Titanic director to use Weta Digital for next film

Cameron's film will feature the technique used to create Gollum in 'The Lord of the Rings'.

A new film from Hollywood director James Cameron will feature the magic of Wellington visual effects studio Weta Digital.

Industry giant Cameron, whose last film Titanic earned $2.8 billion and was the highest-grossing movie of all time, visited the studio last month, the Dominion Post reported.

Weta Digital will produce computer-generated visual effects for Cameron's US$200 million (NZ$322 million) sci-fi epic Avatar, to be released in 2008.

The film tells the story of a war veteran fighting aliens on another planet, and will be predominantly made up of visual effects, including the technique refined by Weta Digital - "performance capture animation" where an actor's movements form a computer-generated character.

The technique was used successfully by the studio in the creation of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and Kong in King Kong.

Weta Digital is owned by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk.

Live action scenes in Avatar will be shot in the United States.

Weta Digital spokesman Joe Letteri told the Dominion Post Avatar would require the studio to develop new techniques.

- NZPA