Over at Animation World Network (AWN), Richard Kerrigan has a damning article on the possible crumbling of California’s Visual Effects industry. Continually being undercut by studios abroad, local strikes, and budget concerns, could California quickly find itself as the Visual Effects equivalent of Detroit? Take this story from the VES Festival of Visual Effects several years ago.
Hands were raised and soft, polite technical questions were tossed forward and easily answered. Another hand was selected and a strong clear voice asked. “How much do you guys pay?”. Suddenly the room became encased in a frozen moment of time. You could see a pin drop. The seven presenters looked like seven deer reset into Hitchcock’s Vertigo shot. As the question was on the tip of everyone’s mind the rightness of it relaxed tensions within the audience and shifted it to the contestants. The audience leaned forward and settled in awaiting the answer. The presenters blinked back. Responsibly (bravely…? foolishly…?) the gentleman from China started to shift and to make a noise. The audience tilted still more forward – rapt. His eyes glazed, he opened his mouth and out blew “Five hundred dollars a month”. It was the audience’s turn to go frozen deer.
What do you think?
via California Visual Effects Industry Gets Weaker Every Day | AWN | Animation World Network.
While California seems to be the poster child for this type of activity in the industry, it is starting to be more prevalent all over the world. I think we need some answers. We are losing a lot of great artists who are burning out or who can’t keep up with the difficult demands that are put upon them in a short turnaround. I work for Boogie Studio, we are a VFX and sound design studio in Montreal; we specialize in high-end creative effects for the advertising industry.
We have not seen the same kind of pressures that the film industry is facing as of yet. I think it is only a matter of time before this trend will affect advertising, television and the video game industry. The standards and time allotted for projects are changing due to the outsourcing and underbidding from other studios. The whole world is starting to feel the crunch and a lot of studios are starting to close down, while a lot of talented SR artists are out of work
I would love to hear some possible solutions to save the VFX industry. If you would like to see some of our work and read similar posts to this, please check out our blog.
http://www.boogiestudio.com
Thanks!