{"id":180908,"date":"2023-01-08T18:48:12","date_gmt":"2023-01-08T18:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/avatars-cast-went-through-hell-to-make-way-of-water-but-it-was-worth-it\/"},"modified":"2023-01-08T18:48:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T18:48:12","slug":"avatars-cast-went-through-hell-to-make-way-of-water-but-it-was-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/avatars-cast-went-through-hell-to-make-way-of-water-but-it-was-worth-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Avatar’s cast went through hell to make Way of Water, but it was worth it"},"content":{"rendered":"
There was no way James Cameron was going to make Avatar 2<\/em> like anyone else on the planet would have made Avatar 2<\/em>. The pitch of “Avatar<\/em>but more water\u201d already sounded extreme, but the obvious route of \u201cdry-for-wet\u201d photography \u2014 a method films like aquaman<\/em> and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever<\/em> used, filming actors on floating rigs against green screen to simulate underwater motion \u2014 wasn’t enough. Cameron insisted on shooting \u201cwet-for-wet,\u201d which required him to reinvent the performance-capture technology used on the first movie, construct an enormous \u201cstage\u201d tank capable of simulating every oceanic location in the movie, and train his actors to free dive in order to act as the swimming Na’vi. Which is how Kate Winslet wound up with a breath-holding free-dive time of seven minutes and 14 seconds.<\/p>\n \u201cYou really can’t in any way call it an animated movie, because everything is just based on something real,\u201d Avatar: The Way of Water<\/em> director of photography Russell Carpenter tells Polygon. \u201cThe huge tank that Jim designed could do all kinds of things \u2014 it could represent a beach, it could represent being deep underwater \u2014 and months and months of motion capture was done with that.\u201d <\/p>\n For years leading up to the release of Avatar: The Way of Water<\/em>, Disney and 20th Century Studios touted the Navy SEAL-level demands that Cameron’s shoot put on his actors. Before we even knew what the movie was about, or even titled, Avatar<\/em> diehards were treated to photos of Winslet, Zoe Salda\u00f1a, Sam Worthington, and Cliff Curtis floating in a pool of ping-pong balls. There were glimpses of actors on pool noodles taking direction from the visionary director. One particularly shocking photo saw Winslet swooping a white cape around as she plodded across the bottom of the \u201cocean\u201d floor, nose clip and goggles in place. The process looked like pure torture. But watching the completed film, in which most of the human cast has been painted over with digital Na’vi makeup, navigating CG oceanscapes tinkered with by a team of animators, I can only think\u2026 The hell was totally worth it.<\/p>\n