One of the most and probably much anticipated movies, Avatar, has its story line based on a human outpost in Pandora, remotely controlled biological bodies and the Na'vi civilization, but that alone would have been not enough for an immersive cinematic experience - that's why the moviemakers decided to bring this to life in 3D using Sony high-definition digital cinematography cameras.

Avatar mixes both live action sequences and state-of-the-art special effects, actually just call them 3D modeling and computer graphics, but for the live action, Sony cameras were spot-on to tell the story's vision, as the production team confirmed. A veteran in cinematography, as well as a 3D technology expert, Vince Pace, was in charge of co-developing the 3D camera rigs, using Sony cameras that were especially modified to suit the needs of the film for stereoscopic image capture and production.

"It was important that the actual shooting of the movie wasn't impacted by the fact [that] we were doing it in 3D, and these cameras allowed us to do that," said Pace. "They allowed us to create a unique and completely immersive 3-D experience. I don't think it could have been done any other way."

The movie took advantage of eight Sony HDC-F950 cameras for primary content acquisition, while HDC-1500 cameras took care of capturing speeds shots during the live action, as well as an F23 camera used for specific shots. The man in charge of the 3D rig also said that his goal was to create a shooting system that would both suit the 3D stereoscopic capture, but at the same time keep the system on-set friendly, that is, without impacting the creative direction. By that, Pace meant he had to come up with a rig design that would shoot both 2D and 3D.


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