Avatar: Fire and Ash Costume Designer Earns Oscar Nomination

Oscar winner Deborah L. Scott has earned another Academy Award nomination for her costume design work on Avatar: Fire and Ash, the latest installment in James Cameron’s blockbuster franchise. The film is nominated for Best Costume Design at the 98th Academy Awards.

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Scott, who previously won an Oscar for Titanic (1997), has designed costumes for all three Avatar films. Her work on Fire and Ash involved creating nearly 1,000 costumes for the Na’vi inhabitants of Pandora, all fabricated as real, tangible items before being rendered digitally by Weta FX.

Blending Physical Craft with Digital Innovation

“Things have changed a lot,” Scott said. “With the first film, we were still figuring out a lot of the technology in real-time. That’s when it became clear that we needed to make physical samples.”

For Fire and Ash, Scott and her team spent years developing intricate textiles, beading and embroidery. Midway through production, Scott created a “lending library,” a digital and physical archive of accessories, costumes and props for the VFX artists to reference.

“I would never dumb a design down; that’s not an option,” Scott said. “The only option is to create each piece to the best of my ability and then turn it over to the VFX artists and recreate it with them.”

A Decades-Long Collaboration with Cameron

Scott has been one of director James Cameron’s longtime collaborators, working together since Titanic nearly three decades ago. Their partnership on the Avatar franchise has pushed the boundaries of how costume design intersects with visual effects technology.

“I was very surprised by this nomination,” Scott said. “My work on this film was outside the box. I’m really proud of the costume design branch of the Academy, because this nomination is proof that we can design costumes in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of places.”

Avatar’s Pandora also serves as the inspiration for Pandora – The World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, one of Walt Disney World’s most popular lands.

The 98th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, air March 15 on ABC and stream on Hulu.

Source: The Walt Disney Company