USC professor creates an entire alien language for 'Avatar' | He James Cameron has big aspirations for “Avatar,” and here at Hero Complex we’re stepping up with some epic coverage plans: a 30-day countdown. Today’s topic: The USC professor who found himself on an unexpected Hollywood adventure when he was hired to create the language spoken by aliens on Cameron’s distant planet of Pandora. This modern era of moviemaking has plenty of peculiar challenges for actors — on green-screen sets, for instance, they have to watch a ping-pong ball hanging from a string and convince the camera that they actually staring down some magical beastie — but for the actors auditioning for “Avatar” the biggest challenge may have been reading a sheet of paper with words invented by a USC professor named Paul R. Frommer. Frommer, a linguistics specialist, was brought in by “Avatar” writer-director James Cameron to create an entire functioning language for the tribe of 10-foot-tall blue aliens who inhabit Pandora, the setting for the film’s conflict. – Geoff Boucher
Special effects in Avatar made possible thanks to European technology As you settle in your cinema seat and attack your popcorn, you are increasingly amazed by film imagery mixing the real and the virtual totally seamless. From Avatar or the latest Harry Potter movie to Where the Wild Things Are, digital effects now have a crucial role in playing on our emotions. Yet 10 or 15 years ago, such levels of realism in high-resolution imaging were unimaginable. Digital technology has transformed the production and post production of all types of film -- particularly feature films -- as well as creating a whole new viewing experience. "TV and films were starting to converge in the late 1990s," explains Peter Stansfield, who managed the FILM SPECIAL EFFECTS project on behalf of lead partner Framestore. "Framestore saw it could use what were thought of as video techniques in film. Project partner Pandora International had pioneered digital processing that ran in real time. Step change in technology
Do You Speak Na'vi? Giving Voice To 'Avatar' Aliens Critical Analysis of Avatar Learn 35+ Languages for Free in iTunes I was just browsing iTunes for poignant Morrissey covers when I discovered nearly a thousand free language courses on iTunes. 926 courses to be exact. Holy Moleskine, Batman! The extensive library of courses span over 35 languages, from Arabic to Yiddish. Each course comes as a convenient podcast which you can subscribe and put on your iPod or iPhone. To get the entire list of language learning podcasts, hit the browse button on the lower-right corner of your iTunes window–it’s the icon that looks like an eye. Or you can simply do a search for the language you’re interested in. Here’s a sample list of available languages (with links to iTunes): Don’t forget to check out some of the more unusual podcasts such as: I’ve been teaching myself Brazilian Portuguese with Rosetta Stone, so having access to a free supplemental iTunes podcast is nice. If you liked this post, please share it on del.icio.us. What language have you been itching to learn?
James Cameron’s Avatar – 3D and CG Movie Technology With Avatar The 280,000-square-foot studio in Playa Vista, Calif., has a curious history as a launching pad for big, risky ideas. In the 1940s, Howard Hughes used the huge wooden airplane hangar to construct the massive plywood H-4 Hercules seaplane—famously known as the Spruce Goose. Two years ago, movie director James Cameron was in the Playa Vista studio at a crucial stage in his own big, risky project. He was viewing early footage from Avatar, the sci-fi epic he had been dreaming about since his early 20s. Cameron's studio partner, Twentieth Century Fox, had already committed to a budget of $200 million (the final cost is reportedly closer to $300 million) on what promised to be the most technologically advanced work of cinema ever undertaken. The film—although "film" seems to be an anachronistic term for such a digitally intense production—takes place on a moon called Pandora, which circles a distant planet. The reaction Cameron was feeling has a name. Gonzo Effects Shooting the Virtual World
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