RUNNING HEAD: AVATAR

AVATAR Film Review
Directed by James Cameron
Eric Anderly
ARTS/100
Deborah Laws

Review “Avatar is set in the Year 2154 on the distant planet Pandora.” (French, 2009) The planet has been inhabited by Humans and was targeted because it vast supply of unobtainium, which is an energy source that the Human desperately are in need of in order to sustain life on Earth. (French, 2009) The human have hired a mining crew that is responsible for the extraction of the inobtainium. An army of hired soldiers to ensure the safety and forcibility of the mission has also accompanied the mining crew. (French, 2009) Although the planet has gravity is does not have oxygen, so the Human must wear mask to supply them with air to breath. One of the obstacles that the miners and army must face is the Native tribe of the Na’vi who has inhabited the planet and is determined to protect it from the Humans. The Na’vi is a primitive tribe and do not rely on technology as the Humans do, but yet, the instincts and training they have used for a lifetime to fight. The Na’vi have a sacred place of worship within their jungle know as the “Tree of Souls”. This also to be the area that contains the largest amount of the unobtainium material and the Mining company is determined at an cost to get it, even if it means killing the Na’vi or destroying the forest. A recruit by the name of Jake Sully has been selected to work in the Avatar program as has signed on to regain his legs that were lost in battle while a Marine. As Jake learns more and more about the Na’vi as a people, supplants himself with the tribe and falls in love with the princess, he begins to turn on the humans and is willing to do whatever it takes to see that the humans do not destroy their way of life. The Na’vi are a people that are one with their planet and believe that everything in life is sacred. Their connection with the planet comes full circle as the huge animals that inhabit the forest come to their aid in the battle with the humans. Out manned and out gunned the Na’vi defeat the humans and send them back to their dying planet.
Editing Techniques
Avatar took editing to a new level. New filmmaking techniques were used to create Avatar as well as editing and work flow that made this film so challenging. James Cameron has taken the world of editing to a new level with the detailed work that is seen in Avatar.
“You don’t cut a 3-D movie just like you don’t write a 3-D movie or compose shots in 3-D,” he says. “There are some small accommodations to the stereo that need to be made, but they should always be downstream of the dramatic edit. I don’t think we shifted one cut because of it. More people are going to see Avatar in 2-D anyway, so the edit is the edit; it has to stand on its own.”
James Cameron

“Not only was this movies Cameron envisioned an approach whereby he could capture the performances, then select specific readings and takes from every actor to build a “performance cut” of the story.” Performance cut is a cut (Kunkes, 2010) Cameron would use performance capture to get the rhythm that he wanted in the movie and film as many takes as it took until he got exactly what he wanted. Cameron would take the performance capture that he wanted and the used the virtual cameras to finalize the visual image of each scene. (Kunkes, 2010) Another editing technique that was used is called FPR or Facial Performance Replacement. (Kunkes, 2010) This is a process where the director and editors can recreate a facial performance of an actor with a stunt double and make their face match up with the words or lines they are supposed to say. In the Avatar action sequences this was common because the Na’vi had their own language and a rhythm that needed to be followed. (Kunkes, 2010) James Cameron would film an action or performance sequence and then use a FPR shot to fill the scenes that didn’t match. Pre-loaded sets and backgrounds were brought in order to create the world of Pandora. (Kunkes, 2010) Different camera angles added to the visual stimulation of each scene. The editing processes in the virtual environment of Pandora help create the visual effect sequences. (Kunkes, 2010) WETA Digital in New Zealand and a host of other vendors created the characters. (Kunkes, 2010) This “front-loading” of the editorial process was ultimately the key to Avatar’s highly detailed narrative and filmic structure. (Kunkes, 2010)
“What we’ve done on Avatar is to take the editorial process and make it director-centric,” says Cameron, who shared both the 1998 Oscar for Best Film Editing and the ACE Eddie Award for Best Feature Film Editing with Titanic co-editors Conrad Buff IV, A.C.E., and Richard A. Harris. “When a director can walk onto a barren stage, pick up this virtual camera, suddenly see a world that’s not really there, create a 5,000-foot ‘magic carpet’ crane move, or increase the scale of a scene tenfold, and then edit that same scene right on the set––that is an entirely new way to make a movie.” (Kunkes, 2010)
With a film like Avatar there are a lot of detractors that can interrupt the viewing process. The set design costumes make up, and acting can all detract from the overall viewing experience. The challenge for a director is to put it all together without one taking away from the other. James Cameron has done a good job of keeping the focus on the characters and the message and not letting the sets, costumes and make up get in the way of it. The set design in Avatar is a combination of reality built sets and virtual sets that make the world of Pandora come to life. (Kunkes, 2010) There is much going on each set with the lighting, the costumes and in some scenes it is hard to concentrate on the dialog or direction of the movie due to the background of those sets.

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Reference * * * EDITORS GUILD MAGAZINE January-February 2010 : Volume 31, Number 1 * Dream Capturers
James Cameron’s Brave New World of Filmmaking
by Michael Kunkes * * Philip French The Observer, Sunday 20 December 2009 Article history Retrieved August 21, 2011 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/dec/20/avatar-review