In an interview with Beyond Noise, Zoe Saldaña revealed that James Cameron is “considering a documentary about the making” of the Avatar films, a project she’s particularly excited about as it would “finally give us a chance to explain, in a meticulous way, why performance capture is the most empowering form of acting.”
Saldaña, a longtime advocate for motion capture performance and its recognition by award bodies like the Oscars, added, “It gives us the credit, the ability to own 100 percent of our performance on screen.” She explained that unlike traditional animation, where “you might go into the studio for [a few] sessions; that’s as much as they’ll need you for the whole movie. You go into a studio, however you’re dressed, and you lend your voice, right?”, performance capture requires full physical involvement. “Performance capture means that Avatar wouldn’t exist if Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, myself, and the entire cast didn’t get up and put those dots on our faces.”
She went on to explain the process, saying,
We put on that little unitard with all those dots on it, and step into a volume – that’s what we call the set – that’s rigged on the ceiling, with all these cameras in measured positions. They’re all pointing into this space that finds us, and feeds that information into the system that is Pandora.
Saldaña portrays Neytiri in the Avatar franchise, which includes 2009’s Avatar, 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water, and the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash. James Cameron also plans to produce two additional installments in the series.
It takes an average of seven years between [each ‘Avatar’ film], From the archery, the martial arts, the free diving, the scuba diving – so that you can hold your breath under water for longer than five minutes – to the language [James] conceived out of thin air, to physically training with former gymnasts, circus performers, and acrobats so you can learn how to walk like an extraterrestrial human species… That’s all us, and a group of incredible stunt actors that make our characters feel bionic. God bless them. With the technology that Jim creates, he gives the artist the power of complete ownership.
Saldaña explained.
In an interview with The Independent last year, Saldaña criticized the Oscars for their ongoing disregard of motion capture performances. Despite powerful work from actors in the Avatar films and Andy Serkis’ celebrated performances as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and Caesar in Planet of the Apes, motion capture acting has still not been recognized in the Oscar races.
Old habits die hard, and when you have old establishments, it’s really hard to bring forward change, And I understand that, so I’m not bitter about it, but it is quite deflating when you give 120% of yourself into something. I mean, not winning is ok, not being nominated is ok, but when you’re overlooked and then minimized and completely disregarded…
Saldaña said regarding the issue
As part of a Saldaña cover story last year, James Cameron told Variety that the Oscars are long overdue in recognizing her performance as Neytiri in the Avatar series.
I’ve worked with Academy Award-winning actors, and there’s nothing that Zoe’s doing that’s of a caliber less than that, But because in my film she’s playing a ‘CG character,’ it kind of doesn’t count in some way, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. She can go from regal to, in two nanoseconds, utterly feral. The woman is ferocious. She is a freaking lioness.
the director said
Avatar: Fire and Ash is set to hit theaters on December 19, distributed by Disney and 20th Century Studios.
Source: Beyond Noise