The Avatar cast went through hell to make Way of Water, but it was worth it

There was no way James Cameron would do it avatar 2 like anyone else on the planet would have done avatar 2. The pitch of “avatarbut more water” already sounded extreme, but the obvious path of “dry-for-wet” photography – a method like films Aquaman and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Filming actors on floating rigs in front of green screens to simulate underwater motion wasn’t enough. Cameron insisted on shooting “wet for wet”, which required him to reinvent the performance capture technology used in the first film, build a giant “stage” tank that could simulate every oceanic location in the film, and his actors to train in freediving to act as the aquatic Na’vi. So Kate Winslet finished with a breathtaking freediving time of seven minutes and 14 seconds.

“You really can’t call it an animated film because it’s all based on something real.” Avatar: The Way of Water Cameraman Russell Carpenter speaking to Polygon. “The giant tank that Jim designed could do all sorts of things — it could represent a beach, it could represent being deep under water — and that took months of motion capture with it.”

years before the publication of Avatar: The Way of Water, Disney and 20th Century Studios propagated the Navy SEAL-level demands that Cameron should make of his actors during his filming. Before we even knew what the movie was about or even had a title, avatar Diehards were treated to photos of Winslet, Zoe Saldaña, Sam Worthington and Cliff Curtis floating in a pool of ping pong balls. There were glimpses of actors on pool noodles directed by the visionary director. One particularly shocking photo showed Winslet twirling a white cloak as she trotted along the bottom of the “sea,” wearing a nose clip and goggles. The process looked like pure torture. But when I look at the finished film, with most of the human cast painted over with digital Na’vi makeup as they navigate CG seascapes that a team of animators tinkered with, all I can think is… Hell was totally worth it.

Like everything Cameron does, the decision to do wet-for-wet “photography” wasn’t just a creative gamble. In the end, the R&D budget is for The way of the water and its unknown number of sequels paid for a tank that was 32 feet deep, held 90,000 gallons of water, and could simulate appropriate waves and currents, depending on whether the Na’vi were deep ocean swimming or tidal pool trundling. The New York Times recently asked Richie Baneham, visual effects supervisor at Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, why the water effects were worth every penny.

“It’s about the credibility of the actor’s performance,” Baneham said. “When an actor is really in the water, there’s viscous drag. It informs the actor’s choices. We hunt that. It makes it feel real.”

He’s right! There is a noticeable difference between Avatar: The Way of Water and the dry-for-wet cinema of recent years. I would die for Topo the drum-playing octopus Aquaman, but Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry often looks like he’s swimming in a vat of hair gel. As Namor Shuri leads beneath the surface of the water to the water city of Talokan Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, director Ryan Coogler finds majesty in the blue-tinted landscapes, but keeps dive trips to a minimum. A quick shot of the Talokanil playing a water-based version of the Mesoamerican ball game looks more like space photography in zero gravity than anything resembling the viscosity of real water.

The dry-for-wet method doesn’t really detract from the dramatic quality of either film. Every time the characters in Aquaman or Wakanda forever Submerge for a water-based set piece, quickly flipping the script back towards land to avoid the scary… underwater canyon? But Cameron’s all-in approach pays off, allowing him to luxuriate in the calm waters and then let it rip when the waves come up.

There is a physical sensation in water work way of the water, probably boosted by 3D and high frame rate photography. When Jake Sully and his Tsurak fly out of the ocean and then dive back in, the action has real weight, as if the actual liquid mass had been displaced. There’s a delicacy as Kiri runs her hand through a pod of banana peel fish things and a resistance to the hand movement, all thanks to Sigourney Weaver actually shooting underwater.

And while no one in their right mind would want to spend eight hours a day clothed in a pool, costume designer Deborah Lynn Scott says asking the cast to reproduce realistic movement was essential. Scott and the way of the water The costume team didn’t just design clothing for all of the performance capture work in the film, Scott tells Polygon — many of the costumes were remade in white for use underwater. When Na’vi chief Ronal wears a cloak in battle, Winslet wore one in the tank.

“Each part took about 200 hours to make—it’s a very labor-intensive process,” says Scott. “So you don’t want to ruin it. But we shot an awful lot underwater with actors swimming around in their clothes and wigs. We had to know: if Lo’ak has braids in front of his eyes and swims forward, where have those braids gone? And then if [his hair] sits down and stands in his way, what does he do with that? The interaction between performance and costume is not possible without the real costume.”

The tactile philosophy was even applied to the Na’vi’s Tulkun friends. According to Carpenter, it took a group of divers wearing performance capture suits to jump into the pool and pounce when a Pandora whale was summoned, allowing actors like Britain Dalton, who plays Lo’ak, to swim alongside the creature. or be flung away with a distinct splash.

The ultimate test of Cameron’s wet-for-wet vision comes when the Na’vi battle the humans in the final act and a Tulkun overturns the whaling ship The Sea Dragon. Referring to Cameron’s work on titanicthe confrontation finds human and Na’vi characters alike sloshing about in flooded rooms and dashing across the ocean floor. Quaritch’s teenage son Spider, played by Jack Champion, swims alongside his found Na’vi family in the sinking ship. This moment could easily have broken the illusion if it was a fully CG construct. But all the actors weaved in and out of some sort of metal obstacle course, whether constructed in part for recording performances or as a live-action element. Carpenter says most of his on-set work as a cinematographer involved the Spider sequences. He calls the difficulty of lighting Spider’s reflective breathing apparatus and matching the physics of the performance recording “a big pain in the butt”. (He also, amazingly, says that completely avatar 3 more underwater photography in live action and performance capture than The way of the water.)

The eyes vary, so do the reactions to the underwater shots. But after years of watching the cast of Avatar: The Way of Water Smile despite the effort of making the damn thing, I was blown away by the results. The payoff is unique: tangible yet alien, and serves to sell Jake and Neytiri’s Na’vi family as a real group of beings surviving an unfathomable war. That’s Cameron’s real trick: yes, the images look cool, but the more real it feels to have Kiri floating inches above the sand and at one with nature, the more soul there is to these digital creations.

In 2009, Cameron and his VFX team at Weta were hoping for that Unlock true humanity in a CG character by focusing on the Na’vi’s eyes. But 13 years later, thanks to the magic of sensory memory, they’re closer than ever. All it took was a little water.