Avatar and my personal work
Monday, January 18, 2010 at 05:47PM Many people came to ask me after watching Avatar if I had worked on the movie or if I had noticed the similarities between my personal work and the strange floating rocks in the movie (see below).
So here is the weird coincidence: 13 years ago, when Avatar was still in embryo state, I went to Digital Domain to meet with the guy who was going to be the Production Designer on the movie. After seeing my portfolio, he wanted to hire me to work on it. Unfortunately, Avatar went back on the shelves for several years, and that was the end of my hopes.
When the project resurfaced years later, I was working for other studios. However, during the time inbetween, in February 2000, as I was still working for Disney Feature Animation, I had an exhibition of my personal work at their Northside building in Burbank, CA. The building was also housing TSL (The Secret Lab), Disney's main live-action digital special effects facility that was working at that time on both Pearl Harbor and Reign of Fire. During the time my show was up, James Cameron came to visit and was given a tour of the facilities. During the tour, he stopped to look at my work. From what I was told later, he asked about the painter, and particularly liked... the floating rocks...
Well, it would be easy to connect the dots, and say that Cameron possibly at that point kept the concept of giant floating rocks in mind, and that the idea was eventually visualized in Avatar. But the truth is, first of all my floating rocks don't look exactly the same, although some of them look pretty close. Second, I wasn't the first person to paint floating rocks. As a matter of fact, Rene Magritte or Roger Dean did that a long time before I did. I would even say that Avatar took directly from Roger Dean's concepts, not only in the landscapes, but also in some other aspects (look at the dragons, and tell me if there are similarities with Roger Dean's dragons...). Same thing with how the pilots choose their dragons and vice-versa: go read "Dinotopia" from James Gurney, and you'll be surprised.
In any case, I still think Avatar is a great movie. I absolutely loved it. I just wish I had eventually worked on it, like I was supposed to. On the other hand, the giant floating rocks was a concept I wanted to develop further in a personal story project. Well, I guess I'll have to modify my original concept now... But after all, isn't it what real creativity is all about: constantly reinventing new concepts?
Images below: Avatar; Roger Dean's "Flight of Icarus"; René Magritte's "Castle in the Pyrénées".
Reader Comments (6)
i have seen lots of this type of imagery in the past. I remember floating mountains in the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.
I completely agree with you Christophe, while I haven't seen Avatar, when I first saw the movie trailer on tv, the first thing I thought about was Roger Deans artwork, He was the first person that I can remember at least to portray these floating rock landscapes and I think your right about the dragon colorations and shapes too. The similarity to your work is also very noticeable and I'm certain that they constructed their imaginary world based on your work and Rogers. I do think however that they should have at least in some way offered up an acknowledement of some sort somewhere in the credits for the movie. But, your right in that creative progress often involves the adaptations of other creators, that's just the way it is and has been forever.
Hi Christophe, I am a long time fan of yours, and was at one of your art shows(Morpheus art gallery)back in late 90's, I still Have your Autographed Flyer. This is when I fell in love with your work, Of course the floating rocks images! When I saw AVATAR, I was like, Man!, I hope they know Who Christophe is, because The public is going to think that the movie is where the floating rock concept was introduced. Anyhow, I did love the movie as well and throughout the movie I just kept thinking, Christophe.
Although I am familiar with the other two artist, IT was your work that pushed the Floating Rock concept, thank you for that!
hello christophe - it's been a long time. anyhow, i've always been intrigued of your work and a long time fan as well since my disney days. even though you missed the opportunity to work on this avatar project, there will more in the future to be part of another utilizing your immense creativity. i'm looking forward to that and i'm sure you are too.
Dear Christophe,
This is what makes you such a master! You understand that even with floating rocks one's feet must always be on the ground. I know how difficult it is for artists to sometimes think in terms of "imitation is the best form of flattery", but if you think about it we have all borrowed inspiration from someone else at some point or another. Also, your comment on having to tweak constantly as the challenge of the artist is very true. For example, for years I've had this idea about a movie and even started a few pages of the script. I had titled it "Havana Nights". Well, someone else took that title and actually made a movie. Mine was a totally different approach, but well. Hollywood, how elusive a concept is that?
--Sam
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