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Post by Komori on Mar 2, 2014 1:07:19 GMT -5
The story about Rhythm & Hues, the visual effects company that won an Oscar for Life of Pi, two weeks after declaring bankruptcy. It's a messed up system, and something people ought to be aware of.
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Post by The Wanderer on Mar 2, 2014 10:11:34 GMT -5
I remember reading an article somewhere about that. It was a massive undertaking, and the production company had been told that this was not really possible. Obviously, they were wrong, but it came at great cost.
It's pretty much the same with any type of artistic/creative endeavors: It's all about money. You want to do something great, like providing a visual simulation of a young boy being trapped on a lifeboat with an angry tiger, but in order to do it, you need computer programs that don't exist, live references which include bringing tigers into studios, you need to build a set that can be used by the actor to interact, and provide some realism. You also need hours upon hours of dedicated effort, because nothing short of all that is going to be successful.
So you factor in the cost of that, paying the staff, then yeah, it's going to end in tears if you were hoping for a stable career.
Another industry where this is becoming a serious problem is the video game industry. Infinity Studios just went belly-up, even though they produced the critically-acclaimed and successful Bioshock series, with the help of 2K. It's sooo expensive to produce decent video games that last longer than 5 hours worth of game play, that many start-ups simply never leave the ground. Of course, in the video game world, piracy is even more prevalent to the point of the surviving publishers and developers putting mind-agonizing DRM's that wind up punishing law-abiding citizens as well.
If money was not a factor, it'd be interesting to see how many more movies like "Life of Pi" or video games like "Elder Scrolls: Skyrim" were out in circulation right now. It's like finding out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. The world may never know. (It's 46 licks in my case)
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Post by Komori on Mar 2, 2014 13:31:39 GMT -5
If money was not a factor, it'd be interesting to see how many more movies like "Life of Pi" or video games like "Elder Scrolls: Skyrim" were out in circulation right now. Not sure what you mean by money not being a factor. I mean, the only reason those movies and games exist is to make money. Is your hypothetical that companies throw infinite amounts of money at a project, or that no one pays anyone anything? In both cases, I'd venture to say fewer elaborate movies/games would be produced. If companies got infinite money, it's obviously not that important for them to release something quickly, so they could spend exponentially more development time. If you never needed to release a movie to start making money off it, then you could finagle, adjust, tweak, and continue to develop it until it's *perfect*, and we all know how long perfectionists would take on something if they could tweak it forever. (See Richard Williams' still not-really-finished "Thief and the Cobbler") If a company got no money, then everyone working on the project's going to have to pay their rent and food somewhere else. You'd wind up with some film-festival films and game-jam games, but no Life of Pi or Elder Scrolls. Those projects need hundreds or thousands of people to work on them, and ask any film/game/animation student how hard it is to get volunteers to not flake out on something. |
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Post by Killix on Mar 2, 2014 15:37:46 GMT -5
I also thought of the video game industry when I watched that, but they do face much different circumstances. One difference is that the massively inflated budgets that big game developers are using are so unnecessary. The Witcher 2 was made on a fraction of the budget of other "AAA" titles (it was $10 million), and it was critically acclaimed and successful. Then we have Tomb Raider, which was made on a budget of $100 million. It sold 3 million copies in one month... and was considered a failure because it didn't cover the development costs. I went searching around on the topic of game budgets and found this list: kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649Other articles that I read claimed that Bioshock Infinite's budget was $200 million. No wonder they went belly up.  They blame piracy (among other things) for their profit woes, but they most likely wouldn't be netting such huge losses if their expenses weren't so out of control, and consumers are already sick of the DRM and microtransactions plaguing our games. If things continue on this path for much longer, I believe that we just might experience another video game industry crash. |
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Post by The Wanderer on Mar 2, 2014 18:57:14 GMT -5
If money was not a factor, it'd be interesting to see how many more movies like "Life of Pi" or video games like "Elder Scrolls: Skyrim" were out in circulation right now. Not sure what you mean by money not being a factor. I mean, the only reason those movies and games exist is to make money. Is your hypothetical that companies throw infinite amounts of money at a project, or that no one pays anyone anything? In both cases, I'd venture to say fewer elaborate movies/games would be produced. Well it's a pipe dream, but an unrealistic one, I confess. Otherwise, would I be working the job I work now, if I had any other choice? It may be true then, that creativity is borne from the conflicts, especially from finances. Art from adversity, yes? However, I also believe that the ideas for great movie adaptations of books are there. It doesn't necessarily have to revolve around money, is what I'm getting at. I also thought of the video game industry when I watched that, but they do face much different circumstances. One difference is that the massively inflated budgets that big game developers are using are so unnecessary. The Witcher 2 was made on a fraction of the budget of other "AAA" titles (it was $10 million), and it was critically acclaimed and successful. Then we have Tomb Raider, which was made on a budget of $100 million. It sold 3 million copies in one month... and was considered a failure because it didn't cover the development costs. I went searching around on the topic of game budgets and found this list: kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649Other articles that I read claimed that Bioshock Infinite's budget was $200 million. No wonder they went belly up. They blame piracy (among other things) for their profit woes, but they most likely wouldn't be netting such huge losses if their expenses weren't so out of control, and consumers are already sick of the DRM and microtransactions plaguing our games. If things continue on this path for much longer, I believe that we just might experience another video game industry crash. In a manner of speaking, we already have (How many people here have Wii U's?). But, playing some of the lower budget indie games has given me some hope. |
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Post by Komori on Mar 2, 2014 19:19:15 GMT -5
Other articles that I read claimed that Bioshock Infinite's budget was $200 million. No wonder they went belly up. The reason Irrational Games went belly-up is because its studio head, Ken Levine, is choosing to close it, so he can focus on more narrative-driven stories with a smaller crew. Its parent company, Take-Two, was actually showing financial growth this quarter. Also, Ken Levine refutes that Infinite cost that much: www.gamespot.com/articles/bioshock-infinite-creative-director-denies-claims-game-cost-200-million-to-produce-and-market/1100-6405761/However, I also believe that the ideas for great movie adaptations of books are there. It doesn't necessarily have to revolve around money, is what I'm getting at. It does if you're going to get hundreds of people to work on it. One person with a great idea making a good movie? Not impossible. It's been done: check out film festivals. You're still not going to get a 3-hr Lord of the Rings, no matter how brilliant the original idea, because you're never going to motivate that many people with just a good idea. If no one needs that job to pay their rent, you'll have plenty of people leaving out of disinterest. |
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Post by Killix on Mar 2, 2014 23:35:50 GMT -5
Well, that's good. Yeesh, I checked at least 10 different articles and they all reported the $200 million pricetag. At least they didn't spend themselves to death like Ion Storm. XD |
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Post by The Wanderer on Mar 4, 2014 22:01:28 GMT -5
Other articles that I read claimed that Bioshock Infinite's budget was $200 million. No wonder they went belly up. The reason Irrational Games went belly-up is because its studio head, Ken Levine, is choosing to close it, so he can focus on more narrative-driven stories with a smaller crew. Its parent company, Take-Two, was actually showing financial growth this quarter. Also, Ken Levine refutes that Infinite cost that much: www.gamespot.com/articles/bioshock-infinite-creative-director-denies-claims-game-cost-200-million-to-produce-and-market/1100-6405761/However, I also believe that the ideas for great movie adaptations of books are there. It doesn't necessarily have to revolve around money, is what I'm getting at. It does if you're going to get hundreds of people to work on it. One person with a great idea making a good movie? Not impossible. It's been done: check out film festivals. You're still not going to get a 3-hr Lord of the Rings, no matter how brilliant the original idea, because you're never going to motivate that many people with just a good idea. If no one needs that job to pay their rent, you'll have plenty of people leaving out of disinterest. Hence the reason I didn't get into the video game development. I LOVE video games, especially the ones from studios you never heard of, until they release a flash of genius. But, I also LOVE the thought of being able to last at enough jobs to be able to retire by my mid-sixties, so it's a bit tricky in such a volatile market like that. Even so, that's a dream job, baby. (Because I'm already working a job that runs me 7 days a week, and often do odd hours, so that bit wouldn't be a culture shock to me.) |
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Post by M is for Morphine on Mar 5, 2014 12:27:38 GMT -5
It does if you're going to get hundreds of people to work on it. One person with a great idea making a good movie? Not impossible. It's been done: check out film festivals. You're still not going to get a 3-hr Lord of the Rings, no matter how brilliant the original idea, because you're never going to motivate that many people with just a good idea. If no one needs that job to pay their rent, you'll have plenty of people leaving out of disinterest. The other thing is that a cool adaptation of a fantasy novel is going to take special effects. Practical effects are great, but can only do so much. CGI up to the standards we have come to expect as an audience is a massive, massive undertaking and just the hardware alone is prohibitively expensive. Check out the kind of setup Industrial Light and Magic runs: Hoooly cow. Rendering one frame of CGI took them 72 hours. And there are 24 frames /s is standard for movies, I think. So 1,728 hours of processing for one second of movie! Weta's render farm at one time was 4,000 BL2x220c blades and those things are like $500 used (now, I can only imagine what they cost in 2009.). If you tried to duplicate that at today's prices it would still set you back 2 million dollars, and that's the servers alone. They also had to set up a custom water cooling system. This is all before you think about software, power (power use is amazing btw), computers and tablets for artists. No payroll either. So money is a factor because money has to be a factor. You have to put up so much years before you'll ever see any money back. So without corporations (or I guess really, really passionate millionaires.  ) willing to make an investment, there would be no Elder Scrolls or Life of Pi type movies. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 18, 2014 6:57:47 GMT -5
That was a really affecting documentary. It didn't really hit home what it might feel like to lose your job at a place you love working because VFX studios are so difficult to keep afloat as a business, until I saw the part about laying off hundreds of employees in a day. My heart goes out to the people who had to move around every few months away from their families and loved ones.
Then I can't help but wonder if these people are selling their work too cheaply because they really really want to work on movies (perhaps an unfair accusation for me to make, since there were other major problems with the industry as noted in the documentary). I wonder if there are some jobs - particularly creative ones - that will never pay well simply because lots of people would be happy to barely break even on it if necessary, let alone make a profit. And as long as there is a stream of poor artistic souls who would happily sacrifice more than you are willing to in order to have a creative career, you will never get a comfortable living out of doing what they do.
I'm not saying this as a criticism of creative people, since I agree that there is more to a productive life than earning money. But living like a "pixel gypsy"... I'd be stuffed if I got sick or had some kind of financial difficulty. How many things I would fantasise about doing, and try to make a profession out of, if only there wasn't the risk I'd be moving away from loves or begging my relatives for money if I did it.
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Post by Komori on Mar 26, 2014 23:27:06 GMT -5
And as long as there is a stream of poor artistic souls who would happily sacrifice more than you are willing to in order to have a creative career, you will never get a comfortable living out of doing what they do. Well, same could be said for almost any job. It's why jobs being outsourced to overseas where they can pay people pennies is such a problem. The only real hope you can have for security is to make yourself more talented than people willing to work for less. I mean, at some point you can't just employ hobbyists to work on your project for free: they're gonna have to find money to pay their rents too. That's why you see a zillion volunteer projects on the internet, and maybe 1% of them ever get finished. Also this is why the VFX industry needs to unionize. It's pretty bad in animation, but it's not nearly THAT bad, because the animator's guild has pretty clear guidelines for the major animation houses. (Though, the smaller the company, the easier it is for that company to get by with some pretty crappy business practices) But it's stuff like minimum pay, maximum amount of hours you can work in a given week or two, etc. Why it hasn't happened to VFX, I'll never know. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 1, 2014 8:29:45 GMT -5
And as long as there is a stream of poor artistic souls who would happily sacrifice more than you are willing to in order to have a creative career, you will never get a comfortable living out of doing what they do. Well, same could be said for almost any job. It's why jobs being outsourced to overseas where they can pay people pennies is such a problem. The only real hope you can have for security is to make yourself more talented than people willing to work for less. I mean, at some point you can't just employ hobbyists to work on your project for free: they're gonna have to find money to pay their rents too. That's why you see a zillion volunteer projects on the internet, and maybe 1% of them ever get finished. Also this is why the VFX industry needs to unionize. It's pretty bad in animation, but it's not nearly THAT bad, because the animator's guild has pretty clear guidelines for the major animation houses. (Though, the smaller the company, the easier it is for that company to get by with some pretty crappy business practices) But it's stuff like minimum pay, maximum amount of hours you can work in a given week or two, etc. Why it hasn't happened to VFX, I'll never know. That makes me feel a lot better. So after all, there is a way to compete successfully with the people who offer themselves cheaper, by offering better talent and more desirable services. Top quality work doesn't come free. It's strange to hear that there isn't a strong VFX guild. They deserve far more for their talent and time than what they're being paid. But hopefully these events will strengthen their resolve as they realise just how much the industry need to unionise. |
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) willing to make an investment, there would be no Elder Scrolls or Life of Pi type movies. 
