For Pandora, design pros Dylan Cole and Ben Procter built an ocean teeming with 'a level of biomass density that we haven’t seen on this planet since the prehistoric era.'
A large part of the movie takes place underwater, and that too was a unique, wondrous environment that needed to be designed. “You go on this amazing adventure in this alien world, but it’s to reflect back on how we exist here on Earth. In order to establish that metaphor and connection, it couldn’t look wildly different,” Cole explains. “We started going more exotic with the coral structures and trying to enforce the sort of Eywa [the deity of the Na’vi] intelligent design aspect of it.
To populate the underwater world, Cole notes, Cameron “wanted a level of biomass density of life that we haven’t seen on this planet since the prehistoric era, when there was, it’s been estimated, at least 10 to 20 times the amount of sea life there is now.” To meet this directive, hundreds of aquatic species were designed.
The team’s approach to the SeaDragon ship — the setting for the climactic struggle when the humans arrive — Procter likens to creature design in that it was a “vehicle that had personality, that seemed like a demon ship.” The design also had to support all the story points — this ship rolls over and floods during the action. “Generally, we came up with a fixed angle of about a six-degree slope [for these sets],” says Procter, “which came out of the anecdotal knowledge that Jim had from. [Greater than] six degrees, actors and crew have trouble dealing with the slope.” That angle is made to appear varied at certain points in the movie by digital elements and set extensions.
Procter says the team also engineered pieces to help drive the performances — notably, in the sequence during which Neytiri and daughter Tuk move through a rotating corridor as they race to escape the sinking vessel. “They go from basically being on the floor to being on the wall, and then they’re kind of on the ceiling. We built a giant box that was cantilevered to go off one of the sides of our underwater performance capture tanks.
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