Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Here's how the visual effects and stunts team brought all four elements to life through the art of bending.
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 There's that little magic moment just before you start bending.
00:07 It is that little breath when you hear action
00:10 and then everybody goes.
00:13 It's incredible.
00:14 Action.
00:15 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:30 Bending is about being able to manipulate an element
00:34 to turn it into a weapon or defense.
00:37 It's kind of like superpowers, but in our world,
00:40 it's the four elements-- water, earth, fire, and air.
00:46 With all the forms of bending, we
00:47 would start with the animated series
00:49 and we would take our live action footage
00:51 and match that as best as possible.
00:54 In terms of how we executed it, it's
00:56 stunts and visual effects really working hand in hand.
00:59 The style of the martial arts involved with The Last Airbender
01:03 is primarily devised from the Chinese martial arts,
01:05 known as wushu.
01:06 And they each incorporate a different style of wushu.
01:12 We needed to make sure that we not only mastered
01:14 those techniques, but had a thorough understanding of where
01:17 they began, where they lead, and use that to inform
01:20 our bending process.
01:23 Bending is about energy and balance.
01:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:28 We looked into the mythology of each element.
01:31 How is the element brought to life?
01:34 It's what we call qi kong, or qi power,
01:37 which is really your breathing.
01:39 Air is where you require your energy
01:42 to develop the slow breathing of quick release.
01:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:48 I had a one month boot camp where
01:50 they start teaching me bending.
01:52 I studied Bagua and wushu.
01:54 Step, jump around.
01:55 It's very open palms.
02:00 It's very circular movements.
02:03 The trickiest part is you don't really see air.
02:06 So what we ended up doing was using
02:08 as much of the natural elements that were around as possible.
02:12 So if you're airbending in an environment that
02:15 has sand or dust or dirt, you're seeing a lot of that move.
02:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:20 For the Fire Nation!
02:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:24 Firebending is a mixture of finding your qi and balance.
02:30 It's based on northern Shaolin kung fu.
02:33 We took the northern styles of wushu
02:35 and brought it into the Fire Nation
02:37 to create the type of motions that they would do.
02:40 Your energy or your breathing creates a spark,
02:43 like lighting a match or a flame.
02:47 I have a background in martial arts,
02:48 so being able to mix that with what the fire might look
02:53 like in a blast or a block, it's really awesome.
02:57 With firebending, how do we make it not feel like something
03:00 is burning and more like they're conjuring this fire?
03:03 We're looking at how did the animated series
03:05 fire interact in a 2D world?
03:07 And then how do we translate that into the 3D world?
03:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:14 Water is life.
03:16 Water allows life to flourish.
03:19 Waterbending is based off tai chi,
03:22 so it's very fluid and smooth like water.
03:26 We created what we call slow breathing
03:29 to relate how your energy breathes slowly
03:32 and then releases with the weight of the water
03:35 to move it.
03:37 Galandia was amazing to work with.
03:39 We got to do a lot of her backstory
03:40 and how that affected her bending.
03:43 Martial arts is something that's outside of her everyday
03:47 training, but she understood and learned.
03:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:52 [EXHALES]
03:53 It's a lot of texture and detail that
03:55 goes into making the water feel like what you think water
03:58 should look like when it's bending.
03:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:03 You found a master, haven't you?
04:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:07 Yes, you're looking at her.
04:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:13 Earthbending is a more grounded style of martial arts
04:16 from the southern provinces of China.
04:19 Everything is sharp movements and lots
04:21 of feet touching the earth.
04:23 Anytime anybody's bending, we're always
04:25 trying to continue continuity with connection to the earth
04:28 because that's where their power comes from.
04:31 It's fast and slow breathing.
04:33 [GRUNTING]
04:36 What we wanted to feel like in visual effects
04:38 is everything is heavy.
04:39 Things are hard to move.
04:41 So as they take these things out of the earth,
04:43 they're actually compacting the elements
04:45 that are already in the earth.
04:46 [GRUNTING]
04:48 [LAUGHING]
04:51 Well, as fun as this has been, it's time for the games to end.
04:58 The most difficult part was making sure
05:00 that we were making choices that the audience was going to love
05:03 because people care so much about this story.
05:06 Is that all you got?
05:07 It really was a team effort.
05:08 When you watch "Avatar," you'll believe somebody
05:10 can bend water or bend fire.
05:13 As a fan and as a performer, this show gives me goosebumps.
05:17 And I think people will just love it.
05:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:26 So what's next?
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05:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]