With the first teaser trailer for James Cameron’s “Avatar 2: The Way of Water” premiering this past weekend ahead of Disney/Marvel’s “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness,” more details are coming out about the technology developed to film the movie underwater in 3D.
Filming motion capture underwater can be incredibly challenging, according to fxguide.com:
“Any filming underwater is incredibly difficult, colours quickly drop off due to water. Blue light wavelengths travel the best underwater, but as a rule, underwater cinematography has to deal with red wavelength light dropping one stop of light for every two metres away from the lens. Filming motion capture underwater is even more complex.”
The article goes on to describe how Australian cinematographer and camera inventor Pawel Achtel developed a new underwater camera system called DeepX 3D that would be able to pick up the dots worn on the actors’ specially-made wetsuits while doing breath-hold dives in a large tank.
Performance Freediving International Founder Kirk Krack, who spent two years working on the film, told DeeperBlue.com in 2019 that the film will be “the most significant diving movie ever made.”
Check out the full fxguide.com article here.
