Madam, – When Fintan O'Toole says, in relation to film, and James Cameron's film Avatarin particular, "that real emotional power still lies in language, narrative and acting" (Culture Shock, January 23rd), he is wrong.
Film is primarily telling a story with pictures by way of shots and edits – pure and simple. If the shots are bad and the edit is poor; no amount of brilliant acting, wonderful scripting or great music, will save the story – that goes for the emotional content too. I tell my animation students this on their first day at the national film school in the Institute of Art, Design Technology, Dún Laoghaire, as does every film teacher on the planet. It is that basic.
Furthermore, Mr O'Toole's assertion that "Hollywood can't combine technological innovation, good storytelling and human beings" is way off. Avatar's animation supervisor, Richard Baneham, has remarked that the method that was developed during the making of Avatarhas pushed motion capture animation – where a computer animation figure responds to captured human movement – to a new level he calls "performance capture". In Avatarthe animated creations have acted as never before – although not, it seems, to everyone's liking.
Mr Baneham, a former animation student of mine from my Ballyfermot Senior College days, is one of Ireland’s leading cinema exports, greatly sought after by big directors and the major studios as much Liam Neeson or Colin Farrell are. Perhaps why we don’t know his name so well is because the commentators like Mr O’Toole don’t take enough time to appreciate his craft. – Yours, etc,