Dave's Letter to the DGA

Brother Rand (as usual) comes up with insightful stuff.

...The largest cost in visual effects is not labor it is waste due to lack of live pure direction.

Wasted time, wasted money, and even worse, wasted creativity. On the traditional movie set the meter is always on. Each second costs money. The director is compelled to be present at all costs. Like author to reader. For a century directors have been in the same human space as the talent on the set, and the focus is paramount and sharp. Waste is minimized. The pace is lively. Creativity is nurtured. The story is pure. It feels human. ...

OUTSOURCING

Communication in visual effects is no longer live, it’s gone in vitro. It’s long been known that a baby can recognize a human face at birth. No one knows why. This very first human communication is one clue of many to the depths of our innate ability to communicate. You could raise your children by video conference, but you’d pay a price. ...

The director is no longer required to be involved with the visual effects talent. They are spoon fed their monthlies from the black box by a creative hierarchy. They are just an occasional spectator. Direction has been subcontracted and lost. Stories are manufactured assembly line style based on last years best selling model, and all out of fear instead of creativity. ...

Studios used to hire and manage their own visual effects artists. Some still do, the feature animation studios, focus is often great, bidding is replaced by budgets. Outsourcing and chasing subsidies is being attempted but not depended on, not yet anyway. All the large feature production studios, however, abandoned the in-house team completely for an outsourcing model, they may have given the appearance of managing risk, but they’ve abandoned so much of what was working. ...

I’ve been on teams and organized teams where the director is present on a daily basis as some of our directors really get this, and the ones that do are the most successful. The difference is ASTOUNDING. It does not take much effort. I’ve organized the visual effects crews for successful shows with one of your great directors that came in at one half of the lowest bidder from subsidized areas while working without subsidies on billable hours, director present, not all day, but every day walking amongst the artists, even sitting besides them working on shots, just for the sheer fun of it.

You do not have to sit there “watching paint dry” but if you do not personally witness the creation on a daily basis with the actual artists making it, you will be witness to money, value, creativity, and profits burning. ...

Robert Heinlein, science fiction writer, advised budding novelists:

Write your story right the first time. If you're going to be a working writer, you don't have time to do it over and over. ...

Darryl Zanuck could only get Fox's board of directors to okay production on "How Green Was My Valley" by lowering "Valley's" production budget and assigning the movie to John Ford, who was famous shooting one to three takes. (William Wyler, the original director, was famous for doing thirty or forty takes, which made the movie a tad more expensive.)

One thing I've learned about the animation industry is that labor costs are important, but good management is more important. Make a picture once (the Chris Meladandri/Illumination Entertainment model) and you can create a highly successful animated feature.

Make a picture multiple times (the Pixar model) and you can also get a highly successful animated feature. But you spend a lot more money creating it.

I'm old-fashioned. I'm in favor of good management and good wages. When you have both, you get quality, cost-efficient movies.