In 1994, film-maker James Cameron began his work on the Avatar project by writing an 80 page script for the movie. Cameron anticipated beginning work on the film after the completion of Titanic in 1997, but according to Cameron, at the time, the necessary technology did not yet exist. James Cameron’s vision for the film nearly 15 years before its release was way ahead of its time, and still pushed the limits of film making when production began in 2006.

When making this film, Cameron wanted viewers to not only feel like they were part of the world where the alien “Na’vi” lived, but strove to show that the alien creatures had human-like emotions. To do this, Cameron built a stage that consisted of up to 96 hanging cameras. These state-of-the-art IMAX cameras were placed around the perimeter of the set to capture all of the actors’ movements. Cameras were also connected through helmet-like devices and pointed at actors’ faces to capture all of their emotions. During later stages of production, the set and actors captured by the cameras were replaced with computer-generated images of the jungle-like environment where the film takes place and the Na’vi creatures.

Na'vi creature from Avatar

On the set, all of the actors and props were marked with reflective dots so the cameras could grid-track their precise movements. Computers then recorded the dots’ movements so they could digitally assemble wire-frame skeletons of the creatures in the film. This technology allowed the film-makers to translate all of the actors’ precise movements into the film, yet have them look completely different on screen than their actual, physical appearance.

This same reflective-dot technology was also used by James Cameron to shoot “big, aerial scenes” in the film. These scenes show creatures from the movie flying through extremely detailed environments. Flight paths were created by equipping small wire models of the various creatures with reflective-dots, then moving them around the set like paper airplanes. While moving them around, the film makers could look at the monitors that were connected to computers and see what the movement would look like on screen.

Avatar: Motion Capture Mirrors Emotions on YouTube

Adding another level of technical difficulty to making this movie, Cameron decided to film everything in 3-D. The most difficult part of doing so was putting the human characters into the computer-generated, 3-D world he had created. To do so, Cameron used the new Fusion Camera System, which uses small, high-definition digital image sensors. This allows the lenses to sit closer together than traditional, bulky cameras. The lenses can then be angled during a shot to focus on images near by or further away, just as the human eye does. This new 3-D system allows viewers to capture images on screen at realistic depths. The viewing experience provided by this new technology is unlike anything ever used before and helped James Cameron produce a movie that has already grossed over $2 billion since its release.

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