The Problem with Visual Effects

The difficulties faced by the Visual Effects industry were brought sharply into focus at The Oscars last weekend when hundreds of VFX artists staged a protest outside the awards ceremony in LA. Whilst accepting the award for Best Visual Effects for the Life of Pi, Bill Westenhofer's mic was cut off as he started to talk about the financial problems faced by his company Rhythm & Hues who filed for bankruptcy after failing to cover costs to complete projects at their agreed price.

This article does a pretty good job of summing up the situation:
Gizmodo//An Inside Look At The VFX Crisis

As post production schedules get squeezed and the standard expected of VFX gets higher every year VFX houses are struggling to make any profit, often having to underbid the work in order to secure it ahead of cheaper options, such as Canada (that offers tax incentives) or countries with cheaper overheads like India and Singapore.

VFX has always been a difficult part of the film making process to budget as it's not until you get into the later stages of post production that you know exactly how much work is involved and the shot count often changes dramatically from what was originally planned.

It is very rare that the edit of a film will end up exactly as it was storyboarded and until the live action shots are seen cut together you don't know how many shots will be needed to make a scene work or how long those shots will be. Even once you have a better understanding of the number of shots etc. the VFX work is hard to quantify as you never know how long it will take to produce a version of a shot that the director is happy with.

The very nature of VFX means that every frame is studied in microscopic detail. Paying this much attention to detail can certainly enrich the film but it can also have a negative affect. Some directors find it hard to know when to stop as they view each shot over and over again and ask for endless tweaks and changes to be made. There is a tendency to over complicate matters and spend too long on tiny details that will be barely visible when you see the film on the run.

As complex VFX take a long time to produce and the time scale for producing them is shrinking there is often pressure on the cutting room to turn the shots over early in the editing process which can cause more problems for the VFX house. As shots get moved around, extended or takes swapped out they often find themselves spending far longer than was originally budgeted dealing with the changes, sometimes having to start entire shots again from scratch and throwing away work they have spend days or even weeks on.

These are all problems that have been around since computers were first used to manipulate moving pictures but are getting exacerbated by the high standards the industry has set itself and the reliance of so many blockbuster movies on Visual Effects. I don't know whether there is a solution but at least the issues are now out in the open and hopefully the VFX artists will start getting the credit and respect they deserve.