[HN Gopher] Hollywood's visual effects crisis
___________________________________________________________________
Hollywood's visual effects crisis
Author : bryanrasmussen
Score : 218 points
Date : 2022-08-11 04:18 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (defector.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (defector.com)
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| > Once the time comes to do that post-production work, the
| crunching begins. These are workers who, similar to video game
| developers
|
| This comparison is increasingly out of date. From my experience
| and what I've heard, the notion of video game developers
| crunching is getting rarer and rarer, while I haven't heard of
| any such trend in visual effects.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| A lot of resonance with software.
|
| I worked for hardware manufacturers for all my career.
|
| It involved a brazen disdain for software, yet also an assumption
| that hardware defects could be "spackled over," using "magic"
| software.
|
| I really enjoyed the VFX in _Miss Marvel_. They obviously really
| enjoyed their job, and they had the advantage of not having to
| look "real."
| moomin wrote:
| The elephant in the room here is that VFX, unlike many other film
| professions, isn't properly unionised. Half of the practices that
| make VFX a hell-scape to work in and produce so many poor results
| are due to the simple fact that the workers are not treated the
| same as other parts of the crew. As long as it's cheaper to fix
| it in post than retake the shot you can look forward to much more
| of this.
| agileAlligator wrote:
| Thing is, unions usually proliferate in industries where you
| are more or less replaceable. That isn't the case in industries
| that can't be easily automated.
| 0xRusty wrote:
| Or creative industries where 20% of the people do 80% of the
| heavy lifiting work. As a vfx and cg supervisor at a large
| vfx company myself I work extremely long hours, picking up
| the slack for the 80%'ers who can barely simulate a piece of
| cloth or match a plate's key light direction. Why on earth
| would I choose to unionize and equalize my pay and benefits
| to those that are objectively poor at their job in an
| industry where successful results to tasks are so
| subjectively measured.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > so subjectively measured
|
| There's your answer. Equalize pay and benefits because
| there's no telling whether those in charge of assigning pay
| have any good sense at all for quality. It's the argument
| of salary vs. hourly vs. per-item all over again.
| rperez333 wrote:
| You are likely deluding yourself about your skill level;
| I've had the habit of tracking my peer's productivity (on
| Shotgrid) to stay above their metrics, and even if I could
| say objectively to be the faster in my dept., that is
| irrelevant. VFX needs different kinds of people, and I
| can't count how many times "less" productive artists came
| up with very beautiful and ingenious solutions that I
| haven't thought about it.
|
| Also, we don't stay long hours because we failed to put a
| light on the correct place. as the article points out, the
| issue is the director/production has no financial penalties
| for their lack of planning and indecisiveness. This is just
| the Parkinson's law of triviality [0] that happens in most
| businesses, but since VFX studios don't put a hard cap on
| the number of revisions, artists end up absorbing that. One
| of my recent crunches was due to production going through
| 43 versions of a magic wand effect. IMO, by version 15, we
| already had multiple and more interesting looks than what
| was approved for final. [0]
| https://bwiggs.com/notebook/queens-duck/
| bsenftner wrote:
| How to unionize when the studios create VFX divisions in 3rd
| world countries and then tell you if you want to continue your
| career you'll follow the jobs overseas? I was at Rhythm & Hues
| Studios thru two Oscars, transitioning thru programmer, digital
| artist and then financial analyst. I was a lead game developer
| before doing VFX, and I thought the games industry was bad.
| Well, at least in film the people are vastly more diverse, but
| the work is still 6-7 days a week, 10-12+ hour days.
| joezydeco wrote:
| Could the other Hollywood unions refuse to work on jobs when
| non-union VFX work is being used?
| raverbashing wrote:
| Thanks for your insight
|
| > when the studios create VFX divisions in 3rd world
| countries and then tell you if you want to continue your
| career you'll follow the jobs overseas
|
| This is one of the things that has to get worse before it
| gets better. You let them, but you don't go there (or maybe
| you go, who knows). You start growing a spine
|
| Then let them realize that they "can't come knocking" when
| the studio is somewhere else. Start putting the foot down
| with deadlines and revisions (nobody said it was going to be
| easy). Let them see how the quality suffers with an offshore
| team with much less skin in the game
|
| "Oh but I might lose my job if I don't do how they tell me
| how to do it", well, yes. But the way things go you'll lose
| the job eventually when the company go bust
| d4nt wrote:
| I see so many similarities with the freelance web/mobile
| developer space. And having run a small dev shop (3-6
| people) for 7 years I agree that the _only_ way forward is
| to hold your nerve, fire the shitty clients and only ever
| do work you can feel proud of. Yes, there will be tens of
| thousands of people on (the VFX equivalent of) upwork who
| charge 1/3 your price, and clients will put immense
| pressure on you because of it. But if you're know for
| honesty and quality, the work will come.
| true_religion wrote:
| A lot of third world counties have pre existing unions, and a
| culture of unionization especially against foreign influence.
|
| Uber for example has always struggled to operate in my
| country because anytime it tries to push driver wages down,
| drivers go on a nation wide strike and protest outside its
| offices. This prevents them from reducing costs without
| hurting themselves, so they can't undercut the competition
| and reap the reward of becoming a de facto monopoly.
| j-bos wrote:
| I'm curious, if you've been a programmer, one of the most in
| demand proffesions out there, Why would you tolerate 10-12
| hour days 6 days a week? What motivates you to not get a more
| time balanced job?
| bsenftner wrote:
| Everywhere I go, the issues to be solved are critical and
| the deadlines are present so I do the work that needs to be
| done, and (as I mention above) non-entertainment tech jobs
| think I'm either too expensive, or something... basically,
| it's a nepotistic world, and I developed my network in
| abusive industries, so to the non-abusive places I apply, I
| look like an alien. I get replies like "wow! we've love to
| have you, but you're clearly too expensive and would not be
| happy doing the non-shiny things we do." And I never even
| mentioned salary.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Have you ever said "try me, throw out a number"?
|
| I was under the impression graphics programming is low-
| paid relative to similarly difficult programming (or even
| less difficult like framework CRUD).
| datavirtue wrote:
| That sounds desperate.
| ehnto wrote:
| I have the best luck just being honest and concise, know
| your number and ask if they can meet it. If not, no-one
| wastes their time. If they say the can but low-ball you,
| not a big deal, decline and move on.
| paulcole wrote:
| > I get replies like "wow! we've love to have you, but
| you're clearly too expensive and would not be happy doing
| the non-shiny things we do." And I never even mentioned
| salary.
|
| This could be like when a romantic partner says, "Let's
| be friends."
|
| They usually don't want to be friends.
| narrator wrote:
| I think the reason programmers don't unionize is some are 10x
| better than others, so they don't want to get the same wages as
| 1x programmers. Conversely, something like airline piloting or
| being a factory worker or nurse can be done much more equally
| by everyone in the field, so they are more likely to unionize.
| Are there wild variations in talent of VFX professionals?
| moomin wrote:
| Honestly I think the real reason programmers don't unionise
| is that we're not smart enough to realize we're Labour.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| This is the answer.
|
| A lot of programmers I've met are either narcissists or
| autists bereft of self-awareness.
|
| If you're a normal person you go into product management.
|
| A coworker once told me that we are "society's elite".
| That's the level of delusion we're talking about here.
| mook wrote:
| That doesn't make much sense -- some actors make much more
| than 10x over other actors (and they bring the kind of
| audience to command that extra compensation), and yet they're
| definitely unionized.
| johnthescott wrote:
| but did they unionize after getting rich or when they were
| broke?
|
| for screenwriters, most studios will not even review
| scripts without going through SAG, according to an awarding
| screenwriter/director who is a good friend on mine.
| analog31 wrote:
| I can't speak about actors, but there was a time when a
| major benefit of being in the musicians union was the
| standardization of contracts that might cover complicated
| issues such as credit, royalties, re-publishing, and so
| forth. So it wasn't necessarily the magnitude of the
| money, but making it humanly fathomable how the money
| would actually be distributed.
|
| I've heard people say to freelance musicians (like
| myself), that you don't really need the union until you
| start working in recording or broadcast.
|
| I've not seen a screen actor's contract but I'll bet the
| provisions for working conditions and rights are a bigger
| deal than the pay scale. Also, I've read that in general,
| unionization efforts tend to be triggered by working
| conditions rather than pay. Even programmers could
| benefit from that.
| true_religion wrote:
| Programmers don't unionize because they are well paid, and
| there is no structural barrier stopping people who gain
| skills and experience from getting better paid in the future.
|
| To contrast that look at medicine. Doctors have no union.
| They have a huge barrier to entry but once you are already a
| doctor then how much you get paid is determined by your
| skills and where you work. Doctors can get paid millions with
| enough prestige on them.
|
| Nurses on the other hand have a terminal limit. Every pay
| increase is gated by another nursing exam giving an
| additional certificate. Then in the end, the only upgrade is
| to doctor. However that means losing all benefits,
| retraining, and starting in a new track despite both
| professions being medical. Nurses therefore need a union.
|
| Another thing that stops unionization is the ability to work
| on your own. Nurses with high enough qualifications can work
| on their own, but in most cases they still need a supervising
| doctor even if that doctor is only a warm body. VFX pros are
| much the same. They need a team with them to work on a big
| budget movie.
|
| Programmers and doctors though can break away and start their
| own practice, serving the public directly and no one can stop
| them. With a little business savvy they can even rival the
| agencies that would have hired them as employees. If your
| profession can double as a stand-alone business then you
| rarely get a proper union.
|
| Even in cases (e.g. electricians) where a union is formed, it
| will still conduct training and certification which positions
| it somewhat like a guild.
| mountainb wrote:
| Doctors have a guild: the AMA. Lawyers have a guild: the
| ABA. Neither are the same things as unions but they have
| similar effects. The ABA and AMA also have large roles in
| professional education. Both also have major roles in
| accreditation and regulation of the profession. Unlike
| unions, they do not collectively bargain on behalf of
| individual workers. They aren't subject to the many
| regulations associated with organized labor.
|
| They also enjoy broad exemptions to antitrust law which
| would otherwise apply. It's why other classes of worker
| cannot have the same type of protective guild -- it's legal
| when the ABA or AMA do it and illegal when someone else
| does it.
| ghaff wrote:
| The situation with doctors and lawyers is considerably
| different however.
|
| Doctors, whether MDs or otherwise, tend to be pretty
| well-compensated in US broadly.
|
| Lawyers are much more of a mixed bag. White shoe law
| firms--mostly hiring students from top-tier schools with
| prestigious clerkships? Big bucks though either make
| partner or are mostly eased out. Some decent corporate
| law and successful private practices. But it's generally
| not a particularly well-compensated profession for
| someone from a mid to low-tier law school. And _lots_ of
| people who graduate law school and even pass the bar don
| 't actually end up practicing law.
| cma wrote:
| Doctors are well compensated in large part because their
| unions (professional associations) restricts the number
| of new doctors unreasonably and advocates against
| certifying foreign doctors to practice in the US.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| My understanding is that in many places, the trade unions
| (electricians, plumbers, etc.) operate more like the AMA
| than the UAW. There is a spectrum of unionization.
| closewith wrote:
| > Doctors have no union.
|
| Citation needed.
| dsr_ wrote:
| The AMA controls medical school certification, and size,
| and therefore controls the number of new entrants,
| keeping earnings high.
|
| It doesn't organize medical doctors for working
| conditions, salary and benefits negotiation, insurance,
| or most of the other features of a union. A hospital
| chain doesn't negotiate with the AMA on behalf of their
| surgeons and hospitalists.
|
| (It would probably be a very good thing if interns and
| early residents had a union supervising working
| conditions.)
| closewith wrote:
| Ah, so doctors in the US aren't unionised at all? If so,
| they're a global outlier.
| Archelaos wrote:
| > Doctors have no union.
|
| In Germany doctors are heavily unionized. The largest
| union, Marburger Bund has 131.000 members.[1] The second
| largest, Hartmannbund has 70.000 members.[2] For
| comparision: At the end of 2020, there were 409,121
| practising doctors (not including dentists) in Germany.[3]
|
| [1] Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marburger_Bund
|
| [2] Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmannbund
|
| [3] Source: https://www.bundesaerztekammer.de/baek/ueber-
| uns/aerztestati...
| classichasclass wrote:
| There are most definitely physician unions, especially in
| government-operated clinics which are often union shops. I
| was involuntarily in SEIU for a number of years as a
| result, though I thought striking was unethical for a
| doctor myself. See also UAPD and NAVAPD.
| ravenstine wrote:
| In addition, programmers have a decent shot at striking it
| out on their own if they can't stand W2 employment or if
| they think they can make more money starting a business.
|
| That's one big reason why I am unlikely to support
| unionization for the foreseeable future. If an employer
| treats us like crap, we just leave and either find a better
| opportunity or start our own business with blackjack and
| hookers. As a programmer, you can start your own business
| today by simply offering your services and looking for
| clients. We aren't nearly as enslaved to our companies as
| many other professions are.
| imglorp wrote:
| > they still need a supervising doctor even if that doctor
| is only a warm body.
|
| This is a good thing for standard of care: it's a chain of
| accountability. Medical supervision is supposed to set
| local policies and quality gates across a range of
| different providers. This also extends to EMT's in the
| field, for example: their supervision says what drugs or
| procedures they can use, which affects what the ER is
| expecting when patients arrive.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > This is a good thing for standard of care: it's a chain
| of accountability.
|
| This is classism in action. There's no reason a nurse
| practitioner can't bear legal responsibility for their
| actions. As long as it's unambiguous who is the
| responsible party whether they are a physician, nurse or
| physiotherapist there's a chain of accountability.
| imglorp wrote:
| Not disagreeing that you need to enable all levels of
| provider, that's not what I'm saying. I also agree all
| levels of provider should have an easy career path to the
| top.
|
| The point is there's a system requirement for interfacing
| one provider to the next, so that if you're receiving a
| handoff from someone else you know they prepared the
| patient for the next guy. There's also a
| malpractice/liability component.
| ma2rten wrote:
| This doesn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't just the 1x
| programmers unionize? I'm sure they would be in the majority
| as 10x programmers are rare.
|
| I also do not really believe in this concept in general.
| Programming skills are not one dimensional, people have
| different strengths and weaknesses.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The 1x programmers - which is virtually all of us - all
| think they're 10x programmers.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| That just makes us the greatest fools of all.
| datavirtue wrote:
| My number of X's adapt to fit the possibilities and
| potential of the environment. Right now it's 1x. Actually
| that's a lie, it's my 1x effort but the company I work
| with is floating on cloud 10x because I know more of the
| requirements than they do.
|
| Still have no idea what this mythical 1x - 10x number
| scale maps to. Inspiration can up anyone's game.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Or we are all well paid diva who, if bored, would just
| switch companies without much problems nor thinking. I am
| unsure if being in union (as in the US type of unions)
| would bring a lot of wage benefits.
| carapace wrote:
| Years ago I felt that programmers didn't need unions because
| we are so in-demand and already highly paid. Then the whole
| "no poaching" scandal came out, and now I definitely do think
| we need some sort of union-ish something. I hate to say it
| because many of the individuals are actually good people, but
| the managers/execs as a class are amoral bastards who will do
| whatever they think they can get away with to make a buck. To
| me the extraordinary thing is that Apple has more money than
| Scrooge McDuck and still screwed over their own engineers.
|
| It reminds me of the scene from the Simpsons: Homer and Mr.
| Burns are chilling together in what will become the rocket-
| house:
|
| Homer: Oh Mr. Burns, you're the richest man I know.
|
| Mr. Burns: Ah yes, but I'd trade it all... for a little more.
| 0xRusty wrote:
| Absolutely 100% agree. I work in a senior role in a vfx
| company. The adage that 20% of the workers do 80% of the work
| is more true in vfx than you'd likely believe.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I think the reason programmers don 't unionize is some are
| 10x better than others, so they don't want to get the same
| wages as 1x programmers._
|
| Tom Cruise makes (e.g.) $10M for being in a movie, and Jane
| Doe who plays Waitress #2 gets paid $10K for being in the
| same movie, and yet they're both part of SAG.
|
| You can create union/guild structures which have a minimum
| pay scale but not a maximum.
| [deleted]
| bobsmooth wrote:
| "Marvel allowed the back half of Multiverse of Madness to
| showcase far more of Raimi's hallmark directing style, but by
| then it was too late for the entire film to play out as a
| cohesive whole. It still grossed nearly a billion dollars
| worldwide."
|
| Why change when it's working so well?
| [deleted]
| gambiting wrote:
| Multiverse of Madness has to be one of my favourite marvel
| films of late, I get that the author doesn't like it but saying
| that it's not a "cohesive whole" is just not true.
| sammalloy wrote:
| > Multiverse of Madness has to be one of my favourite marvel
| films of late
|
| I'm curious why you think that. I thought it was one of the
| most boring Marvel films in the franchise, and I'm surprised
| I was able to stay awake for the entire thing. On the other
| hand, its twin, "Everything Everywhere All at Once", had me
| deeply engrossed and interested.
| gambiting wrote:
| It was crazy and out there, like the comics are - which is
| what I love in Marvel. The scene where Dr Strange commands
| the dead in another universe is like absolute peak
| enjoyment for me. The worst marvel film for me is Civil War
| since it's so.....grounded(closely followed by Ragnarok,
| but that's purely because I can't stand Waititi's humour)
|
| I've watched it 3 times now and I still love it - it's
| their best film since Infinity War, everything else after
| that was very much meh.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Read the comment from the VFX artists that worked on it. The
| whole article is well researched.
| gambiting wrote:
| I would if it wasn't paywalled.
| rawling wrote:
| > Perhaps the apex of this creative fatigue was Doctor
| Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which underwent
| extensive reshoots but didn't have enough of an effects
| budget to cover that new footage adequately. As a result,
| the effects in the opening sequence of the film are about
| as convincing as a Windows 98 screensaver. One supervisor
| expressed to Defector their exasperation not only with
| the process on that film, but with the startlingly inert
| creative choices that went into it.
|
| > "When you see something like the first third of Doctor
| Strange, you're like, Why not do something more
| interesting, where you're not straining your budget and
| 1,000 artists to try and make something that you know is
| going to look substandard? Why not try something else
| when you have a good director like Sam Raimi?"
|
| ... followed by the original paragraph.
|
| There's no big shocking revelation that backs up the "not
| a cohesive whole" point imo.
| gambiting wrote:
| I think it's hard to accurately judge something you have
| worked on.
|
| I'm a video game developer and I struggle to enjoy the
| games I work on - all I can see is the bugs and the areas
| we didn't deliver or where we changed the artistic vision
| or where yes, we had to re-do certain systems a hundred
| times. And yet, people seem to enjoy them. They review
| well. So maybe my opinion as a developer isn't really
| worth that much.
|
| I feel the same about the opinion you copied here -
| having watched Multiverse of Madness 3 times now I don't
| see any issue with the opening sequence. It looks pretty
| good from visual standpoint in fact. But I'm sure a
| trained VFX artist can point out the areas where it fell
| short and how many times they had to change it. The only
| visual effect in this entire film that stood out to me as
| "bad" was the sequence with illuminati right after they
| killed their thanos - that just looks like a poor
| Photoshop.
| danjac wrote:
| I felt completely left out, because although I had seen the
| last Spiderman movie, I hadn't watched Wandavision or half of
| the TV shows. It was like trying to follow a game in a sport
| you only have a casual interest in: you kind of know the
| rules but have no idea who the main teams or players are or
| who is up or down in the league, so your enjoyment is limited
| to the occasional good goal or pass (or VFX shot in this
| case).
|
| In contrast to DC movies - very hit and miss in quality, but
| you can at least watch a movie without having to follow a
| dozen other TV shows and other films in the franchise.
| gambiting wrote:
| So I personally enjoy this style of storytelling - it
| rewards you for knowing the backstory of all the
| characters, it allows for a richer universe, and you don't
| feel like the film treats you like an idiot for explaining
| everything you might already know.
|
| But - I can also see why this is a problem - you're right
| that people who haven't seen Wandavision would be very
| confused by this film. Wanda went from being a hero in
| Infinity War/Endgame, to suddenly being a villain.
| SSLy wrote:
| mind you that you still can't legally watch WV in a lot
| of the countries the movie is running in.
| gambiting wrote:
| I know, and I agree it's a problem. I don't know what the
| right answer is. I think building a big universe requires
| _some_ background knowledge of the events and characters,
| but maybe in this specific case Wanda could have used
| like one more scene just to explain what happened in
| Westview.
| Joeboy wrote:
| I definitely wouldn't say no to a "fully Raimi" movie, but I
| quite liked the way it started off as typical Marvel cheese and
| pulled off a surprising change of tack somewhere in the middle.
| In fact that might be my favourite aspect of the movie.
| cm2187 wrote:
| It's just grain for the pigs.
| onion2k wrote:
| It might gross 2 billion if it was done better.
| classichasclass wrote:
| Just watched the 3D Blu-ray this evening and the introductory
| sequence was indeed of appallingly bad CGI quality ("Windows 98
| screensaver" indeed), as was the bus-wrecking beast which came
| off like a rejected design from Monsters Inc., and really the
| entire first act as a whole was just really rickety. In that
| sense the poor CGI was the symptom of a more systemic disease.
| Fortunately Earth-838 has lots of welcome character surprises
| and the ending redeemed a lot. Not Raimi's best, but hardly his
| worst.
| XorNot wrote:
| 3D has been garbage since it's inception in cinema though:
| the guy who pushed it on us (James Cameron) couldn't even
| constrain himself to the rules of the new tech in the movie
| which was meant to showcase it (I.e focus pulling will hurt
| the eyes of the viewer, you have to essentially construct the
| whole scene in focus so the viewer can look around it).
|
| No one else has really cared about it since then.
| classichasclass wrote:
| It wasn't the 3D that was the problem, though, even though
| the 3D was obviously not native and the digital mattes were
| fairly flat. It just wasn't good visuals even in 2D.
|
| That said, Dredd 3D was a high mark in 3D because it _was_
| almost all native, especially the component effects
| photography (the Slo-Mo scenes in particular blew me away).
| The few upconverted shots stick out like sore thumbs.
| Upconversion can be done well - see T2 3D, which was
| mesmerizing - but nowadays 3D conversion is now just
| another VFX workflow with the same drawbacks.
| vertexmachina wrote:
| A lot of what this article talks about rings true in a
| presentation I watched recently by the team at Weta Digital which
| did the VFX for The Batman
|
| They talked about, among other things, how they had to:
|
| - digitally replace the stunt man's face in many of the action
| shots because his jawline was too dissimilar to Robert
| Pattinson's.
|
| - digitally modify a hand because a prop gun misfired in a shot
|
| - enhance the fight scenes to look more visceral and violent
|
| - add rain and rain spatter to the car chase (the parts that
| weren't already fully digital)
|
| I'm no filmmaker but I felt many of those things could have been
| done without VFX. Hire a stunt man that looks more like RP,
| reshoot the scene with the broken prop, forget about rain and/or
| tone down the epic action set piece, etc.
|
| Instead it seemed like it all just came to rest on the shoulders
| of the VFX artists.
| goto11 wrote:
| > forget about rain and/or tone down the epic action set piece,
| etc.
|
| But this is the stuff which make the movie cinematic and draws
| the audience. Hiring a stunt man which looks more like the lead
| might not be possible - historically this have been solved by
| filming stunt scenes at a distance, from the back etc. But this
| makes the scenes less engaging.
|
| A set with full crew and actors present is extremely expensive.
| For any mistake which _can_ be fixed with VFX rather then a
| reshoot, it is probably the prudent financial decision to use
| VFX.
| toast0 wrote:
| > historically this have been solved by filming stunt scenes
| at a distance, from the back etc.
|
| Those were often done, but other options that increased
| engagement were having actors do their own stunts (not always
| appropriate) or casting stunt workers into bigger parts.
| goto11 wrote:
| You can't have lead actors perform actual dangerous stunts
| (despite what marketing might tell you). The financial
| risks are far to high and insurance would never accept
| that. Just imagine the financial loss if the actor is not
| able to complete the movie due to an accident. It only
| really happens in B-movies and movies produced outside of
| Hollywood.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| When you say that a prop gun misfired, do you mean that a real
| gun, used as a prop, went off accidentally? Between this
| anecdote and the rust shooting, actors seem to have really poor
| trigger discipline. Is this something that happens a lot?
| berkut wrote:
| As someone in the VFX industry myself (but as a software dev
| writing the tools the artists use), I'd argue those examples
| are generally useful work being done on the movie to make
| things "more real". Whether it's worth it, is going to be very
| opinionated.
|
| However, I would say: I re-watched GoldenEye recently, and -
| maybe it was because I'm in the industry and notice these
| things more - but the blatantly different stunt men (especially
| landing the Cessna in Cuba: the man looked totally different
| compared to the actor who should have been flying!) compared to
| the actors did make me personally go "hang on a moment, who's
| that?"
|
| Some of this stuff can now also be automated to a degree (not
| completely, it still requires artist input, and sometimes a
| lot), but it's not often Rotoing every frame like it used to be
| ten years or so ago.
|
| Things I'd personally argue _aren 't_ worth artists having to
| work on, but I know they do, are things like skin wrinkle
| removal on leading actresses, removing mustaches on actors,
| etc. And the biggest issue is clients changing their mind at
| the last minute, often having previously signed off on lookdev
| or anim at the earlier stages, or just generally having to deal
| with bad set preparation because the 'talent''s time on set is
| 1000x times more important than the unseen artists, who then
| have to do loads of work to compensate for badly lit (very un-
| evenly lit) greenscreens or lighting on set, because the on-set
| VFX supe was likely ignore when he complained ("Oh, they can
| just fix it in post").
| snowpiercer wrote:
| Since you say you have experience in the vfx industry. Do you
| think someone can release a killer app that can reduce the
| use of many visual artists and just make vfx with the use of
| software instead? And how feasible is this?
| skhr0680 wrote:
| It always tickled me that James Bond in all of the dam scenes
| is very obviously _not_ Pierce Brosnan. It 's all part of the
| fun!
| kungito wrote:
| What's funny to me is you can have all this "immersion" and
| then for most bigger markets you get some rando voicing for
| Brad Pitt. I can't believe e.g. Germans are ok with this. I
| can't watch Spanish movies with English voiceover, I'd rather
| have subtitles
| tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote:
| If you grow up with movies being fully dubbed in your
| native language you don't question it much. Usually the
| same voice actor voices the same actor(s), so Brad Pitt has
| the same voice actor voice in all movies.
|
| Dubbing movies becomes a problem when you are exposed to
| the actors' original voice or the original audio track of
| movies because dubbing is a poor substitute. And hearing
| the same voice for different actors breaks immersion.
| tryfinally wrote:
| Subtitles vs dubs/voiceovers are largely a cultural thing.
| I envy countries where movies/tv shows are pretty much
| exclusively subtitled, for example Sweden. Coincidentally,
| Swedes seem to be really fluent in English on average.
|
| It's a win-win: you absorb languages for free as a child,
| and you later get to enjoy art in its original unmutilated
| form.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| For countries/language areas with less than 20M people,
| dubbing isn't economical, so they end up speaking better
| English.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Czechia is a dubbing stronghold with 10M people. The
| tradition is just too strong.
| thendrill wrote:
| "you absorb languages for free as a child"... This is the
| reason thou.
|
| You call it a win win, government calls it "foreign
| influence"....
| dougmwne wrote:
| Hah, and then you have countries like Poland where it's
| just "That one dude" who talks over everything while he
| does the voice for all the actors.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Once I knew what process shots were, I just can't unsee them
| in older movies. In particular, where the actors are driving
| in a car, when the background is clearly a rear projection on
| a screen.
|
| It's also obvious that the windshield has been removed for
| the filming.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| I find that even real, natural driving shots often look
| fake, but I'm not sure why. I've accused a film maker
| friend twice of using "janky and obvious looking
| greenscreen" for driving shots and both times I was
| completely wrong. Once was a car on a trailer which might
| have accounted for some of the unnatutalness, but the
| second time was a real quad bike driving on a real road
| with a chase car in front of it and a backwards facing
| camera-person.
| xattt wrote:
| > It's also obvious that the windshield has been removed
| for the filming.
|
| Also elevator shots!
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Not not mention that they tug the steering wheel back and
| forth as if they were playing real life frogger just to
| signal that they are "busy doing something". This doesn't
| make sense either.
| loonster wrote:
| It always seemed to me like there was a simple solution.
| Record the steering wheel movements of the stunt car. Use
| a motor in the fake car to replay the steering wheel
| movements.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Not so simple before widespread computers in cars ?
| beebeepka wrote:
| My personal "favourite" is the driver constantly turning
| to face the person on the other seat because they are
| having a conversation, you see.
|
| Is Hollywood intentionally normalizing this dangerous
| behaviour? Assholes
| Archelaos wrote:
| > Is Hollywood intentionally normalizing this dangerous
| behaviour?
|
| Not to speak of all the car races and shootings ...
| berkut wrote:
| Some films (and a lot of TV shows in the 80s/90s) often got
| the angle of the projection wrong as well, so there's an
| obvious miss-match between the perspective of the interior
| of the car and the outside... i.e. the angle of the camera
| in the car is roughly horizontal, but the projection is
| looking upwards towards the sky at around 10/15 degrees.
|
| Another obvious (when you know what you're looking for)
| tell-tale if the projection is better, is the light
| direction / shadows within the car compared to what the
| car's doing: car turns left 90 degrees, but oh no, the
| sun's still coming from the same direction as before...
| slim wrote:
| You're on point. I think the issue is the fourth wall is
| becoming thinner. When you watch an old movie, you don't get
| the immersion you got watching it when it was out
| cm2187 wrote:
| Actually older movies (80s-90s) didn't have much special
| effect, I find the more realistic, rougher nature of the
| scenes much better than the cartoonish, hyper-polished SFX
| today. When you see a fire, it's a real fire, not something
| digitally added, etc.
| gsatic wrote:
| Yup I was watching old James Bond movies recently and
| there is barely any visual effects. But it's still pretty
| entertaining.
| deebosong wrote:
| As much as I love advances in tech & art & visuals, I'm
| also getting pretty tired of live-action films that are
| basically computer generated. It has a certain look to
| it, too clean & precise & shiny, even as they industry
| overall gets better at matting things down.
|
| I wanna see a larger counter-reaction to all the gloss,
| and have movies get a lil rougher around the edges, while
| having the stories & characters be way more refined. Draw
| attention to the medium's limits, rather than try to make
| it real, and then it becomes hyperreal/ uncanny.
|
| But I'm guessing the industry will wanna go full
| immersion (like VR) rather than take a few steps back.
| Maybe there's room for both, if studios were willing to
| be more experimental (doubt it!).
| hef19898 wrote:
| I did a rewatch marathon of sorts with the kids, Alien,
| Aliens, Terminator 1-3, stuff like that. Those new action
| flicks, especially the super hero movies, cannot compare
| against those. An opinuon my son shares, and he grew up
| with Marvel. He was glued to the screen when we watched
| Alien for the first time together, because it did build up
| astory ajd tension (his words, not mine). Compared to
| Marvel were the CGI orgy starts 2 minutes into the movie.
|
| Heck, I'll take the Terminator 1 stop motion effects over
| any scene in the forst half of the last Dr. Strange "movie"
| (I couldn't bring myself to watch more than that, even Meg
| is more fun to watch...) any day of the week. Because T1 is
| still scary and conveys emotion (despair mostly for being
| chased by an unstoppable killet machine), while those
| Marvel effects are, well, boring by now. They have no wow
| effect (we see them in almost every single modern day
| movie), the convey no emotion (difficult to properly act, I
| think, when you are in front of a green screen and
| everything just plays out in your imagination) not do those
| effects actually drive the "story" forward.
|
| As compared to, e.g., the Expense, a ton of sci-fi short
| films (Dust in a great channel for that on Youtube) or the
| Mandalorian. I think the over use of CGI is just an easy
| excuse for bad story telling, and people swallow it.
| nickserv wrote:
| Have had the same experience with my son. The T1 eyeball
| scene, even while quite primitive by modern standards,
| was much more impactful to him than anything in Stranger
| Things.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I think if special effects are limited technically and
| expensive, people use them much more prudently. Today,
| CGI is cheap and easy to come by.
| kortex wrote:
| > while those Marvel effects are, well, boring by now.
| They have no wow effect (we see them in almost every
| single modern day movie), the convey no emotion
| (difficult to properly act, I think, when you are in
| front of a green screen and everything just plays out in
| your imagination) not do those effects actually drive the
| "story" forward.
|
| I think this is the crux of it, moreso than the CGI Orgy
| (great term btw). You can have movies with visibly
| apparent CGI, or even straight up animated movies, but
| the action is great and still drives the plot and pulls
| on your heart strings. I know every beat of The Matrix by
| heart, but there's still a ton of suspense in every
| action shot, because each encounter adds some new angle
| to the power scaling. At the start, squad of mooks > 1
| freedom fighter > several mooks, but even 1 agent is
| better than several FFs. Then that balance shifts.
|
| Contrast that with the Smiths fight in the later films,
| and it's totally Conservation of Ninjutsu at play. Adding
| more baddies just divides the power of a single baddie,
| because we already know the outcome, so we know 1 Neo = N
| Smiths.
|
| Watched Aquaman recently, same thing. Completely
| unprincipled power scaling. No reference frame, and it
| just scales up and up until it's CGI Army 1 vs CGI Army
| 2. That spectacle might work if I had more reference for
| the power levels, plus emotional investment, but I don't.
| bbarnett wrote:
| What really gets me are two things. The jiggle cam, and
| "let's film stuff but obscure what is happening in post".
|
| I have watched so many 2005+ movies, where all the action
| scenes are just replaced with 'jiggle the screen around', and
| thus, you see nothing.
|
| Worse, I've seen fight scenes with no/little jiggle, but then
| every move, punch, dodge, car stunt is replaced with a fast
| cut, so you don't actually see... well, anything.
|
| Someone else mentioned that the reason stunt doubles are
| changed vfx wise, is because maybe they couldn't find one
| similar enough.
|
| I call hooey on that, the real issue is _cost_. Generic stunt
| doubles are far cheaper than "stunt double who looks like
| top tier star".
|
| And the jiggle cam is cheaper than a real action scene, and
| fast cuts are too, because who cares how well it is
| timed/shot if you can't see it.
|
| I think, much like any industry, all this junk is just cost
| savings. It also shifts blame, and requires less talent from
| the director and actors.
|
| I doubt any modern director, or actor, could handle the
| pressure of expensive shots, dangerous shots, with people
| running through explosions, or car chases, stunt doubles or
| not.
|
| Nope. Just throw all that at sfx, and all the stress, cost,
| and reputation risking shots are no longer an actor's or
| dieector's issue.
|
| Ah well.
| grumbel wrote:
| > I call hooey on that, the real issue is cost.
|
| It's actually rarely about cost itself, just look at modern
| movie budget, they didn't exactly get cheaper than 20+
| years ago. The main factor is time, predictability and
| control. When you do it in post with CGI, you always have
| full control and can change your mind at any time. If you
| do it practical, you are stuck with whatever you filmed.
| Going back and doing a reshoot takes a long while, in CGI
| you just jiggle some parameters and rerender. If your
| movie-star-lookalike stuntman breaks a leg, you have a
| problem. If you do it with CGI, it barely matters what you
| captured in camera, just change it.
|
| With modern movies there is so much CGI to begin with, that
| it hardly even matters what you filmed, it's not unusual to
| completely redesign scenes in post, as the script wasn't
| even finished when they started filmed the thing.
| mindslight wrote:
| In theory, the flexibility is great. In practice it is
| itself a problem, as those decisions are avoided
| throughout production and instead accumulate into post.
| Where they get further kicked down the road - client for
| first 80% of schedule: "looks alright". client for
| remaining 80% of schedule: "[now that we've actually
| thought about this] we want it to be this way". The
| artists lament what they could have done had they gotten
| this direction earlier, ultimately just polish the turd
| with weekly extensions until the client is satisfied-
| slash-actual-deadline, and look forward to the next show
| where things might not go as awry.
|
| Like everything in our society, the real problem is that
| the people in charge of managing don't know how to do the
| work, and rather than listening to, taking feeding, and
| trusting the people doing the work, they act as if their
| job is to blindly push orders downwards and micromanage
| whatever catches their attention. The article ('s
| followup) touches on this, (" _managed to get themselves
| into really high positions but don't know how a green
| screen works... People in the traditional leadership
| roles are boomers or Gen X guys, and what we do now
| didn't exist when they were coming up "_), but is naive
| in thinking that it's going to get better over time. In
| actuality, the "creatives" of tomorrow are busy
| gladhanding today, and the dynamic will persist.
|
| I think this is why the production setup of Mandalorian
| got many VFX people excited, despite Engine being so
| counter to the standard workflow. It pushed the bulk of
| CGI to where it belongs - as a backdrop for actual acting
| and storytelling, and directly fed into the director's
| real time decision making. There are always going to be
| touch ups and last minute changes, but those are only
| practical in the context of having larger structure
| locked down. There are definitely constraints of the
| digital backdrop technique (watch Mandalorian again after
| that video, and you see it in everything), but I look
| forward to seeing how it might trickle out into the rest
| of the industry.
| bitwize wrote:
| Shakycam is the worst. _Casino Royale_ (2006) was loaded
| with it. It was so bad I couldn 't parse what was going on
| in an action scene. In a James Bond film, which is supposed
| to ride on its action scenes.
|
| The shakycam trope can probably be traced back to _The
| Blair Witch Project_ , but for the action/thriller genre it
| really comes from the _Bourne_ series. It 's an easy way to
| add verisimilitude to a fight/chase and lets you skimp on
| the fight choreography because the fighters can't be seen
| very well. But personally I find it disorienting, and it
| took me right out of what _everybody says_ was an excellent
| Bond film (and might 've been if they committed to smooth
| reasonable action shots rather than shakycam).
| dharmon wrote:
| In my memory it was Batman Begins (2005) that had if bad
| and started the trend, but you're right about the first
| Bourne movie (2002) being somewhere near the start (as
| far as tent pole movies go).
|
| At any rate it's a super lazy crutch for bad
| choreography. Contrasted with something like the Indiana
| jones airplane fight scene with its wide shots of the
| action is like night and day.
| nabilhat wrote:
| If yt wasn't so hostile to fair use, running shaky scenes
| through video stabilization to explore the artistic
| contributions of camera shake could make for an
| interesting channel. Is the scene ridiculous without it,
| like the stabilized Star Trek scenes making the rounds
| years ago? Or is watchability improved by the contents
| not bobbing and weaving around?
| ogogmad wrote:
| To me, this seems subjective and grouchy. It might be that
| when you were growing up, things were a certain way, and
| now they're a bit different. You have a minor aesthetic
| disagreement. Some people like the shaky cam.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| The only people who like shaky can are those who haven't
| experienced real, well choreographed, action sequences
| that are clear and visible.
|
| It works in some scenarios but really has been used a
| lot, likely predominantly, to obscure unreality.
| bbarnett wrote:
| You may like the shakey cam, and that's fine naturally,
| but claiming age has something to do with it is weird. It
| is also unfair to call me grouchy.
|
| All I know is that shakey cam is incredibly unreal to me.
| I have never, in my entire life, experienced scenarios
| where my vision was like a shakey cam, and I say this as
| someone with a history of racing, stunt driving, and a
| variety of athletic activities which jostles one about.
|
| When in such real life situations, my body senses motion,
| my brain sorts it out, and there is no shakey cam effect.
|
| I liken it to making a sound track for a movie, but
| imagine two people talking, while someone randomly cranks
| the audio up and down, and changes the aurial position of
| the speaker randomly.
|
| Sure, that's going to create tension and stress in the
| movie goer too, but it draws one out of immersion, and is
| just lazy work.
|
| Intensity can be created with real actual intensity, the
| shakey cam is a crutch.
| mkl wrote:
| > Worse, I've seen fight scenes with no/little jiggle, but
| then every move, punch, dodge, car stunt is replaced with a
| fast cut, so you don't actually see... well, anything.
|
| Jackie Chan's non-American work is the antithesis of this.
| Here's a great Every Frame a Painting on it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ
| bbarnett wrote:
| Yes, I sort of wish he'd dive more into
| producing/directing.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > skin wrinkle removal on leading actresses
|
| Supposing she has a contract on the line for a skin care
| brand, wouldn't these "little details" be literally millions'
| worth to her ?
| kofejnik wrote:
| But also billions of wasted consumers' money
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I'm not holding my breath on makeup and skin care
| becoming meaningless in our societies for another 50
| years.
| loonster wrote:
| Sounds like fraud.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Actors are selling an image.
| nickserv wrote:
| Only if you think movies are reality ;-)
| olivertaylor wrote:
| Yep! And it's part of a contract.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| One point regarding Goldeneye and fx generally. From a lay
| persons perspective Goldeneye has pretty snappy pacing so
| from memory some of the sets, such as the starting chemical
| plant explosion look a little fake, but the movie just chuggs
| along and and has a fairly good storyline that doesn't stall
| out.
|
| I find I notice effects a lot more in movies when the story
| has flat spots. And as I learn more and more about visual
| story telling. All I think about when watching movies that go
| heavy on stunts and action "how does this progress the
| storyline".
| croes wrote:
| But Superman with a mustache would have looked weird.
| ssrc wrote:
| He would have looked like Omni-Man.
| ihateolives wrote:
| Ok, now I want to see Magnum P.I. era Tom Selleck as
| Superman.
| slim wrote:
| deep fake to the rescue
| deebosong wrote:
| to be fair, Henry Cavill looked even weirder with his CGI-
| removed "shaved" face as well.
|
| they should have made a movie about the behind the scenes
| debate on this matter. execs, the star, the VFX team, and
| the final reception. coulda been really hilarious,
| entertaining, and use the situation to their advantage.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| VFX artists are cogs.. I guess they're like cloud servers.
| Cheap for some things, but misused for too many things
| ygra wrote:
| It's probably also everything that is accidentally overlooked
| during the shoot. Previously you would hat a different take,
| perhaps, or live with the goof. Now you can just offload that
| to post-production.
|
| But probably also a question if how expensive filming days
| are with the whole crew vs. how expensive VFX artists are.
| The latter work is also highly parallelizable.
| ip26 wrote:
| It's probably a good ol perfectly rational slippery slope.
| Fixing a minor mistake or two in post is absolutely the
| best choice for everyone. Each additional fix is not worth
| a reshoot either. But slip too far and the product suffers.
| olivertaylor wrote:
| I work in the VFX business, formerly managing a VFX house and now
| negotiating contracts with studios and production companies.
|
| A few random thoughts...
|
| There is a massive industry-wide labor shortage and a massive
| surplus of work to be done. Artist rates are way up, there are
| more junior artists than ever, there are more shows with more VFX
| than ever, VFX shops are turning away tons of work, new shops are
| springing up, investment groups are buying and consolidating VFX
| houses to try and become big players, etc. This is a boom time
| for VFX.
|
| This is absolutely a (labor) seller's market. Individuals and
| companies that are not taking advantage of this to create a
| better environment for themselves are missing a huge opportunity.
| There's never been a better time to quit a job you don't like and
| find a better one. Or to start a company!
|
| It's not actually true that the contracts allow studios like
| Marvel to make whatever changes they want at any time. I'm sure
| it can feel like that to artists at times but that's not how it
| works. Contracts are negotiated at a fixed price for a certain
| scope of work, with the tacit understanding that both parties
| will be flexible. If requests for changes push that scope of work
| outside the original deal VFX studios can negotiate overages and
| schedule changes (and they're free to attempt this at any time).
| It is totally within their power to be firm and demand livable
| contracts. But... it's a subtle art. Like any human endeavor or
| any contract worth tens of millions of dollars trade offs and
| accommodations are made. No vendor wants to leave a client high
| and dry or totally screw them over, and no client wants to ruin
| their relationship with a vendor they rely on. I can't imagine
| there's anything about this that is specific to either the visual
| effects industry or the movie industry. There are a lot of people
| running VFX companies that are simply bad at this part of the job
| and get themselves into hot water. When that happens it's the
| front line workers (as always) who have to work the extra hours.
|
| That said, there are a number of (very large) companies where it
| is absolutely normal to work 6 days a week 10 to 12 hours a day.
| This is not a secret, it's been very common for a very long time.
| Personally, I wouldn't work for a company like that.
|
| What we're experiencing is a huge shift in how movies are made
| and an industry that is struggling to keep up. Workflows,
| infrastructures, and tool chains designed for how movies were
| made for decades are being pushed to the limit, both because of
| the volume of work and the way in which people want to work.
| We're moving from a world where everything had to be planned way
| in advance (because of how massively expensive and slow
| everything was) to one where we're expected to be more
| improvisational (because of how much much cheaper and faster it
| is to do the work). You can't characterize that as a change from
| a good way of working to a bad one, it's simply change. One with
| countless industries have also faced.
|
| And keep in mind that just like any other industry, many of the
| changes to the film/tv business are technology driven, and VFX is
| at the forefront of that. So producers looking to totally
| reinvent how movies are made end up using the VFX industry to do
| it. If you take VFX out of the conversation there is little
| that's changed (technologically) about how movies are made in the
| last 20 years. So VFX is baring the brunt of the changes that are
| happening in the larger industry.
| dsign wrote:
| I get that there is some suffering involved, and some broken
| egos. But people are having jobs and getting paid, aren't they?
| That's important; specially for artists and technical artists who
| don't have many well-paying opportunities otherwise.
|
| What worries me is that I watch these productions because they
| are the lowest common denominator, the kind of thing attractive
| to my friends and partners who didn't finish high school.
|
| These movies, to justify their budgets and make the money back,
| have to be appealing to the widest possible audience. Therefore,
| they can not afford to hurt any sensibilities, and their plots
| need to happen in worlds as disconnected as possible from our
| reality. They can't be neither "political" nor "well-educated" in
| any obvious way. So when anybody watches a Marvel movie, they are
| maximizing their social futility, the amount of brain-bleaching
| they get. Worse, they are not using their time to assess/judge
| the work of a smaller studio who wants to bring public attention
| to something more concrete.
|
| It is like social media.
| [deleted]
| anigbrowl wrote:
| A lot of the best VFX work is what you don't even notice.
|
| Sound is the same. Producers and directors want to keep their
| options open as long as possible and then everyone wants to touch
| the final product so they feel they really earned their credit
| Being a technician is pretty exhausting and unglamorous, plus if
| you're too good at what you do it becomes a prison because you're
| a known quantity and nobody wants to take a risk on giving you
| upward mobility, but you don't necessarily get paid enough to
| have any economic autonomy.
|
| Now I work in an adjacent area where I have editorial/creative
| control, which is great, but also a lot more fraught financially
| (much like any other startup). I do get annoyed when I hear
| people criticize the media/entertainment industry; there's a lot
| of celebs and jerks that deserve criticism, but people outside it
| mostly assume everyone's on easy street and have no appreciation
| of the workloads and craft involved.
| ur-whale wrote:
| None of what this article talks about is new, except perhaps for
| the WFH bit.
|
| The "we'll fix it in post" attitude in particular has been around
| for as long as computers have been used in VFX.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| This is a "solved problem" now with technologies like this:
| https://youtu.be/bErPsq5kPzE
|
| The backgrounds are "real" and can be captured in-camera, so
| there is no need for special effects to blend hair. Similarly,
| reflective surfaces aren't a problem either.
|
| This was used to good effect for the Mandalorian series where the
| protagonist wears shiny metal armour.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Most of VFX's problem isn't technology. If you read the post,
| its not really mentioned.
|
| No the main problem is indecision.
|
| As other people have pointed out, virtual sets require a solid
| and stable vision of what the story and look of the movie is
| going to be, _before_ filming starts.
|
| Some film makers work like this. For example medium to high
| budget TV shows between 2010-2018 (before marvel basically.)
| Notably also chris noland.
|
| There are numerous examples of poor planning/indecision: the
| two poorer modern james bonds (quantum and spectre) both
| started shooting before the script was fixed. So loads had to
| be made up in editing.
|
| Another example is
| this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfVu52tZxd0 "the sand
| room" from prince of persia. This was designed, scripted and
| executed by one of the VFX houses, because the producers
| realised that they had no way to link the two halves of the
| film.
|
| This example here: https://clash-of-the-
| titans.fandom.com/wiki/Deities?file=Zeu...
|
| In Clash of the titans (2010) they spent loads of money making
| mount olympus with a real set. Hired all the old masters. after
| filming, the producers were like "Nah, I don't like that, lets
| make it like google maps". So the set was removed (I'm not sure
| if it was digitally done or a reshoot).
|
| Then Hades's cloak was a pain because the producers first
| wanted smoke. Then ink, then smokey ink.
|
| As alluded to in the post, the producers can get away with this
| because the contract is to do as many revisions until its done.
| There is little to no cost hit to the producers of the film to
| fiddle, be indecisive or back track.
| acomjean wrote:
| At the bottom of the article (it was a long one) they mentioned
| this.
|
| basically you use a game engine (unreal typically) to act if
| front of circular led tv wall and act inside. It helps with
| ambient lighting.
|
| Details about the madelorian from Disney use of this:.
|
| https://www.starwars.com/news/the-mandalorian-stagecraft-fea...
|
| Industrial light and magic (vfx house of old) has a bunch of
| these setups to rent now. Stagecraft is what they call it.
|
| https://www.ilm.com/ilm-stagecraft/
| buildartefact wrote:
| Yeah just because they say "you just shoot it and you're done"
| doesn't mean that's what actually happens.
| kranke155 wrote:
| You are wrong, but explaining this to you would involve you
| knowing things you don't.
|
| No virtual production does not solve VFX. Many reasons
| including the ability of the screens in resolution and max
| lumens, and the fact that a VP stage doesn't allow you to shoot
| anything, because of size and other limitations. It also won't
| add a CG character in front of your characters.
|
| Such arrogance! "This is a solved problem"...
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| I saw something recently where the producers of Andor were
| saying they used The Volume a lot less than on the Mandalorian
| because of the number of fast shots that simply couldn't fit in
| it. The Volume is great for some things but it's not a magic
| wand.
| objclxt wrote:
| It's nowhere near a solved problem, there's a large number of
| camera moves you can't do with that tech, and it doesn't help
| you if you have any sort of virtual or CG augmented character
| or prop in the shot (because you'd still have to do the
| compositing).
|
| If you want to talk about The Mandalorian, IMDB credits over
| 380 compositors on that series. In-camera effects are
| fantastic, but they're not reducing the visual effects burden.
| sammalloy wrote:
| I can't say enough good things about The Mandalorian.
| Seriously first rate all around.
| glandium wrote:
| > there's a large number of camera moves you can't do with
| that tech
|
| Even when the background is updated in real time according to
| the camera position?
| Groxx wrote:
| Try that while pointing two cameras at the scene.
| acomjean wrote:
| As long as the same background isn't in both cameras I
| think it's doable (facing different directions for
| dialog) or one with a cropped closeup. Though not sure
| the software currently support 2 cameras.. kind of an
| interesting problem.
|
| My understanding it the rendering is done at higher
| quality when the background is the cameras field of view
| to save resources.. the rest is there just for ambient
| light.
|
| Of course this takes a lot of pre planning, but those
| virtual set ups kinda always do.
| grumbel wrote:
| If you really want to, that should be doable, you just
| have to sync the shutters of the cameras with the screen
| and switch the virtual scene along with it, much the same
| way as 3D TV used to work. At least for two cameras, that
| should work well enough, as the 180deg shutter common
| with 24fps movies leaves enough room for a second camera.
| kristjansson wrote:
| I'm already ill imaging imagining a wall sized screen
| swapping between two static background at 24fps
| Geonode wrote:
| The Roe BP2 screens refresh at 7,680hz
| Groxx wrote:
| tbh this might be one reason to prefer 60fps+, swapping
| scenes at 120fps would generally just look like two
| superimposed images, which would likely be fine. Though
| the whole scene might have to be much brighter to
| compensate for the shorter shutter, as that's already a
| problem for 60fps.
| josteink wrote:
| > This is a "solved problem" now with technologies like this:
| https://youtu.be/bErPsq5kPzE The backgrounds are "real" and can
| be captured in-camera, so there is no need for special effects
| to blend hair. Similarly, reflective surfaces aren't a problem
| either.
|
| While at the same time, when seeing that initial shot I could
| immediately tell the background was fake. Like in any fake-ass
| marvel-movie.
|
| And I'm not into VFX tech, I'm not into the industry as whole.
| I'm just a casual movie-watcher (going from being a hard-core
| movie-watcher), and my involvement in these movies is getting
| lower and lower as the movies increasingly gets less and less
| real.
|
| The last truly great movie I saw was Mad Max Fury Road. It has
| you engaged all the way through, because everything which
| _matters_ there actually is real, something your mind can tell.
|
| I recently saw Bullet Train. It was OKish because it was mostly
| about characters, and it had a semi-decent story to tie it all
| together. All the excessive VFX bits at the end was pretty
| "meh" though. It would have been a better movie without it.
| boffinism wrote:
| The thing about virtual sets is, like real sets, they force you
| to have commotted to every decision about a shot at the point
| you shoot the actors. And half the reason Hollywood uses VFX so
| much is to NOT do that. So don't expect virtual sets to be
| universally adopted any time soon.
| dcow wrote:
| Sounds like "hollywood" is finally fully corporate, devoid of any
| soul it once had. I just finished the ILM docu-series and wow
| what an amazing and incredible story. It's sad that, for the
| industry, it's all culminated in abusive studios, disconnected
| directors and fuck it someone else will fix my mess mentality.
| And the _disrespect_ for VFX workers, my god, they should come
| join an ops team they'd get more respect. I guess it's kinda to
| be expected when you're just perpetually milking cash cow IP to
| death (hardly the innovation it once was). And since when do
| lasers arc in space?? I don't watch super hero movies on
| principle at this point. It's the least I can do.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I've been trying to avoid sequels, reboots, and other
| Millennial nostalgia-based movies going to a mainstream
| theater, and I found it nearly impossible. Accidentally watched
| Uncharted not realizing it was based on... a video game of all
| things. It wasn't good. Nothing else was good either the past 2
| years.
|
| I'm not partial to old movies, but there are some gems, and
| they show how much you can do without modern VFX. I don't know
| what modern live-action movies were even improved by fancy
| effects besides The Matrix, which was awesome. Even when the
| scene is about action, it's cooler when it's realistic, like
| the Blues Brothers chase where they're actually driving 118 MPH
| and 104 real cars are getting wrecked.
| croes wrote:
| The Matrix was great because the VFX supported the practical
| FX.
|
| In Matrix reloaded they replaced them.
|
| The result was inferior.
| mariusmg wrote:
| >it was based on... a video game of all things
|
| And the Uncharted games are great. They have good
| characterization, good writing and funny comedy bits. None of
| these were present in the movie.
| dreen wrote:
| > It wasn't good
|
| Was there ever a movie made based on a video game which was
| good? I can't think of one.
| grumbel wrote:
| Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie,
| Postal, Detective Pikachu, Sonic 1&2. Not necessary the
| greatest of cinema, but all of them did a good job of
| turning the source material into a movie. Probably helps
| that the source material of all of them is relative simple
| and leaves plenty of room for interpretation.
|
| Also Steins;Gate, though that's a visual novel turned
| anime, not a regular game. But probably the best example of
| staying very close to the source material and succeeding.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Resident Evil
| julik wrote:
| Silent Hill was pretty decent IMO
| crooked-v wrote:
| If you want to avoid reboots in theaters, you would have had
| to stop watching films in the 1930s.
| megablast wrote:
| Are you serious?? Lots of awesome new films come out every
| year.
| dcow wrote:
| What's funny is that considering the waste and negligence
| described in the article, I bet it's cheaper to wreck 104
| real cars than to pay a VFX team to do it.
|
| The Revenant is one of the last movies in recent memory that
| seemed to do something novel.
|
| If we're going to primarily be inundated with highly
| computer-influenced content, I prefer it to not try to look
| perfectly real which is why I've really enjoyed some of the
| animated series that have popped up recently. I'll also admit
| that I've seen Into the Spider-Verse because my friends
| wouldn't let me avoid it. I'll give Marvel a pass on that one
| --the animation is amazing.
| glandium wrote:
| > I bet it's cheaper to wreck 104 real cars than to pay a
| VFX team to do it.
|
| This reminds me: you know that scene in Tenet where a
| Boeing goes into building? It was neither VFX nor a model.
| It was a full size, real Boeing. Nolan said it was cheaper.
| mroche wrote:
| > I'll also admit that I've seen Into the Spider-Verse
| because my friends wouldn't let me avoid it. I'll give
| Marvel a pass on that one--the animation is amazing.
|
| Credit where credit is due: Spider-verse is the result of
| the phenomenal teams at Sony Pictures Imageworks. They
| absolutely nailed this movie, I could rewatch it countless
| times and still be amazed.
|
| SPI has also produced some amazing technology for the
| industry, such as being the originator of the Arnold render
| engine, OpenColorIO (OCIO), and Open Shading Language
| (OSL).
| skydhash wrote:
| You should also try Arcane if you haven't yet. The
| animation is equally amazing and very expressive.
| dcow wrote:
| Netflix could not accept my payment because of some
| clerical error on their side and they were unwilling to
| fix it when I called trying to give them money. They
| literally could not take my money so I've been without
| Netflix for the last year, sadly. I'm a little salty
| because what company would deliver a canned "we can't do
| that due to system error maybe try later idk lol" message
| to a customer when money is on the line? It's absurd.
| /rant
| resist_futility wrote:
| Inception, Interstellar, District 9, Minority Report, Lord of
| the Rings, etc.
| julik wrote:
| > I've been trying to avoid sequels, reboots, and other
| Millennial nostalgia-based movies going to a mainstream
| theater, and I found it nearly impossible. Accidentally
| watched Uncharted not realizing it was based on... a video
| game of all things. It wasn't good. Nothing else was good
| either the past 2 years.
|
| Same, but for a different reason: I saw too much of how the
| "sausage gets made", and watching an artistically shitty
| Marvel blockbuster just doesn't provide enough entertainment
| to "zone out" of the human suffering that goes into producing
| that stuff.
| goto11 wrote:
| > Sounds like "hollywood" is finally fully corporate, devoid of
| any soul it once had.
|
| Perhaps, but then again people have been saying that about
| Hollywood since at least the 1930's. Hollywood has always been
| an industry aimed at making money thorough entertaining people.
| Sometimes this has resulted in great art being created, and
| Hollywood is not averse to art as long as it makes money.
| [deleted]
| Hard_Space wrote:
| I also watched that doc a week ago, and loved that pioneering
| spirit from Dykstra and the other heroes of my youth. In the
| next 5-10 years, I think that the growth of AI in VFX will
| bring some of that back. In fact, that's happening right now,
| across the world, as every VFX house seems to have some sort of
| AI skunkworks in place; techniques that are not ready for
| prime-time, as many applications of CGI weren't throughout the
| eighties, but who time is yet to come.
| leeoniya wrote:
| > And since when do lasers arc in space??
|
| Webb would like a word...
| dcow wrote:
| Can you explain? I'm genuinely curious what phenomenon you're
| referring to.
| rz2k wrote:
| I think they're alluding to phenomena this[1], a
| description of gravitational lensing from the Webb Space
| Telescope team.
|
| [1] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2019/20
| /4377...
| dcow wrote:
| Okay yes, we can see distant light from slightly behind
| stars because it follows curved _spacetime_. The energy
| projectiles in question in Star Wars VIII arc in a
| parabolic trajectory through flat spacetime over much
| shorter distances.
| ozzythecat wrote:
| > it's all culminated in abusive studios, disconnected
| directors and fuck it someone else will fix my mess mentality.
|
| > And the disrespect for VFX workers, my god, they should come
| join an ops team they'd get more respect.
|
| > I guess it's kinda to be expected when you're just
| perpetually milking cash cow IP to death (hardly the innovation
| it once was)
|
| I can't help but smile reading this.
|
| Replace "studios" with "organization at big tech company".
|
| Replace "vfx workers" with "software development engineers"
|
| Replace "cash cow IP" with "legacy systems that still bring in
| $$$", although yeah there's IP there too from a while ago.
|
| Sorry, I don't mean to take this completely on a tangent, but I
| can't help but think there are similarities here.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'll never understand this vibe. You're a programmer, in most
| places that's among the best paying jobs available. How are
| you being there exploited the same way as VFX artists are?
| julik wrote:
| If you are in an agency which basically sells labour (body
| shop) and if the agency is doing fixed bid projects ("you
| build us XYZ mobile app which does ABC by MNP for XXX") you
| will be in a comparable situation. There is a difference
| however:
|
| * Devs are harder to find and currently they are likely to
| flat-out refuse to work on location * In dev,
| "time+materials" (bill by the hour) is much more prevalent.
|
| One of the reasons VFX work is so miserable is that the
| producers will try to place a project in the cheapest
| locality and with a fixed bid, implying an unlimited amount
| of change requests as long as the deadline is not passed.
| One of the best medicines against the indecision and non-
| commitment from clients is making them pay for time spent
| (both waiting while they meddle and working when the
| umpteenth change requests comes about). This works very
| well - it does imply you have to fire clients who do not
| want to work like this.
|
| VFX studios are in a bind because if you want to work "big
| ticket stuff" (Marvel etc.) they will negotiate hard on
| contracts, they will want insane deadlines, and they will
| want fixed bid. And they will want you to be in a locality
| which provides tax breaks.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Having worked on both sides, being a former VFX programmer
| and artist makes tech companies afraid of your expense plus
| they incorrectly think your used to pampered treatment. In
| tech companies, they see VFX films and do not realize they
| are seeing the collaborative work of thousands of digital
| workers - so they expect the programming output of
| thousands of people. It is a no win situation, because to
| get them to understand you have to convince them they
| believe in fantasy.
| fedeb95 wrote:
| Movies have become something absurd. It's wasted effort in my
| opinion. All this money doesn't lead to an improvement
| artistically. Some movies are just trash piles made for
| advertising products
| SergeAx wrote:
| Have you noticed lately how Star Wars movies and series are
| introducing some exotic looking animals and paying them some
| attention without using them in the story at all? Well, you
| then can buy toys of these in Disney stores around the world.
| dymk wrote:
| Every single Star Wars movie was always like that
| Spivak wrote:
| Did people forget what movies the "morchandizing" bit in
| Spaceballs was making fun of? Because in 1987 it certainly
| wasn't The Force Awakens.
|
| Guys are just starting to notice the _blatant_ cash grab
| additions because the target market for the cutesy ones
| like bb8 and the porgs is girls and women.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| > It's wasted effort in my opinion.
|
| Not financially; these movies earn a fucktillion dollars.
|
| Artistically yes, it's boring at best. But these are not
| artistic movies.
|
| I don't have to watch them, so I don't, and beyond that I don't
| really care. That said, I don't quite understand why so many
| folks keep watching them.
| Joeboy wrote:
| > I don't quite understand why so many folks keep watching
| them.
|
| A lot of people don't seem aware that other movies exist.
| Which is odd as the VFX-laden, action-heavy franchise
| blockbusters everybody complains about are only a small
| proportion of movies that are made.
| dudul wrote:
| I know many holes could be poked in my opinion, but I believe
| that at this point in time we could probably stop making
| movies, tv shows, even books. We already have enough amazing,
| intemporal content to fill many life times.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Your'e being downvoted, but I for one agree wholly with the
| point you make.
|
| I don't doubt filmmaking has always, in the end, been about
| business or they wouldn't be made. But the captains of the film
| industry, perhaps in optimizing profit, seem to be all circling
| the same kind of flashy, effects-laden action film.
|
| I've heard people suggest it's a result of the "globalization
| of the industry", that action films with "effects > dialog"
| sells to a Chinese audience, for example. Perhaps there is some
| truth to it (if so, it suggests again studios optimizing for
| profit).
|
| I've been on a "1001 Films To See Before You Die" tear for a
| few years now and it is hard not to see many of these old films
| and sigh, "When would Hollywood ever make a film like this
| today?"
|
| Please, can we have another, another "new wave"? More indie
| cinema please. This market has been ripe for disruption since
| the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ franchise took root.
| true_religion wrote:
| Does anyone remember Karate Kid 7? The movie market has
| always been repetitive.
|
| Arnold Schwarzenegger played a tough guy in a dozen derisive
| movies.
|
| Heck, even Ronald Reagan's later movies felt like they were
| all the same character in different clothes and a pastiche
| plot.
| Joeboy wrote:
| The Wizard of Oz (1939) was the fourth Wizard of Oz film.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Hey, POTC 1 is a truly great swashbuckler/adventure film. The
| sequels are all truly garbage though, I agree.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| My impression is that the advancements in cgi has let producers
| and directors get sloppy in planning. "We'll fix it in post"
| feels evident in the final product to a very high degree.
|
| But worse, it lets producers "work around" actors schedules by
| having them film at different times and locations for the same
| scene.
| smat wrote:
| I am also curious how this period in movies will hold over
| time. Older movies with more practical effects (such as Star
| Wars) still have a very crisp look to them while newer movies
| look blurry and bloomy due to the heavy post processing.
| Joeboy wrote:
| > newer movies look blurry and bloomy due to the heavy post
| processing
|
| If newer movies look blurry and bloomy, it's probably because
| they're trying to look like old movies.
| goto11 wrote:
| If you take a classic which have stood the test of time and
| compare it to the current average, the classic will probably
| look better. But that is just survivorship bias because we
| have forgotten all the forgettable movies. If you look at the
| average sci-fi movie from the 1970's, the special effects are
| not usually very impressive.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| I was once on a flight watching Zoolander while a guy next to
| me watched some Avengers movie. The contrast in color grading
| between the two was shocking. Zoolander had crisp
| differentiated colors/objects, while the Avengers film was a
| morass of soft-focus muted purple and brown.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Once I learned how optical printing worked, Return of the
| Jedi was ruined for me. I could see the flickering black line
| around the flying craft. I never noticed that when I watched
| RotJ in the theater.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Star Wars is a tricky one, since the versions that are
| generally available and that lots of people have seen have
| all had various levels of after-the-fact VFX applied to them.
| winternett wrote:
| I make music for film, and I edit video in relation to that work
| often.
|
| I can recall several years of having to learn how to do things in
| so many different applications that dictated the end product
| because the applications were very complex to use, and quite time
| consuming. I couldn't understand how friends were paid less than
| application developers (Around 60k annually) to do some of the
| most impressive VFX things I've observed in commercials and
| movies, and it was very hard for them to find work even when they
| had great portfolios.
|
| Fast forward to now, there are mobile apps that can edit videos,
| and add effects, color grading, etc to videos. I can literally
| run a video editing session in my car that outputs better product
| far more quickly than I used to be able to do with $2k
| software... Even mobile software that can work with object
| files... Making the process of creation easier will likely be the
| best field for innovation moving forward. Making things more
| simple will also save studios and VFX editors tons of money, time
| and grief.
|
| TikTok formats are dominating the entertainment world right now,
| VFX movies are beginning to look disingenuous because they either
| overdo effects, or they cut corners and make things low quality,
| relying too much on the power of celebrity to push the movie
| forward... Viewers are also worn out by actors trying to take
| cues on green screen sets, it comes across often as far too
| staged, or far too busy visually.
|
| Movies where the VFX trump everything else end up being weak on
| writing and emotional composition in my opinion. Movies that rely
| on celebrity become very weak on VFX... I think good movies come
| from a great script that can be used to plan everything that
| comes thereafter, and then the quality of the final product
| depends on the vision of the director and execution of the team
| involved.
|
| Movies like Blade, Hancock, Ant Man, and even more recent work
| like "The Boys" are some of my personal favorites because VFX are
| not the primary hitch to the stories... Avatar completely lost
| me, even though far more money was spent to make it. VFX is a
| support tool to great films, when it becomes the primary aspect,
| the script suffers and budgets balloon, and the worst part is
| that movies take 5 years to make instead of just taking one.
| muglug wrote:
| > You saw Taika Waititi savaging his effects team in the clip at
| the beginning of this story
|
| Waititi's comments are blown out of all proportion in this
| article (and also on Twitter). He points at a CGI character and
| says "does that look real?" but then similarly points at human
| characters and says "does he look real?".
|
| It seemed like the monitor they used using in the Vanity Fair
| video had its brightness set too high, making the scene look more
| fake than it did in cinemas.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I just watched it for the first time, and it seemed like it was
| pretty innocent. Right after the moment in question, they point
| out a continuity error, and then go on to list several examples
| of the challenges of a complex production like that. It did not
| seem like they were blaming the VFX artists, just acknowledging
| that those movies are made at an insane scale. They didn't say
| it, but it seemed to me like they were both a little detached
| from the process due to its size, despite being nominally so
| crucial to it.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Holywood's _self inflicted_ visual effects crisis
|
| It seems the special effects industry got the short-end of both
| cut-throat industries (tech and cinema) without the benefits of
| any of them
|
| Then they will go broke, and wonder what happened. Again
|
| Taika Waititi sounds like a great guy but that jab was better
| left unsaid.
|
| I think a lot of people (yes, all around us) think that it's easy
| just because "it's done in the computer" and they have a menu
| item to merge somebody's wig into the background just like that.
| But that's "the business fault" because they don't surface the
| cost of that upfront
| leeoniya wrote:
| > Some actors have digital fixes to their hair, among many of
| their other physical features, written into their contracts.
|
| TIL
| KaiserPro wrote:
| In harry potter, the actors were chosen at age ~8 (ish, young
| what ever it was)
|
| This meant that in the middle movies, they went through
| puberty. My generation of VFX people cut their teeth doing
| puberty based acne removal. Both harry and ron had pretty bad
| zits, and because continuity is kind, the needed to be removed.
|
| Meryl Streep in MamaMia had "digital makeup" applied by one
| bloke working the night shift.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| ig /tiktok/ snap should just release a feature film creation
| tool
| Scandiravian wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220814070946/https://defector....
|
| For those who do not want to sign up to continue reading
| abbadadda wrote:
| You should get 2-3 free articles without signing up (not
| affiliated, just a subscriber).
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Read this recently. Truth is most vfx left Hollywood long ago for
| greener tax subsidies overseas. Industry is too small or too
| democrat-adjacent? for government to notice. Oh well, was always
| a sweatshop so perhaps a good riddance to those abusive jobs.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Georgia, which gives one of the biggest subsidies in the US
| isn't overly democrat. I don't think its a partisan issue
| really, it just reflects the state of worker/employer relations
| I suspect.
| suction wrote:
| I get what you mean. Maybe this is the best we could ever hope
| for? Because one thing is clear to me: If Hollywood and the VFX
| artists working for it had been Republican-leaning over the
| decades, we'd still be at the "Steam train moving towards the
| camera" stage.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I don't think either political party really cares about labor
| anymore.
| [deleted]
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Democrat led states and cities have paid sick leave, paid
| parental leave, longer leave periods for new moms, higher
| minimum wages, daily overtime laws, laws requiring sitting,
| pay transparency laws, laws requiring employee to be able to
| sit, higher unemployment insurance benefits, same minimum
| wage regardless of tips, etc.
|
| Republicans led states do not. That seems to be clear
| evidence indicating one cares more about labor than the
| other.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| That's fair. I guess at the state level things are better.
| Maybe even at the federal level democrats care more than
| republicans. I do however feel disillusioned with how
| little it feels like the democrats in congress are willing
| to do to fight for labor.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Democrats passed Affordable Care Act in 2009 during the
| only 6 months where they had a tenuous 60 seats in the US
| Senate required to pass non budgetary laws.
|
| Democrats also almost passed significant child care
| benefits and tax credits in the original build back
| better bill in 2021, which of course was voted against by
| every Republican. Even a single Republican voting with
| the Democrats would have enabled millions of poorer
| families with children.
|
| In my entire adult lift (since 2000) I cannot recall a
| single bill proposed by Republics to benefit lower
| income/poorer people. I do know they pushed through two
| wars and a bunch of tax cuts.
|
| I know Democrats tried to reform healthcare as early as
| mid 1990s (which then culminated in Affordable Care Act).
|
| Seems like pretty conclusive evidence that the parties
| are not the same at the federal level too, and the voting
| rules at the Senate level do not leave any options other
| than severe compromise.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| You're right that they're not the same. I'd say a bill in
| 2009 and another in 2021 do not give me the feeling that
| they're fighting particularly hard for labor rights
| either. Though I'm sure there are more and you're just
| listing a couple from memory.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| What do you expect them to do if they do not have
| sufficient votes in Senate and a President to sign the
| bill?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| They could start by getting more candidates in the
| Senate, by more aggressively advocating for policies that
| will genuinely help people. It really seemed like Bernie
| Sanders's policy proposals resonated with a majority of
| Americans, but the Democratic Party did everything they
| could to sink him. Their more moderate proposals were
| less exciting, which I think is why the election between
| Biden and Trump was so close. If the Democratic Party had
| gotten behind more popular policies, they could have won
| more seats in the Senate too.
|
| The problem, of course, is that both parties (though not
| Bernie Sanders) are beholden to big corporate interests.
| So they have to fight for lukewarm policy that doesn't
| really excite the people, but satisfies their major
| donors. They could fix this by advocating for election
| reform, but I don't think the party establishment really
| wants to change that.
|
| It is worth noting that Bernie Sanders even did a town
| hall style meeting on FOX news, with positive reception.
| The Democratic Party could see the value in what Bernie
| was doing and support candidates like him, but they
| choose to go after big corporate interests instead. And I
| think that is their folly.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| > Visual effects departments didn't even exist, particularly in
| television, until roughly a decade ago.
|
| ...what? To pick a random example Star Trek: The Next Generation
| debuted in 1987 with ILM doing the effects. Is the author really
| claiming visual effects departments sprung into existence in
| 2012? That's ridiculous.
| SSLy wrote:
| Everything is 10 years ago if you're a 45 y.o. white dude who
| thinks they're 25.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| That's a really impolite thing to say. It also tends to be
| more frequently younger people who think history started when
| they were born.
| H8crilA wrote:
| It's not a crisis unless the workers start quitting.
| not_the_fda wrote:
| Special effects do nothing for me in movies. Movies that take the
| [Dogme 95](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95) approach are
| more my style.
| karaterobot wrote:
| That was a reaction to the direction of movies which eventually
| evolved into this, but sort of an overreaction in my opinion.
| Rules like "the camera must be handheld" and "the director must
| not be credited" seem unnecessary. It felt like that manifesto
| was meant to make an ideological point rather than to help make
| better movies. In practice, even most of its adherents broke
| those rules, because they were bad rules.
|
| That said, while reading this article I did think about Dogme
| 95, and started wondering what a similar manifesto specifically
| related to the use of VFX would look like, if it were maybe a
| little bit less reactionary, and more tailored to "how do we
| make VFX an integrated, manageable, sustainable part of
| movies?". Has anybody done this already?
| Joeboy wrote:
| If you google "vfx workflow" or "vfx pipeline" you'll find
| lots of stuff.
|
| As I understand it the reason things get out of control on
| big movies is that there's no incentive to plan shots
| properly or be decisive, because VFX houses are expected to
| sign stupid contracts. There are smaller movies where people
| are more disciplined, eg. Monsters, where I believe director
| Gareth Edwards did all the VFX himself.
| amelius wrote:
| If this is a crisis then imagine what it would be if movies were
| all multi-angle or interactive.
| XorNot wrote:
| I wonder where something like DALL-E fits into the digital touch
| up pipeline in the near future.
|
| Taking existing footage and in words accepting instructions like
| "remove the facial hair on X"
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I honestly could do with way simpler VFX if the end result at
| least had something like style or a vision to it. One result of
| this highly sophisticated and expensive pipeline seems to be that
| everything looks sort of generic. The superhero productions in
| particular, don't know how to describe it but visually they all
| basically look like the equivalent of what Material design is for
| apps.
|
| i want something like Sin City or Hannibal (the tv show) again, I
| wouldn't really care if it's not the most technically
| sophisticated thing ever made.
| deebosong wrote:
| I am absolutely of this school of thought.
|
| So many forms of art don't need to be hi-fi, latest & greatest,
| "realistic," or only conform to the "acceptable" trends of the
| times.
|
| I think even as a kid, some videogame cut scenes in 2D pixel
| art got me so hyped/ engaged/ moved.
|
| Same goes for comic books, that were nothing more than black
| and white line art (granted the line art was executed superbly
| - what up Akira Toriyama & Bill Watterson!).
|
| One can hope that studios would be more willing to try new
| things, but they don't even pretend it's about anything other
| than the bottom line.
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