As we know by now, a portion of Avatar 2 will be underwater. And so will a bunch of motion capture suits. Producer Jon Landau revealed that the sequel to the highest grossing movie of all time will utilise the original’s motion capture techniques in a water tank. "We have kept a team of digital artists on from Avatar in order to test how we can create performance capture underwater,” he explained. “We could simulate water [in CG], but we can't simulate the actor's experience, so we are going to capture performance in a tank.”
Hopefully this underwater excursion will be alot safer compared to Abyss, where Cameron himself nearly drown. The True Lies director was filming underwater on the base of a 7.5 million gallon concrete bowl (which took 5 days to fill) with about 75 minutes of oxygen. An AD, who was tasked with giving Cameron a 60 minute warning and Cameron found himself in all sorts of bother. Weighted down with rigs and ankle weights, and no contact to the crew above, he dumped the gear, released his buoyancy vest and made a rather rapid ascent to the surface. With 15 feet to go, a safety diver stopped Cameron, shoved a regulator into his mouth. To add to the drama, the regulator was broken and the director inhaled even more water. The same happened on a second attempt and with Cameron about the pass out from choking he tried to pull away, except the safety diver held onto him even tighter. So what did James Cameron do? Only punch the diver into the face, and made it to the surface without blacking out. Epic stuff altogether!
