‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ Should Inspire a Revolution in Low-Budget FX – No, Really (Column)

When “Avatar: The Way of Water” premiered in London last week, director James Cameron declared with big “King of the world!” energy: “To me, tonight is not about a new ‘Avatar’ film. It’s about cinema.” That’s a sentiment to which many filmmakers might reply, “Nice work if you can get it.”

Cameron’s cinema of attractions offers unparalleled delights. His virtual camera swoops through Pandora into imagined underwater reefs with hyper-real polish that accentuates ambition at every turn. Even as someone who treasures scrappy and personal creative visions, I relished this blockbuster auteur’s ability to craft imagery that transcends any visual category beyond one of its own invention. There’s blunt agitprop about saving the whales and a climactic showdown that borrows more than it innovates, but the sparkle of 21st-century innovation lets Cameron imbue familiar tropes with fresh energy.

That said: It’s a 192-minute film with a $350 million-$400 million budget that, with a per-second frame rate of 24 or 48, depending, might cost around $900 per frame. There’s no dollar signs on screen, but it’s impossible not to marvel at the cost along with the visual splendor.

Cameron’s work with Weta Digital to transform his actors into expressive blue creatures utilizes the most cutting-edge possibilities of mocap storytelling, but you don’t need a multi-billion-dollar franchise to make satisfying movies with special effects. Last year, I reported on the release of HTV Vive Tracker, a wireless tracking device that can be attached to any object and mimic its movement in virtual reality. Since then, rivals released their own trackers positioned as tools for a very different kind of avatar — the type used in VR headsets for metaverse experiences. However, this technology is equally applicable to the otherworldly storytelling that Cameron achieves on a much larger scale.

Vive Trackers retail for $2,100, while Sony’s wireless Mocopi system (which goes on sale next month) is $365. It takes six sensors placed on an actor’s head, body, legs, and arms to roughly capture a full range of motion. An enterprising filmmaker could pick up a pack of two and shoot an alien version of “Before Sunrise” for less than a second of “Avatar” screen time. Just as mini-DV cameras changed the nature of low-budget cinema, these tools could inspire a blend of intimate storytelling and special effects to create spectacles delivered on a small scale.

They won’t look as polished or convincing as Cameron’s Na’vi, but realism doesn’t have to be the sole aesthetic standard. Consider how “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which employed a mere seven VFX artists, careens through any number of handmade green screen effects, not all of which look all that believable. It doesn’t matter. The story’s emotional stakes allow the artifice to take on allegorical power, like cartoonish sketches in the crevices of a larger metaphysical equation.

When the first “Avatar” came out in 2009, mocap was a cost-prohibitive endeavor that only Cameron and his ilk could afford. Now it’s fertile ground for experimentation as virtual production is further democratized by a falling price point. At last year’s virtual Sundance, I was enthralled by “Cosmogany,” a live dance piece that found mocap performers wearing tracking suits as they traveled through a series of shifting environments and an ever-changing scale. The latest “Avatar” tickled my eyes, but also left me hoping that filmmakers watching from the sidelines see the potential in play.

As readers of this column know, I welcome feedback that challenges its assumptions. I may be missing some critical example of a low-budget mocap endeavor that already achieves the possibilities outlined here — or perhaps there’s a reason why nobody’s truly exploited the technology on a small scale yet. Enlighten me: eric@indiewire.com

The last installment of this column proposed five “easy” steps to save the arthouse. Here are a few notable responses I received.

Arthouse cinemas have been pushing TV networks to allow them to screen their shows for over a decade, and the answer has always been “no” with very rare exceptions. The excuse we usually get is that most TV show talent contracts do not include theatrical rights, and that network legal departments insist that theatrical screening would require renegotiating all of the talent contracts. However, the occasional very successful exceptions make me think there must be a way around this issue. Another challenge is that most networks don’t have anyone assigned to handle these sort of requests. Just finding the right person to speak with can take numerous emails and phone calls, then the end result of all that effort is almost always a firm rejection. The few screenings that do happen seem to emanate from the networks’ publicity departments. I’ve made screening requests going back to the original “Twin Peaks” in the 80s, and have never received a positive response. Netflix did present the “Stranger Things” events that you reference in the column, but they almost always turn down requests for screenings of both their TV series and their movies that are not released theatrically. Arthouse theaters have long been eager to show TV shows. The benefits are obvious. It’s the networks that have consistently prevented this from happening.
-Dylan Skolnick, co-director, Cinema Arts Theater, Huntington, NY

I enjoyed this week’s column and wondered if you considered an arthouse theater joint venture subscription service or alliance with MoviePass 2.0. I was recently chatting with a leading indie exhibitor who believes there is real potential in a subscription service for his theaters, but lacks the financial resources to build the necessary tech. He’s hoping MoviePass 2.0 will work, but in the event it doesn’t, perhaps arthouses team up and build it themselves.
—Anonymous distribution executive

If they monetize their data the way everything from the concert business to the local car dealer shop does, theaters could charge distributors who would gladly pay them to reach preferred customers. Moviepass is exactly what every theater already has — the data — and all they need to do is process it in a way that will reach the audience in their markets. As you know, it’s how almost every business works today. You don’t search things you like. They come to you on the web.
—Anonymous distribution executive #2

Browse previous columns here.