Avatar - the best cinematic technology

I watched the movie Avatar and I simply loved it. The film - as we see it on the screen and the effort, technology, patience and hard work that has gone into the creation of this masterpiece is simply AWESOME! If you haven’t watched the movie, hit yourself three times for the crime and go and watch its 3D version right now. If you have watched it, then you partly understand what I’m talking about. This post is to appreciate the entire movie making process of Avatar, right from its conception in Director James Cameron's mind to becoming the highest grossing film of all times even surpassing the 12 year old record held by Titanic. It’s not about the film, but about the technical aspects of movie making.

Whenever we see something unreal on screen we just attribute it to a black box called "computer animation" and enjoy what is shown to us. However, we tend to forget that this black box is actually as much a human effort as a machine’s capability, where a group of nerds have worked day in and out to create that shadow of your favourite animated character, which you may not even notice, but it tricks your senses to believe that its actually happening in some wonderland which looks a little strange from reality, but where most physical laws exist.

Avatar is the epitome of this computer animation. Though I don’t claim to be a technology guru or an animation expert, but the facts listed below make this movie stand out and speak for itself.

1. Avatar is a technological breakthrough in movie making with 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking cameras, specifically designed for this film. Don’t ask me what it means. It’s some advanced Hi-tech funda!
2. James Cameron conceptualized the movie in year 1994. At that time the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that Cameron intended to tell. He waited for 15 long years for the right technology to develop and then made the film. Oh, in the meantime I grew from 12 to 27. More than half of my life so far, some1 spent waiting for some technology to be developed. Whatz wrong with this guy!!!
3. James Cameron had to do a proof-of-concept for Fox executives to demonstrate what he has and mind and whether it is at all feasible! As if making the Titanic sink on screen wasn’t enough to prove his worth for these bunch of good-for-nothing Fox execs.
4. At one point, Fox decided to pass on the film. This got Walt Disney interested in the movie. Fox then exercised their right of first refusal and went ahead with making the film – what faceless losers!!!
5. Film had two different production designers, and two separate art departments, one of which focused on the flora and fauna of Pandora (the city of Navis), and another that created human machines and human factors (Navis) – watch the movie to see the magic they created!
6. The live action was filmed with a modified version of proprietary digital 3D Fusion Camera System co-developed by Cameron himself – you are a genius Mr. Director.
7. Cameron made use of a virtual camera system which displays an augmented reality on a monitor, placing actor’s virtual counterparts into their digital surroundings in real time allowing the director to adjust and direct scenes just as if shooting live action. Cameron gave fellow directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson a chance to test the new technology – Try this assholes, I’m better than you.
   
8. Navi's (ten-foot-tall blue-skinned species of sapient humanoids in Avatar) language is developed by a linguist at University of Southern California which comprises of about 1000 words and is partly inspired from New Zealand's Maori language. What’s the need to hire a linguist? They could have been speaking Tamil for all I know, I won’t understand – but I’m sure it would have been funny then.
9. Navi's are blue in colour for two reasons. First, Cameron's liking for blue colour and secondly the connection to Hindu deities (lord Shiva) - as remarked by Cameron.

A few interesting facts about the movie:

1. Avatar means Incarnation of the Hindu gods taking flesh form - in Cameron's words!
2. Movie Avatar implicitly criticises America's role in the War in Iraq (see, u never thought about that!)
3. Avatar is partly shot in Wellington, New Zealand. Now you'd ask why this is interesting. Find out where I am :)
4. Love story between Jack and Neytiri in Avatar is similar to Jack and Rose in Titanic - star crossed love theme - which means both couples come from radically different cultures that are contemptuous of their relationship and are forced to choose sides between the competing communities. They both fall in love with each other, but they need to fight side-by-side, and so there's that kind of requirement to let the other person go in order to do what they need to do.
5. Movie has been nominated for 9 Academy awards

Source of Information: Various websites, publications and Wikipedia.
Source of crap comments: Yours truly :)