Talk to your cinematographer about the challenges of shooting live action and virtual at the same time.
walt disney pictures
To Brad Gullikson ・Released on January 27, 2023
welcome to world buildersan ongoing series of conversations with some of the industry’s most productive and thoughtful behind-the-scenes artisans. Talk about making the impossible possible.
weeks before production starts Avatar: road of waterSony unveiled the Venice Camera Package, allowing filmmakers unparalleled flexibility in how they can pack their shots. Can be installed. James Cameron and Sony had a very close relationship, and the company was eager for the director to test the baby and push it as much as possible.
cinematographer Russell Carpenter Suddenly, I found myself operating a system that pushed me into the narrow area of my 2D camera. titanic When true lie it will never fit. The camera works alongside the actors’ faces, allowing them to break the emotional distance often created in 3D ventures. Cameron, who often prefers to sling shooters, was also able to stay close to the performers.
Additionally, Sony and Cameron wanted to shoot at 48 frames per second. This is twice his what audiences usually experience in movies. Early access to the Venice package allowed Carpenter to test, test, test. Although he was severely let down by the camera’s maneuverability, he was equally fascinated by its dynamic range and color depth.
“We go back to the gym,” says Carpenter. He says, “Yeah, yeah, okay.” We’re using a 3D system that essentially at least stops the light from finally reaching the sensor. We are also currently shooting at 48 frames per second. So there is another fairly significant loss of light. ”
their lighting scheme had to be changed to on Avatar: road of watercarpenter lighting technician, Len Levine, suggested how to move the lights via remote control. So they were able to make adjustments on the fly, changing not just the direction, but the quality, color and intensity.The accuracy and speed were game changers. It stemmed from Levine and Carpenter visiting Cameron when he was working in the virtual world.
“Jim is in a system that has amazing control,” he says. “He’s got probably 23 computer guys on his side. So if he says, ‘I want Na’vi to be a little bit smaller,’ and the framing doesn’t work, ‘Let’s move him to the bottom left just a little bit. , that waterfall isn’t working very well for me, let’s move it two feet, and we’re watching this and thinking, ‘Look how flexible he is! How can I give him something like that?”
Considering Pandora’s light source is more complicated than the normal environment. The planet itself glows and shatters different colors in nearly every sequence in the film. Without Levine’s lighting ideas, the production would be 10 times slower for him, if not 20 times slower.
“For example,” continues Carpenter. Light passes through, hits them, and then comes to the actors walking, for example, in the woods or running in the woods. When it appears, the actor will see a bit of green as he walks through this patch of light. Instead of adding lights to the floor, actually put a bounce card there, maybe a big bounce card. I was able to get exactly the right color in the right place. ”
Filming the stage was only half of Carpenter’s job. Already he existed one bit in the digital domain. He shot chunks in live action, moved the computer to his set, and then went back to live action.
“One of the tasks I was immediately assigned was managing the virtual lighting. on volume, and he was setting his own scene and blocking. he was working on camera. I’m in another part of the building. I work with an amazing team of lighting designers who know CGI. I had to learn how to ride a bike, CGI lighting very quickly.
Carpenter used Gazebo, Weta’s in-house rendering software that uses real-world physics to infer how different surfaces would react to a particular light.Cinematographer credits visual effects supervisor Dan Cox Make your visual shoot a live shoot and a one-on-one experience. Although in a virtual realm, he was able to manipulate Source in ways he could not in real life.
“When somebody flips a switch,” says Carpenter. you won’t see it You can only see the light effect. That was very fun. “
For Carpenter, part of the fun was reconciling his earthbound conception of cinematography. He worked in an alien world inspired by places on Earth, but was pushed to the extreme. What he didn’t want audiences to realize was the everyday industrial encounter with a very bright light.
“Pandora’s world is definitely different from RDA’s artifact world,” he says. “RDA lighting is like walking into a big box store, Home Depot. Pandora, of course, is this wonderful, nuanced, multicolored vision that Jim had. There was a lot of color and he wanted us to start pulling the light apart. Maxfield Parrish was his job‘The problem is, I later learned that I had to do the same thing as the wonderful people at Gazebo, especially in the scene with the spiders.
The continuation proved to be difficult, but it may not have been as big of a challenge as Carpenter had initially feared. was doing. If changes on set didn’t match what he had already completed on the virtual stage, he could adjust fairly quickly.
“The great thing about Gazebo is that Avatar, it literally tracks everything you do. You know your color temperature. I know exactly where the light is and why I did it. Here’s all the breadcrumbs to get you back to your original vision when you had the lights on. All that information passes through the scene. Even if Jim decides to change the way he blocks the scene, the lighting information stays the same. Even if he takes another shot, the lighting information stays the same. that was a big deal. ”
very focused Avatar‘s digital work, Carpenter doesn’t want the conversation about the film to be confined to the virtual space. He took James Cameron’s marching orders to heart. Distinguishing between reality and unreality misses the point and is utterly impossible.
“You have to remember that everything in this movie is based in real life,” he says. “There was actually a real person in his suit with underwater motion sensors with his capture system. They’re doing everything. Things like, ‘Well, we’re just inventing this creature.’ there was not one. There was Turkun based on observing how whales move. None of the animals are some crazy concoction someone came up with on his CGI workstation. It’s all based on something real. ”
When the audience staggers out of the theater, the cinematographer wants the audience to think about their surroundings. He doesn’t mind letting their imaginations fly to the farthest reaches of space, but he hopes that they will perceive foreigners as domestics when they hang out on imaginary shores.
“Pandora speaks for the state of the planet,” says Carpenter. “Light, all matter, gravity, it’s the same as on Earth. That’s the touchstone.”
Avatar: road of water teeth now playing in any theater.
Related Topics: Avatar, James Cameron, world builders
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Brad Gullickson is a weekly columnist for Film School Rejects and Senior Curator for One Perfect Shot. When he’s rambling about movies here, he’s rambling about comics as co-host of Comic Book Couples Counseling. @MouthDork. (he/he)