Avatar 2 VFX supervisor Pavani Rao Boddapati: ‘James Cameron is very generous in his praise’

Pavani Rao Boddapati, visual effects sequence supervisor at Weta FX in New Zealand, calls herself “the biggest nerd for Pandora”. The Indian artist has been working on the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar: The Way Of Water since 2018. In an interview with Hindustan Times, she spoke about the James Cameron sequel, which is now running in theatres, and the massive research and testing the visual effects artists underwent to bring the computer-generated fantasy adventure to life. (Also read: Avatar sequels shot together to avoid Stranger Things effect, says James Cameron)

Avatar: The Way Of Water focuses on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri’s (Zoe Saldana) family as they are under threat from Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch. They go under exile and join a new water tribe called the Metkatyina. In the final act, Jake and Quaritch clash aboard a giant ship that goes under water.

When asked about the planning of the complicated fight sequences during the finale, Pavani shared it took two years to get into place. She was part of the water task force, a group of people from every department of the feature, sitting down and figuring out how to execute the scenes and deliver. She said, “The water task force classified every single shot. It’s usually easy, medium difficulty and very difficult. A major portion of this movie came under that 5 on 5 and we were all like, we’ve got two years to make this work.”

The team at Weta receives a basic template from James about the scenes, including the camera and the motion takes approved by him. She went on to add that there were 3,200 very difficult shots out of which 2,200 were water shots. She stated, “This is Weta FX’s biggest visual effects film we have ever done since we’ve been around. 1,700 people have worked on it. That’s the biggest crew we’ve had. I think there’s 19-20 countries from around the world and it’s a very diverse group of people. If you come one day and visit our studio in Wellington, you’ll see there’s people from everywhere. I had people from India, Europe, Americans, Kiwis, everyone you can think of. You go into the kitchen, you can hear every language, it feels like you’re in an airport.”

Before working on the Avatar sequel, Pavani had worked on the ‘Avatar Flight of Passage’ ride at Disney World and then moved on to the feature films. She earlier worked in Los Angeles at Rhythm and Hues and when she found Weta was hiring for the films in 2009, she actively pursued the project.

Originally from Delhi, Pavani studied at the School of Planning and Architecture but later was drawn to computer graphics and films. She learnt the various aspects of visual effects and later completed her master’s in computer graphics, and focused on picking up film school skills, including how to operate cameras and figuring out bluescreen.

One of the most challenging sequences to work on was a scene where Sigourney Weaver’s Kiri talks to her father Jake. Pavani recalled, “That was one of the first shots we had worked on back in 2018 because it was very new technology to get this light underwater with interaction and we worked on it for almost six to eight months. That shot is very special to me because it was a test bed for us to figure out how we were going to do lots of shots like that. It was completely ground up from our renderer to our lighting to our compositing, just new technology and workflows to allow us to do shots like that.”

It took around six months to figure out how to capture the effects of bioluminescence for the film. Looking at the real world around them, the team watched hours of Planet Earth until they found a shot involving dolphins off the coast of Mexico. When they come out of the water, there’s a blue cloud around them.

“Our goal was, can we recreate this exact shot in CG but using ilus [water creatures in Avatar]?” Pavani added. The team learned how the little particles worked and aimed to simulate the same for the scene. She shared that James had thought of everything when he was designing the sequences so they knew exactly how it would work with the colours on screen.

Now that the film has been out in theatres for a while, the artists that worked on the film have a chance to show the rest of the world what they’ve been up to. Pavani said, “They’re so excited, that this project which most people have been on for four-five years, to see this result and see it with their families because it’s a family film. This is a movie you’re going to watch with your parents, with your siblings, with your friends, and for me, that’s the best feedback, is when the crew who worked on it are really happy with what they’ve produced.”

Pavani’s personal favourite scene from Avatar The Way Of Water is when the Sully kids reach the Metkayina’s water village and explore the place for the first time. “That is a pretty special shot,” she shared. “First of all, underwater shots, in general, are very difficult to execute. That sequence is really special and one reason why is the actors. [The young actors] are so expressive with their performance, you don’t need dialogue. All you have is music and their faces. I think it’s so successful as a story point and the performance to see an entire sequence underwater where there’s no dialogue.”

But after the holidays, it’s back to work for the crew. There are at least three more sequels planned by the writer-director. Pavani was quick to mention how supportive James was to the team. She said, “We have calls with him a couple of times a day and he is very expressive and enthusiastic in his praise. There are some key phrases where when he’s finaling a shot, he’ll say, ‘Bingo, Bongo’ or he’ll say, ‘You nailed it!’ and those become memes. And the artists love it. Whenever Jim in a recording says, ‘You’ve done it, you’ve nailed it, or Final!’. That becomes the high point of the day. He is very generous in his praise and he is very happy with what we’ve produced.”