A call for collaboration in the indie VFX community

VFX work for “Ain’t Them Body Saints” Directed by David Lowery

Watching the Rhythm and Hues bankruptcy and the rightful backlash from the Oscars unfold, I have taken an odd comfort that the problems we face in the VFX industry are consistent, regardless of scale and budget.

As a small VFX shop in New York (I mean small, we are a core of 4), the bulk of our work is in independent film and cable television. Although the budgets are much, much lower, time frames more compressed, the quality of work and effort in how that work gets done is the same. As if you step on a small independent set, or graduate to a larger budget with more crew, locations and equipment, the work does not change.

VFX work for “Ain’t Them Body Saints” Directed by David Lowery

Unfortunately, the structural and financial problems that exist in Hollywood, also exist for us as well. The bidding process rarely occurs in the sense that you cost out projects to provide X work for an X number. More often than not, you are given a number and either agree to a flat rate (including unforeseen overages, countless revisions, any number of inherited technical issues) or lose the work to a shop who will, or more commonly in the indie world, “ the friend of a friend”.

VFX work on “Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel” Directed by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt

So as we in the VFX world nod our heads, you take the work and hope that you line something up to keep the cash flow moving. It is a tenuous, vicious cycle, and the financial burden inevitably cascades down when it fails. As everyone watches this scenario play out on a much larger, devastating scale in Hollywood, I do think this is an opportunity to address this epidemic in our business and look to ways to repair the relationship of how films get made.

Much of the core problem stems from the “vendor” mentality with VFX. It is more often than not viewed as a commodity to be priced out, and not an important artistic relationship (akin to the Director-Cinematographer, Production Designer, etc.) VFX artists are gifted and creative filmmakers as well. At least the good ones are. Those who understand this are our most successful partnerships. They bring us in early pre-production and we engage creatively and financially so we achieve the director’s vision as well as a bottom line reality. The more filmmakers value our unique contribution to the work, the healthier our industry will be on a whole. VFX is not going away, and as we see more and more, it is now a common need on the smallest films.

VFX work on History Channels “Titanic at 100″

As young filmmakers include the VFX house/artists as an invaluable component to their core creative team from the outset, this is truly a place where indie film can lead on how the industry evolves.

For us in VFX world, we must do all we can to engage and yes, insist on the value of those partnerships. If we don’t have the directors and producers behind us, we will continue to be on the outside of the solution.