PRODUCTION. AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
Fact File
INFLUENCE Director James Cameron said he gained inspiration from the beautiful waters in Indonesia and the Bajo Tribe
BUDGET The cost of the film is reportedly in
the $350-460 million range
TAKING DIRECTION Cameron is known to be a hands-on director – which Trieu says helped him with his job. “I like the creative collaboration process,” he says, outlining the importance of having a director with a clear vision. “Jim is the arbiter of this conception. If he doesn’t like something, or wanted to see it in a certain way, he can describe it very quickly and succinctly.” As a project that took over five years to film, The Way of Water was at the whim of global events – and famously hampered by the 2020 pandemic. This came when the crew were shooting in New Zealand, with some of the strictest lockdown measures of any country. Trieu was lucky to get off lightly with quarantines though. “For me it was pretty
direction, so everything was more complicated. Coming back to a traditional 2D movie with one format and one frame rate feels so quaint in comparison.” In terms of kit, Da Vinci Resolve was the chosen colour corrector for the movie, and the team used it for the entire DI. All of the colour-corrected digital cinema deliverables were then rendered to go to Disney for DCP packaging. “All of that was done in Resolve, which is really awesome. It used to be that Resolve was just a colour corrector and you’d have to do your edit in a different system, whether that was a Quantel iQ, Smoke or some other system, and then marry that into Resolve,” describes Trieu. “Now it’s all simply in one package where we can manage everything.”
easy,” he admits. “They relaxed their rules a month before I arrived. So, I was able to land, test and go straight to work.” Besides box office success, Avatar: The Way of Water has been shortlisted for four Academy Awards, including best picture, best visual effects and best production design. To say it’s made a splash would be a vast understatement. Avatar: The Way of Water is in cinemas now
“Jim is the arbiter of this conception. If he doesn’t like something, he can describe it very quickly and very succinctly”
LONG TIME COMING Avatar: The Way of Water was 13 years in production, and is among the most expensive films ever
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