Final Video - Task 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbuAVyih7is

Video (draft)

I will post up a proper one later on~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7oKZwpExyc

Awards and Honors

Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It won the awards for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects.

The New York Film Critics Online honored the film with its Best Picture award. The film also received nine nominations for the Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, winning in the Best Action Film and several technical categories.

It won two of the St. Louis Film Critics awards: Best Visual Effects and Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film.

Avatar also picked up four nominations for the 67th Golden Globe Awards, winning for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director.

The film also received eight nominations from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), including Best Film and Director, but won for only Production Design and Special Visual Effects.

The film has additionally received various other awards, nominations and honors.

Reference : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/

Our blog

We have chosen to write our blog about the film Avatar 2009 and providing a pathway for students to discuss this film. This blog will provide information about the film avatar, this will include plot, cast, production, marketing, release and sequels of the film.

For the future of this blog, we'll use storyboard to record the changes of the visual perspective and this will include the layout, colour, background and more. For the time being, we have decided to go with a white and blue template with the posts on the left and links, follower and other information bars on the right side of the page.  There are few things our blog will consider more on:

• Updated frequently
• Keep pur posts on topic with an effective post title
• Maintain a professional appearance
• Be innovative
• Connect with other groups
• Become indexed in search engines and blog directories
• Use appropriate media

Our actually changes:

This is our original blog with a blue background.

Next, we have our blog temple with a snowmountain background. 





Then, we decided to change the background to a scene from the movie Avatar. This shows more connection to our topic. We also have adjusted the colour of headings, links and body fonts and the body layout.

Then, we added links to connect with our wikis, twitter and our tutur's web blog. We also connect with other groups blog by adding their link into our blog.

Finally, We have added a guest book, video bar and a connection button to our blog for facebook and twitter.

Production - Visual Effects

A number of revolutionary visual effects techniques were used in the production of Avatar.

According to Cameron, work on the film had been delayed since the 1990s to allow the techniques to reach the necessary degree of advancement to adequately portray his vision of the film. The director planned to make use of photorealistic computer-generated characters, created using new motion-capture animation technologies he had been developing in the 14 months leading up to December 2006

Innovations include a new system for lighting massive areas like Pandora's jungle, a motion-capture stage or "volume" six times larger than any previously used, and an improved method of capturing facial expressions, enabling full performance capture.

To achieve the face capturing, actors wore individually made skull caps fitted with a tiny camera positioned in front of the actors' faces; the information collected about their facial expressions and eyes is then transmitted to computers.

Reference: http://avatarblog.typepad.com/avatar-blog/2010/06/how-pandora-comes-alive-visual-effects-in-avatar.html

Music for the film

The music of a film really makes or breaks it as far as being a success. The music sets the scene, protraying to the audience how they should be feeling. The composer for Avatar, the last airbender, was James Horner who also worked with Cameron (the director) on Titanic.

Horner is suppost to have composed the score as two roled into one, establishing the "Na'vi" sound and then combining it with a traditional movie score to ensure that it drove the film.

The music is now avaliable on both CD and sheet music. The CD includes songs:

1. You dont dream in Cryo...

2. Jake enters his avatar world                                                                   

3. Pure spirit of the forest                                                                                                                   

4. The Bioluminescence of the Night                                                                           

5. Becoming one of "the People" becoming one with Neytiri

6. Climbing up "Iknimaya - the Path to Heaven"

7. Jake's first flight

8. Scorched Earth

9. Quaritch

10. The Destruction of Hometree

11. Shutting down Grace's lab

12. Gathering all the Na'vi clans for battle

13. War

14. I See You

For more information on the music of Avatar, the film visit:
http://www.avatarscore.com/

Marketing - Merchandise

Avatar has also an extensive merchandise range avaliable for purchase at all major retailers and online.
These items include:
* Backpacks
* Action figurines
* Posters
* Books
* Clothing Lines
* Costumes
* Stickers
* Make up kits
* Jewelry
* Sheet music
These collectables can range from approximately $10 into the hundreds.

These are two examples, of the figurines and the t-shirts avaliable online:

If you are interested in purchasing any of these products or the film, the best two sites I found were:
http://www.buyavatarmerchandise.com/
and
http://www.ikoncollectables.com.au/TV_/_Movie-Avatar/c4_1607/index.html