Avatar - Spoof Trailer?

K

Kholi

Section Moderator
Here's a parody trailer we shot (did not write, but put together) for G4TV. It airs tonight @ 7:00 PM on Attack of the Show as part of Olivia Munn's special.

http://g4tv.com/videos/43470/Thelma-...er/?quality=hd


fromtheset_6.jpg

You can check out some BTS and VFX breakdowns on our website below:


http://rainfallfilms.com/projects/avatars/


Project Details are there, but we shot RED ONE and used the ZOOM H4N to record audio into a Macbook Pro.

Thanks for watching.

Crew Up:

Sam Balcomb (VFX, Director) - DVXuser: Curugon
Jesse Soff (Producer) - DVXuser: Soffcore
Jeff Dodson (VFX, Sound Design)
Geoff Reisner (AD, Grip) -DVXuser: Geoff_R
Matty_G (Gaffer) - DVXuser: Come on now... MATTY_G
Me (set idiot dp/camera op)

| www.rainfallfilms.com
 
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Haha Rakesh. Way too fast. Interesting tidbit: We used ZOOM H4N for all audio... boomed... straight into FCP. O_o;
 
RED ONE
All vfx credits go to Sam B and Jeff D. We literally shot in about one day and they have to finish in the next few with all VFX, etc. Cramped!
 
Cool, I was assuming it was Red1 but when you posted that audio was recorded with the H4N... I got a little light headed for a second :)
 
Kholi said:
Haha. Definitely Photoreal(istic). Scarily so...
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You know, they look good enough that it proves my feeling that with a bit more work they could have just done the Na'vi with make up and use blue screen to make them 10 feet tall. They didn't NEED to be CGI since they are still bipedal humanoids with two eyes, two arms and two feet. Just CGI the tails. Not to knock the CGI, it was amazing, but if you're going to make CGI aliens do something that couldn't ever be done practically.
 
Batutta said:
You know, they look good enough that it proves my feeling that with a bit more work they could have just done the Na'vi with make up and use blue screen to make them 10 feet tall. They didn't NEED to be CGI since they are still bipedal humanoids with two eyes, two arms and two feet. Just CGI the tails. Not to knock the CGI, it was amazing, but if you're going to make CGI aliens do something that couldn't ever be done practically.
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Here's the thing with the REALISTIC versions... I think it could have NEVER been accomplished with real people. I've been a huge fan of Video Games and Anime all of my life, when I heard that James Cameron was doing something like this on the front-end of BATTLE ANGEL (an Anime and Manga) I knew WHY he had to go 3D.

You just can't get the dynamic action out of a human being, in tandem with intesnse camera action, in real life. It just can't work without the help of computer generated images.

The Na'avi are incredible beings, outside of their physical appearance. They leap, bound, and swing in nearly every move they make. It would have looked, well, odd with real people.

Appearance is an entirely separate thing. That's just my take on it, though. Discussion is awesome. This movie's sparked a lot of debate.
 
Kholi said:
You just can't get the dynamic action out of a human being, in tandem with intesnse camera action, in real life.
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I have quite a few Hong Kong and Korean made films I could show you to disprove that theory. It wouldn't have been exactly the same, but it could have been just as exciting and more realistic.
 
Batutta said:
I have quite a few Hong Kong and Korean made films I could show you to disprove that theory. It wouldn't have been exactly the same, but it could have been just as exciting and more realistic.
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I'll take that challenge: name one that's as fluid as any portion of AVATAR at any moment in time that did not use CGI to reproduce the human body.

Furthermore, I'll buy you a beer if you can show me one that doesn't rely on creative editing to get around the limitations of reality: gravity, physics, etc. So many scenes in Avatar were rather lengthy shots of the Na'vi doing amazing things with just their hands and feet, and the camera keeps up with them.

Even in the portions where Sam hasn't gotten used to his new body yet, when he's jumping and running through the jungle, the camera's on his tail not missing a beat but it still feels, looks and sings handheld.
 
Kholi said:
I'll take that challenge: name one that's as fluid as any portion of AVATAR at any moment in time that did not use CGI to reproduce the human body.
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I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but the fluidity in Avatar's body movement is precisely what makes it appears slightly unreal. It could use some unfluidity, some grit. Every camera move is perfect, every lighting situation ideal, and it makes it look just this side of fake. But if you're talking about dynamic body movement the fights in Iron Monkey or Drunken Master 2 have some amazing stuff you wouldn't think people are capable of.
 
Simon Höfer said:
Kholi definitely got what the film is all about. I was simply not possible to make the movie like this with real people.
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Eh, I don't want you to think I'm dumping on the movie. I kind of disagree, though. I think with real actors in a green screen environment and CGI enhancements you could have gotten close enough. At the end of the day, it's just what's more important to the filmmaker, getting something that's real, or something that's perfect. CGI allows things to be perfect, too perfect sometimes.
 
Batutta said:
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but the fluidity in Avatar's body movement is precisely what makes it appears slightly unreal. It could use some unfluidity, some grit. Every camera move is perfect, every lighting situation ideal, and it makes it look just this side of fake. But if you're talking about dynamic body movement the fights in Iron Monkey or Drunken Master 2 have some amazing stuff you wouldn't think people are capable of.
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Actually, the most amazing thing about AVATAR for me was the fact that evey camera move wasn't perfect. It was fluid but at times shaky and very human.

As fit the movements of te na'vi, that was the point. They weren't restricted by the normal boundaries of both human interaction with its environment and the way it exists in he imagination, which imposes it's own limits. Let's not forget that there isn't a single moment where the na'vi bend the reality of what the human is now, today: they're merely much more in tune with their body as a tool to accomplish a feat, small or large. They still refer to themselves as people, and so does everyone else. They can't fly, but they can fall with confidence.

In iron monkey the flying is obiously fake. In Drunken Master the drunken spins and corkscrew kicks are obviously fake, wire-tuned. Only now have we seen insane craftsman like Tony JaA Go wireless for high flying action tha you wouldn't believe. And still there is no way you can get a camera to break cinematic tradition (wide, medium, close, cut cut cut) to get where CameRon got with thE stylized action of Avatar. Particular though the ground and foot action.

Make no bones about it: the choreographers of the movie you cite have long since tried to so the same thing with lice action and it's just now becoming real.
 
Kholi said:
Actually, the most amazing thing about AVATAR for me was the fact that evey camera move wasn't perfect. It was fluid but at times shaky and very human.

As fit the movements of te na'vi, that was the point. They weren't restricted by the normal boundaries of both human interaction with its environment and the way it exists in he imagination, which imposes it's own limits. Let's not forget that there isn't a single moment where the na'vi bend the reality of what the human is now, today: they're merely much more in tune with their body as a tool to accomplish a feat, small or large. They still refer to themselves as people, and so does everyone else. They can't fly, but they can fall with confidence.
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Sorry, I don't buy this argument. The movement is just not 100 percent convincing. 95 percent maybe, and that's close enough. Cameron made the movie this way because he wanted to push the limits of technology and that's fine. But I think the film could have had the same emotional impact with real actors as aliens, possibly more. If the trade off was slightly less dynamic action sequences I don't think the audience would care frankly. In my opinion this movie isn't better than Aliens, which doesn't have the benefit of any of this stuff, so what does that tell you.
 
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