Leave it up to James Cameron to shell out almost 3 million dollars on new camcorder equipment. Recently, Jim Jannard announced that the Avatar director bought 50 of his company’s Epic-M cameras for production on his newest Avatar films. This puts James Cameron in the same camp as Peter Jackson who bought 30 of the cameras for his two-part adaptation of the Hobbit and Jon Schwartzman who announced he’d be shooting the latest Spiderman movie on the Epic.

Of course, you might be asking yourself why the director of Titanic would need 50 cameras to make two films when you and I can usually make do with one? Well, it’s hard to tell for sure but he’ll be needing two cameras for every rig since it will be shot in 3D, will inevitably use some as backup camcorders, and will be most likely using the others for his motion capture needs. That’s still a lot of camcorders so unless Cameron will be shooting 25 simultaneous 3D films, it is safe to assume that his new movies will be sporting some crazy new filmmaking technology. In fact, we already know that he is thinking about filming his next two Avatar installments at 48 frames per second which breaks the coveted 24 frames per second tradition. Though most of us would agree that 48 frames per second handles quick motion and panning much better, filmmakers are primarily using 24 frames per second as an artistic tool so I don’t see this going away anytime soon.  However, it could be welcome technology for 3D movies since quick panning in 3D can be hard for the eyes to handle at 24 frames per second.

If you want to check out some of the videos we took at NAB of the RED Scarlet and Epic cameras, take a look at these two videos on our YouTube page to get a glimpse of what James Cameron will be using.

RED Epic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-2dbDj_IgI

RED Scarlet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV2YyLBkaWQ

Was it just me, or was anyone else that was surprised at the lack of statues taken away by Team Avatar.  Avatar won only three Oscars:  for visual effects (was there any doubt), and cinematography,  as well as art direction. But somehow I expected more, and apparently, by all the buzz, so did a lot of other people.

Some speculated that the Academy wanted to “show” Cameron that his highest-grossing movie of all times can be taken down by the least-expensive movie to ever be nominated – wrong.

Some speculated that the Academy wanted to finally give the “Best Directing” award to a woman – please – do we have to play the gender card?

In my opinion, there are two strong reasons why Avatar didn’t win more awards: Animated characters and Sci-fi. Read the rest of this entry »

Avatar capitalizes on Performance Capture. Performance Capture or Perfcap, is where actors wear a device that allows cameras to detect tiny facial and body movements in real time. This basically is a digital replacement for hours of make up or a latex costume, even prosthetics, and the results are absolutely stunning!

We are literally living in a world where virtually anything is possible now with digital cinema. The door has just begun to be opened and that is why Hollywood is calling Avatar a revolution in filmmaking!

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson as well as other filmmakers worked on the virtual sets to test the equipment for some of their upcoming films. It seems as if Perfcap is on it’s way to becoming another industry standard like the Green Screen.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the last several years we’ve been bombarded with movies touting their amazing 3D visual effects. Despite being gimmicky, and the three-dimensional images appearing to be somewhat flat, 3D movies have been drawing people to the theaters in swarms. It is perhaps for this reason that so much energy is being put towards the development of 3D technology.

James Cameron, director of the ever-so-famous movie Titanic, has been adding to the 3D hype with his newest movie Avatar, set to release later this month. What makes Avatar unique is the use of a new stereoscopic 3D camera that James Cameron co-developed.

James Cameron’s stereoscopic 3D camera technology is similar to the traditional 3D cameras in the sense that they are both dual-camera systems. However, due to the advancements in digital video, the two cameras can now be placed closer together. The new technology also allows the cameras to rotate inward and outward in order to focus on objects at different distances, much like the movement our own eyes.

Avatar is rumored to have a more realistic three-dimensional look without the headaches caused by other 3D technology. It is also believed that Avatar and the technology used to make it will revolutionize the way movies are made. However, as revolutionary as it may be, movie-goers will still be stuck wearing those silly 3D glasses…for now.