How the VFX industry plateaued and where it might go from here.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Youll believe a man can fly.
It wasnt an idle promise.
Today, its hard to imagine a cinematic world where humansdontfly.
Anything, it seems, is possible.
And maybe thats the problem.
Its not that the VFX were bad; often, they were quite good.
But they also felt curiously underwhelming.
But by and large, they havent come from giant, spectacular superhero or space battles.
(Dont believe me?
Check out the credits forRoma.)
Im a dinosaur, del Toro adds.
I always say build as much as you’ve got the option to.
The more you could make things physical, the better the movie is.
Or, more bluntly: Special effects arent so special anymore.
Its a statement echoed by numerous professionals in the industry.
It has destroyed movie making.
The viewers imagination isnt given a job anymore.
With advances in digital effects came a certain democratization of the process and eventually, a globalization of it.
Starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the VFX industry became a truly worldwide business.
Whats more, the VFX coming out of these houses were world-class.
(WETAsawards shelfis truly something to behold.)
The long hours, and the lack of job security or benefits have taken their toll.
Disgruntled workers and brain drain are only part of the problem, however.
Now, we have around 4,000 staff, spread across three continents.
But he also notes that it hasnt been steady sailing.
The turmoil comes partly because the financial margins of the VFX industry are often quite brutal.
VFX companies generally get work by bidding on individual productions before a shoot starts.
The client base is quite small, Franklin continues.
Only a handful of Hollywood studios can put up the budgets required to make the VFX we do.
And therein lies the problem.
Theres enormous pressure on the vendors to deliver by a certain date, says Franklin.
In some ways, this also explains where thegoodeffects come from.
Its not the VFX artists who ultimately determine how a shot should look.
He says there was a lot of pressure for the character to be more whiz-bang FX-y, he says.
But the filmmakers didnt want Joi to look like a visual effect.
Jim told Alfonso, The tools you want dont exist.
Youre a decade away from being able to do this.
But Alfonso and [cinematographer] Emmanuel Lubezkiinvented the toolsthey needed and raised the game.
The director famously prefers practical effects and tries to avoid heavy CGI whenever he can.
That shot is in camera; Ryan is actually looking at the horizon.
Its reflected in his visor, andits reflected in his eye.
I used to do that work myself.
I used to be a compositor.
I know how tricky it is to do that in post.
The director is working with an even more powerful and versatile version of this process on hisAvatarsequels.
WithFirst Man, we joked that were not doing post anymore, were doing pre-production, says Lambert.
Because we were creating content for the screen to be played during the shoot itself.
Suddenly, we were part of the filmmaking process.
But it also means that peoples mindsets will have to shift.
If you want to change something later, then you have to pay to change it later.
Digital humans are often thought of as the holy grail, Failes says.
But theyre still trying to make it last onscreen for longer than a few minutes its an ongoing process.
And those are just the most obvious ones.
It always feels like were five years away from it, Franklin says.
We all know what young Will Smith looks like.
We can streamMen in BlackorBad Boysright now if we want to watch him again.
But to see him in a new film, acting against himself, will be something.
Cinema has always frozen time.
But now, it will have conquered it and maybe even conquered death along the way.
