Sunday, June 09, 2013

The Road Ahead for VFX

Industry conference. Lots of Prognostication.

Chris DeFaria, executive vp, digital production, animation and VFX at Warner Bros., opined that the future of California-based visual effects companies might involve offering R&D and production management, while the creative workforce continues to leave California to operate in international markets. ...

Chris DeFaria, executive vp, digital production, animation and VFX at Warner Bros., opined that the future of California-based visual effects companies might involve offering R&D and production management, while the creative workforce continues to leave California to operate in international markets. ...

Various speakers discussed the use of tools to previsualize work, but DeFaria related that for Warner’s upcoming Gravity, a large number of visual effects were actually "well underway if not close to completion" even before the movie was shot and “backward engineered for the actor's performance." ...

I've been an interested observer of the digital effects business for a bit of a while now, and here's the way it will likely go:

* A chunk of work will get outsourced. Pipelines can be worldwide, talent pools are now international so why not? But the quality issues will always hover. If you're doing R & D work in California, you will likely have a mop and bucket brigade in California as well, fixing the overseas mistakes, working on money shots.

* The low-end work will go where the labor pool is cheapest. But when you get a director who demands quality, our fine conglomerates will accommodate him and do the work at ILM, DD or wherever he's (she's) comfortable.

* Visual effects will likely be integrated into productions as time goes on, as Mr. DeFaria says here:

DeFaria was ... asked where he sees the VFX business heading from here and stressed that the day is quickly coming when there will no longer be visual effects departments operating as separate entities. They will instead need to be more seamlessly incorporated into the individual films’ production.

“You already have visual effects appearing in every single line item,” he points out. “It’s in vehicles, it’s in extras, it’s in cast, it’s in set design. It’s all throughout the budget of the film. And yet we’re still making films with this notion that down the hall we’ve got these visual effects. And anytime you need these digital tools you call digital effects. Which is insane.”

He likened it to having a production department for hammers and having to go see them every time you need a hammer. DeFaria thus sees a change occurring in the next few years “where we’re breaking down digital effects into much smaller pieces. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Imagine! The VFX crew as part of the production crew! Supervised by and interacting with the director and DP!

What a concept!

One thing I know. The predictions people are making about VFX are going to be different from the way events actually shake out. Some bright, innovative creator will find a more efficient way of making effects inside a film, and other creators will pile on board. And the current state of affairs will change.

2 comments:

Grant said...

"interacting with the director and DP!"
And most importantly, the Production Designer, whom in most cases the vfx supervisor answers to.

Steve Hulett said...

Right. Him too.

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