Avatar: The Way of Water | 16 DEC 2022 | Don't worry guys, critics like it

[Deuce66]

Turner car auction building.

 

 

Avalon studios

 

 

The razzmatazz of the silver screen is coming to Lower Hutt with the company behind Avatar set to lease two landmark buildings.

880 Productions, part of the Fox studios empire, is understood to be on the verge of nabbing a five-year deal on TVNZ's former Avalon Studios to the tune of $500,000 a year.

On the other side of the valley, 120 Hutt Park Rd – the former Turners car auction building – is in the final stages of being negotiated. The deal is tipped to be worth $800,000 to $900,000 a year for a lease lasting about six years.

 

It would be "fantastic" for the Hutt Valley, notably in terms of flow-on business that could see the area emulate the film-driven transformation of the Wellington suburb of Miramar, aka Wellywood.

"We have always known that ... Avalon Studios had the potential to get back to its glory days."

The resurrection of the former Turners car building was ideal for the council, which was trying to get away from the "dirty industry" Seaview and Gracefield were once know for and head towards "high-tech" industry.

 

Hutt South MP Chris Bishop said "all of Lower Hutt" would be supportive  and many had seen the Avalon studios as an "under-utilised, world class asset". He understood the production would be eligible for a 25 per cent tax benefit under the New Zealand Screen Production Grant.

Hutt-based Labour MP Ginny Andersen said, on top of the immediate employment the sites would offer, there were collateral benefits for the likes of nearby food, transport, and accommodation suppliers.

 

Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency's David Jones said the deal showed much of the films' production would be done in the Wellington region. He understood a second building, under construction next to the Turners site, was also for the production.

Since TVNZ upped sticks at Avalon in 2011, the studios have continued to be used for filming. 

But the Avatar sequels – starring New Zealander Cliff Curtis – are set to flood the Valley with film workers. It is understood work had already begun overseas on the first two sequels.

[TomCruiseTop]

Hilarious reading people get mad at Jim worship on a box office forum, when he's the undisputed King of the Box Office (and World). 

[Gavin Feng]

Curious what kind of questions you would ask if you have a chance to meet James Cameron

[TomCruiseTop]

8 hours ago, Gavin Feng said:

Curious what kind of questions you would ask if you have a chance to meet James Cameron

I'd ask him when he's making Akira. Seriously though, I'd probably just thank him for being such a brilliant person and making the greatest movie of all time. 

[dashrendar44]

9 hours ago, Gavin Feng said:

Curious what kind of questions you would ask if you have a chance to meet James Cameron

I'd thank him for being an inspiration for all visual artists out there since Terminator. There is a whole generation of graphic artists who grew up marveling at his movie universes flaming their imagination just like SW was Cameron's catalyst. He's certainly been my inspiration to strive and challenge myself to be better.

 

 

[TomCruiseTop]

Does anyone know where I can get Avatar merchandise? I need to stock up.

[Deuce66]

48 minutes ago, JamesCameronScholar said:

Does anyone know where I can get Avatar merchandise? I need to stock up.

 

eBay??

[Deuce66]

One of the unheralded actors for the sequels, a member of "the troupe". 

 

 

https://calgaryherald.com/entertainment/movies/calgary-dancer-jenn-stafford-performs-motion-capture-for-james-camerons-avatar-sequels

 

For the past year and a half, Jenn Stafford’s mind has often drifted back to the day she sat in a Calgary multiplex with her family watching James Cameron’s mega-budgeted blockbuster Avatar.

 

It was nearly 10 years ago. She was 18 at the time and knew she was going to dedicate her life to dance. So the thought that she would one day be spending her time on the secretive set of Cameron’s Avatar sequels in Los Angeles never entered her mind. Why would a dancer from Calgary go to work on a sci-fi action film? It just wasn’t done.

“I don’t think I really realized what goes into those movies and how they create these films and the kind of movement that is in there,” says Stafford, in an interview with Postmedia from her home in Los Angeles. “Maybe that was just me being so involved in the movie itself and being taken away. But it’s funny, I never thought: ‘Yeah, that’s probably a dancer doing that movement. It’s probably someone like me.’ I never thought a dancer could do that.”

 

They can, and she is.

 

Since last October, the Calgary native has spent most of her time on sound stages as part of a troupe of artists working with performance-capture, or motion-capture, technology as part of Cameron’s giddily anticipated sequels. Every day Stafford puts on a form-fitting suit and a helmet fixed with cameras. Markers placed all over her body and face capture her movements and expressions and transform them into computer simulations for potential use in Avatar 2 and 3, which are being filmed back to back.

 

Not surprisingly, Stafford has been sworn to secrecy about the productions, particularly the plot points. Cameron spent nearly a decade developing the sequels, which will eventually include fourth and fifth instalments, providing the next two are successful. The original Avatar, released in 2009, is considered the highest-grossing film of all time, earning $2.7 billion with its complicated plot about futuristic humans looking to exploit the resources of a moon inhabited by creatures call Na’vi. It was considered pioneering for its use of performance-capture technology and special effects.

Stafford is part of a team dubbed “the troupe,” a collection of 10 to 12 stunt people, actors and dancers working on the films. She can’t say who or what she is playing, but acknowledges that it will likely be multiple characters.

It’s been a learning experience for the dancer, who had never worked with anything like  performance-capture technology before. So the sequels’ lengthy pre-production process was a blessing for Stafford, who soaked up everything she could about the strange world of performance capture.

 

“As an audience member, especially if you’re not involved in that world, you don’t really realize how it’s made,” Stafford says. “You just think someone draws it up. But it’s really cool. With performance capture and motion capture, you are able to capture the authentic performance of the actor and make that into the character and the animation. It’s not like you are just filming them and animating over them, you get the authentic emotion and body motion of the person playing the role.”

The experience is just the latest adventure for the Sir Winston Churchill high school graduate. It’s been a long, often surreal journey since she took dance lessons in Calgary at the age of seven. She performed with the Young Canadians, did a three-year stint with Cirque du Soleil performing the Beatles LOVE in Las Vegas, made videos with Katy Perry and shared a stage with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Pharrell Williams and Brad Paisley for 2014’s The Grammys: A Salute to the Beatles.

Stafford said she was convinced by her boyfriend, stunt performer and fellow Cirque performer Chris Silcox, to go to an open “stunt and movement” audition for the Avatar sequels in the spring of 2017. Initially, the tryouts were done for stunt co-ordinator Garrett Warren and his team, which was a decidedly daunting experience for the dancer.

“I was super nervous,” Stafford says. “As a stunt co-ordinator, he gets a lot stunt performers. It was intimidating going in knowing that a lot of them would be flipping off the walls and doing crazy stuff. I went in and said ‘I’m a dancer.’ He said ‘great.’ He wanted to see what I could do. He let me free-style, 

improv for him.”

 

Stafford was eventually brought before the assistant director and the auditions became more specific.

“She put us through a lot of different situations: What environment we were in, what emotions we were feeling with our motion,” Stafford says. “We were using prop weapons. It was just to see how we could improvise. It was interesting because with Cirque du Soleil, their auditions are similar. After we got through all the technique and dancing portions, they want to see if you can improvise and make a character with whatever you are given.”

There were two more callbacks and a test shoot that finally brought her to set, which is when she first met Cameron.

“He’s there every day,” says Stafford. “He’s the hardest working person. I got to meet him for the first time on my test-shoot day when they were trying me out on the set. He noticed I was there and was like ‘Oh, I don’t recognize you.’ He’s awesome, because he’s Canadian as well so we bonded on that.”

A year later, Stafford is still going to work for him every day. If she could speak to her 18-year-old self sitting in that Calgary movie theatre, what would she say?

“Have patience with your career, with yourself, because things will happen and will come,” she says. “Stay present in each moment. When I was young, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do and what I wanted. I now realize that those were good ideas, but they weren’t really my ideas. They were just what I thought someone from Canada, a Calgary dancer, should do.

“Have patience, work hard, take all your classes and training but be open to the many opportunities that come your way. Honestly, all the weirdest, strange opportunities that came my way were the best experiences.”

[IronJimbo]

4 minutes ago, Deuce66 said:

One of the unheralded actors for the sequels, a member of "the troupe". 

 

 

 all the technique and dancing portions, they want to see if you can improvise and make a character with whatever you are given.”

There were two more callbacks and a test shoot that finally brought her to set, which is when she first met Cameron.

“He’s there every day,” says Stafford. “He’s the hardest working person. I got to meet him for the first time on my test-shoot day when they were trying me out on the set. He noticed I was there and was like ‘Oh, I don’t recognize you.’ He’s awesome, because he’s Canadian as well so we bonded on that.”

 

Damn I wish that were me

[The Panda]

On 7/3/2018 at 3:00 PM, Pure Spirit said:

Money quote:

 

Except didnt make a movie in Ridley Scott’s house 🤔

[IronJimbo]

2 minutes ago, Pandamia! said:

Except didnt make a movie in Ridley Scott’s house 🤔

He was just starting out! Oprah had midget fights when she started out for perspective.

[vc2002]

On 7/17/2018 at 10:47 AM, Gavin Feng said:

Curious what kind of questions you would ask if you have a chance to meet James Cameron

 

"Hey Cameron, have you ever been mistaken for a truck driver?"

[Deuce66]

19 hours ago, IronJimbo said:

Damn I wish that were me

If you're a professional dancer/acrobat it could've been you.

 

 

[The Futurist]

It would be funny if the Ministry of Truth goes after Cameron when the movie gets released.

Edited July 22, 2018 by The Futurist

[titanic2187]

On 7/17/2018 at 10:47 AM, Gavin Feng said:

Curious what kind of questions you would ask if you have a chance to meet James Cameron

When is 3D-glassless going to be real?

[Deuce66]

16 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

When is 3D-glassless going to be real?

 

It's not, there's no evidence yet that the tech would actually work on a mass scale.

 

 

 

[MrGlass2]

1 hour ago, The Futurist said:

It would be funny if the Ministry of Truth goes after Cameron when the movie gets released.

Well he is James Fucking Cameron so he wouldn't be fired over some silly tweets for one.

[IronJimbo]

1 hour ago, MrGlass2 said:

Well he is James Fucking Cameron so he wouldn't be fired over some silly tweets for one.

You literally can't fire him he owns Avatar...

[TomCruiseTop]

17 hours ago, IronJimbo said:

You literally can't fire him he owns Avatar...

He'd just fire everyone else. He's Jim 'God' Cameron. 

[The Futurist]

If The Abyss was made in 2018, Cameron would be banned from Hollywood.

Yup.