achievement if he pulls it off.  Already directors, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro have approached Cameron to try out his new technology.  In fact, Spielberg and Jackson are already using it for their joint effort, the cartoon, ‘Tin-Tin’ in 3D.  The cinematic world is also poised and ready as more than 2000 cinemas in the US are already converted and capable of showing 3D films. “2D is dead,” says Cameron and he feels that in the future, 3D will be the medium of choice for film-makers.  Coming from a director who’s changed the course of movies more than once, it’s a safe bet he’s right.

‘Avatar’ is scheduled for release on December 17.

Photo sources:

James Cameron and Sam Worthington: railoftomorrow.blogspot.com

Avatar background art: www.geekforcefive.com

Avatar character: avatartrailer.com

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