Recently I am sure many of you have been hearing a lot of discussion about the movie Avatar. I personally went to see it last weekend and absolutely loved it! Soon after seeing the movie I came across the article “Inside the Scene-stealing 3-D Technology Behind James Cameron’s Avatar,” on popularscience.com. James Cameron ahead of the movie industry and ten years ago decided to film his “humans-versus-aliens sci-fi adventure Avatar in 3-D, but he refused to start production until technology could convince the viewer that he or she could step through the screen and pick up a boy alongside the Na’vi, the film’s 10-foot-tall, but cat faced alien protagonists.” In a recent interview on the Today Show, he said when he had the idea, “he knew he would have to wait for technology to catch up and if at that point you still don’t have what you need, you build your own.” Cameron was able to make this film come to life through five steps. The first was to build his stage, using video to create a “virtual world.” Next, he had to actually capture the motion. They captured the movement through dots that were placed on the floor and computers recorded the motion. After that, he had to shoot in 3-D. They shot the real actors in 3-D so that they will look comfortable and belong in the world Na’vi. The fourth step was for Cameron to use a type of “video game controller,” to capture they different angles of the movie that the viewers would see. Lastly they had to watch it to make sure they were seeing the parts that they wanted the viewers to see.
Cameron pushed technology to the limit to create the world Na’vi. But is this not what people want? In my course reading recently, I came across the argument by Gina Marchetti, who argued, “the key to the ideology of [action-adventure] genre is the typical construction of the main character, the hero and the villain, which leads to specific stories about the nature of good and evil, strength and weakness, and courage and cowardice.” In Avatar, the military wants to rid the world Na’vi, of the “blue people”, but however, Jake Sully, the hero in the movie fights back along side the blue people to defeat the military. Ultimately, In Avatar the idea of ideology is faced. For example, Trudy in the movie (the pilot) has to decide whether she is going to fight along the military to destroy their home, or if she is going to fight along Jake Sully to save the “blue people.”
But you may asking so what? What should I care? Avatar is a movie that is a turning point in our society. It uses high-end technology to give viewers an adventure of their lives while watching good face evil. It is a new type of technology that everyone should feel the affects of; you are able to feel as though you are in the Na’vi world. This movie is making history in the media and is about media and what it can do. I highly recommend checking it out or simply reading up on the doors it is now opening in the film industry.
By the way just a cool thing that I read, Avatar has passed the one billion dollar mark in the box office just after three weeks only four movies have done this. Also, it is second in the nation in history with box office sales, currently standing right behind Titanic.
If you would like the read the article on Avatar and making the film here is the site. http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/feature-3-d-revolution
For the love of the media, Rachel J
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