Watching the clip from the Oscars is still disgusting to me. Like, how childish can you get, cutting him off and playing silly music? And the audience just laughed. Pitiful.
Maybe if that guy hadnt wasted his time rambling he couldve gotten his message across. it is his own fault that he decides to make a statement once he already knows he is supposed to stop
PrismGuy it was even more disgusting to see celebs like Nicole Kidman reacting like “boo-hoo cry me a fuckin river over your stupid little special effects team”. I kinda always had a special hate for her, but this was unbelievable. Fuck celebs. The VFX team really deserves mich more respect and credit for their hard work they’ve put into this project
Unbelievable that the Avengers cast get five minutes in between awards to say a bunch of unfunny dialog that Jimmy Kimmel wrote for them, but the actual recipients are only given 45 seconds to speak
I worked at R+H 11 years ago. John Hughes is exactly the man depicted in this film. He's among the most humble, compassionate, intelligent and mild mannered people I've ever encountered. He openly discussed all sorts of topics with me at the lunch table. He told me the reason R+H exists was for the employees and their benefits package proved it. Each Friday he'd present the company's bids, profits and losses with anyone interested and the ultimate bankruptcy was clear then as the losses often outweighed the profits. Heartbreaking on many levels.
been in a lot of studios in my 20+ years in this industry and John was the most standup guy, and ive never felt more sorry for someone. I still don't know what happened but im sure John was as blindsided as the rest. Was such a beautiful place to be. hope all my friends are doing well out there.
@@flipnap2112 hey man, R+H is now located a little east of its Playa Vista location, right on Jefferson by the Culver City Stairs. I wholeheartedly agree. John was a great guy.
So, this John Hughes lost his company rather then screw over his employees...and was willing to trade all of his Founding Member stock to keep doors open (20 mil actually isn't much in the corporate world).... and helped an employee move... ....The boss you wish you had, everyone. We need more like him. That's a leader, not just a boss. I hope he finds a way to rise from these ashes.
We need more such people. But here is also the problem. If you're one of them. You go down. In the kind of economy we have you're supposed to do two things to succeed. 1. You outcompete everyone else and 2. you screw them over if necessary. And any kind of cooperation, altruism or anything even remotely in that direction is frowned upon and not seen as viable, because it honestly isn't. Profit at all cost is what's employed and not because people are evil. It is simply what's needed.
The fact that he got cut off like that shocked me. It was almost like he was a nerd getting picked on by the cool kids... It was such a childish thing for someone to do to him.
I hate to break it to you but the video game industy's standards of employment aren't much better than Hollywood's. Just look at what happened to Telltale.
@@3dbobber maybe if he had made his statement at the beginning of his speech instead of after rambling on about everything else.. maybe then he couldve gotten his point across
What really, REALLY pissed me off was 22:52. All the over-paid movie stars laughing, Nicole Kidman saying "Awww, poor thing," and other crowd reactions. Insulting. I wish it was possible for the VFX companies to just not take any work for a while so that people could realize that, while the actors/actresses are the ones in front of the cameras, it's the people behind the scenes that make the actual shot possible.
Documentaries like this are depressing because they come, convince a lot of people that stuff needs to change, garner sympathy, and then people wake up the next morning and move on with their lives without a second thought.
@Prince Fabulous Seems like you think some jobs are more important than others as if you think there's no value in making art like there is to find value in farming, I gotta say that's a shitty attitude you have about the importance of struggling to make a living just because these VFX artists are being laid off not being able to have money or food for their families just because they didn't break their backs planting crops and producing food for you and your families to take advantage of and never once think about the hard work that goes into providing for you and your family to stay alive. If you're getting money to do a thing then you got a real fucking job, it doesn't matter if you're a digital artist, a farmer, a youtuber, a pathetic soulless hollowed husk of a person working a 9-5 job putting your livelihood into a company that'll make or break your life and cut off any support for yourself or your family until you have to live a life blowing dogs for quarters. Saying we shouldn't care about what happens to these people just because they don't work hard enough like your daddy did in the fields makes you less than human and just a stuck-up and ungrateful prick who doesn't understand the value of people and their passions and the shitty growth of unchecked capitalism that is destroying this country and the world, people SHOULD be made aware, people SHOULD be reminded about this terrible shit happening and if you think it won't affect you in any negative way, guess what? The companies are coming for you and your family too and you'll have no one else but yourself for not speaking up against them and saying no one should care.
Even sadder is that now vfx artists are joined by designers, 3d modelers for architecture and production, renderers, clay modelers, digital graphics, sound designers, sound editors, etc...if you're an artist good luck being a slave
Especially now that marvel is mass producing their films and working their artists to the bone and get mediocre results out of it. The vfx industry needs to be unionized.
VFX have degraded film to being a laughing stock, they are whores - put simply. Had they held themselves with any shred of self-respect they would have pushed back on the over-reliance on VFX in movies today, but instead all they saw were dollar signs. Sorry, but when you act like a whore, you shouldn't be surprised when you get treated like one.
I am a student studying Animation and Visual Effects in Pennsylvania. And my professors are showing my classmates this documentary my first year, freshman year, in the first semester. My professors want to hammer home that the career paths we as students will take may be a hard one. But this also means change is necessary now more than ever. Artists should be treated as human beings that deserve to pay for food, water, take care of their spouse, and or kids. But they're not. Work overtime with NO Pay or work leave? While executives, directors, and actors rack so much of profit while artists who make the magic get nothing? It's unfair. It has to change. Bill Westenhofer being cut off at the Oscars while the rest of Hollywood was mocking him BOILS my blood. Why do the rest of the entertainment industry love to shit on the people who make their movie magic even come alive? When I'm an artist of my own, do know I'll stand with everyone for a better change for artists who make this magic work. Who make the stories that everyone love so much.
@@c.i.a9221 8:00 that's not capitalism. That's the state directly interfering with the free market to create a non competitive environment that favors certain studios over others. That is legitimately the opposite of capitalism.
@@landbeforetimeee That's exactly what UNCHECKED capitalism is, not only are these big studios spineless and terrified to take any risks on any projects even when the corrupt communist chinese government is already stacking billions of dollars on top of the billions they already have, why should any of these studios bother having more unionized workplace or treat any of the VFX artists with better wages the studios can more than afford especially their CEOs? Seriously fuck these corporate jack-offs for not taking better care of their workers.
DarkToboki actually, unchecked capitalism might actually be better, the government actually actively helped the big suits in this case. Unchecked implies that the government isn’t really paying attention, they are paying attention, they just don’t care.
Have you guys seen the blender foundation gooseberry project yet? They are going to make an open source animation feature film. gooseberry.blender.org/
@@randomdude189 it is though, because these are the people who create entertainment for us, imagine learning a craft for YEARS (most of these people go to college for this shit) just to be treated like this once you get into the industry? It should be a well-paying job for well trained people, they shouldn’t be forced to learn a new craft in the middle of their fucking lives just because the industry decided to shaft them. “Oh just get a different job” youre a fuckin dumbass
@@randomdude189 Fuck wad. These people are the Marines of Post production. They are the first in and last out. If its doesn't look right at the end, they have to fix it. Even if people on set made the mistake. You don't train 3 years to get a job at McDonalds. It's highly talent based. When these people once they go away. Go away. Nobody will train to rotoscope as long as it takes if they are going to get a "job" some where else.
Unfortunately, it's happening again. The studio that redesigned Sonic The Hedgehog is shutting down before Christmas (less than 2 months before the movie's release date).
Daniel Harmon the fans that ridiculed the first trailer and made fun of it may have expressed their dissatisfaction with the design, but if all these fanboys knew what’s going on behind the scenes, how the Hollywood studios treat their VFX artists and force them to work many unpaid hours on the project etc. So sad.
Troll Face it might not of even mattered if the fanboys didn’t cause a huge storm. Apparently some suit approved the original design because he wanted a more realistic sonic despite people telling him that it was a brain dead idea. Also, the redesign probably didn’t cost too much money, it was fairly early in development while it happened, it wasn’t like they completely made the movie and then had to redesign it.
@@trollface865 fans did nothing wrong, if you making a bad movie than people will not give you money from the kindest of their heart, and if fixing the problem cost you more than dont fix it. overall this film was a mistake.
razmw I’d say corporate meddling is the biggest problem in movies right now. You don’t get these situations without some higher-up ignoring the voices of fans and animators. Sonic’s bad design was approved by someone who was ignoring criticisms from the animation staff And yes I know this is a late reply haha
It's so sad to see while studios make millions and billions of profits... They don't pay any heed to their actual assets. The entire work should be collaborative and not just contractual.....God bless VFX Community. Thanks for giving us visualizations that we had just dreamed of!!!!
It absolutely should be collaborative! Look at Life of Pi and All the Marvel movies, as an example... the whole story is being told with CGI/VFX. It's not like these companies are hired to make it rain on a sunny day - it's the whole entire story!
22:33 Deamn Oscars, puting the Jaws theme on top of a serious speech to get thousands of artist re-employed, that´s because they don´t wont serious issues in his show. Academy,that isn´t funny, it´s insulting and childish. Hope all of you at Rhythm & Hues Studios have a good life.
For the longest time I've believed that CGI when it comes to organic creatures (particularly realistic ones) just wasn't there yet, and for a time that may have been truth, but looking at this documentary, I'm no longer in that camp. Also whoever was in control of the Oscars was really out of line, and shame on Ang Lee.
We do it because we love it. 70 hour weeks is absolutely standard when it comes to feature films. No overtime, if we are lucky, maybe dinner after putting in our 12 hour days. And an animator's contract is worded in such a way that even though you've signed for a year, you can be let go without notice as the project progresses (and your shots are done). Studios frequently hire X artists for the duration of a show/film. Then at the halfway point the release X/2 artists. You have no idea it's coming, just one day you are called in to HR and asked to hand in your badge (it only happened to me once in all my years of working, but it did happen to some artists on every project I have ever worked on). As far as I can see, the industry is not getting better. It's just getting worse.
Totally, this documentary is great food for thought. It's one of my favorite doc's. I remember being 16 and seeing the 2013 protests outside the Oscars and being angry. At the time I was just learning AE and Blender and I was just so concerned and angry.
@@CharlieKnottFilms it could be 3 minutes long though. The main issue was agreeing to a flat rate payment and poor budget planning. It’s funny to see these artist feel dramatic when they can easily get a steady job and do their hobby on the side. They aren’t soldiers lol they are doing luxury art.
I worked with John at Rhythm & Hues during the early years as their publicist. John and the cofounders came from Abel & Associates. I asked John one day what Rhythm & Hues was about. He said, "all the good things about working at Abel, but none of the bad." I never worked for a better company than Rhythm & Hues. I never respected anyone as much as I did John Hughes. It must break his heart that R+H went bankrupt. John becomes the heavy in this drama, but like Keith Goldfarb said, R+H was an incredible success story even staying in business for 25 years. I know that for a fact, the company, privately funded, was always on the precipice. Try working and living on the precipice for 25 years. Amazing story. I'm proud to be just one part of an amazing chapter that is the story of R+H.
I hope John and everyone are doing well now. It’s beyond unfortunate that VFX artists, the very backbone to major motion pictures are undervalued the way they are. What can we do to inspire real change in the VFX industry?
This is why I'm really reluctant to go to school for animation. I currently have my courses selected for this fall, and I love working on animation, but I'm not sure if I would have the endurance to work in the industry. The way these companies treat employees is inhumane, the fact that this is legal is what shocks me most of all, even retail works have more labor rights.
This is late but you can check out Ethanbecker70+, it's a hub for animators, voice actors, designers, etc you can collab and work on independent short films and such.
It seems like this goes back to the problem that Disney had with Computer Animation back in the 80s, they wanted to know how computers would make filmmaking either faster or cheaper, when John Lasseter was like "Woah, this is a different artform, a new medium where we can do more, it's not going to be cheaper." it's just that now the industry still expects that computers, VFX, will save them money AND make their films look better. Practical FX = Pay by the hour, "we can't pay more to change the practical FX, but we won't pay more AND change the CG"
Pretty amazing short documentary about the artists hand in filmmaking. As artists we are not given enough credit for what we do in this industry and any industry. People's idea about being an artist is that you are doing what you love so therefore you should do it for free or at little expense to the client, when in reality we are trying to make a living just as anyone else is. So if you take the time to watch this think about how dull your life would be without art. It is sad to think that being an artist was once one of the most prestigious careers a person could have is now considered one of the lowest.
Hey man, how much money would you want to do another pair of A Day To Remember shoes? Willing to shell out the bucks for a close friend. email me. remoteball1@gmail.com thanks buddy.
A lot of movies today are not about a great story. They are about a story being told with amazing visual effects. I've seen quite a few movies with a horrible story just because they have awesome VFX; Pacific Rim comes to mind. And yet the people who make the majority of the movie make the least amount of money and can't sustain their passion. It's really sad. I feel for the people at R&H and the many other companies that have gone under because of the unbalanced model.
Thank you for releasing this documentary to the public. I'm very saddened to see what's really going on behind the scenes. This is very touching and although I'm not in the VFX industry, I sympathise and I'm doing everything in my power to make people aware of a much needed change in this industry. Best, Mark
Question to anyone that has worked in the VFX industry/knows how it works. Do these types of problems apply to say, VFX studios that primarily focus on Television shows? IE: Pixomondo or BlueBolt that do Game of Thrones and similar shows? Or is this something strictly creeping on the Movie Industry VFX studios?
When a VFX studio bids on a movie contract they are taking a bigger risk than with a TV show and TV houses usually do multiple shows and shows run longer than movies, less work over more time. What R&H did was under bid themselves for the time it took them to do the work. Like selling ice tea for a nickle but it cost you a dollar to make it. It's more than just the world market. VFX needs unions something the rest of Hollywood has including the catering.
Vancouver animation vet here. Studio that did My Little Pony. Animators are employed like garment workers. Piecework, duration of the project, so many minutes output per hour. But I don`t get this underbidding R&H did. The contract should specify so many effects, and if the script changes- well, that's on the producer's dime. They pay. Nobody I know would give unlimited pickups. That'd be like handing over your wallet- which is what they seem to have done.
This is the truth....but why only the VFX Artists ??????...Animators (not only the VFX Animators) are all going through the same hell. We don't get paid what we deserve...the middle men or top bosses get the most.
really its everyone that isnt employed by the film studios or doesnt take in additional work on the side. i dont know much about what projects R&H worked on besides movies so they may have done more but yeah anyways the point is the film industry as glamorous as it may look is just as dirty as most people think it is =/
Why only VFX Artists or Animators? What about artists in the games industry? What about underpaid/overworked producers? The problem is that you sometimes have to focus on a certain group of people because there is no momentum among other groups. If there were similar movements in other sectors of the creative industry, maybe they could merge, yes. And it seems to me that that's what's actually going on - namely that working conditions are disastrous throughout most of the creative industry. Regulations so that companies can't screw their employees would be needed in all sectors. But it seems only very few people have the guts to fight. Maybe if enough in the VFX industry can cause a change, people in other sectors of the creative industry will rise up too. It would only make sense. But I wouldn't hold my breath. People are incredibly willing to let themselves be exploited. As proven by the fact that there are still people working at all those big companies that pay low salaries and in many cases not even for all overtime performed.
Watching this after seeing all the controversy surrounding the Sonic movie's VFX studio, and wow. I knew the industry treated VFX companies bad I didn't realize the extent to which it went.
It's odd that the studios were not highlighted more as the cause of this problem, they just kept referring to them as 'the money' but really the studios and moreover their greed (when you consider how much money Life of Pi made for example) are the sole party responsible for this. They are the reason people feel the need to work 100 hours a week and just swallow the non stop flow of inane changes to sequences like it was just a flick of a switch. Again it's the studios fault for not reigning in the directors for treating these houses like a slave at their beck and call and that because they give them board and lodgings, they can throw anything their way without worry about it costing anything. They exploit the huge amount of passion and integrity the people at the coal face have for this work and it's just disgusting and has to change. The fact that Ang Lee didn't even mention the VFX team, let alone spend the majority of his speech bowing down to their prowess and the main reason the film was not a bomb was beyond awful, what a horrible individual. Yet there are bigger issues and that is that more and more people in the West are going to find themselves unemployable as the greed gets worse and more work is farmed out to India, Vietnam and the like. Dreamworks recently closed some American facilities and opened more in Asia, it's a trend that will not stop when a guy with an equal amount of talent and passion can do the job for a fraction of the price per hour and the work culture there means that no one moans when they double your hourly working week because the deadline is looming. It's not even in the hands of the artists and it never really was, it's all about the suits and if anything 'we' should be working together, using modern means of media and networking to produce this great work and bypass the studios and then blank them when they decide they want a piece of the action when things get big. It's about integrity and solidarity on the part of those who actually do the work on the ground. It's plain and simple exploitation, nothing ever changed for those at the top but at least now there are alternative means to do this work, be properly paid and for it to be successful.
+Kenny Evans I guess I can say I got into this "civilized" argument with someone on Instagram...a CG Artist as well... Posts a picture of Ang Lee with an "Inspirational Quote" about how story is everything and that made Life of Pi a success... Every studio I've ever worked at...we always fall unto the topic of how things fell during Life of Pi...It's almost like a pre-Pi>post-Pi thing with all of us. It's talks about...Man, I have to sell most of my stuff if I ever think about moving somewhere or God, I hope I get an extension on my contract... It's nervous and yet...exciting...all at once. Who knows where I'll end up next or which production. I live in Vancouver...and the local union has VFX as something you can select with them for awhile. But I haven't heard a lot of people signing up for it? I thought it was something I could do but I'm trying to figure out why I haven't heard it from anyone else? Anyway...I really hope some sort of solution can be found trying to keep artists at work. I think one solution I like is to have the VFX studios share in the movie profits. That'll keep us going, pursue minor projects, and maybe upgrade or focus on R&D for pre-production. Look at what Double Negative did for Interstellar.
The story behind the demise of Rhythm & Hues, demonstrating the problems within the visual effects community. In this age of digital, 3D movie making, VFX studios and artists should be thriving. Sadly, that is not the case.
At this time there is no union for the vfx industry specifically. There is the editors guild for editors and colorist but that does not extend to animators. Even if there was a union, it wouldn't protect the companies from the studios but it may protect the workers wages at the companies. The companies still bid but it's a question of overages in contracts. BTW, as someone who has worked in post in the commercial industry, there are almost always overages. For short format projects, many of them are days to weeks but some of them can last for months. Thats for a 30 second commercial, imagine what unpaid overages are like on a 90 min film.
YMS's review brought me here. I knew that things in the VFX industry were bad but I had no idea that they were this bad. It's another example of how Hollywood doesn't care about the people it steps.
I recently watched "Life of Pi" for the first time. Amazing movie, Cried so hard in the end. And now I fucking crying even more after I've seen this short story about VFX guys and girls who did incredible work. I literally hear how Richard Parker roaring with all his anger. Injustice.
Now, over 5 years later, where we were "blessed" with the Sonic trailer, it looked horrible and half of the (expectedly bad) movie will have to be remade, I am glad people were thinking of the VFX artists. Immediately after a redesign of Sonic was accepted, since he looked really damn bad (at this point, we didn't see any other design yet though), people thought of the artists, who might be forced into the really bad kind of crunch time to redesign a lot of shots while maintaining the original release date. That would have been the worst, but gladly people were aware of the VFX story this time, so the movie got delayed. At least some success!
As someone who dreams about making a movie someday its clear that a vision needs to be established when creating a movie. If i ever do get to make my dream a reality and direct a movie I will try my best to ensure the people making vfx don't run in to problems.
Think is you're in hollywood so you're a bug. Only thing to do is get into indie films are some film industry away from hollywood. Hollywood is basically a rape cult anyway
It's so easy to fix, just like if you make a house, you plan. If you want to make changes to the plan you have to pay for the changes. If you don't know how you want your house to be built, you pay per hour.
the average person doesnt understand just how long it takes to render out any simulation (water, hair, fire, particles, etc)... like if i wanted to render me spilling out water on to the ground and have it look realistic, it would take my mid range computer weeks on weeks of constant rendering to produce
As a freelance 3D artist, I would also bid projects as fixed bids, but if clients went crazy with changes I would eventually start charging them by the hour. I told them up front this was the deal and all my clients agreed it was a fair protection from me going broke. I only had to resort to an hourly charge a handful of times. Usually clients made up their mind damn quick when I did, and even then we stayed on good terms. I can't believe some system like this hasn't evolved into VFX industry. My clients valued me too much to let me go broke! Even the greedy ones. Where the hell is THAT dynamic? The lack of LEVERAGE these big FX houses have is insane.
Start paying them hourly (working 100 hours a week IS NOT OKAY) and have an Assistant Director (someone who is in constant contact with the main Director) for these projects in the building while work is being done. Problem solved. And don't tell me they can't afford it, because they can. These major movie studios make BILLIONS every year. Honestly, the VFX community NEEDS to completely unionize.
Sadly things have only gotten worse. If you are not part of the cast, crew or producers, it’s pretty much thankless work. Which is ironic because it’s not as if any of these people know how to do VFX, they rely on these people and yet refuse to pay them well and thank them for their efforts.
The software Industry is swirling down the toilet too. There are many similarities here with the software industry. I should've gone into the medical industry instead of tech.
As a VFX artist, people would be shocked to see how plain-jane shots in a movie start out as, even the ones that seem like they don't have any VFX in them. VFX artists deserve better than this. I am happy to work at a studio that treats its employees fairly, has a nice work-life balance that discourages overtime, that doesn't have a billion hand-passes where miscommunication is as common as fruit flies on bananas, and feels like a family, where all its members are acknowledged and treated as equals. I hope this becomes more commonplace over the next while. Every artist deserves to work in a place like that.
This makes me so sad. Rhythm and Hues was the first studio I visited as a student that convinced me that I could make a career in this industry--that there existed somewhere high caliber work being accomplished combined with respect for employees' quality of life. To watch them all throw in their badges and disband is just gut-wrenching. This film here is a great tribute, and I want to hug John Hughes for absolutely doing the right thing. The rare thing. Trying to stand up to the unyielding studio giants. The demise of this iconic VFX studio has brought tremendous awareness to an ongoing exploitation throughout the industry that must be addressed. That, was yet, another gift this company gave to the industry even in its finish. But in the end, what I find to be the linch-pin which could begin to turn the tides of change for our industry is the realization that when a company provides quality at a level as high caliber in VFX as Rhythm and Hues....that offers a tremendous value and creates leverage and bargaining power that can't be found anywhere else. Rhythm and Hues was the top of its industry. Other VFX companies might've done almost as good a job but few are really at that same level, and many more that would be are also closing their doors, leaving even less options. And so the only remedy I see out of this, is for all VFX artists and companies working at a high professional level to know their worth -stand together and start renegotiating their value as a collective. We should make good on the threat that "this is what your film will look like without VFX" by actually doing that until fair salaries are negotiated. That way the studios, no matter how big and controlling they have become, will only be able to hire amateurs who didn't get the memo and cannot create for them the same quality of work which modern audiences have come to expect from big VFX-ladden blockbuster films. This of course only works if there is a unified collective. It's something the Guilds and Unions should be overseeing --on all fronts in post, by the way, not just VFX...and truly also in production for crews as well. The issue of exploitation of workers who are the essential backbone in creating a film extends to the entire entertainment industry, pre, production and post. We have all seen this emerge in the past years across multiple fronts from interns suing the major studios to the tragic death of an AC most recently bringing further attention to the lapse in safety considerations on sets and tyrannical expectations of production. The time has come to begin to shift the way the entertainment industry conducts its business---our business. It belongs to every artist who participates and contributes to it, not just the majors. At least may we begin. All best wishes to everyone in the industry to power on with personal artistic integrity and courage. And with greatest thanks to the great legacy of Rhythm and Hues and all their artists~~
The industry itself has a wrong starting point. How could the producer let the director change what ever they want and ask your guys to work for free? And it just keep going until it became an industry standard. I just don't understand how could it be started to became what it is nowadays.
artists gets apid overtime.. its the studio who suffers financially which technically effects the artists as well.. and since they are clients studios are bound to change things as they have made a fix bid which also includes changes.. hence they are helpless... the real quenstion is.. y cannot director have a clear vision before he gets to the vfx studios
Because they have no choice. They could say "No" in a truly competitive market but there are only a handful of clients to choose from while there are many competing VFX houses, many with their international benefits of tax incentives, lower minimum wage, etc. at their backs.
Filled with Goosebumps & tears right now after watching this.. Rhythm & Hues u were one of the best things ever happened to me..u shaped me as an artist and a human being! U instilled a work culture in me that i would forever carry on. A culture of quality work, treating fellow colleagues with respect and love and creating art that matters. John Hughes, if ur reading this,all i want to say is that i've never met you but u have deeply inspired me to be a better person and to do better work everyday! I'm sure we all people of Rhythm, be it any part of the world..we can promise u one thing -we will make sure in all our capacity, we will keep this culture alive forever! #rnhcultureliveson
Wow! That was utterly heart breaking! I am watching this in Nov 2019 amidst stories that the latest instalment of the Star Wars saga is still not finalised around 4 weeks before release & getting a new perspective of what these amazing VFX artists will be going through. I'm not in the industry but I'm guessing very little will have changed since 2013. It rarely doe when The Suits are involved. Though it does little good at all a heart felt thank you to all the amazing artists in VFX whose work I continue to marvel at.
In Freelance Illustration we stopped this nonsense. The VFX Houses need to write the contracts. They need to be for the shots not the film as a whole. The client has to sign off on the designs and at each stage of production. In the contracts it should state that any changes after client's approval at ANY Stage, will result as Additional Billable Hours.
This documentary makes me sick. The fact that creative Artists, the ones whose expressions, insinght and creativity, through hard work inspired and conected so many people, the ones that try their best to make the life of most of us at least slightelly better, are the ones paying the biggest Bill and are in the most insecure position possible.
When Obama speaks of the VFX industry as "decent middle-class jobs", its part of the very problem. It is beyond me is how this highly specialized, high-tech, cutting edge work for the top segment of the entertainment industry is considered to be something like plumbing or roofing... These are the people who should get hundreds of dollars per hour of their time and companies all over the world should be struggling to hire them, not the other way round.
3D hobbyist since 1990's but not only was I not smart enough to create great art & get big film contracts, I was too smart to "work for hire" at horrendous work hours without royalties -- which to my limited understanding of business is the fundamental flaw in the VFX business model. Apparently this is tolerated due to the threat of outsourcing to other countries. If the industry could unionize somehow, without creating a monopoly, or sending working over seas -- or at least find a way to allow profit participation (royalties) for winning films quality VFX firms might stand a chance. Life of Pie allegedly had over $600million box office vs only $120 million budget so SOMEONE made a lot of money. I feel sorry for John Hughes and company, but this situation seems almost inevitable until a better business model is developed.
This also happens in music but in it's own way. The Funk Brothers are barely remembered and they played more #1 hits then The Beatles. These artists have the power. Why not make your own "band"
Hence why The Beatles remain so legendary. Having such a self-contained group of performers, among whom is the richest composing duo of the 20th century, is practically impossible to recreate.
"They can't do that to their actors, carpenters and physical crew because they get paid hourly." Gee I wonder how those guys got that kind of arrangement? I wonder if actors, carpenters, crew people, directors, and lighting engineers have some kind of. . . collective bargaining arrangement? Naw, it couldn't be that! Every CompSci person on the internet tells me that unions are a joke.
This is why I put soo little stock (to the extend I do at all) in big budget Hollywood mainstream movies. Most of it is garbage anyways (looking dead at YOU, MARVEL), And if there's anything I might have even a vague interest in, I'll just steal it. I see this docu. was made almost ten years ago. But clearly, not a damned thing's changed! Probably worse.
My best to all you VFX artists. There is nothing more noble in life than to create. You can perhaps draw satisfaction in the pleasure you have created for viewers of your work!
Economically it seems like there are way more vfx houses offering work than there are customers (studios) demanding the work. Logically the industry will shrink until there are about as many vfx offerings as there is demand for it. Unfortunately that means a lot of vfx artists will never find a job again unless they can create new demand in other areas.
Heart wrenching that is what this is, I'm from India and this was the only studio which is worth working for, I really wanted to be a part of this. I day I heard of the bankruptcy, I quit my job at a third rate production house and started to freelance. This is what I wanted for so long, it's like a shattered dream, ..
I really fell in love with Life of Pi movie. It had so much meaning to it. It's sad to know what happened. But all the people who helped make this movie!! Thanks a lot!!
for the artists not employees but artists who shed sweat into the films that brought imagination to life all i can say is best of luck, instead of looking at the glass half empty look at it half full. I mean how great would it look on your resume when it says that you were part of a group that literally brought so many creations to life, if it weren't for you guys we wouldn't have avengers, iron man, life of pi, etc all the praise goes to you guys
It's sad, all the VFX teams are making real art, digital art, movies without this will suck (movies that need it of course). The visual experience of Life of Pi, was one of the best I ever had, the images were just beautiful.
Okay, will someone please contact me about this? This problem has already been solved in the construction industry. The contractor builds the product based upon submitted digital plans. If the customer wants to make a change to the product they submit a “change order.” They pay for the change order or else the product doesn’t get changed. Your plans said one cgi lion with the waves crashing left to right and now you want waves crashing right to left?...change order will cost you hourly or previously agreed upon amount.
I never thought I’d be watching this video again not to reminisce but to see the relevance in today’s vfx industry. Things are not looking good and will only get worse.
Watching the clip from the Oscars is still disgusting to me. Like, how childish can you get, cutting him off and playing silly music? And the audience just laughed.
Pitiful.
I couldnt believe they put that music while he was still speaking and Ang Lee didnt thank them.So fucking annoying and stupid.
Maybe if that guy hadnt wasted his time rambling he couldve gotten his message across. it is his own fault that he decides to make a statement once he already knows he is supposed to stop
Celebs are degenerates.
PrismGuy it was even more disgusting to see celebs like Nicole Kidman reacting like “boo-hoo cry me a fuckin river over your stupid little special effects team”. I kinda always had a special hate for her, but this was unbelievable. Fuck celebs. The VFX team really deserves mich more respect and credit for their hard work they’ve put into this project
"Aw poor thing".
Fucking disgusting hollywood elite..
Unbelievable that the Avengers cast get five minutes in between awards to say a bunch of unfunny dialog that Jimmy Kimmel wrote for them, but the actual recipients are only given 45 seconds to speak
unfortunately people care more about the actors than the other people working behind the scenes
Well this is the pain of the misterio that how does it feels to get insulted and not given credit for your work in front of your heroes.
They're given 45 seconds, unless they are someone the Hollywood elite thinks its worth their time. Then they get a whole minute.
@@astrowyrm6871 And we can arguably agree that VFX in Marvel movies are the real stars.
I worked at R+H 11 years ago. John Hughes is exactly the man depicted in this film. He's among the most humble, compassionate, intelligent and mild mannered people I've ever encountered. He openly discussed all sorts of topics with me at the lunch table. He told me the reason R+H exists was for the employees and their benefits package proved it. Each Friday he'd present the company's bids, profits and losses with anyone interested and the ultimate bankruptcy was clear then as the losses often outweighed the profits. Heartbreaking on many levels.
17 years ago now.. :(
been in a lot of studios in my 20+ years in this industry and John was the most standup guy, and ive never felt more sorry for someone. I still don't know what happened but im sure John was as blindsided as the rest. Was such a beautiful place to be. hope all my friends are doing well out there.
@@flipnap2112 hey man, R+H is now located a little east of its Playa Vista location, right on Jefferson by the Culver City Stairs.
I wholeheartedly agree. John was a great guy.
@@peanutbutterkz oh, good to hear he's still at it.
@@peanutbutterkz oh wow. Neat.
So, this John Hughes lost his company rather then screw over his employees...and was willing to trade all of his Founding Member stock to keep doors open (20 mil actually isn't much in the corporate world).... and helped an employee move...
....The boss you wish you had, everyone. We need more like him. That's a leader, not just a boss. I hope he finds a way to rise from these ashes.
Amen to that!
Chapeau to the boss.
yes.. exactly. we need leaders, not bosses. bosses fucking ruin shit for everyone and only looking out for themselves. fuck bosses.
That's not how capitalism works, it thrives in ripping people of one way or the other. No such thing as fair pay, unless you're looking to go bankrupt
We need more such people. But here is also the problem. If you're one of them. You go down. In the kind of economy we have you're supposed to do two things to succeed.
1. You outcompete everyone else and
2. you screw them over if necessary.
And any kind of cooperation, altruism or anything even remotely in that direction is frowned upon and not seen as viable, because it honestly isn't. Profit at all cost is what's employed and not because people are evil. It is simply what's needed.
The fact that he got cut off like that shocked me. It was almost like he was a nerd getting picked on by the cool kids... It was such a childish thing for someone to do to him.
Highly unprofessional. We should boycott that whole rotten place called Hollywood and just play video games instead :)
I hate to break it to you but the video game industy's standards of employment aren't much better than Hollywood's. Just look at what happened to Telltale.
@@ShanePatSmith Ain't that the truth.
+
Absolutely disgusting. Humilliating a person on his award ceremony. We should not accept such behaviour.
@@3dbobber maybe if he had made his statement at the beginning of his speech instead of after rambling on about everything else.. maybe then he couldve gotten his point across
What really, REALLY pissed me off was 22:52. All the over-paid movie stars laughing, Nicole Kidman saying "Awww, poor thing," and other crowd reactions. Insulting. I wish it was possible for the VFX companies to just not take any work for a while so that people could realize that, while the actors/actresses are the ones in front of the cameras, it's the people behind the scenes that make the actual shot possible.
None of them knew that Rhythm & Hues was going bankrupt and you could hardly hear the guy over the Jaws music.
Nicole kidman just laughed it off?! It just makes u so sad and angry at the same time...
laugh all she wants,wonder how many young people nowadays actually knows who she is
Karl Marx wrote everything about it in "Das Kapital" ;)
@@seanc9520 exactly, who is Nicole Kidman?
Documentaries like this are depressing because they come, convince a lot of people that stuff needs to change, garner sympathy, and then people wake up the next morning and move on with their lives without a second thought.
But hey, shitty CGI from other movies that are actually crap have 0 issues because they make billions of bucks.
Three years later, have you moved on?
@@tricksterhuaun Somebody's here from Corridor.
Yeah because we can all change the film industry despite not being involved in it whatsoever
@Prince Fabulous Seems like you think some jobs are more important than others as if you think there's no value in making art like there is to find value in farming, I gotta say that's a shitty attitude you have about the importance of struggling to make a living just because these VFX artists are being laid off not being able to have money or food for their families just because they didn't break their backs planting crops and producing food for you and your families to take advantage of and never once think about the hard work that goes into providing for you and your family to stay alive.
If you're getting money to do a thing then you got a real fucking job, it doesn't matter if you're a digital artist, a farmer, a youtuber, a pathetic soulless hollowed husk of a person working a 9-5 job putting your livelihood into a company that'll make or break your life and cut off any support for yourself or your family until you have to live a life blowing dogs for quarters.
Saying we shouldn't care about what happens to these people just because they don't work hard enough like your daddy did in the fields makes you less than human and just a stuck-up and ungrateful prick who doesn't understand the value of people and their passions and the shitty growth of unchecked capitalism that is destroying this country and the world, people SHOULD be made aware, people SHOULD be reminded about this terrible shit happening and if you think it won't affect you in any negative way, guess what? The companies are coming for you and your family too and you'll have no one else but yourself for not speaking up against them and saying no one should care.
The sad part: near 10 years after, the VFX artists still in the same situation, nothing change
went to school for animation, now doing photography, thank god I pursued it.
Even sadder is that now vfx artists are joined by designers, 3d modelers for architecture and production, renderers, clay modelers, digital graphics, sound designers, sound editors, etc...if you're an artist good luck being a slave
Especially now that marvel is mass producing their films and working their artists to the bone and get mediocre results out of it. The vfx industry needs to be unionized.
they should find a new job.
VFX have degraded film to being a laughing stock, they are whores - put simply. Had they held themselves with any shred of self-respect they would have pushed back on the over-reliance on VFX in movies today, but instead all they saw were dollar signs. Sorry, but when you act like a whore, you shouldn't be surprised when you get treated like one.
I am a student studying Animation and Visual Effects in Pennsylvania. And my professors are showing my classmates this documentary my first year, freshman year, in the first semester. My professors want to hammer home that the career paths we as students will take may be a hard one. But this also means change is necessary now more than ever. Artists should be treated as human beings that deserve to pay for food, water, take care of their spouse, and or kids. But they're not. Work overtime with NO Pay or work leave? While executives, directors, and actors rack so much of profit while artists who make the magic get nothing? It's unfair. It has to change.
Bill Westenhofer being cut off at the Oscars while the rest of Hollywood was mocking him BOILS my blood. Why do the rest of the entertainment industry love to shit on the people who make their movie magic even come alive?
When I'm an artist of my own, do know I'll stand with everyone for a better change for artists who make this magic work. Who make the stories that everyone love so much.
VFX artists are not given nearly enough credit. The majority of them actually make the movie worth watching.
Shouldn't we just boycott Oscars once and for all? Cutting off someone winning speech is more then enough.
Would it even work?
jacoblgames yes it would
No.... 5 years later and people are ranting that some superhero trash should win best picture.
Well at least they had the worst ratings they’ve ever had this year. Also it’s important so vote Bernie for a better future.
Dont worry their rating get lower with each year
2019...nothing has changed :(
Yeah cause capitalism and shitty hollywood are nothing but scum.
I'd say it's gotten worse
@@c.i.a9221 8:00 that's not capitalism. That's the state directly interfering with the free market to create a non competitive environment that favors certain studios over others. That is legitimately the opposite of capitalism.
@@landbeforetimeee That's exactly what UNCHECKED capitalism is, not only are these big studios spineless and terrified to take any risks on any projects even when the corrupt communist chinese government is already stacking billions of dollars on top of the billions they already have, why should any of these studios bother having more unionized workplace or treat any of the VFX artists with better wages the studios can more than afford especially their CEOs? Seriously fuck these corporate jack-offs for not taking better care of their workers.
DarkToboki actually, unchecked capitalism might actually be better, the government actually actively helped the big suits in this case. Unchecked implies that the government isn’t really paying attention, they are paying attention, they just don’t care.
We are so grateful to everyone for watching and sharing "Life After Pi"
Subscribe to be the first to see new content coming soon. Thanks!
Have you guys seen the blender foundation gooseberry project yet? They are going to make an open source animation feature film. gooseberry.blender.org/
Do you have it with captiones in spanish lenaguage ? Thank's !
buisness ... just a mess
Subscribe to see new content.... over 3 years and still nothing.
does it is necessary to be computer science engineer for vfx artist...??
That scene at the oscars was just rude.Its sad to see this:(.
Robert Downey Jr. may be able to do Tony Stark (with the help of make up, props and costume artists), but we make Iron Man. #VFXSolidarity
This gave me goosebumps.
Dude that was mind-blowin, maaaan.
True, but iron man would not have made millions of dollars without JR
Don't forget about the lifted shoes to make him seem taller.
Hell yes, you did.
Thank you YMS for shouting this out for people to watch, this was honestly shocking and overall pretty sad
Less sad when you realize they can just get normal jobs. They aren’t soldiers lol it’s not this dramatic
@@randomdude189 it is though, because these are the people who create entertainment for us, imagine learning a craft for YEARS (most of these people go to college for this shit) just to be treated like this once you get into the industry? It should be a well-paying job for well trained people, they shouldn’t be forced to learn a new craft in the middle of their fucking lives just because the industry decided to shaft them. “Oh just get a different job” youre a fuckin dumbass
mindless consumer
@@randomdude189 Fuck wad. These people are the Marines of Post production. They are the first in and last out. If its doesn't look right at the end, they have to fix it. Even if people on set made the mistake. You don't train 3 years to get a job at McDonalds. It's highly talent based. When these people once they go away. Go away. Nobody will train to rotoscope as long as it takes if they are going to get a "job" some where else.
@@sonicboom1101 who is the mindless consumer?
Unfortunately, it's happening again. The studio that redesigned Sonic The Hedgehog is shutting down before Christmas (less than 2 months before the movie's release date).
Daniel Harmon the fans that ridiculed the first trailer and made fun of it may have expressed their dissatisfaction with the design, but if all these fanboys knew what’s going on behind the scenes, how the Hollywood studios treat their VFX artists and force them to work many unpaid hours on the project etc.
So sad.
Troll Face it might not of even mattered if the fanboys didn’t cause a huge storm. Apparently some suit approved the original design because he wanted a more realistic sonic despite people telling him that it was a brain dead idea. Also, the redesign probably didn’t cost too much money, it was fairly early in development while it happened, it wasn’t like they completely made the movie and then had to redesign it.
@@trollface865 fans did nothing wrong, if you making a bad movie than people will not give you money from the kindest of their heart, and if fixing the problem cost you more than dont fix it. overall this film was a mistake.
razmw I’d say corporate meddling is the biggest problem in movies right now. You don’t get these situations without some higher-up ignoring the voices of fans and animators. Sonic’s bad design was approved by someone who was ignoring criticisms from the animation staff
And yes I know this is a late reply haha
It's so sad to see while studios make millions and billions of profits... They don't pay any heed to their actual assets. The entire work should be collaborative and not just contractual.....God bless VFX Community. Thanks for giving us visualizations that we had just dreamed of!!!!
It absolutely should be collaborative! Look at Life of Pi and All the Marvel movies, as an example... the whole story is being told with CGI/VFX. It's not like these companies are hired to make it rain on a sunny day - it's the whole entire story!
22:33 Deamn Oscars, puting the Jaws theme on top of a serious speech to get thousands of artist re-employed, that´s because they don´t wont serious issues in his show. Academy,that isn´t funny, it´s insulting and childish. Hope all of you at Rhythm & Hues Studios have a good life.
For the longest time I've believed that CGI when it comes to organic creatures (particularly realistic ones) just wasn't there yet, and for a time that may have been truth, but looking at this documentary, I'm no longer in that camp.
Also whoever was in control of the Oscars was really out of line, and shame on Ang Lee.
Imagine if these vfx people were treated better. I assume that the quality of cgi would improve even more.
We do it because we love it. 70 hour weeks is absolutely standard when it comes to feature films. No overtime, if we are lucky, maybe dinner after putting in our 12 hour days. And an animator's contract is worded in such a way that even though you've signed for a year, you can be let go without notice as the project progresses (and your shots are done). Studios frequently hire X artists for the duration of a show/film. Then at the halfway point the release X/2 artists. You have no idea it's coming, just one day you are called in to HR and asked to hand in your badge (it only happened to me once in all my years of working, but it did happen to some artists on every project I have ever worked on).
As far as I can see, the industry is not getting better. It's just getting worse.
A must watch for VFX artists!!
Totally, this documentary is great food for thought. It's one of my favorite doc's. I remember being 16 and seeing the 2013 protests outside the Oscars and being angry. At the time I was just learning AE and Blender and I was just so concerned and angry.
a must watch for everyone
@@CharlieKnottFilms it could be 3 minutes long though. The main issue was agreeing to a flat rate payment and poor budget planning. It’s funny to see these artist feel dramatic when they can easily get a steady job and do their hobby on the side. They aren’t soldiers lol they are doing luxury art.
I worked with John at Rhythm & Hues during the early years as their publicist. John and the cofounders came from Abel & Associates. I asked John one day what Rhythm & Hues was about. He said, "all the good things about working at Abel, but none of the bad." I never worked for a better company than Rhythm & Hues. I never respected anyone as much as I did John Hughes. It must break his heart that R+H went bankrupt. John becomes the heavy in this drama, but like Keith Goldfarb said, R+H was an incredible success story even staying in business for 25 years. I know that for a fact, the company, privately funded, was always on the precipice. Try working and living on the precipice for 25 years. Amazing story. I'm proud to be just one part of an amazing chapter that is the story of R+H.
I hope John and everyone are doing well now. It’s beyond unfortunate that VFX artists, the very backbone to major motion pictures are undervalued the way they are. What can we do to inspire real change in the VFX industry?
Ang Lee literally thanked everyone but the VFX team.
This is why I'm really reluctant to go to school for animation. I currently have my courses selected for this fall, and I love working on animation, but I'm not sure if I would have the endurance to work in the industry. The way these companies treat employees is inhumane, the fact that this is legal is what shocks me most of all, even retail works have more labor rights.
Doesn't the video shoe that it's not the VFX companies buy the film industry? Still I understand your concerns...
This is late but you can check out Ethanbecker70+, it's a hub for animators, voice actors, designers, etc you can collab and work on independent short films and such.
It seems like this goes back to the problem that Disney had with Computer Animation back in the 80s, they wanted to know how computers would make filmmaking either faster or cheaper, when John Lasseter was like "Woah, this is a different artform, a new medium where we can do more, it's not going to be cheaper." it's just that now the industry still expects that computers, VFX, will save them money AND make their films look better. Practical FX = Pay by the hour, "we can't pay more to change the practical FX, but we won't pay more AND change the CG"
Pretty amazing short documentary about the artists hand in filmmaking. As artists we are not given enough credit for what we do in this industry and any industry. People's idea about being an artist is that you are doing what you love so therefore you should do it for free or at little expense to the client, when in reality we are trying to make a living just as anyone else is. So if you take the time to watch this think about how dull your life would be without art. It is sad to think that being an artist was once one of the most prestigious careers a person could have is now considered one of the lowest.
Hey man, how much money would you want to do another pair of A Day To Remember shoes? Willing to shell out the bucks for a close friend. email me. remoteball1@gmail.com thanks buddy.
In Korea I believe, the call it “passion wages.”
Honestly very heart breaking.
A lot of movies today are not about a great story. They are about a story being told with amazing visual effects. I've seen quite a few movies with a horrible story just because they have awesome VFX; Pacific Rim comes to mind. And yet the people who make the majority of the movie make the least amount of money and can't sustain their passion.
It's really sad.
I feel for the people at R&H and the many other companies that have gone under because of the unbalanced model.
6 years later it's only gotten worse
@@Legion849 truth
Thank you for releasing this documentary to the public. I'm very saddened to see what's really going on behind the scenes. This is very touching and although I'm not in the VFX industry, I sympathise and I'm doing everything in my power to make people aware of a much needed change in this industry.
Best, Mark
Question to anyone that has worked in the VFX industry/knows how it works.
Do these types of problems apply to say, VFX studios that primarily focus on Television shows? IE: Pixomondo or BlueBolt that do Game of Thrones and similar shows? Or is this something strictly creeping on the Movie Industry VFX studios?
***** Wow, frightening. Thanks for the reply.
Happens all across all platforms. Studios rise and fall every day because of it.
When a VFX studio bids on a movie contract they are taking a bigger risk than with a TV show and TV houses usually do multiple shows and shows run longer than movies, less work over more time. What R&H did was under bid themselves for the time it took them to do the work. Like selling ice tea for a nickle but it cost you a dollar to make it. It's more than just the world market. VFX needs unions something the rest of Hollywood has including the catering.
Vancouver animation vet here. Studio that did My Little Pony. Animators are employed like garment workers. Piecework, duration of the project, so many minutes output per hour. But I don`t get this underbidding R&H did. The contract should specify so many effects, and if the script changes- well, that's on the producer's dime. They pay. Nobody I know would give unlimited pickups. That'd be like handing over your wallet- which is what they seem to have done.
EXACTLY!!! THANK YOU!
The sound of defeat in allot of their voices is intense :(
This is the truth....but why only the VFX Artists ??????...Animators (not only the VFX Animators) are all going through the same hell. We don't get paid what we deserve...the middle men or top bosses get the most.
really its everyone that isnt employed by the film studios or doesnt take in additional work on the side. i dont know much about what projects R&H worked on besides movies so they may have done more but yeah anyways the point is the film industry as glamorous as it may look is just as dirty as most people think it is =/
Why only VFX Artists or Animators? What about artists in the games industry?
What about underpaid/overworked producers?
The problem is that you sometimes have to focus on a certain group of people because there is no momentum among other groups. If there were similar movements in other sectors of the creative industry, maybe they could merge, yes.
And it seems to me that that's what's actually going on - namely that working conditions are disastrous throughout most of the creative industry. Regulations so that companies can't screw their employees would be needed in all sectors.
But it seems only very few people have the guts to fight. Maybe if enough in the VFX industry can cause a change, people in other sectors of the creative industry will rise up too. It would only make sense.
But I wouldn't hold my breath. People are incredibly willing to let themselves be exploited. As proven by the fact that there are still people working at all those big companies that pay low salaries and in many cases not even for all overtime performed.
@@notthere83
Hello in 2019.
Oh boy, about the game industry....
Watching this after seeing all the controversy surrounding the Sonic movie's VFX studio, and wow. I knew the industry treated VFX companies bad I didn't realize the extent to which it went.
I'm so very proud of my former R&H colleagues for putting this together. You guys are amazing.
It's odd that the studios were not highlighted more as the cause of this problem, they just kept referring to them as 'the money' but really the studios and moreover their greed (when you consider how much money Life of Pi made for example) are the sole party responsible for this. They are the reason people feel the need to work 100 hours a week and just swallow the non stop flow of inane changes to sequences like it was just a flick of a switch. Again it's the studios fault for not reigning in the directors for treating these houses like a slave at their beck and call and that because they give them board and lodgings, they can throw anything their way without worry about it costing anything. They exploit the huge amount of passion and integrity the people at the coal face have for this work and it's just disgusting and has to change.
The fact that Ang Lee didn't even mention the VFX team, let alone spend the majority of his speech bowing down to their prowess and the main reason the film was not a bomb was beyond awful, what a horrible individual. Yet there are bigger issues and that is that more and more people in the West are going to find themselves unemployable as the greed gets worse and more work is farmed out to India, Vietnam and the like. Dreamworks recently closed some American facilities and opened more in Asia, it's a trend that will not stop when a guy with an equal amount of talent and passion can do the job for a fraction of the price per hour and the work culture there means that no one moans when they double your hourly working week because the deadline is looming.
It's not even in the hands of the artists and it never really was, it's all about the suits and if anything 'we' should be working together, using modern means of media and networking to produce this great work and bypass the studios and then blank them when they decide they want a piece of the action when things get big. It's about integrity and solidarity on the part of those who actually do the work on the ground. It's plain and simple exploitation, nothing ever changed for those at the top but at least now there are alternative means to do this work, be properly paid and for it to be successful.
+Kenny Evans I guess I can say I got into this "civilized" argument with someone on Instagram...a CG Artist as well...
Posts a picture of Ang Lee with an "Inspirational Quote" about how story is everything and that made Life of Pi a success...
Every studio I've ever worked at...we always fall unto the topic of how things fell during Life of Pi...It's almost like a pre-Pi>post-Pi thing with all of us. It's talks about...Man, I have to sell most of my stuff if I ever think about moving somewhere or God, I hope I get an extension on my contract...
It's nervous and yet...exciting...all at once. Who knows where I'll end up next or which production. I live in Vancouver...and the local union has VFX as something you can select with them for awhile. But I haven't heard a lot of people signing up for it? I thought it was something I could do but I'm trying to figure out why I haven't heard it from anyone else?
Anyway...I really hope some sort of solution can be found trying to keep artists at work. I think one solution I like is to have the VFX studios share in the movie profits. That'll keep us going, pursue minor projects, and maybe upgrade or focus on R&D for pre-production. Look at what Double Negative did for Interstellar.
The story behind the demise of Rhythm & Hues, demonstrating the problems within the visual effects community. In this age of digital, 3D movie making, VFX studios and artists should be thriving. Sadly, that is not the case.
So what happend after this by the way: has there been an union made by now? or is the situation the same or worse that it was??
3 years reply, but nothing changed it's still the same
@@astra6816 Thank you for the reply.
@@astra6816 That's fucking disgusting.
Exactly the same MPC Vancouver just went under and they worked on Sonic, Lion King.
At this time there is no union for the vfx industry specifically. There is the editors guild for editors and colorist but that does not extend to animators. Even if there was a union, it wouldn't protect the companies from the studios but it may protect the workers wages at the companies. The companies still bid but it's a question of overages in contracts. BTW, as someone who has worked in post in the commercial industry, there are almost always overages. For short format projects, many of them are days to weeks but some of them can last for months. Thats for a 30 second commercial, imagine what unpaid overages are like on a 90 min film.
YMS's review brought me here. I knew that things in the VFX industry were bad but I had no idea that they were this bad. It's another example of how Hollywood doesn't care about the people it steps.
Being a vfx artist I was totally heart broken when I heard the news, because R&H always been my dream company to work on...
Who’s here after YMS recommended this in his sonic the hedgehog review?
He recommended this like 5 times, but whatever
God I wish there was some way we could get back at the movie industry
@Aggressive Filmmaker yes let's get all 7 billion people on earth to boycott every single facet of the film industry great idea
Even now VFX studios are treated like shit. Hopefully with Marvel being called out things will finally change
I recently watched "Life of Pi" for the first time. Amazing movie, Cried so hard in the end.
And now I fucking crying even more after I've seen this short story about VFX guys and girls who did incredible work.
I literally hear how Richard Parker roaring with all his anger. Injustice.
Now, over 5 years later, where we were "blessed" with the Sonic trailer, it looked horrible and half of the (expectedly bad) movie will have to be remade, I am glad people were thinking of the VFX artists. Immediately after a redesign of Sonic was accepted, since he looked really damn bad (at this point, we didn't see any other design yet though), people thought of the artists, who might be forced into the really bad kind of crunch time to redesign a lot of shots while maintaining the original release date. That would have been the worst, but gladly people were aware of the VFX story this time, so the movie got delayed. At least some success!
Welp, the studio was shut down, go it isn't a success no more.
As someone who dreams about making a movie someday its clear that a vision needs to be established when creating a movie. If i ever do get to make my dream a reality and direct a movie I will try my best to ensure the people making vfx don't run in to problems.
+One Man On Fire And for anybody who's on the downside of advantage, and relying purely on courage, it's possible
~Russell Crowe
That would likely be out of your control.
Think is you're in hollywood so you're a bug. Only thing to do is get into indie films are some film industry away from hollywood. Hollywood is basically a rape cult anyway
@@copperfronts1679 No movie yet
It's so easy to fix, just like if you make a house, you plan. If you want to make changes to the plan you have to pay for the changes. If you don't know how you want your house to be built, you pay per hour.
Its just sad to see our industry in this state. The change HAS to start NOW!
Heart touching Documentary!!
the average person doesnt understand just how long it takes to render out any simulation (water, hair, fire, particles, etc)... like if i wanted to render me spilling out water on to the ground and have it look realistic, it would take my mid range computer weeks on weeks of constant rendering to produce
Sounds a lot like the software development industry, with the continually increasing outsourcing of work to Asia.
@Tom The Cat America was never "white".
As a freelance 3D artist, I would also bid projects as fixed bids, but if clients went crazy with changes I would eventually start charging them by the hour. I told them up front this was the deal and all my clients agreed it was a fair protection from me going broke. I only had to resort to an hourly charge a handful of times. Usually clients made up their mind damn quick when I did, and even then we stayed on good terms. I can't believe some system like this hasn't evolved into VFX industry. My clients valued me too much to let me go broke! Even the greedy ones. Where the hell is THAT dynamic? The lack of LEVERAGE these big FX houses have is insane.
soon directors will be out of jobs and talented poeple start make their own movies without big studios support
Amen to that!
You're wrong.
Zbrush CZ it is already happening now ...
Start paying them hourly (working 100 hours a week IS NOT OKAY) and have an Assistant Director (someone who is in constant contact with the main Director) for these projects in the building while work is being done. Problem solved. And don't tell me they can't afford it, because they can. These major movie studios make BILLIONS every year. Honestly, the VFX community NEEDS to completely unionize.
Sadly things have only gotten worse. If you are not part of the cast, crew or producers, it’s pretty much thankless work. Which is ironic because it’s not as if any of these people know how to do VFX, they rely on these people and yet refuse to pay them well and thank them for their efforts.
Writers, directors and even actors seem to be going on strike now, halting hundreds of productions already. Is it time to try again here too?
wait, they played Jaws theme in real life?! I thought it was an edit
The day just got a little more sad, no wonder it's raining outside.
The software Industry is swirling down the toilet too. There are many similarities here with the software industry. I should've gone into the medical industry instead of tech.
Health industry is the best and well paid
It is still relevant. Let's see who can survive the lack of VFX needs due to the writers' strike. (a vfx producer)
This was a beautifully tragic documentary.
Proud to be an ex Rnh!
As a VFX artist, people would be shocked to see how plain-jane shots in a movie start out as, even the ones that seem like they don't have any VFX in them. VFX artists deserve better than this. I am happy to work at a studio that treats its employees fairly, has a nice work-life balance that discourages overtime, that doesn't have a billion hand-passes where miscommunication is as common as fruit flies on bananas, and feels like a family, where all its members are acknowledged and treated as equals. I hope this becomes more commonplace over the next while. Every artist deserves to work in a place like that.
As a 13 year VFX artist, this made me shed Real Fucking Tears...
VFX are the unsung people who create the magic, and yet artists are the ones who receive zero recognition
This makes me so sad. Rhythm and Hues was the first studio I visited as a student that convinced me that I could make a career in this industry--that there existed somewhere high caliber work being accomplished combined with respect for employees' quality of life. To watch them all throw in their badges and disband is just gut-wrenching. This film here is a great tribute, and I want to hug John Hughes for absolutely doing the right thing. The rare thing. Trying to stand up to the unyielding studio giants. The demise of this iconic VFX studio has brought tremendous awareness to an ongoing exploitation throughout the industry that must be addressed. That, was yet, another gift this company gave to the industry even in its finish. But in the end, what I find to be the linch-pin which could begin to turn the tides of change for our industry is the realization that when a company provides quality at a level as high caliber in VFX as Rhythm and Hues....that offers a tremendous value and creates leverage and bargaining power that can't be found anywhere else. Rhythm and Hues was the top of its industry. Other VFX companies might've done almost as good a job but few are really at that same level, and many more that would be are also closing their doors, leaving even less options. And so the only remedy I see out of this, is for all VFX artists and companies working at a high professional level to know their worth -stand together and start renegotiating their value as a collective. We should make good on the threat that "this is what your film will look like without VFX" by actually doing that until fair salaries are negotiated. That way the studios, no matter how big and controlling they have become, will only be able to hire amateurs who didn't get the memo and cannot create for them the same quality of work which modern audiences have come to expect from big VFX-ladden blockbuster films. This of course only works if there is a unified collective. It's something the Guilds and Unions should be overseeing --on all fronts in post, by the way, not just VFX...and truly also in production for crews as well. The issue of exploitation of workers who are the essential backbone in creating a film extends to the entire entertainment industry, pre, production and post. We have all seen this emerge in the past years across multiple fronts from interns suing the major studios to the tragic death of an AC most recently bringing further attention to the lapse in safety considerations on sets and tyrannical expectations of production. The time has come to begin to shift the way the entertainment industry conducts its business---our business. It belongs to every artist who participates and contributes to it, not just the majors. At least may we begin. All best wishes to everyone in the industry to power on with personal artistic integrity and courage. And with greatest thanks to the great legacy of Rhythm and Hues and all their artists~~
Maybe watching this after having to stay late and come in early to finish a shot (for no overtime, natch) wasn't the best idea.
Why u no make new videos
@@pizzaroger2003 Holy shit! I actually remember this dude and his analysis videos! The nostalgia,....rip his channel...
@@genericnoone9610 OH MY GOD I completely forgot about this. His shit was pretty interesting. Goooooood times
The industry itself has a wrong starting point. How could the producer let the director change what ever they want and ask your guys to work for free? And it just keep going until it became an industry standard. I just don't understand how could it be started to became what it is nowadays.
Because also the employees were willing to work for free.
artists gets apid overtime.. its the studio who suffers financially which technically effects the artists as well..
and since they are clients studios are bound to change things as they have made a fix bid which also includes changes.. hence they are helpless...
the real quenstion is.. y cannot director have a clear vision before he gets to the vfx studios
Because they have no choice. They could say "No" in a truly competitive market but there are only a handful of clients to choose from while there are many competing VFX houses, many with their international benefits of tax incentives, lower minimum wage, etc. at their backs.
Filled with Goosebumps & tears right now after watching this.. Rhythm & Hues u were one of the best things ever happened to me..u shaped me as an artist and a human being! U instilled a work culture in me that i would forever carry on. A culture of quality work, treating fellow colleagues with respect and love and creating art that matters. John Hughes, if ur reading this,all i want to say is that i've never met you but u have deeply inspired me to be a better person and to do better work everyday! I'm sure we all people of Rhythm, be it any part of the world..we can promise u one thing -we will make sure in all our capacity, we will keep this culture alive forever! #rnhcultureliveson
Wow! That was utterly heart breaking! I am watching this in Nov 2019 amidst stories that the latest instalment of the Star Wars saga is still not finalised around 4 weeks before release & getting a new perspective of what these amazing VFX artists will be going through. I'm not in the industry but I'm guessing very little will have changed since 2013. It rarely doe when The Suits are involved. Though it does little good at all a heart felt thank you to all the amazing artists in VFX whose work I continue to marvel at.
9 out of 10 films need VFX to tell a story , VFX-Artists need as much (if not even more) respect as the director.
In Freelance Illustration we stopped this nonsense. The VFX Houses need to write the contracts. They need to be for the shots not the film as a whole. The client has to sign off on the designs and at each stage of production. In the contracts it should state that any changes after client's approval at ANY Stage, will result as Additional Billable Hours.
Film Riot
this kind of hits different after the writters/actors strike. It was only the begining
This documentary makes me sick. The fact that creative Artists, the ones whose expressions, insinght and creativity, through hard work inspired and conected so many people, the ones that try their best to make the life of most of us at least slightelly better, are the ones paying the biggest Bill and are in the most insecure position possible.
When Obama speaks of the VFX industry as "decent middle-class jobs", its part of the very problem. It is beyond me is how this highly specialized, high-tech, cutting edge work for the top segment of the entertainment industry is considered to be something like plumbing or roofing... These are the people who should get hundreds of dollars per hour of their time and companies all over the world should be struggling to hire them, not the other way round.
What if a VFX studio hired a Director and made their own movies?
rango
So they become a studio, and will need post houses to do the vfx. Same story.
My thoughts exactly. Long live the micro-studios.!!!
after my time in the industry last i decided to switch careers too, nothing has changed since this documentary and that's the saddest thing
This is a tragedy.
This is sad.
Thank you VFX for all the great movies. Nothing will ever be the same.
Ang Lee thanks his lawyer...but not the people who actually MADE his movie. Bleh.
5 years later, history repeats itself with MPC...
It's maddening that not only has absolutely nothing changed, but it's only gotten much worse for VFX artists since then.
3D hobbyist since 1990's but not only was I not smart enough to create great art & get big film contracts, I was too smart to "work for hire" at horrendous work hours without royalties -- which to my limited understanding of business is the fundamental flaw in the VFX business model. Apparently this is tolerated due to the threat of outsourcing to other countries. If the industry could unionize somehow, without creating a monopoly, or sending working over seas -- or at least find a way to allow profit participation (royalties) for winning films quality VFX firms might stand a chance. Life of Pie allegedly had over $600million box office vs only $120 million budget so SOMEONE made a lot of money. I feel sorry for John Hughes and company, but this situation seems almost inevitable until a better business model is developed.
Wow, I was oblivious to this. I'm glad I found this video.
This also happens in music but in it's own way. The Funk Brothers are barely remembered and they played more #1 hits then The Beatles.
These artists have the power. Why not make your own "band"
Hence why The Beatles remain so legendary. Having such a self-contained group of performers, among whom is the richest composing duo of the 20th century, is practically impossible to recreate.
"They can't do that to their actors, carpenters and physical crew because they get paid hourly."
Gee I wonder how those guys got that kind of arrangement? I wonder if actors, carpenters, crew people, directors, and lighting engineers have some kind of. . . collective bargaining arrangement? Naw, it couldn't be that! Every CompSci person on the internet tells me that unions are a joke.
This is why I put soo little stock (to the extend I do at all) in big budget Hollywood mainstream movies. Most of it is garbage anyways (looking dead at YOU, MARVEL), And if there's anything I might have even a vague interest in, I'll just steal it.
I see this docu. was made almost ten years ago. But clearly, not a damned thing's changed! Probably worse.
tfw this documentary came out over 5 years ago and barely anything has changed
My best to all you VFX artists. There is nothing more noble in life than to create. You can perhaps draw satisfaction in the pleasure you have created for viewers of your work!
Economically it seems like there are way more vfx houses offering work than there are customers (studios) demanding the work. Logically the industry will shrink until there are about as many vfx offerings as there is demand for it. Unfortunately that means a lot of vfx artists will never find a job again unless they can create new demand in other areas.
That's just heartbeaking, even more so, because the situation hasn't changed 10yrs later
Heart wrenching that is what this is, I'm from India and this was the only studio which is worth working for, I really wanted to be a part of this. I day I heard of the bankruptcy, I quit my job at a third rate production house and started to freelance. This is what I wanted for so long, it's like a shattered dream, ..
I really fell in love with Life of Pi movie. It had so much meaning to it. It's sad to know what happened. But all the people who helped make this movie!! Thanks a lot!!
10 years later and NOTHING has changed. If anything, it got worse for vfx artists and AI is now on the horizon to replace them all.
for the artists not employees but artists who shed sweat into the films that brought imagination to life all i can say is best of luck, instead of looking at the glass half empty look at it half full. I mean how great would it look on your resume when it says that you were part of a group that literally brought so many creations to life, if it weren't for you guys we wouldn't have avengers, iron man, life of pi, etc all the praise goes to you guys
It's sad, all the VFX teams are making real art, digital art, movies without this will suck (movies that need it of course). The visual experience of Life of Pi, was one of the best I ever had, the images were just beautiful.
2020. 6 years later. Nothing changed
Nicely done. This is a nice short summary of the key points. Hopefully we can see more in the future, and that this will trigger changes.
Okay, will someone please contact me about this? This problem has already been solved in the construction industry. The contractor builds the product based upon submitted digital plans. If the customer wants to make a change to the product they submit a “change order.” They pay for the change order or else the product doesn’t get changed. Your plans said one cgi lion with the waves crashing left to right and now you want waves crashing right to left?...change order will cost you hourly or previously agreed upon amount.
I never thought I’d be watching this video again not to reminisce but to see the relevance in today’s vfx industry. Things are not looking good and will only get worse.
YMS sent me here.
shut the fuck up
that's gay