对话卡梅隆！阿凡达3是怎么拍的？

Mr. Cameron, Good to see you. -How you doing?

I'm Tim.

So we did e-meet on internet for "Avatar: Way of Water".

Ah, okay, all right.

But I want to show you something.

So back then we talked, so this was our company in 2022.

And we were doing like that.

And back then, I said we want to become you someday, and we worked hard, so this is now, we have campus, we have 170 employees.

Oh congratulations!

You're covering mostly movies?

Yes movies, and tech, and everything.

-Congratulations. -Thank you.

So, what you're doing is popular and you're growing.

-I would think relatively. -Yeah.

Our questions will be a little bit technical.

So, first question: fire, ash, smoke, fog, sand, mud, and plant, which one is the hardest for you to simulate and maintain the fidelity in the film?

water is the hardest one, absolutely by far.

Let's say you've got a boat moving through water, how the boat moves is determined by the water, how the water moves is determined by the boat.

So it's a feedback loop of multiple levels of simulation over time.

and it often kind of feels like a moving target.

Sand, mud, they all have different...

Fire, relatively much easier.

So the critical thing for me as a director is to be able to observe the real world very carefully, and I've done 30 years of real-world photography, right?

so I know what it's supposed to look like.

And then I work with the VFX people to refine the simulations.

It's all the subtleties and the things really show in "Fire and Ash", you know, all the details, all the movement.

I mean, if you think about it from a big picture, we're trying to create a kind of a dream-like reality where it looks real, looks completely real, but it can't possibly be real.

As essentially the same thing as makeup for creating a character that's played by an actor.

Not a completely alien creature that could be fully animated.

Yeah, that's the question we have, actually.

Since Mocap and animation they work together, right?

People always think it's, it's like two separate things.

But obviously, Mocap need adjustment to fine-tune the movement... -You need adjustments...

to fine-tune the movement... -You need adjustments...

and those are key frame adjustments.

But the adjustment should never go against the actor's intention, right?

You know, when we capture an actor as a Na'vi, You know, when we capture an actor as a Na'vi, Sometimes, their character and space doesn't quite connect to some of the physical set pieces.

We may put the actor's hand back on the armrest but we're not changing what the actor did.

There is no jitter I actually wonder how is there no jitter with Mocap.

The data, our hand capture data is very coarse data, so we do rely on keyframe to get the delicacy in the hands, so we do a lot of photography of the actors' hands to see exactly what they're doing in amount of pressure and so on.

But once again, it's about having a very high fidelity.

If performance in, character out.

And the less intervention, the better.

Now I want to show a little secret thing we made.

It's all handcrafted.

So this is from our team, so we want to show the appreciation of Avatar Universe.

so we want to show the appreciation of Avatar Universe.

-Oh, but see look, you've got red and green glasses. -Yes.

So this is, you know, first Avatar movie, and now we move to the second, "Way of Water" "Fire and Ash".

Oh I see, yeah.

What you're doing here is you're doing the underwater, so it's Payakan and Lo'ak, and you're seeing seeing the fire and volcano, and also the toruk.

Yes, because we want to ask questions about 3D, people always think 3D is not advancing, it's not getting better but we moved a lot...

Oh it is, it's absolutely getting better.

Yeah, it's getting better a lot.

It's an authoring tool that can be used creatively.

It's an authoring tool that can be used creatively.

I think it's been misused by the studios, they need to spend the capital to upgrade the light levels of the of the projectors.

A lot of that is happening.

Here in China the CINITY, CINITY company, Here in China the CINITY, CINITY company, has laser projection technology that's very good, they have a new LED technology that's scalable up to, I think, of 20 meter.

When did you see the film?

I watched yesterday on the LED.

So you saw what I'm talking about, right?

It's incredible, the peak brightness and the dark level is superb.

Yeah right.

So I don't know how many nits it is, but basically, the dynamic range is very good, the blacks are deep and crisp, and the highlights are very good, and through the glasses, you're getting more than the standard that's required.

Yeah, and the sound can penetrate through the screen.

Yeah yeah.

So it's basically an open grid, so that the sound can be accurate.

And I think this time, the realism of Avatar, I think 48 frames helps a lot to get people immersed with the action and everything.

I know "Fire and Ash" is 48 frames mastered?

Only 40 percent of the movie is actually at an HFR.

And we spent 25 years figuring this out.

When people say they have eye strain or they get a headache from 3D, It's not eye strain.

It's brain strain.

Because we fuse the 3D image in our visual cortex.

And where we have trouble discriminating parallax on moving edges is when it's strobing, which is a motion artifact of 24p.

So we go to 48p when we need to.

It also gives you an enhanced sense of clarity.

But why is this deciding between 24 and 48?

We can feel it obviously, and it's intentional.

Yeah, it's just something that we decide based on watching an early version of the shot rendered, and we decide if the lateral movement is producing some strobing, and then you know...

And some of the action shots.

We pretty much do the action scenes.

So the aerial combat and things like that, So the aerial combat and things like that, we'll do that all at 48.

-For clarity, once again, for clarity. -Okay.

The next question I'll throw is probably...

a little bit strange.

Avatar is a huge universe, and the universe is large.

And there is a possibility, do you think there's an actual Pandora planet somewhere in the universe that's exactly like you imagined, Mr. Cameron?

If you're a hardcore science fiction fan, you want something that's highly plausible, right?

And the idea that the nearest star system to Earth, Alpha Centauri, would have a very terrestrial type of climate, it's pretty implausible.

But I chose to tell a story that's a little more grounded in real world physics, right?

And so getting to the nearest star system at 70% C takes you six years of ship time, seven years, you know, sort of relative time.

But here's the interesting thing: astronomers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California have found what they strongly believe is a gas giant planet exactly where the primary of Pandora...

Because Pandora is an exoplanet, exactly where it is.

In the Alpha Centauri system, which is how big Polyphemus is supposed to be.

which is how big Polyphemus is supposed to be.

So there might actually be a Pandora, right there, our next door neighbor.

If in your lifetime, you can stand on Pandora, what's the first thing you're going to do?

I don't know.

I'd keep my eyes open for viper wolves, that's what I'd do or a thanator, you know.

Even if they can't digest us, the only way to know for them is for them to chomp us first, then go "Purr," you know.

So I don't want to get chomped.

"Give a taste."

No, I'd want to talk to, if there was an intelligent life, intelligent species there like the Na'vi, I would want to talk to them, set up communication, start to figure out their language.

I guess that's almost all my questions.

Man, you're going tactical.

Thank you, Mr. Cameron.