Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541535
32 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Winter 2026 After the first Avatar, Jim wanted a better way for having accurate eyelines between humans and Na'vi characters in the same scene, something other than the tennis ball on a pole method. It needed to be a way where the Na'vi and humans could walk and talk, and move around, while maintaining an accurate eyeline, remembering the Na'vi are more than nine feet tall. What came next was an ingenious eyeline system comprising of a four-axis cable cam with a wire tower and motor on four corners of the set. Where a camera would traditionally be mounted, instead, we had a tablet for the image of the Na'vi character, and a small battery-powered Bose speaker and a Lectrosonics LR receiver. Editorial would make up the clip of a character from performance capture, such as Stephen Lang's Quaritch, that Julian had recorded, and was transmitted to the tablet. The sound was routed through my desk and transmitted to the LR and speaker. Jim did not want earwigs as he wanted the dialog to come from the same place as the characters' image. I mixed the playback and live-action dialog while the actors would look at the image of Quaritch on the tablet. The cable cam movement would allow the actors to see Quaritch as he walked and interact with him all at the correct height. The cable cam had electric motors on the four bases and fortunately, the noise was something post could remove. The Bose speaker was perfect as it projected the sound in an omnidirectional way which meant the actors could hear the dialog from anywhere on the set. The audio clips included breaths and effort as well, as the dialog. This would often clash with the live-action dialog, so I had to drop it out. This meant I had to have the playback track routed to the right-hand side of my headphones, pre-fader so I could know when to fade the extraneous sounds out. I had to trust that I had the lavs, booms, and any external issues sorted before we shot, as my monitoring was compromised. A big shout-out to my 1st AS, Corrin Ellingford, who did every shoot day with me over a five-year period on A2 and 3. His contribution was immense. My crew setup for Avatar was like no other. We realized early on we could not have a traditional four-person crew because we only used one Boom Operator on most setups. I needed a 1st AS beside Jim Cameron and Maria Battle-Cambell, our 1st AD all the time, for the flow of information and any last-minute changes. The sets were huge, and I was a long way away from the action. Sam Spicer was our main Boom Operator, and on one very memorable occasion, he arranged for a cherry picker to take him out over the Matador boat on a giant motion base to get the boom right over Scoresby's head for the pivotal scene. Scoresby was dowsed in water seconds before we went for a take which consisted of a bucket of water being tipped over him. This rendered the lavs useless and with the pressure of the situation and what was at stake to get the shot, this moment stayed with me and reinforced my ethic of teamwork and never giving up! A huge thanks to the New Zealand sound crew: 1st AS Corrin Ellingford, 2nd AS Katie Paterson, Boom Operator Sam Spicer, and Sound Interns Benny Jennings and Hayden Washington Smith. Second Unit was handled by Mixers Chris Hiles and Steve Harris. We had up to six people in our department on any given day. For the live-action underwater shoot, we took Julian's lead from his underwater experience, and used Countryman B3's inside the masks. We had Ocean Technology Hi Use connectors for all underwater audio cabling and it was 100% reliable. We also used Julian's method of putting latex over the capsule even though it was in a mask as the pressure at five meters (sixteen feet) down would be too much otherwise. One of my most memorable experiences on Avatar was when we had Jemaine Clement's (Garvin) underwater having a conversation with Scoresby, who we had shot previously on the ship. The original idea was someone would read the off-camera lines through a VOG to the underwater speaker. At the last minute, Jim wanted to use Scoresby's dialog from the scene he had in the Avid on set. I was given the file minutes before a take to download to the Ableton, so I could have each line on a separate key and play them on Jim's cue underwater to Garvin. The idea of playing dialog from a keyboard to an underwater speaker so Jemaine could perform the scene five meters below surface, reminded me of how cool my job is. On Saturday, July 6, 2024, while the crew was prepping the Motion Base shoot, the mood turned very heavy as we were called into a huddle where it was announced that Jon Landau had passed. We knew he was unwell, but the outpouring of grief and emotion was all laid bare. We had lost our guide, the man everyone loved. Jon was an incredible person and leader for the Avatar family, and it was acutely felt in Wellington, New Zealand, where he spent so much time. Jon was known widely around the city as he became a big part of the community. During the pandemic, with all of the local food truck holders in the city out of work, Jon employed them to provide our second meal at the studios. They would have several hundred hungry crew to feed and stay in business, just one of the many things he did here in NZ that will always be remembered.