Interview: Jabbar Raisani and Marion Spates on the Visual Effects of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’

Avatar: The Last Airbender impressed audiences with the way Netflix brought the animated Nickelodeon hit to live-action, telling the story of how Aang (Gordon Cormier) had to train in order to free the world from Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim) and the Fire Nation. But in order to translate the visual language of the animated series into a different medium, a wide variety of special effects were used to depict bending.

Awards Radar had the opportunity to interview Jabbar Raisani and Marion Spates, two people who were very closely involved with the production of this year’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. Raisani directed an entire block of the first season, and for the next installments, he’ll serve as the showrunner of the adaptation alongside Christine Boylan. Here are some of the highlights from the interview:

Awards Radar: How hard was it to create visual effects, in Avatar: The Last Airbender that seamlessly blended with the cast’s performances?

Jabbar Raisani: Creating visual effects that blend with live-action photography and the performance of the actors is one of our biggest challenges. One of the things that we always try to do is talk with the actors about what eventually will be there. When it comes to something like Appa, for example, in the pilot episode, when Aang has this heart-to-heart moment with Appa before they fly off, we built a full-sized buck of Appa’s face that could be puppeteered.

It really gave Gordon something to perform with. Gordon’s a really imaginative kid. He really saw Appa when he was talking to that blue face. It happened to be a scene that I directed, so we just talked a lot about what Appa would be doing when Aang was having his different moments, so he could really visualize the other character that he was doing the scene with.

AR: Besides the original animated series, what were some visual inspirations for the bending effects seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender?

Marion Spates: Great question! As far as all the bending, and all the creatures, we lean into real-world photography to help us ground the show in a way that feels the most physical. For instance, with waterbending, we used the classic, I don’t know if you’ve seen an F-22, the back of it, when the engines are on. There’s a lot of heat distorsion. That was one of our main ingredients for airbending because you can’t see airbending.We had to figure out a way to depict it.

In the cartoon, they just use a color. An even sometimes I get confused. Is that the earth on the ground, or the color of the airbending? We used this heat distorsion methodology that we would run through smoke simulations to give us different amplitudes and frequencies so it would also give it some depth. The problem with heat distorsion, and distorsion in general, is that it can start looking very flat, so we wanted to make sure we gave it some depth.

Our last ingredient was, whatever world Aang is in, we need to pull elements from that world. So when he’s fighting Bumi, he pulls sand up. When he’s in the snow, he would pull snow. And when he’s on the ship, fighting the Fire Nation, he would pull water droplets from around him. With firebending, we used a slow motion flamethrower to help figure out the turbulence and the frequency. That was one of our main references.

JR: We’ve done a lot of fire on Stranger Things, so we know where to go from this!

AR: A normal day in the office! Shooting fire at kids!

MS: Yes! (laughs) So we leaned into physical things that made fire look real. With water, it was tricky because you can’t look up waterbending. It’s not obeying to gravity. But we found some slow motion water that was in zero gravity. We studied at least to understand what water looks like when it’s not actually falling and breaking apart. I thought airbending was harder and Jabbari thought waterbending was harder.

When it comes to earthbending, one of the things we didn’t want was for it to look as if there were boulders pre-determined on the ground, waiting to be pulled up. We just made it look as if they were creating the rocks from material under the ground and compressing it into that boulder, that would then be executed and pulled up.

AR: What are some important techniques when working with weight? It’s crucial to make things look heavy when they need to when it comes to visual effects.

JR: We start with real-world scale and physics. We’re very much into things existing in our reality, even if they’re only digital. So that’s one of the things we always do. Everything exists at a true scale. We start with real physics. If we need to deviate from there for story reasons, then we deviate, but we really start with physical reality in the computer.

For creatures like Appa, or even creatures like Momo, who are much lighter, it really is all about weight and proper balance. We got a lot of references for Appa, such as rhinos, hippos, elephants. And for Momo, we looked at lemurs, we had a lot of different kinds of monkeys just to see exactly how they move. When a monkey pulls his arm up, his body reacts in a very physical way, even though Momo has this big, over-sized ears, we don’t want him to be defying physics.

AR: When did the pre-visualization process begin for you in Avatar: The Last Airbender?

I directed block two of Avatar. For me, it almost started in “pre-pre-production”, because we also had The Volume, where we were shooting certain scenes on. We went back to six months before I ever was on set. We had VR goggles, headsets and video game controllers setting cameras in a three-dimensional space. As we got closer to production, the stunt coordinator, Jeff Aro, we worked together with him when it came to the big fight sequences, such as Aang vs. Bumi.

When we really had a good understanding of our shots, you start to figure out what direction you’re filming in. The wide shots where we get Bumi first, and then we’re going to turn around and shoot Gordon. And then Gordon had to leave set, because he’s a minor, and we had to bring in a stunt double. It really was a collaborative effort between pre-vis and the stunt team. And then taking all of those elements in post-production and then bringing them to life.

AR: Congrats on the double renewal! What are you looking forward to working with during the next two seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender?

JR: So many sequences I’m excited about. But when it comes to season two, I’m excited about the introduction of Toph. She’s such a great character. I can’t wait to meet her. I can’t wait to cast her.

MS: For me, it’s getting to see Aang learning how to bend. We see him trying to become a waterbender over the course of the first season. Earthbending in general, too. And the work will be harder, because Katara will also be more evolved. I’m just excited to tell that story and see how they’re both progressing.

AR: Jabbar, what were you doing when you learned you were going to be the showrunner of the series moving forward? What was your initial reaction?

JR: I think I was walking towards working on color for some shots of the first season. My initial reaction was that I was so stoked. It’s a dream come true, it’s taking a long time to get here. And Christine Boylan, who I’ll be working with, is amazing. She wrote the episodes I directed. She’s a super talented person I look forward to continue working with.

AR: Could you enlighten people regarding your new responsibilities as co-showrunner of Avatar: The Last Airbender?

JR: It’s very similar to what I did in season one, but doing it earlier on. It’s just being involved with all the decisions and taking them in an earlier stage. There are tons of decisions to be made, and even going back to when we made season one, we were picking stuff out that would be told in seasons two and three. It’s just keeping everything in line so we define what we want the show to be once it’s ready and delivered.