1) How was the film produced to appeal to the audience?

James Cameron

Avatar was first envisioned by director, James Cameron around the mid 90s. Despite writing an eighty page scriptment for Avatar in 1995, there were delays in producing the film due to the lack of technology available at the time. Production was delayed till 2005, when the technology was advanced enough to create the realistic computer generated figures of Avatar.

The attention Cameron put into Avatar could have added to its successes. Having over a decade to develop to script and the plot meant that every aspect of the film and its story was covered. Cameron has gone as far as to develop a language for the Na’vi, in addition to the culture and the geography of the world of Pandora. The realism portrayed through the attention to detail is one of the main factors which makes the film appealing to the audience. Without Cameron’s meticulous attention to detail there would have been less chance of the audience being so involved and so absorbed into the film.

Avatar appeals to audiences because of the realism of the computer generated figures, which were created using motion capture animation technology. Principle photography was planned to begin in February 2007, and in the following August, Weta Digital (who have also produced effects for films such as King Kong and Lord of the Rings), a visual effects company signed on with Cameron to help produce Avatar. Additionally, Cameron also used his own Reality Camera System to film in 3-D. The system used two combined high-definition cameras to create depth perception. This shows technological convergence was needed to create the effects of Avatar and shows us how the future of film will change. Without the technology used to create Avatar the film may not have been such a worldwide success. His new virtual camera allowed him to allowed him to monitor the characters movements in real-time, as if shooting the film in live-action.

Movie-goers expectations from the films they watch are constantly increasing due to the improvements in technology, for instance the computer generated figure of ‘Gollum’ in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Avatar’s massive £300 million budget meant that the film had to be a success in order for the producers, Twentieth Century Fox, generate a profit from it. Judging from the worldwide success of the film, Cameron managed to meet, and possibly exceed audience expectations with the visual masterpiece he created in Avatar.