Aitor Echeveste, one of the ‘architects’ of ‘Avatar 2’: “Something so great had been done in life”

‘avatar 2‘ is a reality that we can enjoy this Friday in theaters. Among all the people who have been part of this ‘delivery’ is Aitor Echevesteone of the digital composers of the feature film, who explains to laSexta what his job consists of when it comes to bringing the world of Pandora to life.

Aitor explains that a project like this has to be divided into a multitude of tasks and departments; his specialty consists in receiving all the material that has been created and putting it together so that all elements “look like live in the same image” so that, thus, the viewer “is not able to differentiate what has been real and what has been digital”.

He acknowledges that for the realization of this film there has been “quite a delay”, taking five years to complete because, at the same time, “several films were being made”, referring to the new ‘Avatar’ projects that we will be able to see in the coming years. Echeveste explains that the third and fourth films “have already been shot” and “all the material is going into post-production”, although we will have to wait two years to see the final result -the scheduled release date is December 20, 2024-.

And how is it possible that they have taken so long? 13 years to make the second part of one of the highest grossing movies of all time? Aitor details it for us: “New software and technologies have been developed that allow fluids or fires to be simulated in a much more realistic way. The detail that can be achieved with these new ‘render’ models is incredible. In the past it was much easier to simulate water on a large scale (tsunamis, seas…), because the viewer does not have so much detail, but when we try to simulate water in small elements (interacting with the hands, with the hair…) on computers with 3D it was very complicated. Right now, yes you can with the technology that has developed. I’ve been to the preview and visually it is quite spectacular“.

The digital composer tells that this film has been made in stereoscopic 3D, recording himself with two cameras at the same time on the set. “In the eyes of the spectator, when we see the movie in 3D in the cinema, it allows us to a much greater sense of immersionsince the sensation of depth is much greater than in all the films of the last decade, which falsify all this type of 3D”, he assures.

Working with James Cameron in the same room

During his work against the clock, which usually starts “a year or eight months before” Before the film is released, Aitor has had the opportunity to have the ‘feedback’ of James Cameron From his job. However, she has not been able to speak directly with the director, something that is “rare” to happen. “I was lucky that the supervisor of my team was the greatest in our company. Many times, James Cameron was with him in the same room and we had what we call ‘dailys’ every day, where we present our work and they give us ‘feedback’ or approve it. Many of those days I was in the room, you heard the ‘feedback’ that I gave from your shot,” he details.

His is one of the last ‘legs’ of a movie, having the colorist as the next step before it hits theaters. Through his hands have passed films like ‘Thor: Love and Thunder‘, ‘spider-man 3‘, ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings‘ Y ‘The Marvels‘. However, no movie has been as big as ‘Avatar 2’.

“At the production level, the hardest thing is how big it is. It has 3,000 fully digital plans, something so big had been done in life. The leap in quality that has been made is brutal. We’re more used to these kinds of movies now than the first, but the detail is incredible. You’ve never seen anything like it in a movie,” he confesses.

In what format do you recommend watching it?

For Aitor, It is recommended to see ‘Avatar 2’ in IMAX, or at least in “a good projection room”. “If you want to see it again at home, you can enjoy other things, but 3D is an important thing,” she adds. That is precisely another of the questions on the table: when will it come to ‘Disney +’? The composer does not know dates, but he does believe that the company will seek to keep it in the cinema “as long as they can.”

The comparisons with the first one are going to be on the table, a matter in which Aitor also gets ‘wet’: “Visually it is much more spectacular than the first, at the action level it is much more dynamic, but the first one transmitted much more to me than this one. It’s the same age, but as an action movie it’s much better.”

Yes indeed, has “faith” that this film “is going to be in the ‘top 3′” of the highest grossing films in history: “He’s going to get third or second, I’m almost sure. It is a movie that you want to see again, it will pull a lot of that. People have been waiting for Avatar for life.”

It remains to be seen if this Friday the public will respond as it did with the first installment. Many doubts remain in the air about a gigantic film that will mark, like the first, a turning point in the state of the film industry, mired in the middle of a debate about its new life alongside digital platforms. ‘Avatar’, again, will pivot in that debate.