After the discussion today in class about new technology affecting the art world today the first thing I thought of was the movie Avatar. It recently won an Oscar for Best Animated Film. To start an animated feature film can be defined as a motion picture with a running time of at least 70 minutes, in which movement and characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture's running time. This was shown in Avatar and after watching a clip on how the director James Cameron created a scene in Avatar I developed a new respect for this animated art of today.

James Cameron originally created the movie in 1995 but the technology of the time could not accurately portray what he wanted the viewers to see. In 2005 he felt the technology made his creation into an animated movie. Cameron argues that although he uses computer generated images and characters, it is not only about the motion, but the emotion which was portrayed in the actual actors and actresses. The animators of the film made the emotions capable of being seen in the animated characters. Actors physically took part in every scene with a facial recognition camera that was able to transfer every facial emotion and motion to the computer generated character. The camera did this by picking up on muscle movement.

Cameron pushed technology to tell the story he wanted to tell. He kept trying to push the envelope creating a movie that does not look like anything else seen before. He was able to take actors and preserve their emotions in the computer generated characters which is an example of the art of today. I have personally seen this movie and was infatuated by the animations, they looked life like and every scene was filled with emotion and pure beauty. The animations came from an original sketch and portrayed the art and story Cameron wanted to show. This was a film that left the viewer wanted to see it a second time and is one of the best works of art of today.