A friend and I were discussing the future of VFX today. To be honest, I haven't thought about animation much over the holiday. I have been enjoying the time off and time to sleep and hibernate. But... I go back into the big machine next Monday and with the news of another studio closing on the heels of the
Asylum FX announcement - this is weighing on my mind again. "Bye bye" vacation - back to reality.
My colleague started talking about unions and I argued: "A union at this point will only help a symptom - not the disease. A biz model based on undercutting the competition until you are working with a budget that equals bone and ligament cannot survive for long. VFX studios are so poorly managed and they have backed themselves into a corner where they have absolutely no position to negotiate. To underbid a show simply to get work into the studio is not a good idea. On top of this... the VFX studios cannot agree to organize themselves into any type of group that could lobby with the production studios for better budgets trickling down better wages and working conditions for artists."
Then, he said - "What if artists worked directly for the Production studios like everyone else?" After our chat, I am convinced that the only way to save the VFX biz model is to start over completely and eliminate the VFX studios entirely. Why not go back to square one and work directly with the studios on the lot? Like all of the other production for movies is handled? At first, I told my buddy, "...that can't work because the VFX pipeline is so different than live action." But, maybe not? Maybe that is the problem? The current VFX biz model doesn't work, so why would we try to replicate it on the lot.
Maybe a new approach is a good one? So much has changed technically in how we create animation and VFX with computers today, that maybe we need to rebuild?
Here are a couple articles discussing this issue:
talk amongst yourselves.
