"She talks about a network of energy that flows through all living things. All energy is borrowed and one day you have to give it back." -Jake Sully, Avatar
Going into the ideate phase of the film Avatar, James really wanted to go all out with the special effects and at the same time wanted to make his world look real. This film was also going to be 3D, and was filmed with a 3D camera James had made in preparation for a space exploration. Originally he had made a prediction of the project costing over $100 million to have the effects he wanted, but the technology to film realistic 9ft alien creatures just wasn’t available. Once the project actually did start, the budget started with $300 million.
During the actual filming, the team announced that the film would have “photo realistic CG characters using motion picture technology…[be] the first big-budget action blockbuster in 3D [and] be a live-action shoot using real locations.” Without knowing the film’s result, this movie sound near impossible. Even Cameron admitted he and the team didn’t know what they were doing most the time. Both live action filming and animation have their limitations with money, time, and technology. Animation can be more dynamic as the characters aren’t limited to a physical body rigged to a set by wires to simulate flying. The fact animation is drawn out, or uses models or stop motion, gives the world more freedoms from things like camera angles or stunts. I also think powers and abilities animated characters posses feel more realistic because the animation teams can animate their abilities with the character rather than filming the actor and animating on top of them.
Avatar, however, is perhaps the greatest example of breaking past the limitations of live-action filming. James Cameron is a brilliant director with lots of innovative ideas, a direct participant in pretty much every aspect of the film, and perhaps most important of all, lots of inspiration from books and personal experiences (he did deep sea documentaries). The actors playing the natives of Pandora were fitted in black pajama-like body suits covered in white dots for camera tracking. They also have multiple tiny cameras fitting atop skull caps that track all of the actor’s movements, which really give the feeling of realism. It feels so natural because it is—there are so many miniscule movements made by the face that we don’t notice in real time, but without them a character model meant to look photorealistic doesn’t feel real. To even increase the realism, Sam Worthington notes to the reporters that James Cameron would cause real-time reactions for the actors.
This is just scratching the surface of how amazing Avatar is, on-screen and behind the scenes. In addition to this, the film has “nearly 3,000 effects shots”, an extensive list of native flora and fauna, each with 100 drafts as reference, and an average 30 hours to completely edit one scene. The results? An awe-inspiring film with stunning visuals and a wonderful story of nature versus man and protecting that which is sacred to you. Neither form of film media is easier by any means. But both have certain challenges directors and need to overcome to get the result they envisioned.
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"She talks about a network of energy that flows through all living things. All energy is borrowed and one day you have to give it back." -Jake Sully, Avatar |
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish |
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a masterpiece of masterpieces. Dreamworks does a really good job across all of its films on giving references and jokes the adults will understand from their childhood while also giving audience members of this generation tons of material to reference when we grow up. This movie in particular heavily referenced a lot of spaghetti westerns, most prominently The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Both film’s overall structure is three parties all racing against each other to find a grand treasure. Something worth much appreciation from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish in particular is that the story is so much more than that grand adventure for a wishing star. It’s a clear example of a journey to find understanding and growth for these characters. Additionally, the theme felt organic. In some stories, the theme or message feels very forced, and is essentially vomited on the viewers. On the other hand, there’s abstract works which take so much digging and effort to figure out what you’re looking at, let alone what message they’re trying to relay. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish handled multiple character growths perfectly and gave a charismatic leche loving cat a lot more depth than just the chaotic hero he was made out to be—a true goldilocks of a story. |
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The Great Gatsby (2013) is a very well done movie adaptation of the novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was fast paced at the beginning, which did wonders in conveying the eccentric energy of the economic boom in stocks and whatnot in New York. The film stuck very close to the novel with one addition and a few cuts. Right at the beginning, the film added the addition to a doctor character which talked with Nick Carraway through the first two chapters, and then giving Nick the reason to write what would later be the book of “The Great Gatsby”. The among the cuts from the novel were Nick and Jordan’s relationship and Nick’s interactions with the main crew of characters plus Meyer Wolfsheim after Gatsby’s death. In a behind the scenes clip, Baz Luhrmann—director, producer, and co writer of the film—explained that this decision was made as they wanted to focus more on the character Gatsby rather than Nick’s experience in New York, which happened to be rather interesting because of Gatsby. Gatsby’s parties extra extravagant and bursting at the seams with energy which was so fun to watch. They were big and vibrant with so many colors, and were just fantastic to watch play out. The OST was predominantly electro swing, which were a modern equivalent to the jazz and big band songs popular in the 20s.
The movie aided in understanding the architecture throughout the story. The main cast’s wealth was shown off by their enormous houses, extravagant parties, and fancy possessions. Additionally, the films gives viewers who have never seen pictures of New York in the 20s a visual understanding of the bustling Big Apple. The location is definitely important in this story, and the movie did a great job clarifying it for those who didn’t grasp the details in the book. Perhaps the most perfect thing in this adaptation, however, is the absolute beauty of Daisy that was captured so well. The novel wrote Daisy with a charm spell in mind, for reading about her was always a moment to look forward to. From her beautiful slender figure that makes royalty jealous, her gorgeous blonde hair that seemingly glows in the sun, to the way her singing voice makes your heart flutter, the book gave Daisy such a memorable impression—and this film did not disappoint.
Movie adaptations are dangerous because each individual reader is going to see the story differently. But when it’s done well and sticks to the book, it must be terribly rewarding.
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“He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby |