“I don’t think I really realized what goes into those movies and how they create these films and the kind of movement that is in there,” says Stafford, in an interview with Postmedia from her home in Los Angeles. “Maybe that was just me being so involved in the movie itself and being taken away. But it’s funny, I never thought: ‘Yeah, that’s probably a dancer doing that movement. It’s probably someone like me.’ I never thought a dancer could do that.”
They can, and she is.
Since last October, the Calgary native has spent most of her time on sound stages as part of a troupe of artists working with performance-capture, or motion-capture, technology as part of Cameron’s giddily anticipated sequels. Every day Stafford puts on a form-fitting suit and a helmet fixed with cameras. Markers placed all over her body and face capture her movements and expressions and transform them into computer simulations for potential use in Avatar 2 and 3, which are being filmed back to back.
Not surprisingly, Stafford has been sworn to secrecy about the productions, particularly the plot points. Cameron spent nearly a decade developing the sequels, which will eventually include fourth and fifth instalments, providing the next two are successful. The original Avatar, released in 2009, is considered the highest-grossing film of all time, earning $2.7 billion with its complicated plot about futuristic humans looking to exploit the resources of a moon inhabited by creatures call Na’vi. It was considered pioneering for its use of performance-capture technology and special effects.
Stafford is part of a team dubbed “the troupe,” a collection of 10 to 12 stunt people, actors and dancers working on the films. She can’t say who or what she is playing, but acknowledges that it will likely be multiple characters.
It’s been a learning experience for the dancer, who had never worked with anything like performance-capture technology before. So the sequels’ lengthy pre-production process was a blessing for Stafford, who soaked up everything she could about the strange world of performance capture.
“As an audience member, especially if you’re not involved in that world, you don’t really realize how it’s made,” Stafford says. “You just think someone draws it up. But it’s really cool. With performance capture and motion capture, you are able to capture the authentic performance of the actor and make that into the character and the animation. It’s not like you are just filming them and animating over them, you get the authentic emotion and body motion of the person playing the role.”
The experience is just the latest adventure for the Sir Winston Churchill high school graduate. It’s been a long, often surreal journey since she took dance lessons in Calgary at the age of seven. She performed with the Young Canadians, did a three-year stint with Cirque du Soleil performing the Beatles LOVE in Las Vegas, made videos with Katy Perry and shared a stage with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Pharrell Williams and Brad Paisley for 2014’s The Grammys: A Salute to the Beatles.
Stafford said she was convinced by her boyfriend, stunt performer and fellow Cirque performer Chris Silcox, to go to an open “stunt and movement” audition for the Avatar sequels in the spring of 2017. Initially, the tryouts were done for stunt co-ordinator Garrett Warren and his team, which was a decidedly daunting experience for the dancer.
“I was super nervous,” Stafford says. “As a stunt co-ordinator, he gets a lot stunt performers. It was intimidating going in knowing that a lot of them would be flipping off the walls and doing crazy stuff. I went in and said ‘I’m a dancer.’ He said ‘great.’ He wanted to see what I could do. He let me free-style, improv for him.”
Stafford was eventually brought before the assistant director and the auditions became more specific.
“She put us through a lot of different situations: What environment we were in, what emotions we were feeling with our motion,” Stafford says. “We were using prop weapons. It was just to see how we could improvise. It was interesting because with Cirque du Soleil, their auditions are similar. After we got through all the technique and dancing portions, they want to see if you can improvise and make a character with whatever you are given.”
There were two more callbacks and a test shoot that finally brought her to set, which is when she first met Cameron.
“He’s there every day,” says Stafford. “He’s the hardest working person. I got to meet him for the first time on my test-shoot day when they were trying me out on the set. He noticed I was there and was like ‘Oh, I don’t recognize you.’ He’s awesome, because he’s Canadian as well so we bonded on that.”
A year later, Stafford is still going to work for him every day. If she could speak to her 18-year-old self sitting in that Calgary movie theatre, what would she say?
“Have patience with your career, with yourself, because things will happen and will come,” she says. “Stay present in each moment. When I was young, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do and what I wanted. I now realize that those were good ideas, but they weren’t really my ideas. They were just what I thought someone from Canada, a Calgary dancer, should do.
“Have patience, work hard, take all your classes and training but be open to the many opportunities that come your way. Honestly, all the weirdest, strange opportunities that came my way were the best experiences.”
source: calgaryherald.com
