And the winner is...

February 26, 2014 12:03 PM

Life After Pi : How Rythm & Hues declared bankruptcy and 11 days later won an Oscar for their work on 'Life of Pi' (SLYT).

This is only the first chapter of an upcoming feature-length documentary Hollywood Ending, that delves into the larger, complex challenges facing the US Film Industry and the many professionals working within it, whose fates and livelihood are intertwined.

posted by PenDevil (23 comments total)

I think there's a lot of info to mine in the whole hollywood accounting business. This specific instance sounds interesting. BUT this post sounds like pepsi blue, given the inside link and the whole "tell your friends, take action, share your story" language of the hollywood ending site.
posted by k5.user at 12:22 PM on February 26, 2014

The fact that Ang Lee could accept the Oscar for best director for Life of Pi without acknowledging the large group of artists who made most of the film possible speaks to the conflict of egos and economics in Hollywood today. The DGA doesn't want to lose ground to the "intangible" world of VFX, so they've distanced themselves by allowing studio suits and accountants to be the intermediaries between a production and the visual designers. The suits have, unsurprisingly, decided that the overall look and feel of a film are extravagances that can be outsourced to the lowest bidder. Another triumph of the free market.
posted by gallois at 12:23 PM on February 26, 2014 [9 favorites]

Not the broadest post, k5.user, but most docs don't make money. Thus far this has been entirely funded by the producer and director, with donated time and resources from others. I do think they're just trying to tell a story here although I'm not entirely sure they have the angle.
posted by dhartung at 12:33 PM on February 26, 2014

Why would the remaining companies take contracts in a shape that, say, freelance web developers learned to say no to years ago? A lot of VFX shops closed, but if the remaining ones are still able to compete at a level that they are rapidly moving countries to bid on idiotic fixed-price contracts that have historically screwed them over maybe there's a bit too much supply in the market.
posted by sixohsix at 12:45 PM on February 26, 2014

I've worked in VFX for 10 years and can vouch for the truth of every single thing in this video. As a London VFX artist I benefit from the tax stuff, but the "we'll fix it in post" mentality is complete madness, it's bad for the films, for the artists, for the studios, everybody. It's particularly dead-on on how cramping it has been to the creativity of the medium that we're seen as delivering packaged commodities at the tail end, rather than as creative collaborators, even in films that are 70-80 percent animated (notable exception: Gravity, where Cuaron was hands-on, very respectful, and has thanked the vfx crew at every award). Every time you complain about how 'uninteresting' cg is, there's are structural reasons for that, it's not the nature of the medium. You can do wonderful things with vfx but we'll be recycling the same dead look for the forseeable future so long as we're frantically shovelling pixels into the furnace two months before release.
posted by Erasmouse at 12:52 PM on February 26, 2014 [15 favorites]

When I was doing prepress in the mid-1990s, we used to produce the film separations for a magazine called (I think) Computer Graphics Monthly. Just while QC'ing my own films, I learned very quickly that Rhythm and Hues -- even that long ago -- was doing really great stuff.

I was amazed to hear they'd gone under. Has Hollywood really shifted that much of the filming process to post-production (and failed to correspondingly alter the payments) that they could get sunk this way?
posted by wenestvedt at 12:59 PM on February 26, 2014

There was a good stretch where the CGI folks were turning bits into gold, well green. The cost of a license to Maya was steep and modeling or other specialty had a long learning curve and there was a shortage of talent and effects movies started making a lot of money. Then very quickly at a certain point the inevitable hardware and software costs dropped, lots of people around the world saw how they could enter the market with a show reel and a low bid.

Rhythm and Hues was a surprise, it had seemed incredibly stable for several eternities in both tech and show biz time. Most movies are a small con er, independent businesses, spun up for the duration of the production. Everyone involved is an independent contractor, some unionized, very very few with the importance to get a large up front payment. The CGI folks got some pretty big payments, but if it was not enough, tough. If they had ever skimped on the quality of the result, that would be the last bid they ever won. I'm sure they tried to work with reasonable producers (what an oxymoron) but everyone gets squeezed. Show biz is tough, always boom and bust.

I knew a few folks and did a bit of graphic work but didn't move to California, would've been interesting.
posted by sammyo at 1:06 PM on February 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

The fact that Ang Lee could accept the Oscar for best director for Life of Pi without acknowledging the large group of artists who made most of the film possible speaks to the conflict of egos and economics in Hollywood today.

considering the only reason i went to see this in theaters was to experience the impressive 3d/VFX work (hell, really the only reason i see anything in the theaters these days), it was pretty shocking to see them get so consistently screwed. i just cant comprehend how "forcing established VFX studios into insolvency" is a good gameplan for hollywood now that the vast majority of movies are completely reliant on... high end VFX.
posted by young_son at 1:15 PM on February 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

A couple I know from R&H are selling their beautiful home and garden and most of their (rare, vintage) belongings so they can move to Mexico where their retirement savings will go a lot further. I wish I'd met them earlier—they are super-cool people.

Every effects place I have contacts has either seen huge pay cuts or has been bought and stripped and the work sent to India.
posted by infinitewindow at 2:00 PM on February 26, 2014

In discussing the issue of fixed bids, the doc uses construction bids as an analogy — but points out that unlike VFX companies, construction firms get to work from a set blueprint, and charge for cost overruns when the blueprint changes.

Have any VFX studios attempted to create contracts under a similar model? And are any studios willing to plot out the work they expect before hiring a company?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:08 PM on February 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here's a pretty interesting post about the American VFX industry and its relationship to the big media conglomerates. They kind of bury the lede, but among the interesting points is that the VFX industry is using some of the MPAA's own arguments about intellectual property to push for trade tariffs on offshored VFX work. Also, apparently there are plans for a protest at the Oscars.
posted by whir at 2:24 PM on February 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

The creatives in almost any industry always get the shit end of the stick. Unrealistic demands and deadlines, low compensation, unceasing meddling by management that is often clueless, you name it. Much of it, in my opinion, is using artists' desire to do the best job possible against them; sort of psychological hostage-taking. That this happens so blatantly in the film industry is about a million shades of fucked up.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 2:29 PM on February 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

I've been working with a couple of video guys over the past few days out on a corporate gig, and we had exactly the conversation about our respective specialisms that Benny Andajetz describes. As in, exactly.

You're a creative. You take pride in your work. You do good work. But you have to work for people who do not understand what good work is, how hard good work is, how much good work should cost. Perhaps there are some people in the god-awful approvals process who do know all this, but if there are they don't get much of a voice. Instead. there is a fixed budget backed by an infinite number of people who - and one can argue why they're there and what they're doing - can demand changes at 4pm on a Friday before they knock off, changes that you have to make at ten o'clock that night or midnight on Saturdays or the work won't be accepted.

The thing is - the really gnarly, paradoxical thing - is that without creatives, nothing would happen. The computers can't make the VFX from blank hard disks. The cameras can't frame shots themselves. Footage does not magically edit itself. Scripts do not fall out of Final Draft at the touch of a single button. It is the paradox of Hollywood - which is everywhere repeated - that the people who actually provide all the motive force on which everything else is based are at the bottom of the pyramid where all the shit falls.

Which is why there are unions, why there is collective action, and why such things have been steadily dismembered, defanged and neutered for as long as the two Ls in Hollywood have stood for lawyers and lobbyists.

And all anyone has to do to change things is to remember a fair day's work should get a fair day's pay. and then remember that a fair day's pay should generate a fair day's work. (That last bit is crucial, and why unions have let themselves die.)

As that video pointed out - once there's a solid link between work and pay, it's amazing how the corporate mind concentrates on being as professional about managing as it demands its workers be... then they can do their job, which is supporting those who make the stuff, and those who make the stuff can do theirs.
posted by Devonian at 3:35 PM on February 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Came to post the pando link whir just submitted. Long rambling discussion that suggest tariffs for overseas intellectual property (based on convoluted logic after an MPAA position paper). Clearly few in that niche get it. Unless there is some kind of industry wide power, union or governmental it's not happening. The individual CGI companies certainly can not make an agreement about prices.

I've been hoping to see independent film use graphics to boost the look into the blockbuster level. Looks like it still is just too log a project. You occasionally see an amazing youtube CGI short but they seem to usually be audition tapes to get into the industry. At some point there's going to be a convergence of Machinima and indie films and we'll just need a little bit of actors and a full film will be pipped out of a PC.

Or possibly the research will push past the uncanny valley and everything will be made in asian graphics sweat shops. Actors still popular but needing a quick cashout will be digitized and the level of entertainment will stabilize on an international sensibility.
posted by sammyo at 3:38 PM on February 26, 2014

Partly, this is justified by a form of cultural exception, where the subsidizing government can claim that it's simply protecting/promoting its "VFX culture". Same deal with the "Canadian film industry" where we use taxpayer money to disguise Toronto into New York or Chicago and fund stuff like Meatballs and Porky's.

At the same time, cultural subsidies do allow people like Robert Morin to do interesting movies.

The movie business seems like it's completely rotten, but given its political influence, I doubt it will get cleaned anytime soon.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 4:00 PM on February 26, 2014

Benny Andajetz: "Much of it, in my opinion, is using artists' desire to do the best job possible against them; sort of psychological hostage-taking. That this happens so blatantly in the film industry is about a million shades of fucked up."

That's pretty much how every job from McDonalds up works - preying on the average person's inherent desire to do a good job for personal satisfaction is cheaper than paying them enough to ensure personal satisfaction.
posted by Pinback at 4:05 PM on February 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

I watched the documentary and I think it makes a very compelling case that the current system seems unsustainable. In my ideal world reform of the copyright system would ensure that the artists who make creative products would be ensured a fair and ongoing royalty from their work.
posted by humanfont at 6:36 PM on February 26, 2014

whir: They kind of bury the lede, but among the interesting points is that the VFX industry is using some of the MPAA's own arguments about intellectual property to push for trade tariffs on offshored VFX work.

From the article:

In a twist that seems crafted by professional scriptwriters, [the Washington law firm of Picard, Kentz and Rowe hired by "VFX soldier"] discovered a legal document submitted by the MPAA just two weeks ago, when the organization decided to weigh in on an seemingly inconsequential International Trade Commission case involving 3-D printers.

To effectuate Congressional intent to protect domestic industries, the Commission can and must construe the term “articles” to include imported electronic transmissions, consistent with its own precedent and decisions from other administrative agencies and courts.

…The need to regulate the burgeoning international trade in digital intellectual property is widely recognized by U.S. policymakers. The U.S. government has consistently recognized that international trade in digital forms of intellectual property is every bit as “real” as trade in traditional manufactured goods.

The use of electronic means to import into the United States infringing articles threatens important domestic industries such as the motion picture and software industries, as well as U.S. consumers and the government at all levels.

(Emphasis found in the Pando article.)

In a statement to Pando, the MPAA proudly reiterated this position.

“Congress has given the ITC broad authority to protect U.S. industries from unfair acts in importation,” said spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield, adding that if the government doesn’t recognize digital products as imports, “American businesses lose an important protection, which puts them at a significant international disadvantage.”

The article goes on to note that if movies are to be considered imports, so should the VFX work featured in movies.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:58 PM on February 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

This was really good, with a lot of insights. Thanks for posting.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:02 PM on February 26, 2014

I've worked in VFX in California for the last 10 years and have many colleagues who were fired from Rhythm. Many are still trying to find their way in an industry that is currently spinning. I've worked in both staff and contract-based positions at two of the major studios in town and have worked at many other smaller studios as a contract-artist. Everything in this video is true, but it doesn't even go far enough.

What happened to Rhythm and Hues also happened to Digital Domain (Titanic, Tron, Benjamin Buttons, Oblivion, etc., etc. etc...) whom initially cut wages, laid folks off and is now owned by a Chinese venture capital company. Similar layoffs and offshoring happened to Sony in Culver City...and is happening to some degree even to all the smaller shops you haven't heard of: Framestore, Pixomondo, Zoic etc. The industry in the US is TANKING and as an insider I can tell you it is primarily a result of the foreign tax subsidies which this video does a good job of explaining...but secondarily, and this is more based on my own opinion, is due to a lack of a union or even a basic trade organization which could have been used as leverage against the studios.

Unless there is some kind of industry wide power, union or governmental it's not happening. The individual CGI companies certainly can not make an agreement about prices.

I agree with this poster. I had been grousing about unionization since 2006 - at that time mainly as a way to enforce proper labor practices. I was tired then of long hours, weekend work and never ever getting away from work. I was burned out and couldn't stand it...but no one was interested in unionization. No one in VFX was interested in unionization even as late as 2011 when the effects of the subsidies began to be felt and work started going up to Canada with surprising regularity. Finally people are talking about unions but that ship has largely sailed as I see it.

Change has been slow in the VFX community and it moves along now with the help of a few people who really fought against the tide to change things. They are literally just individuals (some are former coworkers) focused now on what are called "countervailing duties" or CVDs - which would basically offset the rebates that studios are pocketing. It's exciting that there is a galvanizing movement to change things but ultimately money will need to be donated to bring this thing to court - which will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is talk of an effort to get everyone to donate one-days pay to the effort. I have my doubts it will sail, but I will donate. I would rather the effort focused on unionization or a trade organization. The VFX industry needs leverage. Period.

Disney and Dreamworks create 3d animated feature films (distinct industry from VFX, although same skillset) that win oscars and make gobs of money and both facilities have staff that are unionized. 'Features Animation' as we call it in VFX is the promised land. Union, good pay, good hours, no need to relocate from city to city just to work.

A lot of VFX shops closed, but if the remaining ones are still able to compete at a level that they are rapidly moving countries to bid on idiotic fixed-price contracts that have historically screwed them over maybe there's a bit too much supply in the market.

While VFX is certainly a saturated market in one respect...there are really only a handful of companies that are able to meet the needs of major studio films. Those companies are / were: Digital Domain, Weta Digital, Sony Imageworks, Rhythm and Hues, ILM, and maybe two or three others. The market for feature film work is simply not that saturated given the number of films that require high-end work these days (some films with over 75 percent of content completely computer generated) and the fact that the companies that do TV / Commercial work simply can't pull off the work on that scale. Each of those main companies, some of which I have worked for, have had to open Canada offices on their dime just to be able to bid on feature film work...and they all compete against each other to get the bids - often creating a race to the bottom. As all the work is fixed-bid and not a-la-carte...they often operate in the red or just on the margins to keep the doors open. They see no subsidy money or film residuals. This is important to re-emphasize.

...construction firms get to work from a set blueprint, and charge for cost overruns when the blueprint changes have any VFX studios attempted to create contracts under a similar model? And are any studios willing to plot out the work they expect before hiring a company?

Any company that tries to create a contract under a similar model is quickly outbid by another VFX company because there is no Trade Association or Unions to enforce standards. A Trade Association would allow large companies to come together and essentially cartelize and use that leverage to negotiate a change in contract structure...but as it stands they all fight each other and if one tried to take a stand it would quickly go out of business. That's how thin the margins are. Most of these companies are literally paying for themselves with the very movies they are working on at the moment. Also, VFX studios try VERY hard to plan out what they expect to be working on and are quite good at that...but ultimately it is a service industry catering to the whims of studios and directors with hopes that they will curry favor and get future films / bids...and as such they get jerked around by studios and directors every single time. You can easily agree on what will be worked on...but when a director changes his mind and wants something else you really can't say no...lest you lose their good graces before the sequel comes around.

It really is a crazy time in the VFX industry and many have been trying to escape. Starting this year I work as staff at a small design company in LA...still doing CG...but away from the VFX scene. I have no interest in chasing this thing all around the world just to work 14 hour days in a different country. No thanks. That being said there is a protest this weekend outside of the Oscars that is being run by a new association of folks here. I have no stake in this group, but in full disclosure many members are former colleagues.

I'm so jaded that I don't really think this industry is worth saving and that unless there is a real movement to start a union I will try to slowly extricate myself from the mire that it has become.
posted by jnnla at 10:30 PM on February 26, 2014 [9 favorites]

Here's an idea that obviously can't work, but may be an intriguing thought experiment.

What if collectivisation was enabled through the tools of VFX? When you buy a license or become a licensed user, one of the conditions is that you become a voting member of a trade organisation and abide by its terms. This may seem coercion of the worst sort, but is (I think) a reasonable analogy of representative democracy.

What those rules are, you have to decide among yourselves. You personally have to exercise your vote and it is anonymous (use Bitcoin protocols for that part).
posted by Devonian at 4:16 AM on February 27, 2014

Oh, one thing, these are graphics and design people. Couldn't they come up with better protest posters? At least as good as the writers strike ;-)
posted by sammyo at 5:58 AM on February 27, 2014

That's pretty much how every job from McDonalds up works - preying on the average person's inherent desire to do a good job for personal satisfaction is cheaper than paying them enough to ensure personal satisfaction.

Yeah, but if you make a sub-standard burger, only one guy is going to eat that burger. They're not going to show that burger on 3000 screens and then release it on DVD and Blu Ray, and then every time someone finds out you worked on that burger, you try to convince them you would have made a better burger if you'd had extra time to finish it, and there hadn't been last-minute changes, etc.
posted by RobotHero at 12:32 PM on February 27, 2014