Maxance Vincent
Perhaps you were surprised when James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash received an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design. However, there is indeed a process behind designing costumes for the world of Pandora, which Oscar-winning Costume Designer Deborah L. Scott has been trying to educate audiences on the craftsmanship behind each costume you would see in the finished product, as she explained to Awards Radar during a virtual Zoom interview:
“We’ve been working really hard to get the educational output on how these films are made. I can only speak to my department, but the role of the costume designer is very important. Not only do we make the costumes and design them as in a regular live-action movie, but we also transfer them, with the VFX team, into a 3D digital environment. It’s so important that the costume designer stays on during post-production to ensure the virtual artists do a good job. So it’s a pretty overarching umbrella of importance for a costume designer, but some people still don’t know that we make the costumes.”
The process, as Scott describes, is “huge,” and the time it takes might be as long as the time Cameron himself spends on making the entire film:
“When Jim’s finished, I’m finished. Sometimes, that could be three weeks before the movie comes out. The performance capture took about 18 months, and that’s both movies together. But we’d still do the live action, which I’m responsible for, and we’d still do pickups that might require us to change a scene or add one, just like a regular movie does when you’re editing. The interesting thing about working in this kind of arena, too, is that my design work isn’t necessarily complete compared to when you’re shooting live action or performance capture. It can evolve as you enter the virtual world. I recently read an article with Jim where he said that as he starts cutting the movie, you still have time in the virtual world to go in and change or add a costume.
For instance, when we started, Varang [Oona Chaplin] had a very minimalist look, but we changed course. We redesigned the ash in general, gave them a little bit moreumph, I might say. Then she evolved into seven different costumes as the performance came to life. You can also evolve the costume, which is amazing to be able to do. In live action, you design the costume, put it on the actor, shoot the scene, and you’re done. You can’t go in and change it. However, in this movie, we get the chance to work together in the long-term, and it’s really great, because the performances really influence what I do.”
As you will see in our very illuminating talk, there was so much detail that goes into the process of designing costumes for this ever-expansive world, and, if you listen to the interview below, you will get insights on how the designs for both the Wind Traders and Mangkwan clans came about.
Listen to the full conversation below:
[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]
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