Visual Effects community planning protest during Oscars

[Lone Deranger]

VFX Community Planning Protest During Oscars

"The visual-effects community is planning a demonstration during Sunday's Academy Awards to force the film industry to focus on the economic problems threatening Hollywood's visual-effects houses.

Many in that VFX world argue that effects houses are struggling because of a business model that doesn't work, and they point to Rhythm & Hues Studios -- the VFX house behind the CG tiger in Oscar-nominated Life of Pi -- and the fact that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Feb. 13 as the latest evidence."

As a senior VFX artist myself, I hope this will indeed raise some much needed awareness of this growing problem.

[chrono1081]

Its sad to see this happening. Figures an industry I want to be part of so badly has this happening to it :/

I hope these protests happen and people take notice.

[velocityg4]

What's to notice or protest? There are too many artists for the industry to support. It's a simple matter of supply and demand. If the VFX studios want more money then there needs to be less VFX studios.

The alternative is the VFX studios need to all agree on a rate structure. The problem here being that independents would keep forming to underbid them. Also if a bunch of independent companies came together to set rates for a market they would be in violation of anti-trust laws.

Unfortunately these companies are victims of their own success and cheap technology. As monstrously powerful computers are so cheap independents can pop up all over the place. The computing power used to create The Matrix can probably be had for $500 or less. Add to that so many kids having seen cool CGI in the 90's wanting to become graphic artists. You end up with a market loaded with cheap labor.

It's not like things are any better for actors and actresses. The vast majority of them could not feed themselves off what they make. That's the way Hollywood works. A few make decent wages, even fewer become moderately wealthy, and a miniscule portion become truly rich.

I'm sure there are a select few artists and VFX studios with godly status in Hollywood that do very well. It's not like movie studios do very well most go bankrupt. Very few manage to stay around. Even many huge names have gone under.