Do it or blow it up. Let's see how Cameron's Avatar is made.

As the saying goes, success is often reserved for those who are prepared.

This sentence can be said that no matter how long it takes, it is still a wise saying.

After all, the opportunity has come. If you don't prepare anything, it is likely to be wasted.

It is definitely not a year or two before James Cameron's once famous work Avatar became a masterpiece in the history of photography.

1994, Cameron just finished filming Terminator 2, and his "sci-fi inspiration" has not faded.

So, he quickly wrote it all down, which was an 80-page script.

Yes, this is the first draft of Avatar.

According to Cameron, Avatar was inspired by every science fiction novel he read.

In his view, this film is his masterpiece in the field of science fiction.

1996, Cameron announced that he would start making Avatar after finishing Titanic.

The film is estimated to cost $6,543.8 billion, and six actors will play the leading roles of these "real people like real people in the real world".

According to the normal time, about in the middle of 1997, Avatar should start shooting.

However, Cameron soon discovered a big problem.

Although he was actively communicating with many special effects companies, he finally found that no company could produce the effect he wanted.

Should we strike while the iron is hot or put the plan first? Cameron chose the latter.

In hindsight, Cameron's approach is quite wise. If "Avatar" was forced to be made at that time, I'm afraid the final result would only be a "science fiction film with very good visual effects".

After Titanic of 1997, Cameron of 12 didn't make any more movies.

Obviously, he did it for Avatar.

However, Cameron is not just waiting. At the same time, he has been preparing.

For example, he knew that if "Avatar" really started shooting, it would require a huge amount of money, so he had been communicating with Fox executives for a long time.

Finally, Fox executives agreed to give him $6.5438+million to make a concept short film.

But in fact, despite the good effect of the short film, Fox executives are still very worried.

There is a simple reason. Titanic is basically a movie that decided to jump off the street from the beginning, but it went out of the miraculous trend and directly attacked.

But generally speaking, miracles don't happen that many times. You spent more money on Avatar this time than in those years. I wonder if you will burn out your budget and ask for more money like last time.

Just as Fox hesitated, a foreign aid came.

At that time, Disney was looking for IP that could be bought everywhere. They learned that the miracle worker had a new project and wanted to make a series of movies, so they planned to take over Avatar.

In this way, it was Fox's turn to panic.

When Fox filmed Titanic, he also co-produced with Paramount because he didn't trust Cameron, which led to a big box office loss.

Therefore, Fox finally agreed to the project of Avatar, but the requirement was that the budget was too high, so it was cut a little.

After careful consideration, Cameron finally compromised, so the production cost of Avatar was set at $237 million (of course, this was preliminary, and the total cost was later more than this figure).

At that time, a senior Fox official said to Cameron:

"I don't know if I'm crazy to agree with you to make this film."

After the project officially started, Cameron applied many latest technologies to this film.

For example, in order to enhance the sense of reality, he newly designed a miniature camera called skull caps, which is an earphone for capturing facial expressions.

Because of the latest technology, the clarity, angle and sensitivity of capturing actors' facial expressions are more than 6 times higher than those of traditional technology.

Why do the blue-skinned Na 'vi people in Avatar look so real? There are almost no traces of CG processing on their expressions?

It is because of this equipment.

In addition, Cameron's team independently developed a new 3D digital camera system (Fusion 3D Camera System).

The function of this system is mainly aimed at motion shooting, which surpasses the traditional technology in the functions of dual-lens synchronous zoom, follow-up focus, aperture control, motion control, mirror control, baseline control, dual-camera independent convergence control and so on.

In addition, F950, HDC 1500 and F23 cameras were connected when shooting.

It is precisely because this powerful system is connected with these cameras that it captures all the shots of far, near and high-speed movements, which makes the visual effect of Avatar extremely amazing.

In addition to these, Cameron's team also developed a virtual production studio.

This virtual camera mainly allows the director to observe and direct the actors' actions in real time.

For example, the actors themselves are moving cabinets in an open space, but what they see from the lens is performing in a virtual CG environment.

Therefore, Cameron can simulate the lens in the film from the lens, choose the photography angle at will, control and coordinate the movement or arrangement of various CG objects, and see the visual effect of the combination of real performance and virtual scene at the first time.

In addition to virtual cameras, there is something called Simulcam.

To put it bluntly, this system covers 130 digital cameras at the top of the entire studio, thus building a technical platform dedicated to capturing performances.

During the actor's movement, the camera will transmit all the captured data to the system by tracking the reflection of near-infrared light emitted by the on-site LED lights.

After that, the system analyzes the actor's movements and the reflection of the spectrum, so as to get the three-dimensional model of the whole lens.

There are many, many ... these technologies can be said to be at the forefront of the times.

Of course, these technologies can't be done with only $237 million. According to some foreign media reports, the actual budget of Avatar should exceed 300 million dollars, and may even reach 500 million dollars.

The final result did not disappoint Cameron. The visual effect of Avatar shocked the whole world, and it is hard to get a ticket all over the world.

It was also the first movie with a box office of more than 2 billion dollars, and finally took over the throne of film history from Titanic.

And fox's top management, it is estimated that it is completely unexpected that this person is how to create miracles again.

Although the film history of AvatarNo. 1 has been taken away by Reunion 4, its position in the film history is still recognized.

After all, as a film that leads the times, its significance is not just a science fiction film.