Earlier today we had a chance to talk to Oscar-winning producer Jon Landau when he came to town to present some footage from the 3D version of Titanic. We’ll be posting details of that footage later in the week but Landau also spoke about 3D and the future of film.

During the presentation he gave some details away about the facility he and James Cameron are using to produce the  Avatar sequels:

We took this facility at Manhattan Beach Studios. It’s three stages, we have this office space next to it. Because we’re going to be working with a technical crew in the office space, and we wanted make them feel a part of the process, we convinced the studio to cut windows into the second floor that looked down on the stage, to make the crews feel a part of the process of what’s going on on the stage.

We also have done everything we could in the facility to ‘green’ it, to make it environmentally friendly. We put solar panels up on the roof, things like that.

He also spoke briefly about their plans to convert  some of Cameron’s back catalogue to 3D ,

I think when we’re done with the next two Avatars, it’s something that we’ll definitely go and and entertain looking at a couple of them to do. Whether it be Terminator 2, whether it be Aliens, I think Jim would like to do it.

I think, looking at other filmmakers, I know that Peter Jackson is interested in possibly going back on Lord of the Rings, I’ve  heard that Stephen Spielberg is interested in maybe going back on the first Jurassic Park. I think the key here is filmmaker involvement. I think that’s what you need to make these things work, and to do it right over a period of time. What we’re doing now is we’re creating our archival master. What we release this April is going to be, for history, the master for Titanic, and anybody who upgrades it will have that library value.

Pretty much everyone knows by now that when James Cameron’s Avatar came out at the end of 2009, it quickly rose to become the world’s highest-grossing film at the box office – taking the top spot from another Cameron film, Titanic – turning its budget of just under $250m. into almost $2.8bn.

When you have a $250m. budget, you don’t make back more than ten times your initial investment. You just don’t. But obviously, the record-breaking Cameron is one to buck the trends.

Since its turn in the cinema, Avatar has been released in more than one edition over the past two years, earning itself the title of top-selling Blu-Ray as well, and Variety are now reporting that the film will soon be given a new release, in both HD and SD and fully loaded with special features, on Apple’s iTunes.

The release, the “Avatar iTunes Extras Special Edition,” will be the first of Fox’s films to be made available in HD on the platform, and it will be with us just in time for Christmas, from 20^th December. (At the very least, the US will be getting it then; we may have to wait a little longer for it to be available for us – I’m not too familiar on if iTunes’ library is different depending on your location.)

This new edition will let us see Cameron’s original screenplay for the film, his scriptment (a combination of screenplay and treatment), and a gallery of over 1,700 images, and it will also,

“offer interactive extras that will enable viewers to deconstruct 17 scenes in splitscreen that reveal how the f/x for the sequences were created through various levels of the performance capture and post-production processes.”

For US buyers, the HD edition is priced up at $19.99 and the SD will be $14.99, so whether we can just alter the dollar sign to a pound sign for us here in the UK remains to be seen. To promote the new release, a brand new trailer for the special edition has been put together, and it does look pretty impressive, allowing you to do things that give you a real insight into the filmmaking process.

Cameron has announced that Avatar will be getting two sequels to create a trilogy, with plans to shoot them back-to-back, and tentative release dates set for December 2014 and December 2015. And that, in turn, means that for we can look forward to The Hobbit for Christmas in 2012 and 2013, followed by Avatar for Christmas the two years following that. Something tells me we’ve got some huge Christmas box office figures ahead of us for the next four years. And that’s not even mentioning Tarantino’s Django Unchained opening on Christmas Day next year. Without further ado, though, the new trailer for the Avatar iTunes Extras Special Edition. Enjoy.

I’m been pretty unenthusiastic about Disney’s John Carter. Let’s just get that straight. From the first trailer to the almost 10 minutes of footage screened at D23 this past year, I remain unconvinced.  While the work of fiction by Edgar Rice Burroughs are universally adored, and borrowed from, I have never been compelled into his world.  In fact, after seeing the trailer I have been calling it the poor mans “Avatar”.  I am fully aware the unfairness in that statement so don’t right me hate mail about how Cameron’s Avatar borrowed from the Mars novels.  I understand that the books came first.  However, in this fickle world of entertainment it sometimes comes down to who gets there first.  In that respect Avatar got their first.  The John Carter story feels very similar to Avatar in the theme that a white human finds himself on a distant planet with obligations to save the people who reside there. He also might find himself falling for the “princess” character.  Thus my opinion that John Carter won’t draw the audience it probably deserves.

In fact, Germain over at Slashfilm.com has highlighted an interesting point that Vulture brings up stating that John Carter has to earn $700 million to justify a sequel. Now, in any other circumstance I’d question why people are talking about sequels when the film itself isn’t even out yet.  It seems Hollywood likes to shoot for sequels these days as opposed to getting film #1 right. However, the Mars series is vast and I am sure the filmmakers have thought about that a few times during production.  In Germaine’s piece he states

$700 million would put the film in the top 50 highest grossing films of all time, something Stanton previously experienced with Finding Nemo. However, that’s a tough mountain to climb for a movie with an unproven lead star, unspecific title and little in terms of general audience buzz six months out from a March 2012 release.

Those last few points, however, are virtual mirrors of what people said before Avatar came out and that seemed to do pretty well. We also know that Stanton is a stickler for story and visuals, so you’ve got to be pretty confident the film will at least be good. Then there’s that Disney marketing machine, sure to kick into high gear around the holidays, that will plaster the film everywhere. Of course, that huge marketing push is part of the reason why a $250 million movie costs more like $400 million before one ticket is bought. But, if it works, it could pay off big.

Now all this seems pretty serious.  I made this Mash-Up for fun based purely on the idea that the John Carter trailer looks just like the Avatar trailer. So last night I threw this together as proof.  I have embedded the John Carter trailer first in case you haven’t seen it. Below that is my mash up which features the audio from John Carter trailer with the Avatar visuals.  I actually didn’t have to do that much editing to find the right parts to fit.  In fact some of them are pretty organic. My favorite bits are when Jake Sully is parrying Quarritch. You actually hear the sword sound.  Again, later in the trailer, the power loader machines are rolling out of the cargo ship and the John Carter audio lends itself perfectly for that.  This was just fun to do and proves my undying love for Avatar.  Bring it on John Carter.

What Do You Think?

A top ten list of the most pirated films in Hollywood history has been complied by TorrentFreak, and it comes as no surprise to see that Avatar sits at number one, having been downloaded an incredible 21 million times since it was released in 2009 (wasn’t one of Jim Cameron’s many arguments for 3D the fact that it posed a unique cinema-going experience?) It looks like there’s still an awful lot of folk out there who prefer to see these big tentpole releases on a smaller, inferior screen if it means they avoid paying for the privilege.

Second on the list is The Dark Knight, another obvious choice, but looking further down at number eight, and The Departed (with 14 million downloads) isn’t a film you’d necessarily think would sit anywhere close to the top ten.

With the ability to obtain new cinema releases becoming increasingly easier as technology progresses, it would be interesting see how long it takes for The Dark Knight Rises, after its theatrical release, to shoot to the top of here.

The list:

1. Avatar (21 million downloads)
2. The Dark Knight (19 million)
3. Transformers (19 million)
4. Inception (18 million)
5. The Hangover (17 million)
6. Star Trek (16 million)
7. Kick-Ass (15 million)
8. The Departed (14 million)
9. The Incredible Hulk (14 million)
10. Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End (14 million)

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

James Cameron’s Avatar became an unprecedented global success when it was released at the end of 2009, going on to earn more than two and a half billion dollars from its $250m. budget. To be able to take ten times your budget when you’re starting off with that kind of money is utterly insane by any standards.

Since its release, it’s continued to earn ever more money with more than one DVD/Blu-Ray releases, and a final 3D Blu-Ray release is still on the cards somewhere down the line.

THR are now reporting that the Avatar brand – because that really is what it’s become – is now developing even further afield, moving into theme park territory. The first Avatar-themed “land” will be built at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and construction is expected to have begun by 2013.

“The first Avatar attraction will be inside the Animal Kingdom park. Disney said this was chosen because “with its emphasis on living in harmony with nature, Animal Kingdom is a natural fit for the Avatar stories, which share the same philosophy.””

Cameron and his producing partner Jon Landau will be on board as creative consultants and will be working alongside Walt Disney Imagineering and the famous Disney Imagineers to design the Avatar attractions, with plans to develop similar projects in the several other Disney parks across the globe.

““Avatar created a world which audiences can discover again and again and now, through this incredible partnership with Disney, we’ll be able to bring Pandora to life like never before. With two new Avatar films currently in development, we’ll have even more locations, characters and stories to explore,” said James Cameron. “I’m chomping at the bit to start work with Disney’s legendary Imagineers to bring our Avatar universe to life.  Our goal is to go beyond current boundaries of technical innovation and experiential storytelling, and give park goers the chance to see, hear, and touch the world of Avatar with an unprecedented sense of reality.””

And of course, Cameron has already announced that he has two further Avatar films in the works, with release dates currently scheduled for December 2014 and 2015, which will undoubtedly do wonders for ticket sales if the attractions can be finished in time – and Disney will likely make sure that they are. Disney’s theme parks are visited by millions upon millions of people every year, and they’ll soon be given the chance to go into the world of Pandora and see, hear, and feel it like never before.

When Walt Disney was creating Disneyland back in the 1950s, he started a TV show that ran simultaneously with the park’s construction, and millions of Americans invited Disney into their homes on a weekly basis to see how the development was going. When it finally came time to open the park, for those first visitors, it was precisely like seeing the things from their television screens back home in real life with their very own eyes.

If Cameron, Landau, and Disney’s Imagineers can pull this off well, and there’s no reason to suggest they can’t, future visitors to the park should be able to experience the very same thing as those first visitors more than fifty years ago. Pandora is an incredibly beautiful world in the Avatar films, and even though I’m not sure I’ll ever go myself, I can imagine seeing it in “reality” (for you could argue the extent to which Disney theme parks are “real”) would truly be something.

Everyone’s favourite alien-bashing action heroine Sigourney Weaver has spoken out about two forthcoming blockbuster sequels she’s attached to. Depending on how cynical you’re feeling, the news that she’ll be returning to the verdant CGI jungles of Pandora for the two Avatar sequels should come as no surprise, despite the fact that her character Dr. Grace Augustine (I’d say spoiler alert here, but seriously, who hasn’t seen Avatar?!) died in the first film.

“Don’t worry, I will be back. Jim [Cameron] says no one ever dies in science fiction. He’s told me the stories for the next two movies and I have to say that they’re absolutely wonderful and there’s a real treat in store. Now we just have to make them.”

The sequels will reportedly be shot back-to-back beginning next year, with the first targeting a December 2014 release and the next film following a year later.

Somewhat less encouraging is what Weaver had to say about the highly anticipated Ghostbusters 3, in which it is hoped she will reprise her roll as Dana Barrett.

“I have yet to read the script. I’ve had a couple of calls and I know they’re rewriting and all I said was that I hope my son, Oscar, has grown up to be a Ghostbuster and Ivan Reitman said yes. Beyond that, I have no idea. I hope it comes together, but we already did two wonderful films and, if we have to let this one go, that’s fine.”

The main stumbling block for Ghostbusters 3 appears to be whether Bill Murray will be involved in the project. The actor has previously said that he does have a copy of the script but has yet to read it, while Dan Aykroyd recently announced that it’s looking likely the film will go before cameras in spring 2012 with or without Murray.

(via Coming Soon)

Making a movie about a cave diving expedition sounds like a treacherous, expensive, and most likely exhausting feat. Yet, the risk factor is, paradoxically, what attracts filmmakers – the more adventurous they are, the more they’ll get the difficult shots and complex sets and equipment as means to shine.

Perhaps this is just what drew daredevil James Cameron to produce Sanctum. But while difficulties do turn into opportunities when you know how to use them, sometimes hard work is just not enough.

Sanctum tells the story of a cave diving team headed to explore the least accessible, most daunting cave in the world, only to find themselves in serious trouble when nature refuses to behave and a storm ends up effectively trapping them underwater. Panic ensues, along with a stream of previously buried relationship issues, rivalries, and plain old egotistic displays which destroy the divers’ plans of survivals – and also make the viewer wonder why such a broken team has taken on this delicate and dangerous mission in the first place.

It’s human nature – the movie tries to tell us. Yet, the behaviours, feelings and interactions that would make us accept this explanation don’t have the depth and weight required to be truly emotionally effective – simply because the setting and the material effort to visually render this unusual adventure take over everything, effectively undermining the character development in favour of impressive underwater shots and unsettling scenes of danger and destruction.

The actors try hard enough, but their lines are so clichéd that they end up creating a cheesy collage of heard-it-all-before expressions (“He doesn’t play by the rules” is a painful one of them) and soulless attempts to adhere to accepted social values – for instance when the script requires father and son to resolve their conflictual relationship before either survives.

The movie is detailed and well researched – at least to the untrained eyes of the average viewer, who, however, will also coincidentally get confused and distracted by too many technical details and too little chances to actually empathise with the protagonists, no matter how clear their local cinema’s 3D glasses are.

Simple as that, no amount of technology or breathtaking views can instill soul and meaning into a movie that doesn’t have much of either to begin with. Sanctum succeeds in inspiring feelings of claustrophobia, breathlessness, and maybe an urge to run out of the screen and cancel your scuba diving trip, but these are pretty much all the emotions you are going to experience.

**~~~ (2/5)

As soon as Avatar finished its super successful cinema run rumours emerged that the world hadn’t seen the end of the story, and that we were to expect a second chapter to Jake and Neytiri’s adventures in Pandora.

The Hollywood Reporter has now announced that director James Cameron is getting ready to film not one, but two sequels to his “biggest blockbuster of all time” masterpiece.

The two movies are scheduled to come out over the course of the next four years, the first in December 2014 and the second a year after that, and Lightstorm Entertainment (Cameron’s company) is now just starting to get into gear for the mammoth work that such a complex and motion capture technology advanced production will require.

Cameron is selling his old office building in Santa Monica (currently listed at $11.85 million), probably in an attempt to at least reduce the inevitable work-related stress by having his offices and studio consolidated into one location not far from his home, down the coast of Malibu.

It is likely that Wellington based WETA, the special effects company which looked after the visual effects in the Lord of the Rings saga as well as those in the first Avatar, will be employed again, although Cameron hasn’t confirmed as of yet whether live action scenes will take place in New Zealand as they were for the first Avatar.

While fans will have to wait quite a while, the buzz around the Avatar sequels production has already started and looks like it could rival that of Peter Jackson’s long awaited The Hobbit. More news to come soon…

Report by Margherita Pellegrino.

In an interview with the Associated Press earlier today, Michelle Rodriguez said that she’d heard that the sequel to the biggest movie of all time (that would be James Cameron’s Avatar) with the working title, Avatar 2, would take place underwater and would be ‘extraordinary beautiful’. She went on to say that she had no idea if she’s be back to player her role as Trudy Chacon.

I guess with Pandora explored, it might make sense for a sequel to go underwater, unlocking more creatures from the deep but surely we’ve only scratched the surface of the planet? No doubt more speculation will come until we actually get to see it! Let’s just hope it’s better than Sanctum!

Rodriguez is currently on the junket train for her new movie, Battle: Los Angeles so I expect she’ll get quizzed on this over the next week or 2.Would love to know your thoughts in the comments section below.

More as we get it.

This project has been in the pipeline for quite some time, and when James Cameron pulls on his producing trousers and grabs his 3D cameras you can bet that he will want to secure the best help he can to bring his version of Fantastic Voyage to the big screen.

Enter Shawn Levy, not literally of course although that would not be out of the realm of possibilities raised in this film, who has been tipped by Deadline as the man to ‘reimaginise’ the 1966 fantasy film which saw a team of scientists miniaturised and injected into the body of a man to save his life.

Director Paul Greengrass dallied with the project, then decided against it, leaving the field open for Clash of the Titans man Louis Leterrier to approach the project and apparently sign on before news of Levy broke which puts the man who oversaw the Night at the Musuem malarkey behind the cameras for this one.

It’s not an obvious fit, but with the shadow of Cameron looming large over this one he’ll have a steady path to bring this 3D vision to us, and its not the first time it’s happened…

P.S. I always wondered whose hand that was. It looks like it should be Dennis Quaid’s but that’s just wrong.

US cinemas experienced a quiet time indeed over the weekend. In fact (according to Box Office Mojo), it was the worst viewing figures for this February date in 15 years.

It’s almost as if there was some significant cultural event over the pond which managed to get the attention of the normal cinemagoing crowd. By the way, did anyone catch the Super Bowl last night?

College-set Single White Female knock-off The Roommate debuted at number one with $15.6m – a pretty average figure, but as the film’s budget was only $16m in total, this figure will probably be deemed a success. The executive-produced James Cameron feature, James Cameron’s Sanctum, opening with a paltry $9.2m at number two, despite having James Cameron’s name mentioned wherever possible, even though James Cameron how little to do with the end product, apart from the 3D aspect – a device favoured by Avatar director James Cameron.

Last week’s number one, No Strings Attached, rounds off the top three, having managed a so-so haul of $51.7m so far.

The guys over at Sofas and Sectionals got in contact with us today to give us a heads up on their ‘Directors Budgets and Rate of Return’ post. They’ve created these rather stat-packed tables detailing just how much money 6 of the biggest name directors in the world have both spent and made on their movies to calculate their rate of return. The directors in question are Michael Bay, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and M. Night Shyamalan.

Using sources IMDb.com, Forbes, CelebrityWorth.net and Box Office Mojo, they have worked out using the budget and takings for each movie, just how much the rate of return for each director is with a final pie chart showing who has the greatest overall return and you might be surprised at the results.

Have a little look at it and then scroll down to the bottom for the final tally. Thanks to Sofas and Sectionals for sending it our way.

They used some methodology which consisted of:

• Only titles in which the director has been accredited as been included
• Only feature-length movies included
• Movies listed as ‘early’ are listed but no included in overall final value-for-money figure

Numbers:

• Budget  – Production budget. Excludes promotions and advertising
• Revenue – Worldwide box office gross. Excludes home movie releases and merchandise
• R.O.R. – Rate of return. Calculated by: (Revenue -budget)/budget * 100

Key:

• Yellow – Early movies
• Green figures – The three highest rates of return (excluding early movies)
• Red figures – The three lowest rates of return (excluding early movies)

A slow weekend saw the Anthony Hopkins exorcism-based horror thriller The Rite head to the top of the charts with a very average $15m. The story of a priest who becomes involved in the darker side of his faith while studying at an exorcism school in Italy has made back nearly half of its budget, although it doesn’t really compare to the same box office results of this time last year (Avatar made $31 after seven weeks on release!)

Last week’s number one, No Strings Attached, has dropped down to second place, which a total so far of $39.7m. This result marks a return to form for director Ivan Reitman, whose previous film to this (2006’s abysmal My Super Ex-Girlfriend) only managed to scrape together a paltry $22m during its entire run.

The new Jason Statham vehicle The Mechanic is at number three with $11.5m – a less-than-explosive figure for the action star whose last film in The Transporter series managed to pull in over $1m more than this during its opening weekend in 2008.

Figures courtesy of Box Office Mojo

In the same week that Twitter wasvalued at $4bn and just in time to promote his new movie, Sanctum, one of the best known directors on the planet, James Cameron has joined micro messaging service, twitter!

With a tweet that read:

“ryan seacrest told me I had to get on Twitter. So here I am. First tweet. I feel younger already.”

He was here!

So, we can currently say that we have more followers than him but no doubt in about 10 minutes, he’ll have many many more than we do!

You can follow Mr. Cameron @JimCameron

Thanks to /Film for the heads up.

20th Century Fox announced in October that James Cameron would be directing not one, but two sequels to the groundbreaking 3D sci-fi film Avatar.

Now, Cameron, in an interview with EW conducted over the weekend, has confirmed the tentative release plan for Avatar 2 and 3.

He was quoted as saying:

“I am in the process of writing the next two Avatar films now. We are planning to shoot them together and post them together, and we will probably release them not quite back to back, but about a year apart. Christmas 2014 and 2015 is the current plan.”

Cameron also noted that some of the cast from the first installment may appear in the upcoming sequels:

“Basically, if you survived the first film, you get to be in the second film, at least in some form,”

Avatar was released in 2009 and made $2,781,132,032 at the worldwide box office, surpassing Titanic as the highest grossing film of all-time.

Are you looking forward to Avatar 2 and 3? Leave your comments below.

Film piracy continues to be a significant problem for the industry. High speed internet connections, good quality camera phones and ever-escalating ticket prices all contribute to the issue. The scale of film piracy and its impact in cold, hard money is difficult to quantify, especially given that not everyone who illegally downloads a film or buys a pirated DVD would have bought a cinema ticket instead, had a pirate copy not been available. The questionable quality of much of the pirated content out there, together with the undoubted diminishing of the impact of a film by having to watch it on a computer monitor are pretty much beside the point. Pirated copies of films are ubiquitous and no doubt here to stay.

Personally, I think pretty much any film is better enjoyed on the big screen and I must confess to never having downloaded a film, so I am unsure as to what the quality is like. I sympathise with frustrations over escalating ticket prices, but share the concerns of the film industry as to the knock-on effect on sustaining film production in the wake of the financial impact of reduced revenue occasioned by the prevalence of piracy, especially for the lower-budget end of the spectrum, where margins are tighter and profits much lower.

Let us have your thoughts below on film piracy. Clearly it is a complicated issue. Where do you stand? In the meantime, here is the top ten list:-

Well I have just read my first ever 3D book, and this one has interactive cards, stickers, pictures to boot! Donning the 3D glasses made me feel a bit like a geek, but one on a mission! The book expounds the story of Avatar in four clear chapters, introducing us to the heroes, ‘Friends and Foes’ at the start, taking us through to the land of Pandora, which never ceases to amaze. My favourite part of this movie and (therefore this book) has to be the landscape, plants and animals that have been created; the most intriguing landscape imaginable, navigated by air on creatures from your wildest dreams. Spectacular imagery and colour comes through in Chapter 3 as the ‘Na’vi people’ and culture is explored. I loved the little playing cards throughout the book, they brought the characters such as the ‘Woodsprite’ to life and help the reader understand the significant depth to the film. Chapter 4, Machinery of Conflict, did not really leave a lasting impression on me, perhaps that is a personal preference.

Overall this 3D book is fabulously designed and carefully crafted, much like the film. The little extras make the book extremely niche, and even though my eyes feel a little funny after wearing 3D glasses, it was well worth it.

James Cameron’s Avatar Collector’s Vault Book 3D is OUT NOW.

Tron: Legacy is top of the US box office this week, having brought in over $43 million in receipts ($43,600,000).

Disney were probably hoping for a bigger figure (the film is budgeted at around $170 million before promotional and advertising costs) but the first film was hardly in the same league as something like Star Wars in terms of  popularity and does not engender a huge sense of excitement for the follow up. It’s worth noting however, that Avatar opened around the same time last year with a moderate haul of $70 million and went on to become the biggest-grossing film in the world.

The GC makeover of popular Hanna Barbera cartoon Yogi Bear has debuted at number 2 with a below-par $16m. It’s probably safe to say that this film’s finally box office tally won’t be anywhere close to what the similarly kids-marketed Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel made last year (a staggering $219m!).

The third in The Chronicles of Narnia series (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) rounds off the top three, bringing in just over $44m after two weeks on release. It’s another big-budgeted family feature which has a way to go to break even (it has a budget of around $155m) but this film (like the first two) should prove to be popular with an overseas audience.

Figures courtesy of Box Office Mojo.

Last week we were invited to an event at visual effects and computer animation studio Framestore, which showcased the new cinema advert for LG Electronics 3D TV.

Richard Ayoade (best known for his role in The IT Crowd and the director behind the highly-anticipated, upcoming rites of passage comedy feature, Submarine) joined forces with Framestore’s digital team to direct the ad and the end product is a virtuoso, single take, in-camera delight which more than adequately demonstrates the advantages of having 3D in the home.

Designed to inform consumers and ease the confusion around this new domestic technology, a live-action FAQ has also been devised (embedded with the advert below). Comedy duo Tim Key and Lloyd Wolf deliver pre-recorded answers through the online interface in response to consumers’ questions.

LG’s vision of using fun and entertaining means of educating consumers was certainly reflected in the package here. Like the advert, it’s clear that Ayoade has been given the freedom to infuse this viral with his own quirky sensibilities, resulting in a wonderfully kitsch-style, which filters though to the art direction, and is brought to life by the performances of two comedians who have a real rapport together and are genuinely hilarious.

As a leading effects company, Framestore have worked on a variety of major Hollywood productions over the past 20 years or so, and guests were treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the digital processes involved in delivering the initial crew landing segment from Avatar – a brief minute or so of screen time, but a project which took the company months to create and perfect in accordance to James Cameron’s rigorous specifications.

The presentation proved to be a fun and informative hour or so, which provided an engaging glimpse into what big electronic companies are doing to ease consumers into an every-changing digital landscape.

Today sees the release of the biggest and best selling movie of all time in the form of the Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition. This edition is seen to be the definitive and after you see everything that’s included on the three Blu-rays (scroll to the bottom of this post), you’ll see why! 6 weeks ago, I was invited by the very nice people at Twentieth Century Fox to go along to a ‘press’ day (that’s right people, I am now press!) hosted by Avatar Director, James Cameron and Producer, John Landau to find out everything there is to know about Avatar, the way it was made and to meet the people behind each part of the movie.

During the event, there were 10 different presentations which ranged from how the 3d worked to how the Na’vi language was created. This all happened after an introduction from James Cameron who was still so passionate about this movie. He really knew everything there was to know about it, from the inside out. Although he assigned various roles to the department heads, it was clear that his creativity and knowledge was very much at the heart of the project and that he was the driving force to push boundaries in every aspect.

I’ve placed the James Cameron / John Landau introduction below where they’ll explain exactly what this event is all about and if you continue to watch, you’ll also see a clip of an alternate opening scene from the movie which was cut out and which you’ll find on the Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition.

Being at the event was incredible and this post is by no means going to do justice to what I saw but I’ll do my best to set the scene. We walked into a studio which is used for filming to be greeted by numerous plasma screen TVs mounted on a rig set either side of a corridor with various behind the scenes footage from being show. Walking a little further in was a set of sofas where the James Cameron introduction and Q&A would take place later but what caught my eye straight away was the huge life-size Amp Suit standing 15+ feet tall at the end of the very large room. Approaching further were multiple props including many machine guns and other weaponry from the movie which we got to play with later on in the day.

Turning the corner further were multiple model heads from the movie which showed all of the main character in their Na’vi form including models of the animals seen in the movie, the machinery used and a TV screen with concept art on a loop. All of which was still dwarfed by this gigantic amp suit which I think all of those attending were rather impressed by!

Moving down the corridor we got to see loads of the costumes used by the cast but these were slightly different to normal since all of what you see used by the Nav’i was digital. Yet still, the costume department (led by Deborah Scott) had to create life-size replicas of the costumes used so that the computer chaps could then create and digitise them all. This whole process really was fascinating and quite difficult to get your head round.

As we continued to walk into the building we realised that an entire motion capture stage had been created with actors dressed in the suits ready to show us how motion capture really works. John Landau was present at this point to give us the run-down on the system which we all got to inspect in great detail. All around the room were cameras ready to capture the actors every movie while on a TV screen, we got to see them in the Pandora world in which they had created in the computer. This is exactly what James Cameron would have seen while shooting the movie.

I think the part that I didn’t really understand before seeing this in action was that once the actors had completed their scene, the footage is my no means locked. Or at least the camera angles. Since there are so many cameras around the room capturing the movements in 3d, it means in post production, a camera angle can be achieved from literally anywhere on the stage. The actors don’t need to re-shoot because their movement are locked but they can then the shown from any angle possible in the world created within the computer.

Other sessions included how the 3d camera worked looking in detail at the system and we also got to see ourselves in 3d, then moving on to how the editing was accomplished using the raw footage shot from the mo-cap stage with Joe Letteri and Stephen Rosenbaum, then learning how the Nav’i language was created with Paul Frommer, how all the botany (plants) from the movie were created  with Jodie Holt and then onto how all the sound effects and score all came together with James Horner and Juan Peralta. FInally we got to speak with Joe Letteri and Stephen Rosenbaum from Digital Effects house WETA who were responsible for the special effects and turning all the motion capture into the shiny bright characters that we have now come to know and love.

The whole event was spectacular, being in the presence of five Oscar winners from one movie was amazing and I felt very privileged to be there. Over the course of the coming week, I’ll bring you a few more posts showing images from the event and giving a little more information from what we learned.

If you haven’t already, have a watch of the video above and it’ll give you a much better insight into the day and what we got the chance to do.

Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition is released on DVD and Blu-ray today.

Content on Disc:

Special Features
This extended collector’s set includes more than eight hours of bonus features.

Disc 1: Three Movie Versions
• Original Theatrical Edition (includes family audio track with objectionable language removed)
• Special Edition Re-Release (includes family audio track with objectionable language removed)
• Collector’s Extended Cut with 16 additional minutes, including alternate opening on earth

Disc 2: Filmmaker’s Journey
• Over 45 minutes of never-before-seen deleted scenes
• Screen tests, on-set footage, and visual-effects reels
• Capturing Avatar: Feature-length documentary covering the 16-year filmmakers’ journey, including interviews with James Cameron, Jon Landau, cast and crew
• A Message from Pandora: James Cameron’s visit to the Amazon rainforest
• The 2006 art reel: Original pitch of the Avatar vision
• Brother termite test: Original motion capture test
• The ILM prototype: Visual effects reel
• Screen tests: Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana
• Zoë’s life cast: Makeup session footage
• On-set footage as live-action filming begins
• VFX progressions
• Crew film: The Volume

Disc 3: Pandora’s Box
• Interactive scene deconstruction: Explore the stages of production of 17 different scenes through three viewing modes: capture level, template level, and final level with picture-in-picture reference
• Production featurettes: Sculpting Avatar, Creating the Banshee, Creating the Thanator, The AMP Suit, Flying Vehicles, Na’vi Costumes, Speaking Na’vi, Pandora Flora, Stunts, Performance Capture, Virtual Camera, The 3D Fusion Camera, The Simul-Cam, Editing Avatar, Scoring Avatar, Sound Design, The Haka: The Spirit of New Zealand
• Avatar original script
• Avatar screenplay by James Cameron
• Pandorapedia: Comprehensive guide to Pandora
• Lyrics from five songs by James Cameron
• The art of Avatar: Over 1,850 images in 16 themed galleries (The World of Pandora, The Creatures, Pandora Flora, Pandora Bioluminescence, The Na’vi, The Avatars, Maquettes, Na’vi Weapons, Na’vi Props, Na’vi Musical Instruments, RDA Designs, Flying Vehicles, AMP Suit, Human Weapons, Land Vehicles, One-Sheet Concepts)
• BD-Live extras (requires BD-Live-enabled player and Internet connection–may be available a limited-time only): Crew Short: The Night Before Avatar; additional screen tests, including Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, and Laz Alonso; speaking Na’vi rehearsal footage; Weta Workshop: walk-and-talk presentation