The entire entity of technology integration into the collective conscious of the planet is driven by text based content and VISUAL based content. If it's not words, or live action then, what ever you are viewing on the Internet is driven by some aspect of VFX. Visual Effects "(commonly shortened to Visual F/X or VFX) are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot." That is the wikipedia definition and it will do just fine. [Click on it to go to the page for more info].
Most of the educated world and even some crack heads will acknowledge that the Internet is the future, yet the industry that is effectively 1/3 of the ENTIRE INTERNET is about to have a massive shift and it's barely a fart in the media. Bloomberg television is on in my living room as I write this(muted) and the ticker that scrolls across the screen giving thousands of people information that effects billions of dollars world wide was put there by someone who understands and can implement VFX. Actually it's teams of people. My question is what happens if those people leave? What happens if they can't work anymore? How does that effect the global economy? Nobody seems to be concerned. Except of course the guys who are actually making the visual effect.
At this years Oscars, "Life of Pi" won the award for best Visual Effects. This same film was being protested outside of the venue the award was being presented in by the very visual effects team that won the award. Why? Because the company they work for that was contracted by the film filed chapter 11 papers a scant two weeks prior. Guess who doesn't seem to care. Everybody, but editors, and VFX people.
Michael Bay who owned a portion of Digital Domain who did a ton of the FX for the Transformers franchise had this to say.
For those people and press asking: I stopped being an officer or director of the company over three years ago, and have not owned stock in the company for some time. I have remained a loyal client and supporter of the company however. It has amazing people and talent, and it still can be a great company! During this difficult time, my thoughts are with the great people I’ve had the pleasure to work with at DD.
Michael Bay
This is the sentiment of Hollywood in general. Which is basically "sorry it sucks for you lets still be friends" and then pretending that this is enough.
It is as though the entire industry thinks that no matter what, the VFX companies will continue to work and not get paid equal to the value of the work and go bankrupt and get screwed. It's like they have all done all of the drugs in the LA basin and decided to not give a $*&#. If Digital Domain works on Transformers 3 and then subsequently goes out of business why would they work on Transformers 4? They wouldn't right? History would say that they would. In fact this happens over and over.
An FX company low bids a job to get it, then pushes it's guys really hard to get out an amazing product and they deliver. Company meets payroll and makes no profit because of the low bid. But they can say the did a high profile job and hopefully get a higher rate. Except they have to bid again and this time they get low-balled so they have to take a less known film. Then the next film, is overseas because of the tax credits,and they lost the bid, and they have to open a VFX house in another continent hire local and/or import there guys for a year or two, spend the money they didn't make on the previous job and now they are in dept, and can't take on a third job. Thus the VFX company that wrote the program for a groundbreaking film is out of business before three films. Sometimes more sometimes less but it is a fact. It's happened over and over.
Steven Speilberg owned a VFX company and sold it, so did James Cameron - [Digital Domain], and now Michael Bay is out of that business. Why? Because you can't make a profit doing it, and doing big budget films.
What does this mean? Lot's and lot's of things. Most of them bad, if you can't keep a company going for FX in film then you can't do FX. Which means what? Do we go back to old school FX? Sure, some campy films will be made like this, but people want cutting edge. The Lord of the Rings movies have been made twice. Once before VFX and one with Peter Jackson's WETA. You watch the first movie of both and see which one you like better. I bet you don't make it through the whole version done in the 70's.
So old school is not going to happen, at least it's not an answer. Even if it was it still would mean that thousands of VFX artists will be out of work, or going into different fields. Some can go to gaming, some to Internet based content companies. Which will be good for both the gaming industry and some Internet companies. The problem is both of those fields are already very competitive. Ok, so a guy with an Oscar can trump somebody without one, but then that guy is out of work. Actually it's more likely that the Oscar winning teams will try to go together as much as they can. Because, "hey they won an Oscar together."
So we are looking a whole groups of VFX people becoming unemployed that have a highly specialized skill that in order to keep that level of skill up need to do it regularly now have to go find work in a shrinking market. You can be a coder for WETA and be part of the team that invented the algorithm for "Fire" and go get a Creative Director job at a AD/Sales firm and have your skill set stay sharp. If that happens and your not making $10 million dollar commercials your out of cutting edge and will kinda be stuck. Your skill set most likely is going to suffer some. This is best case, most VFX people are not going to be "Best Case". Many are going to not be able to come back. A lot of these people make good money, but mostly it's for the love of what they do. Even the guys running the companies are not making a ton compared to say...producer on a romantic comedy. Why? Because many producers depending on their value to the film get a %. VFX firms who can often produce content in 90%+ get a flat rate.
A flat rate is what a production assistant gets, who is low on the totem pole. The guy who is not even the person who gets the coffee. Exta's get a flat rate, BUT they even have a chance to get a bump and go Union. Then of course they are entitled to % and bonuses based on contracts and what not. VFX, no chance.
If you have a VFX coder who makes let's say 10k in three months on one film....wait for it then has no work for 4 months but the film makes $900,000,000.00 and this coder is the lead guy who wrote the code for how the tigers hair moved in "Life of Pi", and now he is unemployed and technically living below the poverty line, then how do you expect him to come back for the sequel "Life of Cak"?
How does this make sense? How do the studio's who are laying the ground work for these films to be made not see this? Most important, why don't they seem to care? Do they think that a VFX artist has the same skill set as a production assistant? The production assistants that keep pedestrians from walking onto a set have more job security then a VFX artist. And the production assistants are important don't get me wrong, but the skill set is not equal.
This industry shift effects education and tech job schools, all those Internet schools that want to help you into a tech job are going to suffer because now you Internet school graduates are going to be competing for the IT job at a newspaper with a guy who worked on Avatar.
The film VFX culture is the standard and the genesis of the ideas for the future of visual technology. Try and go to outer space without any further innovation from NASA, or Lockheed Martin, or DuPont Labs. The space race created plastic, perfected refrigeration, safety features used in almost every car, microwave ovens, rubber composites that are in everything.
Film VFX does this for Visual Technology and Art. It's where the most money is spent, and the most innovation is required. An argument can be made for Video Games that do this as well. The same guys move between both industries, they work off each other. At the end of the day, more money was spent on Avatar VFX then all of the Halo games combined. Avatar took at least 7 years, and in less than one it hundreds of millions of dollars. Billions to date world wide. They invented equipment that revolutionized so many industries it's not even understood by most people.
Department Of Defense contractors are using, the facial movement response systems that where used in the making of Avatar. If not they should be, I mean Ironman basically uses an upgraded version of this tech to inter-phase with the suit while he is flying. Watch the movie again with this in mind. HD, Blue Ray and what ever is next would not have happened without VFX. That's billions of dollars for Sony, Panasonic, and many others. VFX drives tech, tech drives the Internet, the Internet drives the future.
This is billions and billions of dollars that are going to shift and move. This could be like the ".com" bubble popping but no one will hear the sound until they notice the bubble is gone and all they are left with is an empty green screen.
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