The making of the Samson - Avatar (2009)

A paraplegic marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.

Production Designers Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg

Avatar was in development in the U.S. for almost 10 years. There were 2 art departments in L.A. that worked on the film for about 4 years.The ‘virtual’ art department headed by Robert Stromberg designed the planet, vegetation, animals etc, and Rick Carter’s traditional art department developed the look of the sets and vehicles.

Weta had won the bid to do all the VFX for the movie, and also developed all the weapons and costume designs. Many people think Avatar was a fully digital movie, but there was a massive build component to it as well. All the live action sets and vehicles were built in Wellington, New Zealand.

This is the Samson. A twin rotor helicopter, designed as a futuristic version of today’s Blackhawk helicopter.
We built one complete Samson, minus the twin rotors and tail rotor which were digital extensions.

The timeline for construction meant that we needed to build multiple parts of the vehicle simultaneously. The job was too big to do in-house, so the build was broken down into elements which could be outsourced to different suppliers.

The vine-cutters were outsourced. The cargo doors, breakaway cockpit doors and windscreens were done inhouse. Weta workshop 3D milled the upper intakes and rotor mounts as well as the upper fuselage and the external skin as a 3mm fibreglass shell. The navigation prop was outsourced to a local manufacturing company.

We didnt have time to produce traditional working drawings for everything, so many suppliers worked directly off our 3d files, either by importing them into their existing cad systems or by buying Rhino.

The skids were outsourced to a local steel manufacturer. Working with Construction Supervisor Niel Kirkland, and local engineers, we modified the LA design as the skids needed to be structural. They needed to take the weight of the aircraft fully loaded with cast and crew, and to take the impact of landings.

The internal framing was critical to the design. The framing designs from LA looked great, but were not going to work structurally. The vehicle needed to be self supporting while under load and while hanging from a gimbal or motion base, subjected to g-forces. We only built one Samson which needed to provide coverage for all the interior and exterior
live action shots so there was nowhere to hide structure. In short, we built it like a real helicopter.

Here’s an animation of the build sequence, starting with the jig. The orange framing indicates the breakaway cockpit section. Once the digital model was completed we were able to obtain very accurate weight and center of gravity calculations to help SFX design their gimbal.

And here’s some photos of the construction sequence. The aluminium ribs were all laser cut from our files with slots in them so they could egg-crate together. Holes were also cut out of the larger members to decrease weight.

Weta workshop 3D milled the exterior body in foam, which was then used to create the fibreglass shell.

The shell was then painted and the part lines were etched in by hand.

The skids and framing starting to come together.

The instrument controls, which were outsourced to a props manufacture company.

The cargo bay framing going up on the left. And an early design for cockpit chair on the right.

The completed aluminium framing.

The finished instrument panel.

The aluminium framing was being constructed in-house at the same time the skin was being manufactured at Weta workshop. So it was a relief for everyone when they fit together perfectly.