from training with free divers to learning parkour even filming underwater Avatar the way of water was one of the most challenging and game-changing films ever made here's how the greatest 3D film of all time came to life welcome to explained after 13 years it's time to go back to the world of Pandora and live amongst the navi [Music] foreign like the first movie James Cameron's second film was also a massive production what makes it a bigger Masterpiece a lot of it was literally filmed underwater so the physical challenges the actors overcame combined with the unique
performance capture systems is absolutely insane but how exactly did James Cameron pull this off for starters the actor's physical abilities were pushed to the Limit they learned skills like archery I can only shoot like a navi I cannot do archery like a human and even parkour this which was particularly difficult for actors like 71 year old Sigourney Weaver who plays a teenager all the diving and the parkour and all those things I was determined that I could do everything everyone else could but the most challenging was filming entire scenes underwater usually in films underwater scenes
are filmed on dry land remember this scene from the first Avatar film where a thanator chases Jake over a waterfall you can see the stuntman Landing in the water and then mimicking the motion of being Swept Away by the current then he swims underwater and up to the surface and is pushed towards an object while this technique may have worked for a short scene Cameron had to find a more natural way to film longer underwater scenes in avatar 2. The Wave water connects all things so he literally had the cash trained with free divers in
Hawaii for months they learned special techniques to hold their breath for several minutes and stay calm we did work with with world-renowned free divers that train Navy Seals he gets us in a meditative State and he he helps us lower our heart rate he helps us learn how to through breathing techniques like put a lot more oxygen into our bloodstream and eliminate a lot more you know carbon dioxide so that we can sustain our our breath but the natural urge to breathe can be strong so Kirk crack a highly skilled diving professional and Coach taught
them how to distract themselves if that happened when the desire to breathe comes he called it the dirty villain and you ignore the dirty villain you go huh you go away and then you try to do all these mind games like I used to paint myself blue you know pretend and then I'd sing speed Bonnie boat like a you know bird on the wing and anything you can do to keep from thinking about I really want to breathe in fact fact some of the actors set records on set with Sigourney Weaver doing a breath hold
for six and a half minutes and Kate Winslet holding her breath for 7 minutes and 15 seconds my dad are dead alive and you're very much alive what was that what do you think it was I don't know it could have been 6 10 it could have been 7 10. it was 7 15. oh come on if you've enjoyed the video so far and want to see more of these hit that like button and subscribe to explained pictures also had to master acting out emotional scenes underwater and avoid blinking as much as possible and this
wasn't an easy trick either the movements are very very different underwater so rather than sort of sculling all the time or desperately trying to kick your legs to sort of stay in one place finding that Serenity in that calm that's another thing so there's all of that to take care of first what Jim asked us to do which was I thought hard was when you're underneath the water you can't go [Music] you know you have to pretend you're so happy you have to go while professional underwater gymnasts perform the dance scenes for the movie The
Actors had to learn to perform natural fluid movements for other scenes and to help them move faster and more efficiently when needed the actors had jet packs strapped to their hands [Music] they also had underwater scooters that look like rideable aquatic creatures they called me and because they had these creatures and stuff underwater they wanted to make the creatures move and I had this these underwater scooters I did a movie for Bethany Hamilton and I turned it into a shark so so they the Avatar when they first started out they rented a bunch of my
underwater scooters which go like 20 knots or 18 knots underwater really fast and you can jump out of the water like a dolphin so they rented those from me and then they discovered that they probably needed like 30 of them the technology behind Avatar is equally mind-blowing James Cameron built a gigantic pool in the studio that could hold 3.4 million liters or 900 000 gallons of water that's almost one and a half Olympic swimming pools or 18 927 bathtubs but motion capture for an animated 3D film in a pool that large was problematic traditionally multiple
motion capture cameras also called mocap cameras are used to film in a 3D space actors wear motion capture suits with trackers and act out scenes in Halls where mocap cameras are mounted on walls and the ceiling simultaneously camera operators shoot reference footage on traditional cameras but Avatar the way of water was different a lot of the scenes were filmed underwater so they had to come up with a new performance capture system for the scenes on dry land Cameron uses specifically configured Sony Venice Camera with a 3D stereoscopic beam splitting system then to capture the action
on the water surface he used mocap cameras mounted on the ceiling above the pool and for the underwater scenes a large number of special motion capture cameras were built and mounted inside the pool even the camera rigs used by the underwater cameramen were specially made traditional underwater camera housing wasn't an option for the 3D cameras they were using on the other hand the usual IMAX beam splitter rigs weren't an option either because they weigh over 100 kilos so Cameron got in touch with Powell actel who created the Deep x3d this rig weighs less than 30
kilos which isn't allowed when you're floating in water and they can be operated by just one person the cameras were also combined with custom nikonos submersible lenses which gave them clean distortion-free 3D IMAX footage besides this the actors wore head mounted cameras as well and had waterproof markings on their face to record expressions for animations but there was one last issue the cameras were having a hard time focusing on the white motion trackers on the actor's suits so they filled the surface of the pool with thousands of white opaque balls this helped cut the light
Reflections in the water without obstructing the actors from reaching the surface whenever they wanted [Music] Avatar the weight of water was finally brought to life by VFX house WETA digital and one thing's for certain this film will not only break records once again it will also transform the future of underwater filming and motion capture are there any amazing facts you know about the new Avatar film tell us about it in the comments and don't forget to subscribe to explain foreign [Music]
