← Back to Non-Linear Production
By Erich Ocean
James Cameron reportedly spent a year doing "final" virtual camera work on Avatar, after the final performances had been captured (and decided on). There were no story reels (to the best of my knowledge), and no "story supervisor" is listed in the credits. In addition, virtual lighting decisions were not made by a DP (as would be the case with my approach), but rather by a small army of lighting TDs at the various visual effects houses (Weta, ILM, etc.).
The non-linear production approach I'm advocating here would still have these "final" phases on a movie like Avatar, but the director's work would proceed much faster since it would be based entirely on the story reels that are being iteratively improved during pre-production. Pre-production itself would consume more time, and the production phase would be correspondingly shorter.
In addition, story problems that arise in the story reel (of any kind) can be addressed much earlier in the production process. James Cameron reportedly cut out more than 40 minutes of footage from the first edit of Avatar. That amount isn't unusual, but each time a story element is removed, remnants remain in other, unrelated scenes. These remnants can affect the pacing and overall impact of the film as a whole. What started out as a solid, well constructed story can become weaker as parts of that story are (partially) culled away.
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Last updated January 15, 2011.
Copyright 2011 Erich Atlas Ocean. All Rights Reserved.