Among the many exciting panels planned for this year’s LightBox Expo in Pasadena, California next month is a special look a the beautiful art created for Paramount’s critically-acclaimed new feature Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, which premiered on Paramount+ in late July. “The Art of Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender” panel will take place 4-5 p.m. on Sunday, October 25 in the Civic Auditorium, and Animation Magazine has revealed that the discussion will be followed by a special screening of the movie as a thrilling conclusion to LBX.
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| Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount] |
Featuring art director Aaron Loftis, production designer Jake Panian and VFX supervisor Jerry Huynh, this inspiring hour will delve into the process for crafting the unique 2D/3D style for the movie, breaking down the visual pillars for the films art style, early explorations and paintings all the way through the production art and the cinematic compositing style of the movie.
Animation Magazine was fortunate enough to get a special exclusive sneak peek at the panel from the very talented Aaron Loftis, whose credits include My Dad the Bounty Hunter and Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans:
![Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4OEcCrs5y7to6_9uJs6oJ4hGiLcNRkc-S_ZaeHdXsfeTFhPN5fJo4wOoFc8e4nN0JRzWam8WdybBor8aaNf25PfXmjb4_OOa3zCvrZkaHxIgFpCx8nzsvGE4_p26FNhyrV15lLXwf6qMh-gelqe1dwASLWnwOQu-3iuLRjKwcJybPZrcmp6L4/s1000/AVATAR_AANG_ANIMATIONMAGAZINE_001.jpg "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]"){kind=avatar}
Animation Magazine: Congrats on delivering the beautiful Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender movie. We are very excited about your special LightBox panel. Can you tell us a bit more about what you’ll be unveiling at the event?
Aaron Loftis: We are very excited about our talk at LightBox, where our production designer Jake Panian and visual effects supervisor Jerry Huynh are going to be discussing the art of the movie. We will have whole section dedicated to early development of the art and the look of the movie. We’ll talk about how Jake worked with creators of the show Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino and director Lauren Montgomery to come up with what ended up with the final look of the film.
That is going to be transition into my section, which will be mainly geared toward how we implemented all of those findings and direction into actual production, focusing on how we put in place things that I did and how we worked with our team to get the actual visuals that we hoped to be on the screen.
Then, our VFX supervisor will talk about the massive compositing undertaking that they had to do where they had to take all of those rules and goals that we had for everything and put it all together at the very end like the bow on top.
So, the presentation will feature a nice range for people to see how things go when it’s just you and the director trying to swim around and find the answers to these questions, and how to get everyone to do it and how it all came together. A nice full circle from start to finish of how the team worked together to realize the visual goals for the movie.
Can you tell us about the visuals that you plan to share at your panel?
We have all these incredible early paintings that show the range of the visuals created for the movie. Our production designer Jake sat with the creators of the show and showed them something like 200 images early on. So, he has a really nice chronology of those images and how he got to the final versions for the movie. I think it’ll be cool for people to see the ones that didn’t make it as well as seeing just how granular we had to get as we went on to build this world. I think it will be interesting to learn about all the problems and challenges regarding the art and also about the story and how we had to be faithful to both the original shows.
Hopefully we will offer more insights as to the amount of work that went into this work, which audiences get to see only 85 minutes on the screen — but there are thousands of images that did or didn’t get used eventually.
![Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNmECBTQ6L6hm2EGjgh_6JQX76M8cPPyyD6d7fFf1ZMQhHVisfJP84W1Pot4qUGje6zRVQ2NIVDJtAQVwO-uHo9Xoxu609ttSHnSQCMFGhbc7UHFQEx1RQOwJSJUt9P3A6woGzQaC4Crp8Or15kqyOxfazCj4zU4JVyoLuYm9KEw1tN5KtOIlZ/s1000/AVATAR_AANG_ANIMATIONMAGAZINE_004.jpg "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]"){kind=avatar}
Just looking back at the whole experience of working on this movie, what made it special for you?
In terms of the big animation landscape, seeing a 2D animated film being made at that scale and quality was very exciting to me, especially as someone who grew up during the Disney Renaissance of the ’90s and also is huge love or anime as well. After witnessing 30 years of CG animation, to see that this skill is still respected, loved and celebrated was really exciting.
This opportunity gave me everything and more than I could have ever hoped for because I got to work on something that people love and cherish. I didn’t even understand the full extent of how much people really love this show and franchise before. I’ll never be able to thank the people that gave me the opportunity enough; and how wonderful they were to give me space to grow and to make this amazing movie together.
I recall meeting Jake when I just 23 years old, and asked him to look at my work and hoped that one day I’ll be able to work in animation too. So, it was one of those opportunities that won’t come around again.
![Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTJFXP63RGHo-GVSdIqkY8aPUChsxX7m7DdMwlbm7LpJpGKC6d2LlLAXOTPX5A9x7QbknRdMMxa9Vejs9FxmShdO_8uwDSu0hZQFJ5NDpSmAgLi7OZr7J0Ax8fIPxeEvjOM7bFK8ohFcgOF940kHh5oeeuWeU66jzTrgjr-CJMaVI8f9GCgeDQ/s1336/AVATAR_AANG_ANIMATIONMAGAZINE_005.jpg "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]"){kind=avatar}
So, you mentioned meeting Jake who was one of your heroes. I’m sure many of your fans will be excited to meet you at LightBox. Can you talk about the importance of events like this for the community?
I think all of us work so hard, and we’re so used to creating on our own and feeling maybe … not necessarily isolated, but just very heads down, doing the thing that we love most. But when we’re all able to lift our heads up from our computers and go spend some time with all these amazing people that we looked up to — just enjoy being around, maybe commiserating and talking about the things that we all love together.
![Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqwhdGeVjiEvHKwW5GmCEL3t5NE-zY_7l-3L_ch_EAPdVMfUgUMzzye1UU6awS3FVlOANXHhizd-MlJXJfIs0-p4oHnm00qs3Yr-pfAWr4Er_IPozJLPPRD2cnu9VSfPLkWKIFrWlhyURu1OhRhGl5dIwY6EN6lunHLGsiXWz8th8L8oC_9dGL/s1374/AVATAR_AANG_ANIMATIONMAGAZINE_006.jpg "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]"){kind=avatar}
LightBox is one of those events that are so special not only for the people that already work in animation, but also for people that are aspiring to do it to make those connections. I remember meeting our production designer Jake Panian more than a decade ago and then getting to work with him was very special.
I also recently got to do a talk at Disney about our movie, and it was a full circle moment for me. When I first came to L.A. 14 years ago for a convention, I had a picture taken of me in front of Disney Animation. So, I got to recreate that same photo as I had arrived at the other side of the kid’s dream. I wanted to be part of this community, and with all the hard work, it was nice that I was able to do that.
I am sure like everyone else working in animation, you have your own thoughts and perspectives about the future of the medium and new technologies.
As for the broader animation landscape, I am genuinely excited about where we are heading. Major studios are competing to elevate visuals and storytelling across the board in an “iron sharpens iron” kind of way. At the same time, an independent wave of animation projects is gaining real steam and support online. Seeing success thrive outside the traditional studio system is just as thrilling to me.
When it comes to AI and its impact on our work in animation, there are many unknowns. One positive takeaway is how aligned the artist community is against generative AI and its implementation in our work. I can only control what is directly in front of me, so on the projects I lead and contribute to, I am doing my part to make sure my stance against using it is known.
![Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Fvb_2nh0Tzc7PZ6PSRrODS2-k_3hW4vS91k6NsgPLZCIyX9VF60s8mI19WcineAQ111xolXIBKFle_Noc_EFKBdDbNnB_ftO9VdSN4eDCqrGPXoWghihcom4vP0eB7SrE4dcR1mer_-DSSrSmpGMe45GDyTm1YF8MH2-bA-UrYaAqrsn1XDn/s1000/AVATAR_AANG_ANIMATIONMAGAZINE_002.jpg "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Animation Magazine exclusive production art [c/o Paramount]"){kind=avatar}
Why do you think fans have embraced the new Avatar Aang movie? As an art director, what made it special for you?
I think one of the things that was interesting to me is that I was working with our production designer [Jake Panian] — he is a true powerhouse of an artist. He had this quality bar that was set so high. What was exciting to me is that I wanted to match that and I wanted to inspire myself to reach those levels of quality and have it reflect across the board in the entire movie, through all the hundreds of shots.
We were trying to help inspire people all across the world who worked on this movie with us. We all wanted to push our craft forward to make something we’re all going to be really proud of. I think the art was really inspiring to me, and we all wanted to put something really cool on the big screen.
In terms of mixing 2D and CG, we had to come up with an interesting process. A lot of the time those two processes don’t necessarily gel well together. In a CG animated film, you can light the CG set and move the camera, and move the characters or tweak them a bit. But in 2D animation, you have decide what the shot is going to be early on and commit to that because the character layout has to be correct, the camera layout has to be correct; and you can’t move the camera, because then you’d have a whole different shot and the perspectives won’t line up of.
So, the processes that we learned for getting it right took time, and we had to kind of unearth some of those old tricks from back in the day that we had maybe forgotten about, and we had to make this all those pieces come together. But that challenge was exciting for all of us because we all love 2D so much.
I’m immensely thankful for Paramount for the opportunity and the whole creative team. Flying Bark in Australia absolutely put their flag in as one of the elite animation studios in the world after this film. I think not only did all the teams I got to interact with did an incredible job in terms of CG layouts, background paint and background layout, the 2D animators were also absolutely world class and they deserve that credit. Korea’s Studio Mir and Studio Ppuri also came on board and gave everything they had to make sure the film got across the finish line. We were lucky to meet them and work with them, and they did an incredible job as well, and we’re immensely grateful for everything that they gave to us.
LightBox Expo will take place October 23-25 at the Pasadena Convention Center. “The Art of Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender” panel and film screening are scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 25. Visit lightboxexpo.com for more information.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is now streaming on Paramount+. The movie will be released on DVD/Blu-ray on Nov. 3 and on 4K UHD SteelBook on Feb. 9.
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