Thoughts after watching Avatar

Second field visit lead to a second movie, Avatar. And comes a second review as seen from an Entrepreneur's eye. Rating before review: I am not a great virtual character movie types. Yet James Cameron gets "Entrepreneur of the Year" Award. Is a new movie like a new entrepreneurial venture. Yes. Concept has to be created and sold, initial financing has to be arranged, staffing has to be done from scratch, logistics has to be managed, Technology selection and management has to be done, Project HR has to managed bloated egos of actors, product design has to mesh all of it up into the final product, and exit route for the venture is the Initial Public Offering (IPO) commonly called Movie Release when Marketing and distribution functions become supremely critical. Excellence in product is usually the best indicator of excellence in most of the contributing factors. So "Entrepreneur of the Year" award.

The first feeling that you get after watching this movie: Can anyone be not impressed? The message I got after the movie, if you pour your heart into your venture, and never compromise on excellence, you are almost certain to create a dazzling enterprise. Avatar expanded the boundary of known knowledge in movie making--a new language linguistically correct, with its own grammar, consistent in pronunciation and sound, and a complete vocabulary for common usage was created lets say N, --fictional biology was invented: Each leaf, plant, creature, and weed was given an original N name, a Latin taxonomy, a biological description, population and occurrence, ecology and ethnobotany --3D and CG technology was merged with new features like Emotion Capturance in Rendered images, and technology to direct Rendered images as if human actors are being directed.

And it shows. I will not give away the story, but this is one of the places where "Expectation Management" is not required. No matter how much expectations I raise, you will still come out out-expected.

Final note: James Cameron is known to be a very hard task master: Everyone and I mean everyone is supposed to deliver 150%, 14 hour workdays are common though 24 hours are expected, and many people including Rose from Titanic chose never to work with him again. Whether ruthlessness is required in excellence..is a matter for another post..