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James Cameron: No-Glasses 3-D 8-10 Years Out
Mon Nov 08, 2010 at 06:55 PM ETTags: James Cameron, Blu-Con 2010, Industry Trends (all tags)
by Michael S. Palmer
Though last year had our favorite Uncle Marty, Blu-Con 2010 featured filmmakers James Cameron and Jon Landau as keynote speakers (frankly, the whole day might as well have been called Cameron/Landau-Con 2010). Not only did these guys earn 20th Century Fox dumptrucks of cash, but they changed Hollywood's view on 3D forever (though sadly, not always for the better) and single handedly broke all previous Blu-ray sales records (one in five homes with a Blu-ray disc player owns a copy of 'Avatar'). In the least shocking announcement ever to be featured here on High-Def Digest... James Cameron loves Blu-ray. He loves its unparalleled picture and color qualities. And he loves how much information he and partner Jon Landau can squeeze onto the discs.
'Avatar' 3-Disc Extended Edition
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment President and subsequently Cameron's biggest fan, Mike Dunn, introduced the filmmakers with a short speech themed, "details matter." Of course 'Avatar' is all about detail in the Blu-ray resolution sense, but it's also a film with a completely fabricated language that took a USC professor three years to invent (the professor now gets fan mail written in Na'Vi). It's a film where a botanist slaved to create scientifically-based and accurate names for the fauna of a world that does not exist. It's a film that used revolutionary advancements in facial motion capture technology to capture the fully live performances from the actors involved.
All of these things are among the many subjects to soon be featured on the 3-Disc 'Avatar: Extended Collectors Edition'. If you own the original 'Avatar' Blu-ray release, use its BD-Live section to check out an extended peak at what's on the 3-Disc edition. Obviously sensitive to the double-dipping trend, Cameron and Landau reiterated that this 3-Disc edition will be the last 2D version of 'Avatar' ever (there will of course be a 3D version available in December, but it's exclusive to Panasonic for a limited time). This is it. I know many High-Def Digest readers are frustrated about bare bones vs. special editions, but to be fair, this 3-Disc edition was announced before the original release so we could choose to wait (or rent). The real reason for the delay is that extended edition(s) footage needed to be fully rendered by WETA which takes 50-100 hours per frame to render 'Avatar' (which of course we have to multiply times two for 3D) at a cost of $1Million per minute (for finished product). Mr. Landau also pointed out that because of seamless branching, they were able to put all three versions of the movie (theatrical, special edition re-release, and extended edition exclusive to this Blu-ray) on one disc, and did not lower the bit-rate from the original release.
On top of the 16 minutes of new footage (or 7 minutes if you've already seen the special edition) which includes a brand new 5 minute opening on a 'Blade Runner'-esc Earth, there will be 47 minutes worth of unfinished / low resolution deleted scenes, and viewers have the option of watching about 60 minutes of the film using a picture in picture mode where the actors on the motion-capture stage are next to their full-res digital counterparts. This is actually very engaging to watch, and proves that 'Avatar' isn't an animated film, but one with real actors embodying otherworldly characters. Here's an example (sorry about the blurry picture):
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"You don't just want the motion, you want the emotion" – Jon Landau
Cameron and Landau also showed a clip entitled the "Sturmbeast Hunt." While I've seen this sequence before on the Special Edition re-release, I was more surprised how clear, and realistic everything looked on a (estimating here) 15-18 foot screen. For relative terms, the Blu-Con 2010 screens were akin a smaller theatrical screens, yet Blu-ray is essentially half the vertical resolution of a 2K projector. Definitely a score for the format (alas, I took a picture, but in the darkened room it came out too blurry to give anyone a proper example of the experience).
Also, I don't know if this is included in any of the special features, but apparently during the film's preproduction, Cameron took actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana to Hawaii so they could get the sensory experience of a real rain forest. One day, Worthington was running around in makeup and a loin cloth while speaking Na'Vi when a man out walking his dog asked what they were all doing. Worthington said, "we're making a movie, mate. See that guy over there? That's James Cameron; he made 'Titanic'." To which the man with the dog replied, "Boy, he's really gone down hill."
3D
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"I haven't seen anything that didn't benefit from 3D. I watched the Masters and I hate golf. Why would I watch it? But I watched The Masters in 3D. It was really cool!" – James Cameron.
No conversation with James Cameron is complete without his thoughts on 3D technology. He believes it's not a fad, but "we're only hitting the tip of the iceberg" (his words, not mine). The first 3D technology was good and we're already a few generations past that. We will need the glasses for 3d viewing for another 8-10 years. Apparently for displays to work without glasses, the displays will have to have much more resolution which is then split back down to master for the multiple viewing angles [If anyone actually knows how that might work, please drop us a line in the forums; I'm fascinated.].
Mr. Cameron said the key to 3D expansion is generating enough content. So it won't be movies. They take too long. 3D sports / video will be the biggest push. He likened the progression of 3D to the advancement of color film. Color films started in the 30s, but weren't a majority until the 60s because in make a network TV sale (this is before any other form of home entertainment, of course), filmmakers needed color movies for the latest craze, color television. Mr. Cameron surmises it'll work the same in the not-too-distant future. 3D will just be a standard.
On the topic of good vs. bad 3D, his advice to all filmmakers and studios is the A) shoot in 3D, or B) spend the time and money to do post-conversion right. For this films need an extra six month built into the post-production schedules. When studios typically factor in the cost of post-conversion, they're not taking into consideration the time itself, and with all things considered, it's much easier to shoot in 3D. It's more natural and makes the medium fun. Cameron's goal, he says, for all 3D is to give people a premium product worth premium ticket or technology upgrade expenses. And they can't do that with sloppy conversions.
Post-conversions, Cameron said, should be for classics like 'Jaws', 'E.T.', 'Close Encounters', (all Spielberg films, he admitted, but they're his favorites) and even 'Titanic' because there's no time machine available to go back and reshoot these films in 3D.
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What do you think, dear Readers? Is Cameron right? Let us know in the forums and keep your eyes out for the next Blu-Con 2010 article where we'll be focusing more specifically on 3D Blu-ray outside the Cameron universe.
James Cameron and Producer Jon Landau talk about the AVATAR Special Edition at Blu-Con 2010 Part 1 from ColliderVideos on Vimeo.
James Cameron and Producer Jon Landau talk about the AVATAR Special Edition at Blu-Con 2010 Part 2 from ColliderVideos on Vimeo.
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High-Def Digest Talks With 'Avatar' Producer Jon Landau
Fri Apr 23, 2010 at 01:15 PM ETTags: 20th Century Fox, James Cameron, Avatar, Drew Taylor, 3D, Industry Trends (all tags)
by Drew Taylor
A week ago, I was invited to take part in the 'Avatar' Blu-ray press day, at a fancy schmancy penthouse in midtown Manhattan. Jon Landau, producer of the biggest movie of all time, was on hand for the event, which included a brief introduction to several sequences from the Blu-ray (projected, beautifully, via HD projector). He told us that the movie was the only thing on this disc, there wouldn't be a single special feature (the emphasis here is on picture and sound – a four-disc jumbo deluxe edition will be out in time for Christmas, duh). (We didn't get a copy of the disc at the event, but I had already secured mine from a local vendor, I just hadn't watched it yet. Now that I have watched it, I can tell you it is beyond amazing.)
After all the interviews were done, Fox hosted a screening of the Blu-ray in its entirety. In between the demonstration and the screening, they served a blue, Pandora-inspired drink. I didn't have one, but it was turning everyone's teeth blue.
I was lucky enough to secure a one-on-one interview with the very gracious Landau, and a transcription of our chat follows.
HDD: My first question is – was there ever any doubt that people just wouldn't want to watch it on home video if it wasn't in 3D?
JL: No.
HDD: No fear whatsoever?
JL: There was a fear that people wouldn't go see the movie. [laughs] We always believed in the movie but you never know if people would go see the movie. But the 3D versus 2D was never a question to us, because we watched the movie in 2D, we edited the movie in 2D, we screened the movie for ourselves for a year and a half in 2D. That's how we watched it and that's how we made our creative decisions.
HDD: You didn't see it in 3D until when…?
JL: December 5th. Two weeks before it came out. [Note: I saw the movie in 3D on December 10th, which is kind of incredible to think that I saw it five days after the producer first watched it in 3D.) We would see things when we sent stuff to Weta [the effects house] but we didn't watch it as a complete 3D piece of content until two weeks before the movie came out.
HDD: So you guys just kind of hoped for the best?
JL: We knew that technically the shots worked. It was important for us, with the 2D version, to dramatically work. And that's what our focus would be on.
HDD: Well, if it didn't, you guys would be a couple of billion dollars off…
JL: Exactly!
HDD: Since the movie is the only thing on this disc, and there's nothing else, you just maxed out the space on the disc?
JL: The disc is full. We used every bit available.
HDD: So technically is this the most perfect Blu-ray yet?
JL: This is, technically, the best version that we can possibly present, both Blu-ray and DVD.
HDD: The later edition, the one you referred to earlier with the special features, is it not going to look as good as this disc? Or is there going to be a separate disc for that stuff?
JL: We have to decide that. We know we're going to come out with a four-disc set. We're going to have to see if we're just going to keep the movie on one disc as a stand alone or if through this process we can learn, "Gee, the daytime sequences arriving on the planet don't really need the bit rate we allowed for them" and we can reduce it by x, y or x and you won't be able to tell the difference there and allow us to have pieces (via branching) that tease to the other discs. I think that's all the stuff we have to look at. And now we'll look at that and continue to evaluate that and see if we can get away with a little more compression where we don't feel that it makes a difference. It won't be across the board, it will be specific sequences. Like the bioluminescent nighttime sequences we probably won't touch because we wanted you to be able to see all the detail and all of that.
HDD: What is the aspect ratio on this?
JL: 16x9
HDD: But in terms of the frame, how did you come to that conclusion? Because there was the IMAX version and the regular theatrical presentation…
JL: When we made the movie, we finished everything to a 16x9. For the theatrical release of the film we never sacrificed width in the theater. There are theaters, if you wanted to go 16x9, you would have to bring the sides in. So those theaters were 2.35. But wherever we could, get maximum width, and add height. That was in select digital screens and in all IMAX screens.
HDD: Was there any talk about doing it like "The Dark Knight," where it would sort of 'pop up?'
JL: No, no. Again: my feeling is, anytime you do something like that, you have interrupted your suspension of disbelief that you're asking from your audience. It might look cool, but you've lost that engagement with them and now you have to earn it back.
HDD: Now, I thought it was great that you guys came out and said, very honestly, "Listen, there's going to be another edition coming out." Was that always the plan?
JL: Well, we had to figure out the timing of the release. We had first thought that we would just do one release in November. But there was such public demand for something now, we couldn't do added content now, we don't have the time to prepare it. There's so much material that's available on the Internet of behind-the-scenes material. We don't just want to throw that stuff on the disc. We wanted to create original content. With the demand from people now, we didn't want to let the black market pirates to come in and take over that. So we came up with the idea of doing a disc now but let's be up front with people. Most people, the vast majority of people around the world, never watch the added value content. We don't live in that circle, we don't work in that world, but they do. So for them, this will fulfill their needs, and for those others, we'll be upfront with saying "Here's what we're doing." Somebody else said "let's discuss the elephant in the room." I said: "There is no elephant! The elephant is something you don't talk about it! We've been up front about this!"
HDD: It seems like if Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' hadn't come out you guys would still be in the theaters.
JL: You know what I'd like to see happen? I'd like to see IMAX pick 50 of their screens and make it like a "Rocky Horror Picture Show," where it plays every Saturday night at 10 o'clock.
HDD: Do you have stuff plotted out for the four-disc set?
JL: We're still working on that. We know conceptually what we want to do, we want to do a filmmaker's journey. That would be a 2 hour + documentary about the making of the film. We want to do some in-world content, about Pandora itself. We want to do branching that takes people through all the layers. We want people to be able to watch sequences, picture-in-picture, where they can see the performance that the actors gave and the characters.
HDD: I was going to ask if you were going to do one where you could watch them just running around the motion capture set.
JL: Yes, we'll make that available through branching. Maybe not through the whole movie, but for certain sequences, I want to be able to watch the capture version.
HDD: Now there are going to be deleted scenes that are being finished by Weta? But they're not being put into the body of the movie or will they just be deleted scenes?
JL: That depends. I think in some versions they will be put in the body of the movie. But it won't be a director's cut. The movie is the director's cut.
HDD: Do you know what those scenes will be?
JL: I think those scenes will range – there will be dramatic scenes that give us background on Sigourney and the schoolhouse, there will be action scenes with Jake, there will be a little more of the bioluminescence, we will deliver on the things people responded to when they went to the movie. But this is not about "Oh, let's take this sequence that exists and add fifteen seconds to it." It's about taking something new that really wasn't in the movie before, and put it in.
HDD: I noticed from these sequences you showed [during the presentation] that things were brighter and sharper than they looked in the theater. The 3D is a little darker.
JL: There are two drawbacks to 3D in the theaters: one is brightness and the other is frame rate. But Jim went into Modern Film & Video, who did our color timing for the movie, he worked with our same color timer for a week and he sat there with five or six different monitors. They had never done this before – they had always color timed to one screen. And he went through and saw what looked good on a Plasma television, what looked good on an LCD, and made sure he got the best transfer across all of the screens. So it really does look the best.
And with that, our time was up. I thanked Mr. Landau for his time and for the opportunity to talk with him about the amazing world of Pandora.
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'Avatar' Blu-ray Planned for April?
Thu Feb 18, 2010 at 03:00 PM ETTags: James Cameron, Disc Announcements, 20th Century Fox (all tags)
The biggest box office smash of all time could be headed for high-definition in April!
According to reports swirling around a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal, James Cameron revealed they're shooting to bring the mega hit 'Avatar' starring Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver to DVD and Blu-ray on Earth Day (April 22).
Cameron also stated a value added DVD and 3D Blu-ray should be released just in time for the holidays.
Specs, supplements, and suggested list price haven't been revealed yet.
You can find the latest specs for 'Avatar' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's tentatively indexed under April 22.
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- Discs mentioned in this article: (Click for specs and reviews)
- Avatar (Blu-ray)
Panasonic Takes 3D HDTVs and Avatar on Tour
Wed Aug 26, 2009 at 01:00 PM ETTags: Panasonic, James Cameron, Avatar, 3D, Industry Trends (all tags)
Mobile theaters will start pulling into US cities starting next month.
James Cameron and Panasonic both really love 3D technology, and they want you to love it too. There are quite a few skeptics out there when it comes to the new format, and Panasonic and 20th Century Fox hope to win them over later this year with a new twist on an old marketing campaign.
A fleet of mobile home theater trucks will be traveling throughout the US and Europe later this year, showing off scenes from the upcoming Avatar in 3D. Each truck will be equipped with a Blu-ray player, a 103” Panasonic Viera Plasma TV, and presumably some fairly impressive sound equipment.
This will not only act as promotion for Avatar and Panasonic individually, but as a promotion for the 3D format itself. “I believe 3D is how we will experience movies, gaming and computing in the near future,” said Cameron to the Associated Press “3D is not something you watch. It's a reality you feel you could step into.”
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