An anonymous reader writes:
James Cameron, who directed "Titanic", has devised revolutionary methods to shoot "Avatar" and expects to create still more methods to bring to life the vision of a completely photo-realistic alien world.
For its aliens, "Avatar" will present characters designed on the computer, but played by human actors. Their bodies will be filmed using the latest evolution of motion-capture technology — markers placed on the actor and tracked by a camera — while the facial expressions will be tracked by tiny cameras on headsets that will record their performances to insert them into a virtual world.
The most important innovation thus far has been a camera, designed by Mr. Cameron and his computer experts, that allows the director to observe the performances of the actors-as-aliens, in the film's virtual environment, as it happens.
"It's like a big, powerful game engine," he explained. "If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale. It's pretty exciting."
The live-action shoot with actors will begin in April, with major effects being done by Weta, the filmmaker Peter Jackson's New Zealand-based effects company, which created the effects for his "Lord of the Rings." The film is scheduled for release in summer 2009
