AVATAR
Art Direction & Production Design
Academy Oscar Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction (Winner) | BAFTA Film Award for Best Production Design (Winner) | Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films: Saturn Award for Best Production Design (Winner) | Art Directors Guild: Excellence in Production Design Award in Fantasy Film (Winner) | Gold Derby Award for Art Direction (Winner) | International Cinephile Society Award for Best Production Design (Nominee) | International Online Cinema Award for Best Art Direction (Nominee) | Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Production Design (Nominee) | Online Film & Television Association Film Award for Best Production Design (Winner) | Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Production Design (Winner)
Avatar is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. The film is set in the mid-22nd century when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon, in order to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. An ex-Marine finds himself thrust into hostilities on the alien planet filled with exotic life forms. As an Avatar, a human mind in an alien body, he finds himself torn between two worlds, in a desperate fight for his own survival and that of the indigenous people.
Behind-the-Scenes Magic
It all began in 2005…
Robert received a call to help out Jim Cameron for a couple of weeks for a studio presentation. Jim described the project as an alien planet with floating mountains and similar things like that. The meeting was scheduled for the next day, so Robert stayed up all night and created two images of what he envisioned the alien landscape would look like. When Jim saw Robert’s artwork, he immediately pointed at Robert’s computer screen and said, “That’s the first time I’ve seen my planet!”.
Robert remained on the project well after the presentation, and along with Rick Carter’s support, Jim offered Robert a Production Designer credit for Avatar, sealing the deal with a handshake. After the movie was released in 2008, Robert won an Oscar® for Production Design along with Rick – the first time an Academy Award for Production Design was shared.
The lush alien planet of Pandora
Production design for the film took more than four years to make. The film had two different production designers, and two separate art departments, one of which focused on the flora and fauna of Pandora, and another that created human machines and human factors. Avatar employed an accomplished team of artisans that at times swelled to more than one hundred and twenty illustrators, designers, sculptors, and visual effects artists.
Robert said that the revolutionary part of his job was not only that James Cameron was making the movie in a virtual environment, but also that he was art directing in a virtual environment real time. That required a higher level of digital set work. His job was to help Jim not only see what each of these environments were, but also be there on the day to compose elements in a scene for a virtual camera. It was a very unique way of making a movie.
Avatar was the highest grossing film of all time until it was surpassed by Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Taking worldwide inflation into account, it ranks 2nd, behind only Gone with the Wind. But with inflation in North America, it is ranked 15th.
