- 6 weeks ago
In episode three of THR’s special edition of 'Behind the Screen,' senior visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri, visual effects supervisor Richard Baneham, Wētā FX senior visual effects supervisor Eric Saindon and Wētā FX senior animation supervisor Daniel Barrett take listeners behind-the-scenes of how 'Avatar's' groundbreaking performance-capture technology achieves new depths of emotional resonance in 'Avatar: Fire and Ash.'
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00:00That sounds like a fun weekend, but that's not what you really want.
00:07What do I want?
00:10What you've never had.
00:14An equal.
00:18Performance capture is about really the performance.
00:22The actors are playing each scene all the way through, so it's very much like theater.
00:27We'll sit there in a small room with just, you know, 20 or so people and watch these small, intimate performances and then just wonder about how we're going to bring that to the screen.
00:43Hello and welcome to a special episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Behind the Screen, in partnership with 20th Century Studios, featuring artisans who helped to create Avatar, Fire and Ash, from the Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron.
00:57I'm your host, THR Contributing Editor, Stacey Wilson-Hunt.
01:01My guests today are Visual Effects Supervisor and Executive Producer, Richard Bainham.
01:07Senior Visual Effects Supervisor, Joe Letary.
01:10Senior Visual Effects Supervisor for WETA, Eric Sandin.
01:15And Senior Animation Supervisor for WETA, Daniel Barrett.
01:19Congratulations, gentlemen, to all of you on Avatar, Fire and Ash, which is an incredible new chapter in James Cameron's saga.
01:26How does it feel to be able to share this film with the world, finally?
01:30Pretty excited.
01:31I think I may be unique in the group here in that I avoided all of the getting to see the movie before it came out.
01:39I, of course, saw everything as it was going through, but I waited till last night to see it with an audience the first time all the way through.
01:47And I had a great time, and I hope everyone else did as well.
01:50That's one of the reasons we like working on films like this, is we want to see them.
01:54So we put the effort into making them so that we have that moment ourselves.
01:59Well said, Joe.
02:00Of course, you're a fan first.
02:02Exactly.
02:02Yeah, yeah.
02:03I'm super excited because on the last one, my kids were a little young to have known about the cultural touchstone that was the first Avatar, you know.
02:12So I flew under the radar, but now they know.
02:15So they've been waiting to see this.
02:17I think you said it very well.
02:19Being a fan is an interesting sort of way to look at the movie.
02:24And it's, you know, two hours and 77 minutes of Thrill Riot.
02:29You know, it really does have pace.
02:32So it's one of the things I think, albeit the exploration into grief truly expands, I think, the vocabulary of Pandora.
02:42But it is a Thrill Riot.
02:45I thought it was great seeing it for the first time with a big crowd last night, watching the audience, watching the audience's reactions and not seeing anyone get up to go to the bathroom.
02:57I mean, it's not a short movie.
03:00No one got up.
03:01Everyone just sat there the whole time and watched the whole thing.
03:04And it shows you how involved everyone gets into the movie itself.
03:11It's such a fun thing.
03:12No one wants to miss a thing.
03:13It's an interesting thing as well to see it with such a big audience and see, like, you know, quips that you're worried won't land or that we've seen in a dry haul for so long.
03:25You know, you're watching them again and you get a giggle the first time, but when you see them over and over, you sort of lose the context of the audience.
03:34And once the audience is there and one person giggles, the whole place lights up.
03:38And I was really surprised at how much comedy read through.
03:42Yeah, that's great.
03:43And to your point, no one getting up during the screening, that is the ultimate compliment.
03:47So congratulations.
03:52That's what we strive for.
03:55So for me, it's it's quite amazing to think about the lifespan of this story.
04:01James wrote the first Avatar in 1995.
04:04And of course, the first film came out in 2009.
04:07And then, of course, sequels, The Way of Water and now Fire and Ash were filmed back to back in 2017, released in 2022 and now 2025.
04:15So we're talking essentially of a 30 year journey.
04:19And in fact, Joe, you've gone so far as to say the tools that you had at the beginning were, quote, primitive compared to what you have now.
04:28So I'd like to ask you and Richard, can you contextualize for us what was so groundbreaking about the performance capture technology that you utilized in the first Avatar and how what we see in Fire and Ash represents the next evolution of this craft?
04:43So, Joe, maybe get us started.
04:44Yeah, let me take a step back.
04:46When we were working on King Kong, this was at the end of 2005.
04:52John Landau called me because we had met with Jim and John when we were starting King Kong.
04:58They were interested in what we had been doing with Gollum and also knew that going into King Kong, we were having to do some world building, especially creating a forest.
05:09So John called me about six months before we delivered that film and told me that he, you know, Jim had a script he wanted me to read or a scriptment.
05:19And that was the 1995 Avatar that you were referring to.
05:23And he sent it to me and called me back a few days later and said, what did you think?
05:28And I said, John, we have to make this movie because I really want to see it.
05:33And so we got involved with that whole process.
05:36They were really interested in what we had done to create Gollum, what we had learned from it, where we were going from that.
05:44So I flew to Los Angeles to meet with Jim and John.
05:47And when I walked in the door, there was Richie already there.
05:51And, of course, Richie and I had worked together on Gollum, on Lord of the Rings.
05:56Richie was the animation supervisor.
05:58So we had that history and we're just able to pick it up from there.
06:02Yeah, it's interesting, Joe.
06:03I was actually going to say it goes back even further that Joe has suggested.
06:07He said, Joe started that weather the same week on Lord.
06:12And again, the evolution of that facial technology really was true Gollum.
06:18And then, obviously, that's part of the reason that piqued Jim's interest in making the movie and reached out.
06:24Obviously, we were on the original test.
06:27And it was interesting to see, you know, the span of that rig that we built for Gollum really come all the way through to, obviously, one right away through to maybe, I think it was Battle Angel.
06:42It was the last time it was.
06:43And at that point, Joe and the team had started to explore a completely new approach on the facial.
06:50And I think that breakthrough really allowed us to scale to multiple characters.
06:56And that was the challenge with the later movies was we were contained with the sort of viable performances we had to give with our actors that, you know, really was contained to Jake and Nateri.
07:06If Jake and Nateri worked in one, we had a movie.
07:09But at the time we got to two and three, we had to expand not just to a whole family, but, you know, to the clans having a more meaningful role.
07:18And I think that, you know, sort of movement, moving forward on the, we talked about as performance capture, but it really was the capture side.
07:25And then bringing it to fruition through Weta's technology and the facial really came to life.
07:33Now, there is a huge amount of involvement of the animators and the artisans, you know, getting hands on and making sure that we honor the actor's performance.
07:43But I think there's just been a massive leap forward from a technological standpoint, but really, I think a cultural standpoint as to how we treat performance.
07:52Our reliance on our actors and the truthfulness and the honesty of the actors, you know, and us keeping that alive.
08:01In a lot of ways, the group you're looking at, the four of us and the big team behind us, it's our job to shepherd that performance to screen, you know, and that's the every day it's that conversation.
08:13That's exactly right.
08:13I mean, we rely a lot on the technology, but the technology only gets you so far.
08:19It's a good starting point.
08:20You know, we try to get it to the point where the animators can spend all of their time gauging the performance and making sure that it connects with the audience.
08:30Because we know how to measure technically, you know, what we're getting out of the performance capture.
08:35But the ultimate test is when you look at it side by side with, you know, say Zoe's performance side by side with Natieri's performance, the ultimate test is, am I getting the same emotion out of it?
08:47Because if the answer is no, it doesn't matter what the math tells you.
08:51You've got to go back and the animators just have to delve into it and try to figure out what's missing and bring that to it.
08:58And it's an art that evolves with the characters, you know, at the end of the shoot for film two, and this was well before we started production, John Landau brought each of the actors over to meet with the facial animation team.
09:14And they would spend an hour or so just discussing their role, you know, things like what they thought the character was going to be when they started and how it evolved and what they realized the character was, you know, by the time it was over.
09:28Because in the end, they're handing this off to the animation team to understand what choices they made and to be able to honor those choices.
09:36And that's a really big part of what we do.
09:40Yeah, I said Dan was part of that original meeting.
09:42And Dan headed up the team both on the motion and facial side.
09:47And I think it was that relationship with the actors and the performance, really.
09:52I think the team, Dan, you should probably speak to that.
09:54Yeah, yeah, well, absolutely.
09:55I mean, I guess I would just like to reinforce the fact that, you know, that our job is to bring these incredible performances through.
10:03But there's a couple of statements that I could make, you know, and one of them is that, you know, without the amazing team that we have, the film wouldn't look as good as it does, you know.
10:13But the other statement I would make that lives happily side by side with that is that it's the performances.
10:18It's 100% the performances of the actors and the skill of the team and, you know, obviously assisted with the technology is to ensure that those performances are there 100%.
10:29And, you know, because it's the heart of the film.
10:32Without it, it wouldn't matter how many explosions you had or, you know, amazing set pieces.
10:37We just wouldn't have the film that we saw last night.
10:39I think the ability for the animators have all under, they all understand these characters now, too.
10:47After working with them for three films, they just understand Zoe and they understand Sam and all of these characters, which just adds, it allows them to add so much more detail to the characters and make sure they're getting that performance that the actor was portraying.
11:05I think the addition of Una as well, you're right, Eric, the time spent with the actors or with the characters up to this point allowed us to really have a, I think, a honed skill to jump in and take Una's performance and transfer it to Varan.
11:23And I think it's interesting to me, watching the movie last night, I realized how much that Una's performance really affected Slang's performance, that their chemistry on screen, they just were so good together.
11:38It's like, I think, you know, Stephen has been with us from the movie one, but I think without doubt, this is his best performance.
11:45Yeah, well, you see so much more, right?
11:47Just life to him, you know?
11:49Yeah, exactly, exactly.
11:51There's a sparkle in his eye all of a sudden.
11:55Literally was.
11:56Yeah, yeah.
11:57For those watching and listening, we're talking about Una Chaplin, the new addition to Fire and Ash, and Stephen Lang, who, of course, has been part of the series since the beginning.
12:04And I agree, they are very fiery.
12:07They have quite a connection, those two.
12:08Yeah, they're so charismatic.
12:11It's delicious to watch.
12:13I agree.
12:14And Eric and Daniel, I'd like to talk to you.
12:16How did your process most evolve in terms of how Weta worked with James and his team on Fire and Ash?
12:23And specifically, I'm interested in things like, how did the process of managing, say, files and templates become easier?
12:30But what parts of the process remain challenging as the movies progressed?
12:34Well, one of the things that was, you know, different for us this time is that Eric was very close to Jim at all times, you know?
12:40So he was, in some ways, we had a little sort of, you know, wetter office embedded with Jim, which was fantastic.
12:50I worked very closely with Richie, as I have over the years.
12:53But having Eric there at Jim's side was a big change for us.
12:58That made things, you know, a lot easier in terms of turnaround, you know, notes and things like that.
13:02I agree.
13:03Having Jim here, like being able to work with Jim every day and him explaining why he wants to do a shot a certain way and to explain why you have to overlap a shot by four frames or just how you're going to frame something from shot to shot.
13:23To make people's eye not get tired looking around the screen.
13:28It's just simple things like that, that you're learning as you go from Jim.
13:32It's just a, it is a masterclass every day of creativity and storytelling.
13:38And it just is a privilege to be able to work on these films.
13:42I've sat in, you know, reviews and listened to Jim talking about something and he may have a note on the camera that doesn't quite cut, you know, to his liking.
13:51And, you know, there's been many occasions where I'll just open, open that scene up, tweak, tweak that camera.
13:57And before the review's over, Eric can just put it up in front of him and say, how's that?
14:01You know, so that, that kind of, that really tight relationship and fast turnaround is just such a, been such a sort of a helpful and pivotal thing, I think, on this one.
14:12Jim, Jim works out so much of what he wants ahead of time, you know, using the virtual camera and on the virtual stage.
14:18Richie is also a really big part of that.
14:21He, he, he vets everything, you know, makes sure that everything is, is working and prepped and ready to go, blocks out a lot of the cameras.
14:29In fact, creates a lot of the final cameras.
14:32So it's a really collaborative process because we've all gotten to work with Jim so closely.
14:37And so what that means is Jim has a good idea of what he wants.
14:41So our first job is to show him that.
14:43But if in the course of working with it and, you know, refining from like the coarser visuals to, to the more refined, we see something that we think might work better, whether to cut a camera, a little animation change, he's open to it.
14:59You know, he, he's very willing to, you know, to look at it.
15:02And then if it works great, if it doesn't work, or even if it does work, he'll tell us why, you know, he'll, he, as Eric says, he will explain how it fits into the story process because he wants us all to be part of that process.
15:16It makes, it makes the story better.
15:19It makes his life easier if we're all engaged with making the same film.
15:23It's an interesting thing that you touched on.
15:26The template became, in a weird way, the vocabulary of the movie for us.
15:31Obviously, we're producing a content that never ends up on screen, but is, becomes this shorthand for informing every single frame of the movie.
15:41But it really allows the dynamic that you see here, the four of us to be able to get together and go, how do we stand up the best version of that shot?
15:49How do you, how do you put all of the effort into the final image and not the iterative process?
15:55So by, by pulling the iterations forward into the template and being able to loop quickly and get stuff up in front of Jim and get approval to a point of it, it's far from final, but it's, it's a representation of the final intention.
16:09And I think that allows, you know, Dan and Eric and Joe to really run with it and go, all right, we know where it's headed.
16:17We know we have to stand up the, the very first review and something I never thought Jim would ever say.
16:23And Jim said it himself, you can say final on first, first look, you know, and it happened on this because we became so honed at sort of the process of taking the template and making it, you know, a, a close to final version.
16:36I don't know what the numbers are, Joe or Eric, actually, you might know how many were, were first look finals.
16:43We had a fair number, which for the first time, we didn't have very many on way of water, but on this film, we probably had a couple hundred shots that were first look finals.
16:55And I mean, it's never the first look, right? First look being version 500 most of the time, because we spend a lot of time getting the shots right, working with Richie, working with Jamie Landau on looking at the shots and knowing what Jim's going to want before he ever sees it.
17:12So it's not like we're just throwing something out there. It's, it's, we're spending a lot of time on these shots.
17:17It's, we just, we understand Jim. We know where he's going. No one understands better than Richie. So he's able to help us, guide us along too.
17:26Yeah. But Jim is very happy when, when, if we show him something that he's not seen for the first time all the way through and he has no notes, that's, that's what we're all after.
17:37Yeah.
17:37That's a huge win, I imagine, in that moment.
17:39It is. It's great. Yeah.
17:41Richie, I wanted to talk a little bit more about something we hinted at earlier.
17:44For me, so much of what makes the special effects in Fire and Ash so compelling is despite all the technology we've talked about, the performers' hearts and souls are never missing from, from our experience.
17:56What are some of the more clever methods that you've employed to keep humanity at the center of the special effects in Avatar?
18:02I read that you even had a database of the actors' expressions, facial expressions. Tell me how you managed that.
18:09Yeah. Well, it's, again, that's actually on the weather side. One of the things we did very early, and it goes all the way back to Gollum, we did facts, a facial, you know, sort of wrong range of motion for each actor's face.
18:23But the truth is, that's on the technical side. The real trick of it is providing an environment where the actors can be completely free. Removing the shot creation from the front end allows our actors to be completely engaged in the moment with our scene powers.
18:39And I think that's the key. Keeping the magic alive is dependent on the magic being there in the beginning. And that's the real trick of it, is investing, you know, on the front end in a situation where your actors can be as credible as possible.
18:54And I think there's so many scenes. The one that struck me last night was the interaction between Deteri and Ronal on the rock when she's given birth. That's an incredibly touching moment. And to see Kate and Zoe, it performed that in real time.
19:11And it was unencumbered by a technical need to put a camera, you know, in at any given time, asking to do it twice because it's Bozo. So again, just to allow them to be in the moment and capture that performance. That's really the heart and soul of it.
19:29And we often have a conversation, Seth and Dan, particularly about the division between text, subtext, and then a monologue. You know, it's the, you know, one, it's what the performer is saying, and it means very little. It's what they mean when they speak, and it's what they're thinking.
19:45And if we can capture that part of the process, we can make it seem like there's a soul, a presence behind the eyes. And that's really done by breaking down that inner monologue and trying to understand what the actor really intends when, you know, the intonation, the specific vocabulary they use is kind of almost the heart and soul of the character, you know, and that's the real trick.
20:10Yeah, you make a good point, Rich, because performance capture is about really the performance, you take the camera out of it, the actors are playing each scene all the way through. So it's very much like theater. And some of the actors, I think will tell you this, because it is stripped down without, you know, the sets like very minimal sets that they can can use for touchstones. It is very much like theater and imagination.
20:38And you get to watch these performances all the way through. And then, you know, Jim will craft the shots around those performances. But it's a different way of watching it. We'll sit there in a small room with just, you know, 20 or so people and watch these like, small, intimate performances, and then just wonder about how we're going to bring that to the screen.
21:01I just thought about what Joe said it, the fact that the performance is driving the camera choice is very unusual, because quite often on a live action set, you're forced to make a decision about what the shot is. And then in a lot of ways, the actor has to fit inside the shot.
21:15And, you know, we're in a very different situation whereby, you know, we get to craft the storytelling portion of the shot creation around the performance. And it's driven by the performance. So hopefully, that's one of the things that really allows us to invest in the craft of filmmaking and future-proof what sort of the next steps.
21:36We'd like to encourage and maybe even evangelize this process, you know, with other filmmakers.
21:43That's so interesting. Thank you so much for that. And Daniel, I'd like to talk to you about some of the themes in the film. If water was a theme in the first sequel, of course, water as life force. For me, Fire and Ash is a movie that showcases the clashing of earthy elements, such as fire and metals.
22:00It's sort of that play. And I love the themes of them discovering ammunition and metal versus their homemade weapons. Like that's a really interesting interplay in the film.
22:10And of course, with these themes come a whole new palette. We see a lot of reds in this movie, the ash people and the colors that they use on their bodies. And I'm wondering, how did the new addition of these themes and these colors change the palette you were working with? And what excited you about these additions?
22:24Well, I think, you know, for me, what excited me the most was just seeing, you know, seeing this new tribe. They're the complete opposite of any Navi that we've seen before, who live in a very sort of symbiotic relationship with Pandora and their worship of Ewa.
22:40But we see a whole new side of that planet with the ash people and sort of fire being both their sort of foundation story and their object of worship.
22:53And it's just so different, you know, and you see it everywhere, right? All the way through Una's physical performance.
22:59She's so different to anyone. She moves in such a different way to anyone that we've seen before.
23:04So, yeah, fire was obviously, you know, the thing that sort of formed them and also the thing that they carried forward, you know, the only pure thing.
23:14Yeah. So new challenges. Obviously, the art department always do an incredible job.
23:19I think that her costume is a really interesting thing, but also just the fact that, you know, she wears makeup, you know, like one of the things you'll note with, you know, other Navi that we've seen is they tend to,
23:31you know, like at the beginning, we've seen a Terry with her morning makeup on and you'll see war paint, right?
23:36So in the Navi that we've seen before, Varong is really interesting because she's kind of at war with the world, you know, like she's got makeup on all the time, you know, she's got a real chip on her shoulder.
23:48And so, yeah, just a really interesting new facet to the societies that we see on Pandora.
23:56I was going to add to that the fact that the ash are actually, they're very similar to the Navi we know, the Amatakaya.
24:05They are blue. They have the same stripes, the same structure underneath.
24:10But as you watch the film, you really understand that they're covered in ash.
24:15They have all the piercings and they look very different.
24:18They're a much scarier crowd.
24:20But at base, they are very much the same.
24:23So it's what really makes them stand out when you see a crowd of them.
24:28And they're a very interesting clan.
24:33And I think it really just adds to that in the film.
24:36It's just something different.
24:38It's not the humans against the Navi.
24:42It's actually something very different for this film, which really adds to it.
24:45And if you look at the fire and the destruction and how that evolves during the template process, it's very gestural.
24:56It's a lot of basically little clips of explosions or fires on cards that get placed around the scene and scaled and combined and retimed so that visually, you know, Jim can indicate what he wants.
25:09But then there's a whole process of turning that into something physically plausible that will do what he wants, that still maintains the proper detail and speed and scale.
25:20And that is a very iterative process with the artists and with the effects team.
25:26And I think that's, Eric, you spent a lot of time, you know, with Jim just day to day going through that part of it because it had to be directable.
25:34It had to be exactly what Jim wanted, but it had to be fantastic in the way that he wanted it to be.
25:41Yeah, the fire became a character in the film, right?
25:44Like in the flux itself, seeing the fire, directing the fire as it moved through and interacted with the rocks and the characters.
25:53And like you say, the flamethrowers being able to direct it, direct the eye, direct the motion of the shots.
26:00It really had to be a character, which I think added to the whole concept.
26:05So I have a question for everyone.
26:07And maybe, Joe, you can get started.
26:09You know, it's hard to talk about this film and the legacy of Avatar without talking about John Landau, who, of course, we lost last year.
26:15Your wonderful producer passed away in 2024.
26:19Such an immense loss for our business, but I'm sure for your family as well.
26:23What is a memory that you have, Joe, of working with John that you think exemplifies his genius as a producer when it comes to working in special effects, but also just something that you want people to know about him as an artist and a friend?
26:37Probably the greatest thing about John is he was a great friend.
26:41He was very interested in everyone who worked on the film.
26:45He was interested in what everyone did, what they thought about, how they brought things to the film.
26:54And he was so involved with what we did.
26:59Like, look, John, when we started this process how many years ago, didn't know a whole lot about visual effects.
27:05But he was constantly asking questions and sitting down with artists and being involved in the process and looking at what we did.
27:13You know, on the second film, because we were shooting simultaneously with prepping the shots, we didn't have a lot of Jim's time.
27:23And John stepped in to fill in the gap.
27:25He sat with us.
27:26He sat as we developed the shots.
27:29He learned.
27:31He was just so much a part of what we did.
27:35And I'm only talking about it from our aspect.
27:38He did the same thing on the public side, you know, to to get theater owners aware of the potential of these films and to get audiences aware of the films themselves.
27:48I mean, John, John just spanned the film from from start to finish.
27:52He's yeah, we miss him.
27:54Yeah, it was an immense loss.
27:55I mean, the truth is John had this incredible ability to meet everybody at their own at their level.
28:02It didn't matter where he was talking to the CEO of Disney or he was talking to, you know, somebody's kid.
28:08He would just jump in and engage and just is it again.
28:13Look, I can only say that my parents and my family have met John a handful of times.
28:18And I promise you, my dad truly believes or talks about John as his friend, like he's known him his whole life.
28:27John had this amazing ability to make you the center of the universe when he spoke to you and an unbelievable talent to be that present and that engaged.
28:37And just I mean, I'm sure everybody has had the same experience.
28:41My parents would say the same thing.
28:42Nobody walks away from meeting John without that moment.
28:47Yeah.
28:47Yeah, no, totally agree.
28:49I was saying to someone earlier that I, you know, I considered him like I would say I considered John a good friend, you know, after after the last film.
28:58And there were there are hundreds or thousands of people around the world who would make that same statement and genuinely believe it because he was he was that he was that kind of guy, you know.
29:09And on top of all that, I don't think he ever slept.
29:12He had boundless energy.
29:14He was all over everything.
29:15He was just he was a he was a one in a million and a huge loss, huge loss.
29:23Well, I was very happy to see that his son, Jamie, is still involved and on the team.
29:27So that must be wonderful to have his legacy live through his son.
29:30Interestingly, Jamie came to us and as it started as a PA and ended up as part of the troupe, one of the actors.
29:37Jamie is so disciplined that he would learn not just his lines, but every every line.
29:43And when somebody went at the actors, you know, in any way, you would feed them the line literally every time he he had the whole thing rehearsed.
29:51And you could see he has his dad's discipline.
29:53That's one of the reasons why Jamie became an integral part of the process.
29:57And he has moved through the steps of the movie to now be, you know, a producer in his own right.
30:04And he spends 90 percent of his time with Jim on a day to day trying to manage, again, not unlike his dad, a huge surrogate.
30:12This is just my opinion here, but I feel like that must have been a really big thing for Jim, right?
30:16Because Jim would have felt that loss as keenly as anyone.
30:19You know, that relationship has been an incredible relationship over the years.
30:23So to have that sort of continuity of Jamie being there during that really difficult time and then continuing on with the work that he's done on the film.
30:32I think that was something that that was something that I really enjoyed seeing happen personally on this film.
30:38And Jamie's really stepped up. He understands filmmaking. He understands how shots should work.
30:44He understands the whole process. He's lived with it his whole life, working with his living with his dad.
30:49So he's been great. Absolutely.
30:52Jamie was a filmmaker in his own right. I don't know if you know if you've ever seen his shorts.
30:57Like before Jamie came to us, he was already making movies.
31:01And so he truly does come from that creative standpoint. It's great to have him on board.
31:06He had a great teacher, it sounds.
31:07So in closing, I'd like to talk about something that I know is very passionate for all of you and Jim.
31:14And when I saw the film, there was a precursor to the film that was Jim, James Cameron, talking to the audience,
31:21essentially telling us, AI was not used to make this film.
31:25What you're about to see is a handmade, handcrafted piece of storytelling.
31:29And he is such an advocate for this because he also wants to remind people so much of what we discussed, that humans are at the center of Avatar.
31:38So for each of you, what is one thing you hope fans will better understand about your work on the visual effects team when they see Fire and Ash?
31:45And what are you proudest of having achieved?
31:47Maybe, Dan, you can get us started.
31:48Yeah, well, I think that AI is certainly, generative AI is certainly not used in the making of this film.
31:54And we're nowhere near being in a place where that would be possible.
31:58You know, Jim paints every frame.
32:00Every frame is an artwork.
32:02There's no way you get there without Lightstorm artists at Weta delivering on his vision.
32:07You know, it's a singular vision.
32:10I don't know, maybe we get to a point where, you know, somehow that's possible, but I don't know.
32:15Obviously, it comes back to, you know, and I'm going to tie this into the thing that I'm most proud of, right?
32:21I'm most proud of bringing those performances through.
32:25AI doesn't have anywhere near the heart that we see in these performances.
32:30It doesn't even come close, you know.
32:32So these are human performances.
32:35I think filmmaking in general is a collaborative art.
32:38And that's the thing about the AI set of things.
32:41It just fundamentally isn't.
32:43And it's not designed to be.
32:45You're asking it to go off and take the average of all its information and feedback answers.
32:50It's exclusionary in that way.
32:53When you think about our process, our day-to-day process is each of us engaging in a creative conversation about how to bring this movie to light.
33:03And it's like, that is truly a collaboration.
33:07I think, and I'd like to think this has been the biggest collaborative piece of artwork anybody ever gets to see.
33:15Watching the film before it was all put together as just a performance capture, seeing the actors do their thing, all done as a just performance capture, not thinking about the cameras, not thinking about lighting or any of those things.
33:28It was still an amazing piece of art in that form.
33:32And then everything else added on top of it.
33:35Once we get the cameras, once we get the lighting, the effects and everything, it just adds it all to it.
33:41But the thing everyone has to understand, it is just the performances that make this film what it is.
33:47It's the heart and soul of the film.
33:49We use computers to make pictures.
33:51We write tools on the computers to make the artists be as expressive as possible in their chosen specialty.
33:58But I think one of the secrets of this business is that it is very, very artist intensive.
34:06You know, I think a lot of people may think computer, you push a button, you tell it what to do, you get a picture.
34:13When you're done with the film, sit and watch the credits and see how many artists actually worked on this.
34:18It's one of the dirty secrets is a lot of it is done by hand.
34:22And the value, Joe, of any studio is the artist.
34:26That's the long and short of it.
34:27You know, it's like technology is great, but it's only good if it's really powerful when it empowers the artist.
34:33That is a long and short of it.
34:36Well, on that note, I want to thank each of you for joining me today.
34:39Congratulations.
34:40What a stunning achievement.
34:41I can't wait for people to see Fire and Ash, especially on the big screen, as Jim wants us to, by the way.
34:48That's his religion, right?
34:50Yes, that's the way to see it.
34:51And thank you so much for joining us today.
34:55I'd like to thank Richard, Joe, Eric, and Daniel for joining me today on this special episode of The Hollywood Reporters Behind the Screen.
35:03Tune in for more conversations with other artisans from Avatar, Fire, and Ash.
35:08I'm Stacey Wilson-Hunt.
35:09Thank you so much for listening.
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