Avatar: The Last Airbender | The Art of Bending - Netflix - video Dailymotion

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Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Here's how the visual effects and stunts team brought all four elements to life through the art of bending.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 There's that little magic moment just before you start bending.

00:07 It is that little breath when you hear action

00:10 and then everybody goes.

00:13 It's incredible.

00:14 Action.

00:15 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:30 Bending is about being able to manipulate an element

00:34 to turn it into a weapon or defense.

00:37 It's kind of like superpowers, but in our world,

00:40 it's the four elements-- water, earth, fire, and air.

00:46 With all the forms of bending, we

00:47 would start with the animated series

00:49 and we would take our live action footage

00:51 and match that as best as possible.

00:54 In terms of how we executed it, it's

00:56 stunts and visual effects really working hand in hand.

00:59 The style of the martial arts involved with The Last Airbender

01:03 is primarily devised from the Chinese martial arts,

01:05 known as wushu.

01:06 And they each incorporate a different style of wushu.

01:12 We needed to make sure that we not only mastered

01:14 those techniques, but had a thorough understanding of where

01:17 they began, where they lead, and use that to inform

01:20 our bending process.

01:23 Bending is about energy and balance.

01:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:28 We looked into the mythology of each element.

01:31 How is the element brought to life?

01:34 It's what we call qi kong, or qi power,

01:37 which is really your breathing.

01:39 Air is where you require your energy

01:42 to develop the slow breathing of quick release.

01:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:48 I had a one month boot camp where

01:50 they start teaching me bending.

01:52 I studied Bagua and wushu.

01:54 Step, jump around.

01:55 It's very open palms.

02:00 It's very circular movements.

02:03 The trickiest part is you don't really see air.

02:06 So what we ended up doing was using

02:08 as much of the natural elements that were around as possible.

02:12 So if you're airbending in an environment that

02:15 has sand or dust or dirt, you're seeing a lot of that move.

02:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:20 For the Fire Nation!

02:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:24 Firebending is a mixture of finding your qi and balance.

02:30 It's based on northern Shaolin kung fu.

02:33 We took the northern styles of wushu

02:35 and brought it into the Fire Nation

02:37 to create the type of motions that they would do.

02:40 Your energy or your breathing creates a spark,

02:43 like lighting a match or a flame.

02:47 I have a background in martial arts,

02:48 so being able to mix that with what the fire might look

02:53 like in a blast or a block, it's really awesome.

02:57 With firebending, how do we make it not feel like something

03:00 is burning and more like they're conjuring this fire?

03:03 We're looking at how did the animated series

03:05 fire interact in a 2D world?

03:07 And then how do we translate that into the 3D world?

03:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]

03:14 Water is life.

03:16 Water allows life to flourish.

03:19 Waterbending is based off tai chi,

03:22 so it's very fluid and smooth like water.

03:26 We created what we call slow breathing

03:29 to relate how your energy breathes slowly

03:32 and then releases with the weight of the water

03:35 to move it.

03:37 Galandia was amazing to work with.

03:39 We got to do a lot of her backstory

03:40 and how that affected her bending.

03:43 Martial arts is something that's outside of her everyday

03:47 training, but she understood and learned.

03:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]

03:52 [EXHALES]

03:53 It's a lot of texture and detail that

03:55 goes into making the water feel like what you think water

03:58 should look like when it's bending.

03:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]

04:03 You found a master, haven't you?

04:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]

04:07 Yes, you're looking at her.

04:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]

04:13 Earthbending is a more grounded style of martial arts

04:16 from the southern provinces of China.

04:19 Everything is sharp movements and lots

04:21 of feet touching the earth.

04:23 Anytime anybody's bending, we're always

04:25 trying to continue continuity with connection to the earth

04:28 because that's where their power comes from.

04:31 It's fast and slow breathing.

04:33 [GRUNTING]

04:36 What we wanted to feel like in visual effects

04:38 is everything is heavy.

04:39 Things are hard to move.

04:41 So as they take these things out of the earth,

04:43 they're actually compacting the elements

04:45 that are already in the earth.

04:46 [GRUNTING]

04:48 [LAUGHING]

04:51 Well, as fun as this has been, it's time for the games to end.

04:58 The most difficult part was making sure

05:00 that we were making choices that the audience was going to love

05:03 because people care so much about this story.

05:06 Is that all you got?

05:07 It really was a team effort.

05:08 When you watch "Avatar," you'll believe somebody

05:10 can bend water or bend fire.

05:13 As a fan and as a performer, this show gives me goosebumps.

05:17 And I think people will just love it.

05:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]

05:26 So what's next?

05:28 [MUSIC PLAYING]

05:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]

05:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]

05:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]

05:42 [MUSIC PLAYING]

05:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]

05:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Avatar: The Last Airbender | The Art of Bending - Netflix

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