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The creatures of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’

June 9, 2024

How characters like Appa and Momo were made.

Today on the befores & afters podcast, we’re chatting about the visual effects of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Joining me are Jabbar Ray Saaknee Raisani (who is an executive producer, director & VFX supervisor on the show), and Marion Spates (a VFX supervisor on Airbender).

Specifically we jump into the creatures Appa, Momo, the badger mole and the ostrich horse. With Appa, there’s a lot of fun details about what was done on set to film the creature’s scenes, and with Momo we even jump into a fun discourse on overcoming the ‘Uncanny Valley’ side of this character. And for the badger mole, there’s a very fun anecdote about where they got reference for growling scenes, from Bart the bear, the trained bear who has been in some films and tv shows!

This episode of the befores & afters podcast is sponsored by SideFX. Looking for great customer case studies, presentations and demos? Head to the SideFX YouTube channel. There you’ll find tons of Houdini, Solaris and Karma content. This includes recordings of recent Houdini HIVE sessions from around the world.

Check out the podcast below, and some behind the scenes featurettes:

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