Well. Yes. I posted under the previous video that you nail it, but now you nail it. Money. Yeap. They are not hiring good artists, as they cannot afford them. Guys left doing own things. All they have is new people, not trained to the required level. And they want to have it all done for yesterday and for pinenuts. So they can boost the profits of the corporation. Forgetting about people who actually made it. Heard about it 1000's times.
What would've been cool for Black Panther is if the studio told the CG team hey we'll pay you guys to finish the CG of the final fight sequence for Black Panther for the Blu Ray release so it doesn't look unfinished.
black panther cgi was garbage. all of it.. disney marvel standards seems to be.. is it passable, rathern than is the best we can do.. aside from thanos in infinity war.
Lemon bunnie I attended a lecture by Dan Dos Santos, who painted one of the film posters for Hellboy. The studio hired him as a rush job, INSISTING they needed the piece THAT WEEKEND. Dos Santos busted his butt to get it done in a miraculous matter of days, working 18 hour shifts with no sleep. When it was done, he called the studio to ask about compensation for same day shipping, and he was told, “nah, 2 week standard shipping should be fine. That’ll leave us plenty of time.” If that isn’t a client from hell, I don’t know what is. He quickly decided that would be the last time he did anything for Hollywood.
@Stellvia Heonheim : That's a dumb comment... Any artist given the time will do their best work. It's obvious in some films someone from the top says "good enough" and that's a wrap...
Dennis same thing goes for music except instead of cgi it’s things like auto tune..... you know what it’s not just one thing here and there it’s so many things that don’t always need “technology”
the movie Bone Tomahawk had a tiny budget most of which was spent on casting is used mostly practical effects which grounds it in reality so much that the climactic scene had people nauseating and leaving the theaters (it's a western drama/horror with really only one proper gore scene)
I'm a VFX artist, and whenever I'm approached by a studio they start with the line "There's not a massive budget on this project so can you just do something quick and easy?"
@@ehisey You wouldn't believe what some people tried to "explain" to me about my job ;) Of course mixing up bytes, gigabytes and terabytes and having a weird understanding of asset security and security in general. I get paid by the hour... so whatever...
Funny how there's never a "massive budget" when it comes to anything in the creative field. The sentiment is, "Doesn't the computer do most of the work?"
This is really illuminating. It’s so easy to pin the poor quality of a final product on the lack of ability on the artist’s part, without thinking of the bigger picture.
I always felt it was a lack of time. Kind of like the artists doing anime work. They pump out so much shit each season but are treated like actual garbage.
Well, the thing is that studios like Marvel should be aware of that problem. So it is first and foremost a shame that Black Panther had such poor CGI. Secondly, why did it need so much CGI in the first place? A hand to hand combat of two skilled fighters in a suit?! They should have a look at movies like Oldboy or James Bond: Skyfall (Billboard fight) or Daredevil Netflix series. You don't need to make a full CGI fight for minutes to impress an audience. Especially when the result is the opposite after all. With all the money they make every single one of those movies should live up to the Thanos CGI.
hence why best to not make shitty videos like this without talking to the artists first. If people stopped making this videos on their own and just reached out to artists on linked in or artstaion or cgsociety you will get an answer.
@@hyraxist We are allowed to dig on the artists. Who then are allowed to bitch that the companies hiring them are shit sticks. Public pressure is king in todays world. If we can get movie reboots filled with SJW shit because of social pressure, we sure can get artists to get a little more. The question is...how much do you pay?
When the VFX crews of Life of Pi were having a speech on Oscars stage, they did mention about their poor work condition and didn't get what they were deserved. ( and the Oscars cut them off right after that)
@@WayoftheFerret He's a diamond in a sea of coal. Definitely a unique individual. I'm talking about from the outset during contract negotiations. The actors are doing less and the CGI department more. They should be getting more and the actors less.
@@CenterRow I fail to see how a camera would have to violate the laws of physics to make that black panther shot work. The movement of the person however is absolutely insane and unrealistic.
@@Jellybellie It's really a matter of reference. We have probably about a century worth of cinema. Shots made by a physical camera are ruled by some limitations, those limitations were made conventions and gave it an unique rendering of reality and movement. When those limitations are absent (e.g.: when inside a 3D software), cameras can get really weird. If you get into some 3D art students and see some of their shots, you're gonna see what I mean. As to regards to the movement of the characters, that's probably the animators being asked to exaggerate the action to look more impactful, such things work really well in animation features, not so much in live-action. Again, a matter of reference.
The Spider Man movies suffered from this A LOT. I hated the CGI used when Spidey was swinging though the city or around buildings. It looked completely fake.
(Copied from a reply I posted) At my company we were asked about the time our work takes. It goes as follows: "How long will you need for this thing?" "I'd say a week minimum, one and a half to do it properly." "Okay you get three days." So you sit down and work through the nights unpaid to meet the deadline, and when you're done the supervisor says "See? You CAN do it in 3 days. Noted for later." In the end I just refused to work overtime. If I didn't meet the deadline - I got an extention. They didn't even have a problem with that. (Well, they were stressed, but not angry at ME) I urged my collegues to do the same but they were all like "BUT THE PROJECT" - the project isn't as important as your mental health. (I need to add I was an employee, not a freelancer. A freelancer couldn't have done this)
It’s worse than that. The studio will bid on a shot, then the art director or production company go overtime approving concepts, designs, shots, concepts and that eats into the deadline, but they are never held accountable.
I can totally believe it - and it's not just the movie SFX industry, sadly. I worked for an avionics company for four years, and the middle managers and CEOs there had the exact same mentality.
One of the saddest parts for me is that nowadays we usually say: "Script was bad" "Director sucks" "Actors were bad" And we almost always follow up with: "But the effects were good". The guys that work the most, transforming just some dudes doing stupid things in costumes into a spectacle are the ones who struggle to buy a house or maybe even make ends meet. The writers, actors, producers, directors get paid millions. The ones we say did a poor job.
I wouldnt say that they struggle to buy make ends meet tho, they are still payed more then average. Its more like they are the dishwasher while the actors are the CEOs.
@@wanashthegash To work in VFX you generally want to live in/around a major city that has a film/VFX industry, which generally isn't cheap, if they could work the same job in say Bethlehem PA, sure, they could have a spacious house etc. Also, comparing them to dishwashers is very reductive, a more apt comparison would be they're the engineers/software developers while the actors are the CEOs .
It is even worse: lots of VFX artists don't even get credit. Have you seen the never ending list of names at the end of a movie? Tripple that and you'll probably get the right number of how many VFX artist were actually involved. Each VFX studio have a limited number of credits and they need to decide which artist's name will apear at the end of the movie. So artists work for months, sometimes 10-12 hours a day including weekends and their name is not even mentioned, while the second assistant of the head of the studio's legal division has credit in a movie that he only knows it exists from it's title appeared in an excell sheet he printed out for a weekly meeting.
To be fair, everyone who isn't an investor/entrepreneur/business owner is struggling to get a house. You have to do extraordinary things just to live an ordinary life and all you got out of it was a stupid okay boomer meme.
It's just time isn't it? Art takes time. If you rush art, you get mediocre results. The greatest artists that ever lived cannot do their best work if they have ridiculous deadlines.
Studio: I want a thousand shots Artist: here's a thousand shots Studio: I want a thousand more shots Artist: Money? Studio: Well we're only actually going to use the second thousand shots, so no Artist: But you bought the others already Studio: No
@@BoyBlunder66 The unions really need to put an end to that sort of thing. VFX artists should come together and go on strike in the same way that writers and actors do.
I came in expecting a "Weta effect" style of rant. I left feeling pleasantly surprised that someone highlighted the reality of the VFX industry. Fun fact, when I was job hunting in the VFX field back in 2016. A company perk was not working overtime and weekends off. Its telling of an industry when a company has to highlight that in order to sweeten the deal
Ugh, that reminds me of a major video game company job listing I saw once actually DEMANDING "must be willing to work overtime and on weekends". At least they were upfront, but damn messed up.
Hahahaha this feels so relatable although I never had a company whom didn't had me do overtime and work on weekends. We are usually hired for 8 hours a day but that turns into 14 with no overtime pay but yeah if we worked on weekends then we are paid sometimes. So you can guess. I really hope things gets better.
@@sfjlfkjsdlfkjds Have you actually seen how "creative" AI makes "art"? The art it makes is either horrifying or makes no sense. And this is just pictures we're talking about. An AI artist is never ever gonna happen. Not even the automation of art is going to happen.
@George it isnt as simple as that. Its very hard to find a contract of anything, imagine finding CGI animator contracts in movies... It would be easy? The answer is no
@@picollojr9009 Yes, it is in fact a lot easier to just walk away. Life is damn short and it's definitely not worth jeopardizing your mental health for someone else's gain. I'm not an artist but I know that there are other options like starting a youtube channel, creating short films and indie games, etc. If many artists think this way, studios have to provide artists some privileges.
@@armin1576 today everything is about the damn money. You want to enjoy life? You need money. You need to feed? You need the damn money again, and such dependence on currency is what ties us so much. Not disregarding currency because that is certainly needed to keep values of things, help on economy, keep an order in how things are traded and such, but still, the modern society depends way too much on that paper. So people stopped valuing human lives of their own fellers and sometimes their own
At the end of the day, if the people don't speak up and either defend the CGI artist or don't spend their money on the movies that have rushed CGI nothing is gonna change.
@@dantan1249 This. So much this!! Movie makers need to stop thinking "We'll just use CGI for this" and start using the humans they have to make the craft of cinema. Let the actors act, let the stuntfolk stunt, let the director get creative and create problems for the cameramen work out the problems to shoot.... that' is what makes cinema great. Only a few still think like that, and their films are always epic (e.g. Christopher Nolan)
Animation is one of the most soul-crushing careers out there, especially CGI because people expect it to be perfect. If a 2D animation has a low framerate or has a few mistakes, no one even notices. But if CGI has any mistakes or looks off at all, _everyone_ will notice. Even 2D is really difficult, and you end up spending days or even weeks on just a few seconds of animation. I'm not a professional by any means, but I've been looking for a career in art and I know animation (especially CGI) would drive me insane.
Like video-games, they're exploiting the sea of enthusiastic and naive graduates from art/game design schools who are just glad to be involved in the industry. At first I'm sure they waved off the conditions as "I'm just an intern for now, but I'm getting good experience, and I'm sure conditions will improve once I've been here longer/moved up", then of course the reality of the expense of living in a large city with a CG/game industry, the need to pay off student loans etc. sets in, and of course this is their industry and they still want to work in a creative field so they grit their teeth and deal with it. Of course the public demands ever more bombastic CG movies with more realistic and prevalent CG, and higher fidelity, larger video-games that require FAR more models, effects, incidental textures etc etc.
Supply and demand. If there is a large demand, and prices for that labor remain low, then something is going on with the supply. Probably the barrier to entry is low enough that the market can actually supply plenty of labor which keeps prices of that labor down.
@@VaShthestampede2 I don't think so, I think it has more to do with the factors I mentioned, enthusiastic and naive new graduates - it's still a technical field that requires a fair amount of training and an artistic eye, not some low-level position in the mail-room where you can train a random person for the position in a week.
@@VaShthestampede2 The barrier of entry is not low for the 3D industry. I work as a 3D rendering and lighting artist as well as compositing. The industry standard software is expensive and takes months to even familiarize yourself with the UI. The problem is exactly as the video states, studios pay for 1000 shots but don't pay for the revisions and retakes or extend the deadlines. This is the exact situation and problem I'm dealing with at work. There were fundamental technical issues which caused an almost 3 month delay but the deadline is unchanged. The team I work with have been pulling 14-16 hour shifts, working weekends, with no overtime compensation for a few weeks to catch up. The industry in the country I'm based in is also relatively small but growing so there is a high demand for people in this field. It's also one of the few industries not suffering pay cuts and downsizing in the pandemic.
@@yellowblanka6058 not usually. cgi needs more effects. But it is easier to get realistic results with cgi render engines like Arnold or vray etc I would argue that cgi needs time and better pay for there artists
Quality vs. quantity - a few very high quality pieces of CG when appropriate (would be too expensive/take too much time to do with sets/props/actors etc. or impossible) vs. a bunch of mediocrity that sticks out like a sore thumb.
I work for a videogames related video production company. It's not always bad, but for quite some time it was like this: "We do not know what we want! Game assets are not ready! You have only two days! Do video!", then radio silence for 1,5 days, then: "Oh no, the thing you did is not right, because we didn't give you any good inputs on what we want! Also, we need to change the whole video, because something in the marketing has changed! Do video, nao!!". Then they recieve a half-baked abortion of a video. "Great video, we cried when we watched, because we have no idea how a good video should look and sound like! Now, do next video, you have one day!!". Next week: "Hey, meet your new collegue, he's great at video edtitng!". Dude: "hOw Do I cOnVeRt Mp4 tO aVi??!!". Me: jumps off a roof.
Marketing departments can be annoying as fuck when they're trying to execute a gimmick. I don't even want to know what the project crunch was like at Bethesda when they targeted 11/11/11 for Skyrim.
As someone who works in the VFX industry, this video says everything how it is really..... it's a bitter-sweet industry to work in (work on dream films, but have a poor work-life balance a lot of the time)
Are there any studios which try to take off that stress by giving artists a healthy work-style? I know that in Japan, one of the animation studios (the one recently attacked) has tried this and because of this, has created some of the most gorgeous animation quality possible
@@TasX Yeah they do, but sometimes its not the studios fault and more clients saying 'we want these 500 shots - no we wont be paying anymore because we've already paid you with the initial 'fixed bid'' model. The documentary on Life After Pi explains it all, it's the only downside to the vfx industry in my opinion.... still love it though!
Too bad Hollywood doesn't allow intelligent people to run things. I wouldn't have a single VFX shot made until I was satisfied with sketch drafts. If it looks amazing as a sketch, then it'll be gold when fully rendered.
This videos deserves as many views as the original video. Hollywood needs to realize that they're being abusive with the working conditions for these artists.
You say that like they don't already realize it. They do, they just also know that if a movie underperforms they can get a tax writeoff to recoup their losses. Since they know they can get money either way, they don't really care about the people actually doing the work.
this is just IT in general; we're the only people who do things that keep money flowing in, so greedy assholes create the power structure so the IT is always the bottom most slave and have to fight for just simple QOL.
As someone who started in production art (Promotional stuff. logos, sportswear) in the 90s, I can tell you this has been a constant. There's always someone hungry enough to underbid you. Because the vast majority of employers (if not all) are not creatives, they think what you do is easy. Or "can you just whip up a quick sketch?" when what they want takes 6 hours. 6 that they have no intention of paying you for. We had the term "art monkey" back then. We were just property or a pet expected to perform for peanuts. Largely why I left the industry. I'm sure its much the same in most creative fields. I'd expect with IT and code entry too
Dude. I have been a VFX artist (animator) for 8 years and worked on many projects you are showing here in many countries. You last sentences gave me a tear, I felt that very strongly. I am not sure what pushed you to make such videos but it feels good. Thank you
The amount of work on too few shoulders shows that production companies really need a Digtial Artist consultant. Someone who actually can gauge what amount of time is needed for a specific workload and then has the authority to either hire more people or tell the director to get stuffed with his unrealistic demands. And someone who can say when it is better and cheaper to actually build something and shoot in camera instead of adding it later through cgi. Because obviously the people in charge so far have no clue.
More people with CGI experience need to get into film making. They'll understand the strengths and limitations of CGI (including CGI under a strict budget) better than anyone else.
Artist in any field have to talk to the client DIRECTLY - and tell them how long it will take. The problem is allowing the manager or a sales person ( who is not involved in the hands on ) to do the negotiating. Sales or owners just will promise anything to get the sale and the commissions. Then hand it over to there workers as they move to the next client. As a paid worker, you can huff and puff - but you have no power. So you work 14 hours or get fired.
At my company we were asked about. the time it takes. It goes as follows: "How long will you need for this thing?" "I'd say a week minimum, one and a half to do it properly." "Okay you get three days." So you sit down and work through the nights unpaid to meet the deadline, and when you're done the supervisor says "See? You CAN do it in 3 days. Noted for later." In the end I just refused to work overtime. If I didn't meet the deadline - I got an extention. They didn't even have a problem with that. I urged my collegues to do the same but they were all like "BUT THE PROJECT" - the project isn't as important as your mental health. (I need to add I was an employee, not a freelancer. A freelancer couldn't have done this)
@ayior I was in the same boat. I tell my co-workers every day - it is not a competition between us to see who is the fastest or best to get the project done! Artist have such low self esteem ( me included) that we want to prove our worth. I tell everyone, slow down - manage the company's expectations. But no, there is always that person who has to go home (unpaid working) and blaze overtime to get brownie points. And like you said, boss sees his - so there you go. We are ( as a group )our own worst enemy. We need better self esteem and the ability to say no - without having our jobs on the line.
As you pointed out, a lot of things that didn’t need to be CGI are made with CGI, like those nanotech masks in Endgame, did everyone really need those?
I'm looking at possibly taking art commissions for CGI pictures, as that would probably be a lot better than corporate animation and doesn't have many others doing the same thing.
There is another point about the lighting - In more recent movies, sets where CGI is required usually have many sources of light in them, including reflective surfaces and ambient lighting. It is much harder to make believable CGI with complex lighting. In older movies, there are usually only several sources of light in a shot - making it easier to simulate the lighting in a convincing way. This is also why a lot of space movies have very convincing CGI - In space there is barely any ambient light and only several sources of light.
@@JustSomeDinosaurPerson This thread is a touch necro, but I think by "several" they mean "few" - like the dinos in Jurassic Park just have car headlights, flashlights and moonlight, spaceships often just have the sun (and no atmospheric diffusion), whereas more fantastical settings made in CG-only worlds can have loads of light sources all over that are a nightmare to render convincingly.
I think the lack of references plays an important role. Constructing a whole CGI environment without photographing the effect of light and reflections on real objects is a great handicap. In many films lighting and reflections look waxy
@@dantan1249 Yeah, Marvel movies are a hodgepodge of adequate to really crappy CGI from shots to shots.(Doesn't help that more than a dozen of different VFX companies throughout the world work on those shows so the discrepancy can jump at you depending on the level of the artists or the time they're being allocated to complete their shots). Unnaceptable for such a rich company but they treat VFX artists like low level grunts with impossible deadlines to meet and that change their minds at last minute because they can't lock a sequence design in pre-production.(Black Panther's showdown was remade at last minute and it showed. VFX artists did what they could, they can't do miracles at last minute notice because directors and producers are callous and don't know shit about how VFX are time consuming to get it right).
For Kiki's Delivery Service, Miyazaki spent a day in a train station to see how women's dress flow (at the risk of looking like and old perv lol) Getting irl references is important when you want to animate something like it was real
they are an uphill battle that most people cant get into, its a lot of work to fix the most minute things, to the point where the pros dont outweigh the cons, thats why we need people who are truely dedicated and willing to fight greed
Unions are good and bad, but today they are pretty much awful. Often they can end up hurting the employees joining the union, but i dont know if its a bad idea for this type of thing
You flipped my Fury Road head replacement shot of Max on the bike! Nice to see my sky replacements on that film featured too. Good video though, really highlights our work condition struggles. I don't work in the film industry anymore. Opted to have a life and work toward a pension instead.
100% agree, or just CGI that's unnecessary, look at Spiderman Far from Home. CGI Spiderman suit is great, but the one that was made for filming was brilliant and well-crafted, completely unnecessary to have a full CGI suit filled in over it.
@@tbriecheese cgi suit would help with collision simulations, Water simulations, fire simulations for colliding cg objects. But they could of made that cgi suit invisible so it would look like the real suit
As a 2D animator, I thought this was just common knowledge. We also can't technically unionize because most of us are individuals. Yes there is an Animation Union but it only lets you in if you have a while in the industry, so it's hard to break into the industry that's going to underpay you anyway.
That's just making excuses. People working on Hollywood movies are hardly individuals (aside from concept artists maybe, but the animations are literally beyond what a single person could do) and even without a union there can be an agreement to not go below a certain wage. If there's noone that's willing to be underpaid then the commissioners have no other choice but to pay proper money to receive art. That's all there is to it. Artists tend to have a really poor understand of how this works and then complain that people are underpaying them, but it is artists that provide the market, so we just need to ask the proper money and then there's nothing to complain about. Try to wrap your head around it and then go do some research on how to establish your hourly wage properly.
YamiKisara, there’s competition from foreign animation studios that pay their workers even less. It makes it hard to get hired with an expectation of being paid well.
You could not have said in better. You have bad actors getting paid tens of millions of dollars, and they do not even have to act. The CGI guy is doing everything for him while getting none of the praise.
I feel like this could be said of special effects at most points in movie history, however special effects do not get worse nor does acting, it's the use of it. Now I'm obviously not blaming the artists, but if the CGI guys are doing everything and the whole experience is off, you can't blame the actors, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Very few movies bring in audiences because the CGI looks great.
That's a very one-dimensional perspective. Nowadays, CGI is essential to make most films look good, no matter whether it's an action film or a rom-com. Usually though, you can tell when they use extended CGI battle sequences as a substitute for plot and substance, so you are not wrong that some movies are made purely for the visuals, and those visuals are computer-generated.
I worked as a VFX and motion graphic storyboarding artist starting in 2002, but ended up quitting the business after a couple years because the pay was horrible. You can't rush and overwork an artist. You can't ask him/her to work 18 hour days for 2-3 weeks and expect their best work. Artists don't want to create "good enough." They want to create their best.
I just rewatched Hobbit 1-3 recently and personally they did outstandingly on Smaug... his CGI is amazing and he looks realistic in his scenes. The rest of the CGI was utter garbage and stood out embarrassingly however... I think the main things are 1. How much time VFX artists have 2. How much they’re being paid 3. How much CGI is being used Again referring to hobbit, the battle of five armies the scenes where there’s armies fighting is just pure CGI and looks like a mess... it’s really a shame that CGI has so much potential and wonder + creativity yet its usually done horribly and comes off unrealistic.
@@goodial The whole thing just makes me so sad. Like, those movies had the potential to be just as amazing as Lord of the Rings, but like, they are such a slog to sit through these days. I like the character interactions, but the amount you have to get through just for those isn't worth it in the slightest. A friend and I tried rewatching the movies a few months ago and we had to stop somewhere in the middle of the second one; where as the Lord of the Rings movies tend to barely feel as long as they are, the Hobbit just starts to feel exhausting at a point.
The thing with the Hobbit it's that Guillermo Del Toro was going to direct the movies and had made pre production for it but just before they were about to start filming he pulled out because of differences with the studio (if I remember correctly he wasn't aloud to stick to his whole vision for the piece, what a shame). So in the end Peter Jackson had to take the leash and jump to the directors chair without any planning for the movie what so ever (for Lord of the Rings there was planning for many years before they started filming). Because of that Jackson had to wing it and plan every scene on the spot, it's fucking crazy impressive it came out even that good in the end even tho the movies are pretty bad. Also because the were pretty much no pre production/planning he couldn't do anything practically so he had to dumb impossible amount of work for the cgi department. Whole thing was big ass clusterfuck, nightmare for everybody. No wonder Ian Mckellen got pissed off in front of green screen and Jakcson was stressed out out of his mind the whole shoot. It could have been something glorious if studio would have been a bit smarter about it. If Jakcson didn't decide to direct it and it would have gotten delayed it could easily have meant that it wouldn't have gotten made at all. Sorry for the novel..
This stuff happens way too often. We live in a time of insane graphics in both films and videogames and in both industries animation and vfx artists are pressured and underpaid. It's good that you made this video to create some awareness, this needs to stop. CGI is everything in almost every post-2010 blockbuster, the people who make it deserve appropriate compensation.
@@ShadowVincent3 I would say that Davy Jones, Gollum, the Na'Vi(the blue aliens from Avatar), Smaug The Dragon, Caesar The Chimpanzee from The Planet Of The Apes movies, The Hulk, Rocket Raccoon and Thanos are all proof of that, along with the animals from The Jungle Book and The Lion King.
I never forgot how amazing Davy Jones looks. Davy Jones is one of the most impressive accomplishments of CGI and so is Thanos. Thanos looks pretty amazing, too.
Totally agree. I work at a mocap studio that also does complete cutscenes for video games. Our salaries are ridiculously low, we work long hours to compensate for clients' bad decision making and even our boss sees us as easily replacable animals (because there are enough struggling artists out there who're just waiting to get a job).
Kind of what they do. We often use "extension sets", which basically means that there's a little physical set created around the actors that they act in, but around the set there's green/bluescreen and then the rest of the environment is CGI. That's a very common technique. (Now I interpreted "real locations" as "physical locations". If you mean real real locations, then that's great but costs a ton of money to fly an entire crew and big amounts of tech + expensive actors across the globe.)
Bazz vid I agree. The reason Jurassic Park still holds up is because of its use of practical effects alongside cgi. It’s easier to trick the eye that way and makes the whole thing look a lot more cohesive. I love the Solo movie for that reason: for the alien dogs, they actually had dobermans in costumes!
@@tenlongfingers70 yep, CGI went from a film enhancement to the ENTIRE FILM. It's a tool, and a lot of studios are using it incorrectly. if CGI is a precision CNC machine, studios are using it like a bludgeoning device
Totally agree. It's actually kind of astounding how much locations in modern films are entirely fake, it can really break immersion. Having real sets makes the movie feel more grounded in reality and easier for you to see yourself in its universe.
Thank you for creating an actually well crafted video delving into VFX, I get extremely tired of people looking at the surface of the problem then declaring CGI is terrible. My concern is since the studios are basically becoming so awful at managing their films cost, it's quite likely the VFX firms simply won't be able to continue and we might see a kind of market crash in film, where there's all of a sudden nobody to do the work. They're trying to offset this by moving a lot of work to places like India etc But it seems more like a patch than a fix. Only the future will tell.
Step 1: Stop hiring overpriced actors Step 2: pay all the people essential for the production of movies and games a fair amount and give them proper, humane working conditions.
Naw, they'll just outsource the work to India/South Korea/China with a few production supervisors to look over the results for "good enough" results. Not that I agree with this/condone it, but that's how these things work.
The "overpriced" actors are the ones bringing the audience to see the movie, you don't only pay for the acting but also the actors brand. Get a famous actor, get tones of "free" advertising and good branding ect. believe it or not but they are actually worth the money they are payed.
You were right the first time. Its getting worse…Industry insiders are just supplying you with further understanding concerning the “why?”. Much of what you said is still true. I almost graduated in digital media decades ago until I understood how long Id work and how little Id be paid. Changed directions.
Limitations breed creativity. LOTR was a masterpiece, and pushed the boundaries of the technology, it was limited but used very creatively. Hobbit was an overblown trash fire that looked like a badly made children's animated movie, with cartoonish action and uncanny valley looking characters. CGI needs to be used sparingly, and tastefully. Not make the whole damn movie with it. Live action is dead these days. Then you get these bizzare contrasts between scenes where characters are just talking ect where few VFX are used apart from CGI "makeup", and the action sequences, where often there isn't a single real thing in them. It's the over use that's killing it.
@@Patrick-857 The problems of "The Hobbit" production go much further and are far more fundamental than just a bad taste in CGI placement. It's worth looking into.
@@heli0ns There was even a DVD extra that went into it. Jackson was called last second to save the movie that was almost ready to shoot before they lost the director. He just had to make do with what he had available, and he didn't look pleased about it. That's not a recipe for success
@@heli0ns I'm from NZ. I witnessed the political fiasco that happened as the big Hollywood companies tried to move shooting overseas to cut costs and the government did everything in its power to keep it here in NZ. Not sure how much effect that had.
Well in total it's like in almost every business: There's a customer and a creator. And even though the creator might be able to do a job absolutely perfect from his point of view, it still might not be what the customer wants. If crap is ordered, crap will be delivered.
Aside from rushing art, and being underpaid, sometimes the studio just has really bad management. I've had a few friends who basically can't get things done in time because the management is just terrible, thus leading to crunching and rushed art.
ooof.. tell me about it! I work in a AAA video game development studio. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I called our management team a bunch of false-confident morons.
Been there, done that. The film industry chews you up and spits you out. While the game industry is run by people with the mentality of 12 year olds. Most people in both industries decide to drop out around 30 so that they can have a life, family, good health etc. The essential problem is that there are always 100+ other people willing to replace you. So the studios don't have to grow up and run their businesses properly. They can just hire the next bright-eyed kid, destroy their health, hire the next kid... and rinse/repeat.
As a humble 2D animator myself, I wouldn't even say it's just time that would help. Sometimes I pump out something amazing in less time than if I have a ton of time. At the end of the day it's the direction that makes something great or not.
Many other industries need to learn this same thing. This is a model example of greedy companies not caring about workers, they only see employees as a huge financial stress in their accounting books. Too many companies have regressed to the 1900 and just grind money out of people, consuming their time, sweat, pain, suffering and health into dollars.
Well said. I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out of the modern film industry (and the modern economy, truth be told, but that's a story for another day) and it just isn't happening. Yes, there seems to be a mini practical effects renaissance in some genre films (Guillermo del Toro is steering this ship), but that's still a very specialized, niche movement. If anything, the negative trends you highlighted are only accelerating. It's also concerning that a lot of the practical VFX masters of the late 20th century (like Rick Baker) are retiring. I worry that a lot of that old-school craftsmanship and artistry will be lost forever. I was kind of hoping that streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon would offer a home to old-school practical effects in the same way they've revitalized the mid-budget non-franchise movie, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Yeah, most digital VFX artists are capable of doing amazing work (and CGI can be amazing when it's blended with practical elements to maximize audience immersion; The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the recent Planet of the Apes movies, and Mad Max: Fury Road come to mind) and this is completely unfair to them. This isn't a talent problem, it's a top-down resource problem, and I don't see it improving any time soon.
The "Fix it in post" mindset is so prevalent, that there is even a software called Fxitinpost built for the sole purpose of fixing it in post production.
No, the exploitation and deadlines are getting worse. Compositing could be better. Look at Jurassic Park 1993. Crappy low-res textures, hidden well in rain etc. CGI + Machine learning will achieve photorealism every time
I wanted to get into VFX since after I graduated college. I always had a hard time breaking into the industry (probably from moving around a lot) and ended up stuck on a lot of smaller projects, often branching out into editing and colour grading to get more work. I had one great client, though. He paid me hourly for the job and was strict about working 40hr weeks, no overtime. He threw so many ideas at me to try out, stuff I've always wanted to try like day for nights. In the end about 30% of my shots were edited into the short film. Well, some time ago I had a major career change. I came back to Los Angeles to work for that client, but not for VFX. I now work in a practical effects shop focused on animatronics for theme parks. I feel like I've completely dodged a bullet looking back at the state of VFX. I knew for some time the VFX industry was pretty awful, especially since Rhythm and Hues went under. But even that didn't deter me from wanting to work on these bigger films. I feel bad for the whole VFX industry getting oppressed by the big studios... but man, I'm glad I didn't get in.
As someone who used to work in the arts, AMEN. NOBODY wants to pay what something is work. You end up making like $12 an hour...and for the VFX artists who see these behemoths they helped launch make billions? That's gotta sting.
Very true. One rule in movie making is to take the easy solution - its kind of fked up that creating a cgi wall to jump over is easier than just jumping over an actual wall.
@@tomb-rider one LOTR movie cost 150M dollars, adjusted for inflation in 2019 The Battle of Five Armies cost twice that, and without inflation adjusted. I don't get how cg is cheaper than practical
@@tlotpwist3417 What I mean is (& i am agreeing with your original comment) that the go-to solution is to use CGI when simply doing it for real would be more effective. (often cheaper, easier & more effective) but they turn to CGI as the fix for everything. Because it is so prevalent, it has become the easier option.
These reasons are very accurate, exact same thing you can see in Anime industry where they are paid meager amount for 100s of frames so they are hugely underpaid and stressed which sometimes results in not so perfect animation
Vfx artists and people with jobs alike should unionize, hollywood depends hugely on them yet they're underpaid.
5 років тому+24
I do agree with you on everything, but still, I think you're not taking very seriously one other option: as artists, they can and they will fail. There is a lot of try and error, expecting all cgi to be amazing is the same as expecting that all the scenes of a movie are acted amazingly as well, or crafted amazingly, always. I think we are so used to incredible cgi that we expect only mind blowing presentations, but if you think of it as a canvas of a painter, not all paintings of an incredible painter are "perfect" or amazing. I agree with your points of view, but sometimes I feel that we forget that the technology is changing very fast: vfx artists have to adapt and try different methods, sometimes with brand new technology. and after all, they are humans, artists but humans, and humans tend to fail, sometimes
_" as artists, they can and they will fail."_ That's just it. It happens often, of course. But if the deadline is fair, then it's ok. Then you can try a different approach or get some other artists into the team. The problem is often the deadline. If you only have 3 months to do something, and it will require exactly 3 months to do, then a fail will be a fail. But if you have 4 months (in other words, some extra time), then you have the possibility to fail, fix it, and get a good final result.
And the sad part is CG artists are being abused and neglected because they love their work, so they end up sayin "ok, we'll redo it in two weeks. a fourth time already". Still no valid protection by some trade union, or decent contract that from abusing the deal with extra work within same time schedule and payment. And whats absurd is that all best selling movies are heavy on cgVFX work, yet don't give almost any credit to people that actually made that iron man, thanos, or hulk. Instead, you'll all know and give credits to underlaying, well paid actors. Who actually made that golum, smaug, stoke ? Who did relight, roto, matchmoving, rigging, or fluid sim on aquaman, deepwater horizon, Far from home, or who was lead animator for oscar winning Spiderwerse? And don't forget numerous tv shows that are constantly getting more VFX demanding and quality wise on line with feature movies - like GoT, Love Death and robots, expanse, STdiscovery, westworld, stranger things etc.
I have to say the team behind Spiderverse got the praises they deserved... However, you're right, CG artists are given credit only when their works broke people's expectations, but how often is that???
that explains a lot of why so many recent CGI blockbusters all feel the same even if they have completely different storylines and characters. If similar studios with the same goals are wanting to redo everything in post, no real artist's creativity and originality is allowed to stand out. It becomes a set formula instead of an artistic expression. Which is fine if you just want entertainment. But I want to see some heart if I'm going to sit through 2 hrs of a movie.
Disney is notorious for treating everyone who works for them terribly. Disney is a pretty wretched corporation. It does not surprise me that they give their artist little time, little pay, and no overtime for the Marvel movies. I wish people would stop supporting Disney or at least start having conversations about how terrible of a company they are.
You’re absolutely correct in reality. Most departments in the film are not being properly paid, or given the right amount of time to do their part in the film. I think it was about 15 years ago. The big studios decided that they would no longer give eight weeks pre-production. They cut it back to six weeks of course that varies a bit.
I will always believe that props with a mix of CGI is the best result, you get something tangible for the actors/actresses to work with, and it helps the CGI team to build off of and give a more natural appearance to. Edit: Artist lack of pay and time is such a sad problem, they deserve better especially now that so many studios need their abilities!
There’s going to be a new golden movie era soon, they will start putting way more time into the movies and everything, the story, the music, the CGI will be SO good you won’t believe it ...then you’ll wake up
So it's like being a web developer too, there are lots of crappy clients that will agree to specific work, then do anything to make you work outside the original scope of the job.... for free.... Dude I need to eat
Except there aren't "a lot" of clients in CGI period. Its just the big 6: Universal, Paramount, Columbia, Warner Brothers, Disney, and now Netflix. (would be the big seven if Disney had not eaten up FOX). They talk, and if you refuse a fixed bid, your studio becomes blacklisted.
i have a new found respect for digital artists and animation artists. I am a graphic artist myself but no where near marvel movie blockbuster skills. but Its great to learn more in depth what designers and artists put up with. i had no idea they were under paid and rushed at times.
I think lighting and reflection are the most important things, in many movies things just look too glossy or the light just doesn't feel right, in Zootopia for example I felt like the animator's just tried to flex on us with their lighting software, it was simply too much
Robert Martin and Sandro Mancuso have some great books about Software Craftsmanship and what is means to be a software professional. Studios will put whatever pressure they can to get a product as fast as possible, and a lot of software workers will overpromise and end up having to work grueling schedules to make deadlines. You can't make customers less demanding, but you can make responsible estimates for your own work so as to not make your life any more hectic(this goes doubly so for managers of software employees).
but lord of the rings was not in 3d its was a regular movie using less CGI and real imagery also its was in HD1080P and its not the level of detail of a 4k movie
The studio forced in the whole romance plot with reshoots. Coerced a third and unecessary third movie out of the production company and rushed even more little changes in here and there.
When you do what you love for a living there are constantly people with the same dream who are willing to work for less compensation. This, in turn, leads to low pay for the entire profession with poor working conditions.
i'm a 3D artist, the problem you talked about is really serious and I confirm what you said. everything. not only in vfx production, but also in 3D production for everything from fashion to architectural visualization. Now the time is less and less and the budgets are getting lower to do anything. I always hope that our work as digital artists is recognized, that our value is understood. Unfortunately this is not the case. Those who do not understand anything about CGI are the ones who often make the decisions and it is up to us, passionate about our work, to remedy with stressful periods of hectic racing. Thank you for you're video
As a VFX artist, this is 100% accurate. It's also true within the gaming sector, though it's not nearly as bad. It's the main reason why I completely gave up on working in the film industry and instead settled for a marketing company with set pipelines and a fixed location. In the film business you will be told: We won't pay you for overtime, but you'll get the time back in post-production! So if you work an extra 8 hours, you can take 1 day off in post! Sounds alright yeah? You'll never make it to post. Instead, when post was about to start, the manager would come and say: Yeahhh but we need you in PRE-production on another project now sooo. if you outright refuse to do overtime hours for, say, family reasons. They'll quickly find a way to replace you. And since many of the big studios talk to each other. You can even be blacklisted and have a hard time finding work again. It's also real fun when the CEO gathers everyone and is like: Yeah so Vancouver is offering a 40% VFX Subsidy right now so to stay competitive, we have to move. All of you. You will all have to move. Or be let go. This is not a rare occurrence and I've seen it happen anually over the course of 3 years with certain companies. The problem is that the profession is super-glamourised. So there's a long waiting line of blue-eyed, early 20's graduates who are naive to how the working world works, and will happily eat crap for a chance to "Get a Foot in" as its called these days. They then get used and abused and spat out after a while. Some having ruined relationships and family life. Only to be replaced with another starry eyed graduate. Studios are also often forced to PITCH for the "HONOUR" of doing a project. Like with big box-office movies, the production company comes out and says: Give us your pitch and price. Cheapest one with the best pitch wins the project. Not to mention that the process of making a pitch costs a pretty hefty sum of time and money. This also leads a lot of studios to sell their services at a loss from the get-go, as they figure the exposure they get will be a net-gain in the long run. That's BEFORE adding on the bullshit tactics Production companies pull with having entire scenes redone in literal weeks after they've been long finished.
Spot on, brother. Spot on. Although that is also true for animation studios unless they are a part of the animation union, which most of them aren't, so you can guess. As a result, I completely left the entertainment industry and am now studying computer science to become a programmer, as I would at least be able to have a life as a programmer rather than have none as an animator.
@@animeforever8508 I'm just glad to be out of it. You can't live like that, especially not if you have a girlfriend or worse yet; Wife and kids. -Sorry hun! Daddy's gotta go work in London for a year now because of BS subsidies and it will be literal overtime-toiling hell. Oh but at least you'll earn a LOOOT of money, right dad? - Hahaha no, but I'll be helping the PRODUCTION company make box-office
What really hurts is that when a film does poorly, "expensive CGI" or "poor CGI" is the first culprit. I've seen plenty of directors like Ang Lee blame VFX artists, it's astounding.
As an avid fan of cg, this breaks my heart. I am a grown man and it brought a tear to my eye. THE ARTISTS ARE THE MAGIC! I am so sorry you are treated that way. This must change.
The reason why the scene in Doctor Strange looks so good, is because it isn't animated. The street is a 180m long set outside of Hong-Kong where they created 60-70 real buildings and shops, including working equipment and everything. They show this in the bonus material and it's really amazing, you could actually cook food in those shops or get something mended it one of the metallworkshops etc . I don't know what the artist was telling you or if he meant something else but for what I can tell they only used CGI in moderate doses. That's probably why it looks so real, further proving your point!
post-production artists and technicians often work in bad conditions, trying to do what is asked of them. Makes no sense cos literally everything relies on them
Another factor with the Black panther fight was that it had two characters in nearly identical black suits with a dark background. Even with the slight differences in the suits, it's easy to lose track of who is who, so the VFX artists had to artificially brighten the characters so you can actually see what's going on, except that clashes with the lighting of the environment and makes everything look off
I agree. The cgi in movies aren't getting worse. The way we use it is. Within the past decade I've seen awesome cgi films. Like lion king jungle book infinity war endgame. Then you have cgi failures like black panther hobbit and more Wow I have never gotten more than 5 likes lol 😆 😆😂😂😅😅
I have to disagree about the hobbit. While some of it is bad the smaug and Gollum cgi are amazing. One of the main problems was there was only supposed to be two movies but the producers forced Peter Jackson to make it into three films once filming had already been like halfway done
The combination of unusual (but real) camera travelings with real action can produce spectacular results. For example, fight scenes in HK movies from the 80’s/90’s.
CGI is getting worse because 1) lack of proper funding, you can't cook a decent meal with fast food budget, 2) lack of talent (caused by reason 1). It actually takes years of practice and hardwork to be really good at CGI, but if the reward is not there, nobody with the potential talent to be a good CGI artist would wanteto stay in that role. Usually people good at CGI are also good at many other roles that probably pays more. This is the vicious cycle in the CGI industry and why movie CGI are getting worst and worst (remember the company that made most of Sonics' CGI, they actually went bankrupt after a major studio project!)
Well, this is certainly eye opening and explains why I felt some things, while they looked awesome to me, felt incomplete. Hmm... more to think about now.
Watch the original video here: ua-cam.com/video/8fZGcAmXWyM/v-deo.html
Best CGI of the Decade: ua-cam.com/video/TwbXYySYwbc/v-deo.html
Well. Yes. I posted under the previous video that you nail it, but now you nail it.
Money. Yeap. They are not hiring good artists, as they cannot afford them. Guys left doing own things. All they have is new people, not trained to the required level. And they want to have it all done for yesterday and for pinenuts. So they can boost the profits of the corporation. Forgetting about people who actually made it. Heard about it 1000's times.
What would've been cool for Black Panther is if the studio told the CG team hey we'll pay you guys to finish the CG of the final fight sequence for Black Panther for the Blu Ray release so it doesn't look unfinished.
Every marvel fight scene looks like that
black panther cgi was garbage. all of it.. disney marvel standards seems to be.. is it passable, rathern than is the best we can do.. aside from thanos in infinity war.
One word. UNIONIZE
so studios are just really annoying art commissioners on a bigger scale
Lemon bunnie I attended a lecture by Dan Dos Santos, who painted one of the film posters for Hellboy. The studio hired him as a rush job, INSISTING they needed the piece THAT WEEKEND. Dos Santos busted his butt to get it done in a miraculous matter of days, working 18 hour shifts with no sleep. When it was done, he called the studio to ask about compensation for same day shipping, and he was told, “nah, 2 week standard shipping should be fine. That’ll leave us plenty of time.”
If that isn’t a client from hell, I don’t know what is. He quickly decided that would be the last time he did anything for Hollywood.
😂😂😂👌🏾
Stellvia Heonheim Thats some gr8 b8 m8
@Stellvia Heonheim Where the fuck did *that* logic come from
@Stellvia Heonheim : That's a dumb comment... Any artist given the time will do their best work. It's obvious in some films someone from the top says "good enough" and that's a wrap...
"Things that didn't need to be CGI, are now in CGI". That bothers me so much! Nothing beats real props sometimes.
Case and point, old star wars vs new
Dennis same thing goes for music except instead of cgi it’s things like auto tune..... you know what it’s not just one thing here and there it’s so many things that don’t always need “technology”
@@patrickwilliamson29 yeah the clones in episode II are just ridiculous
It is cheaper to overwork animators for 8 months of hell than it is to make real props.
the movie Bone Tomahawk had a tiny budget most of which was spent on casting
is used mostly practical effects which grounds it in reality so much that the climactic scene had people nauseating and leaving the theaters (it's a western drama/horror with really only one proper gore scene)
I'm a VFX artist, and whenever I'm approached by a studio they start with the line "There's not a massive budget on this project so can you just do something quick and easy?"
"Quick and easy" HA!
Same i get to hear every time as an infrastructure engineer for renderfarms and the like ;) "We were told we can just usw AWS or Azure!!!?" **giggle**
@@peterpain6625 People actually think that for a renderfarm??? The cost alone is a non-starter with amount data that needs to be moved in and out.
@@ehisey You wouldn't believe what some people tried to "explain" to me about my job ;) Of course mixing up bytes, gigabytes and terabytes and having a weird understanding of asset security and security in general. I get paid by the hour... so whatever...
Funny how there's never a "massive budget" when it comes to anything in the creative field. The sentiment is, "Doesn't the computer do most of the work?"
This is really illuminating. It’s so easy to pin the poor quality of a final product on the lack of ability on the artist’s part, without thinking of the bigger picture.
I always felt it was a lack of time. Kind of like the artists doing anime work. They pump out so much shit each season but are treated like actual garbage.
Well, the thing is that studios like Marvel should be aware of that problem. So it is first and foremost a shame that Black Panther had such poor CGI. Secondly, why did it need so much CGI in the first place? A hand to hand combat of two skilled fighters in a suit?! They should have a look at movies like Oldboy or James Bond: Skyfall (Billboard fight) or Daredevil Netflix series. You don't need to make a full CGI fight for minutes to impress an audience. Especially when the result is the opposite after all.
With all the money they make every single one of those movies should live up to the Thanos CGI.
hence why best to not make shitty videos like this without talking to the artists first. If people stopped making this videos on their own and just reached out to artists on linked in or artstaion or cgsociety you will get an answer.
hyraxist ...did you even watch the video?
@@hyraxist We are allowed to dig on the artists. Who then are allowed to bitch that the companies hiring them are shit sticks. Public pressure is king in todays world.
If we can get movie reboots filled with SJW shit because of social pressure, we sure can get artists to get a little more.
The question is...how much do you pay?
When the VFX crews of Life of Pi were having a speech on Oscars stage, they did mention about their poor work condition and didn't get what they were deserved.
( and the Oscars cut them off right after that)
I'm not surprised. That's a shitty place to complain
@@Alistair
It's the perfect place to get people's attention and do some actual good for people who are being exploited.
The thing I learned from this video is actors need to lose some of that huge salary and send it to the CGI department.
@@mortimerbrewster3671 Keanu Reeves gave around $75 million of his earnings just to the special effects teams for the Matrix films IIRC
@@WayoftheFerret He's a diamond in a sea of coal. Definitely a unique individual. I'm talking about from the outset during contract negotiations. The actors are doing less and the CGI department more. They should be getting more and the actors less.
The "camera can't move like that" argument is quite strong, when it comes to making things look realistic and beliveable.
Thanks
@@CenterRow I fail to see how a camera would have to violate the laws of physics to make that black panther shot work. The movement of the person however is absolutely insane and unrealistic.
@@Jellybellie It's really a matter of reference. We have probably about a century worth of cinema. Shots made by a physical camera are ruled by some limitations, those limitations were made conventions and gave it an unique rendering of reality and movement. When those limitations are absent (e.g.: when inside a 3D software), cameras can get really weird. If you get into some 3D art students and see some of their shots, you're gonna see what I mean.
As to regards to the movement of the characters, that's probably the animators being asked to exaggerate the action to look more impactful, such things work really well in animation features, not so much in live-action. Again, a matter of reference.
@@GhostCry100 So you think the camera and animation are not that big of a deal?
The Spider Man movies suffered from this A LOT. I hated the CGI used when Spidey was swinging though the city or around buildings. It looked completely fake.
(Copied from a reply I posted)
At my company we were asked about the time our work takes. It goes as follows:
"How long will you need for this thing?"
"I'd say a week minimum, one and a half to do it properly."
"Okay you get three days."
So you sit down and work through the nights unpaid to meet the deadline, and when you're done the supervisor says "See? You CAN do it in 3 days. Noted for later."
In the end I just refused to work overtime. If I didn't meet the deadline - I got an extention. They didn't even have a problem with that. (Well, they were stressed, but not angry at ME) I urged my collegues to do the same but they were all like "BUT THE PROJECT" - the project isn't as important as your mental health.
(I need to add I was an employee, not a freelancer. A freelancer couldn't have done this)
Bullshityouworkatmcdonaldsbroberealdawg
It’s worse than that. The studio will bid on a shot, then the art director or production company go overtime approving concepts, designs, shots, concepts and that eats into the deadline, but they are never held accountable.
Sounds like it might be a good idea to multiply those predictions by a factor of four. I hear that's how you keep your reputation as a miracle worker.
I can totally believe it - and it's not just the movie SFX industry, sadly. I worked for an avionics company for four years, and the middle managers and CEOs there had the exact same mentality.
Solidarity
One of the saddest parts for me is that nowadays we usually say:
"Script was bad"
"Director sucks"
"Actors were bad"
And we almost always follow up with: "But the effects were good".
The guys that work the most, transforming just some dudes doing stupid things in costumes into a spectacle are the ones who struggle to buy a house or maybe even make ends meet. The writers, actors, producers, directors get paid millions. The ones we say did a poor job.
I wouldnt say that they struggle to buy make ends meet tho, they are still payed more then average.
Its more like they are the dishwasher while the actors are the CEOs.
@@wanashthegash To work in VFX you generally want to live in/around a major city that has a film/VFX industry, which generally isn't cheap, if they could work the same job in say Bethlehem PA, sure, they could have a spacious house etc. Also, comparing them to dishwashers is very reductive, a more apt comparison would be they're the engineers/software developers while the actors are the CEOs .
@Aristide Torchia The greed of movie producers/studio heads?
It is even worse: lots of VFX artists don't even get credit. Have you seen the never ending list of names at the end of a movie? Tripple that and you'll probably get the right number of how many VFX artist were actually involved.
Each VFX studio have a limited number of credits and they need to decide which artist's name will apear at the end of the movie.
So artists work for months, sometimes 10-12 hours a day including weekends and their name is not even mentioned, while the second assistant of the head of the studio's legal division has credit in a movie that he only knows it exists from it's title appeared in an excell sheet he printed out for a weekly meeting.
To be fair, everyone who isn't an investor/entrepreneur/business owner is struggling to get a house. You have to do extraordinary things just to live an ordinary life and all you got out of it was a stupid okay boomer meme.
It's just time isn't it? Art takes time. If you rush art, you get mediocre results. The greatest artists that ever lived cannot do their best work if they have ridiculous deadlines.
Exactly!
Well, that's true for anything, but money rots everything it touches.
Akronys that’s capitalism.
@@acdcjor Only if you are a weak soul. Still too many people believing money will be the solution to their emptiness.
Meh, I would not say that's a truism. Creativity rears its head when you have constraints, and a deadline is one of those.
Studio: I want a thousand shots
Artist: here's a thousand shots
Studio: I want a thousand more shots
Artist: Money?
Studio: Well we're only actually going to use the second thousand shots, so no
Artist: But you bought the others already
Studio: No
LMAO
@Kid From 21 Jump Street ?
I feel like that should be stated in a legal agreement. Because that is wrong.
Yeah, you'd think these companies would put that in their contracts.
@@BoyBlunder66
The unions really need to put an end to that sort of thing. VFX artists should come together and go on strike in the same way that writers and actors do.
I came in expecting a "Weta effect" style of rant. I left feeling pleasantly surprised that someone highlighted the reality of the VFX industry. Fun fact, when I was job hunting in the VFX field back in 2016. A company perk was not working overtime and weekends off. Its telling of an industry when a company has to highlight that in order to sweeten the deal
Dang, that's awful! Thanks for watching!
Ugh, that reminds me of a major video game company job listing I saw once actually DEMANDING "must be willing to work overtime and on weekends". At least they were upfront, but damn messed up.
Johnny Quan my god that’s sad. They don’t even try to hide it anymore...
Hahahaha this feels so relatable although I never had a company whom didn't had me do overtime and work on weekends.
We are usually hired for 8 hours a day but that turns into 14 with no overtime pay but yeah if we worked on weekends then we are paid sometimes.
So you can guess. I really hope things gets better.
Cool dalek
"You Can't Rush Art!"
-That one old guy from a pixar film
@@sfjlfkjsdlfkjds Have you actually seen how "creative" AI makes "art"? The art it makes is either horrifying or makes no sense. And this is just pictures we're talking about. An AI artist is never ever gonna happen. Not even the automation of art is going to happen.
Toy fixer in toy story 2
@@hectorjuarez6723 His name is Geri.
@@zacharylanton6134 thank you. I felt weird saying "toy fixer"
funny when you know that toy story 2 was basically made in 9 months instead of four years and the conditions were catastrophic
Artists: You said, that we have to make 1000 shots for this money.
Studio: I'm altering the deal. Pray, I don't alter it any further.
Also you must wear these clown shoes and refer to yourself as Mary.
They need a Union.
@George it isnt as simple as that. Its very hard to find a contract of anything, imagine finding CGI animator contracts in movies... It would be easy? The answer is no
@@picollojr9009 Yes, it is in fact a lot easier to just walk away. Life is damn short and it's definitely not worth jeopardizing your mental health for someone else's gain. I'm not an artist but I know that there are other options like starting a youtube channel, creating short films and indie games, etc. If many artists think this way, studios have to provide artists some privileges.
@@armin1576 today everything is about the damn money. You want to enjoy life? You need money. You need to feed? You need the damn money again, and such dependence on currency is what ties us so much.
Not disregarding currency because that is certainly needed to keep values of things, help on economy, keep an order in how things are traded and such, but still, the modern society depends way too much on that paper. So people stopped valuing human lives of their own fellers and sometimes their own
At the end of the day, if the people don't speak up and either defend the CGI artist or don't spend their money on the movies that have rushed CGI nothing is gonna change.
not really. then the movies would be forced to plan better and use less cgi.
Worker friendly laws would help too.
@@dantan1249 This. So much this!! Movie makers need to stop thinking "We'll just use CGI for this" and start using the humans they have to make the craft of cinema. Let the actors act, let the stuntfolk stunt, let the director get creative and create problems for the cameramen work out the problems to shoot.... that' is what makes cinema great. Only a few still think like that, and their films are always epic (e.g. Christopher Nolan)
@Stellvia Heonheim English or context please?
@@dantan1249 less is more sometimes.
Animation is one of the most soul-crushing careers out there, especially CGI because people expect it to be perfect. If a 2D animation has a low framerate or has a few mistakes, no one even notices. But if CGI has any mistakes or looks off at all, _everyone_ will notice. Even 2D is really difficult, and you end up spending days or even weeks on just a few seconds of animation.
I'm not a professional by any means, but I've been looking for a career in art and I know animation (especially CGI) would drive me insane.
CGI demand is so high yet artists are underpaid. Something is very wrong here
Like video-games, they're exploiting the sea of enthusiastic and naive graduates from art/game design schools who are just glad to be involved in the industry. At first I'm sure they waved off the conditions as "I'm just an intern for now, but I'm getting good experience, and I'm sure conditions will improve once I've been here longer/moved up", then of course the reality of the expense of living in a large city with a CG/game industry, the need to pay off student loans etc. sets in, and of course this is their industry and they still want to work in a creative field so they grit their teeth and deal with it. Of course the public demands ever more bombastic CG movies with more realistic and prevalent CG, and higher fidelity, larger video-games that require FAR more models, effects, incidental textures etc etc.
Supply and demand. If there is a large demand, and prices for that labor remain low, then something is going on with the supply. Probably the barrier to entry is low enough that the market can actually supply plenty of labor which keeps prices of that labor down.
@@VaShthestampede2 I don't think so, I think it has more to do with the factors I mentioned, enthusiastic and naive new graduates - it's still a technical field that requires a fair amount of training and an artistic eye, not some low-level position in the mail-room where you can train a random person for the position in a week.
@@VaShthestampede2 The barrier of entry is not low for the 3D industry. I work as a 3D rendering and lighting artist as well as compositing. The industry standard software is expensive and takes months to even familiarize yourself with the UI. The problem is exactly as the video states, studios pay for 1000 shots but don't pay for the revisions and retakes or extend the deadlines. This is the exact situation and problem I'm dealing with at work. There were fundamental technical issues which caused an almost 3 month delay but the deadline is unchanged. The team I work with have been pulling 14-16 hour shifts, working weekends, with no overtime compensation for a few weeks to catch up. The industry in the country I'm based in is also relatively small but growing so there is a high demand for people in this field. It's also one of the few industries not suffering pay cuts and downsizing in the pandemic.
@@yellowblanka6058 not usually. cgi needs more effects. But it is easier to get realistic results with cgi render engines like Arnold or vray etc
I would argue that cgi needs time and better pay for there artists
Ridley Scott has the right idea on CGI, only when absolutely necessary.
Nolan more I think
@@franlovelsimic8421 maybe but Ridley Scott actually says it on the production video for Prometheus.
@@gunner678 CGI Xenomorph isn't scary at all though..
@@gunner678 said yet that movie is littered with CGI. Check out how Nolan did Inception and Interstellar and tell me how much CGI there is.
Quality vs. quantity - a few very high quality pieces of CG when appropriate (would be too expensive/take too much time to do with sets/props/actors etc. or impossible) vs. a bunch of mediocrity that sticks out like a sore thumb.
We should start glorifying VFX artists like we do with actors. They'd probably get paid more then
I think its the other way around. We should stop glorifying actors.
I allready do, I care little for actors
@@SimplyPhoenix that wouldn’t help Vfx artists lol
Ppl already glorifies vfx artists, forgiving shitty movies just bc they have good effects
@@cesar6447 do you really not know how much Vfx artists are mistreated?
I work for a videogames related video production company. It's not always bad, but for quite some time it was like this: "We do not know what we want! Game assets are not ready! You have only two days! Do video!", then radio silence for 1,5 days, then: "Oh no, the thing you did is not right, because we didn't give you any good inputs on what we want! Also, we need to change the whole video, because something in the marketing has changed! Do video, nao!!". Then they recieve a half-baked abortion of a video. "Great video, we cried when we watched, because we have no idea how a good video should look and sound like! Now, do next video, you have one day!!". Next week: "Hey, meet your new collegue, he's great at video edtitng!". Dude: "hOw Do I cOnVeRt Mp4 tO aVi??!!". Me: jumps off a roof.
Dang, that sucks.
Is it EA?
That's crazy. VFX Industry and Finance/Tax Industry have so much in common. Pure insane deadlines and no extra compensation.
This was hilarious.... I feel your pain sir... I swear it's the Dunning Kruger effect having a good strut.
Marketing departments can be annoying as fuck when they're trying to execute a gimmick. I don't even want to know what the project crunch was like at Bethesda when they targeted 11/11/11 for Skyrim.
As someone who works in the VFX industry, this video says everything how it is really..... it's a bitter-sweet industry to work in (work on dream films, but have a poor work-life balance a lot of the time)
Are there any studios which try to take off that stress by giving artists a healthy work-style? I know that in Japan, one of the animation studios (the one recently attacked) has tried this and because of this, has created some of the most gorgeous animation quality possible
@@TasX Yeah they do, but sometimes its not the studios fault and more clients saying 'we want these 500 shots - no we wont be paying anymore because we've already paid you with the initial 'fixed bid'' model. The documentary on Life After Pi explains it all, it's the only downside to the vfx industry in my opinion.... still love it though!
Too bad Hollywood doesn't allow intelligent people to run things. I wouldn't have a single VFX shot made until I was satisfied with sketch drafts. If it looks amazing as a sketch, then it'll be gold when fully rendered.
@@Alondro77 Well that's what disney does. Idk about other studios like Universal (Sonic, Cats)
I am thinking about getting into vfx would it be ok for me to ask you some questions about vfx
This videos deserves as many views as the original video. Hollywood needs to realize that they're being abusive with the working conditions for these artists.
Agreed!
You say that like they don't already realize it. They do, they just also know that if a movie underperforms they can get a tax writeoff to recoup their losses. Since they know they can get money either way, they don't really care about the people actually doing the work.
I haven't realized about this point it just terrible those things are happening right now.
Studios dont have to respect the artists when they can just hire someone else who will take their abuse
This is the scary truth. This also goes for almost any other job and it sucks ass, but I have hope for the future with people getting better morals.
Totally, as long as the newcoming artists accept the big companies abuse the system won't change :(
@@Crasstho Or democratic political system where immigration is voteherding.
this is just IT in general; we're the only people who do things that keep money flowing in, so greedy assholes create the power structure so the IT is always the bottom most slave and have to fight for just simple QOL.
As someone who started in production art (Promotional stuff. logos, sportswear) in the 90s, I can tell you this has been a constant. There's always someone hungry enough to underbid you. Because the vast majority of employers (if not all) are not creatives, they think what you do is easy. Or "can you just whip up a quick sketch?" when what they want takes 6 hours. 6 that they have no intention of paying you for. We had the term "art monkey" back then. We were just property or a pet expected to perform for peanuts. Largely why I left the industry. I'm sure its much the same in most creative fields. I'd expect with IT and code entry too
Dude.
I have been a VFX artist (animator) for 8 years and worked on many projects you are showing here in many countries.
You last sentences gave me a tear, I felt that very strongly.
I am not sure what pushed you to make such videos but it feels good. Thank you
The amount of work on too few shoulders shows that production companies really need a Digtial Artist consultant. Someone who actually can gauge what amount of time is needed for a specific workload and then has the authority to either hire more people or tell the director to get stuffed with his unrealistic demands.
And someone who can say when it is better and cheaper to actually build something and shoot in camera instead of adding it later through cgi.
Because obviously the people in charge so far have no clue.
More people with CGI experience need to get into film making. They'll understand the strengths and limitations of CGI (including CGI under a strict budget) better than anyone else.
Artist in any field have to talk to the client DIRECTLY - and tell them how long it will take. The problem is allowing the manager or a sales person ( who is not involved in the hands on ) to do the negotiating. Sales or owners just will promise anything to get the sale and the commissions. Then hand it over to there workers as they move to the next client. As a paid worker, you can huff and puff - but you have no power. So you work 14 hours or get fired.
they have historical consultants and science consultants. directors like ridley scott just ignores them.
At my company we were asked about. the time it takes. It goes as follows:
"How long will you need for this thing?"
"I'd say a week minimum, one and a half to do it properly."
"Okay you get three days."
So you sit down and work through the nights unpaid to meet the deadline, and when you're done the supervisor says "See? You CAN do it in 3 days. Noted for later."
In the end I just refused to work overtime. If I didn't meet the deadline - I got an extention. They didn't even have a problem with that. I urged my collegues to do the same but they were all like "BUT THE PROJECT" - the project isn't as important as your mental health.
(I need to add I was an employee, not a freelancer. A freelancer couldn't have done this)
@ayior I was in the same boat. I tell my co-workers every day - it is not a competition between us to see who is the fastest or best to get the project done! Artist have such low self esteem ( me included) that we want to prove our worth. I tell everyone, slow down - manage the company's expectations. But no, there is always that person who has to go home (unpaid working) and blaze overtime to get brownie points. And like you said, boss sees his - so there you go. We are ( as a group )our own worst enemy. We need better self esteem and the ability to say no - without having our jobs on the line.
As you pointed out, a lot of things that didn’t need to be CGI are made with CGI, like those nanotech masks in Endgame, did everyone really need those?
To be fair, that was plot-relevant - the nanotech is (spoilers)
the only reason Tony was able to get the stones back from Thanos
Not-so-fun fact: the entire suits were CGI
@@LincolnDWard the plot is whatever the studio wants it to be. And the studio's actors didn't feel like wearing masks.
Note to myself: DO NOT learn CGI stuff, job sucks.
Or dont give that much money to those goodfor nothing actors/directors
Unless you like doing CGI.
Depends on what's your alternatives.
Working with CGI is tough; but I wouldn't say it sucks.
I'm looking at possibly taking art commissions for CGI pictures, as that would probably be a lot better than corporate animation and doesn't have many others doing the same thing.
i mean, it is a thing that people like to do
it doesn't always have to be about money
There is another point about the lighting - In more recent movies, sets where CGI is required usually have many sources of light in them, including reflective surfaces and ambient lighting. It is much harder to make believable CGI with complex lighting. In older movies, there are usually only several sources of light in a shot - making it easier to simulate the lighting in a convincing way. This is also why a lot of space movies have very convincing CGI - In space there is barely any ambient light and only several sources of light.
Not take away from your comment, but your use of "many" vs "several" is a little confusing. Could you potentially clarify or expound?
@@JustSomeDinosaurPerson This thread is a touch necro, but I think by "several" they mean "few" - like the dinos in Jurassic Park just have car headlights, flashlights and moonlight, spaceships often just have the sun (and no atmospheric diffusion), whereas more fantastical settings made in CG-only worlds can have loads of light sources all over that are a nightmare to render convincingly.
I think the lack of references plays an important role. Constructing a whole CGI environment without photographing the effect of light and reflections on real objects is a great handicap.
In many films lighting and reflections look waxy
oh my god......the titan scene in infinty war and when ironman and spiderman were on the space ship look so bad to me.
@@dantan1249 Yeah, Marvel movies are a hodgepodge of adequate to really crappy CGI from shots to shots.(Doesn't help that more than a dozen of different VFX companies throughout the world work on those shows so the discrepancy can jump at you depending on the level of the artists or the time they're being allocated to complete their shots). Unnaceptable for such a rich company but they treat VFX artists like low level grunts with impossible deadlines to meet and that change their minds at last minute because they can't lock a sequence design in pre-production.(Black Panther's showdown was remade at last minute and it showed. VFX artists did what they could, they can't do miracles at last minute notice because directors and producers are callous and don't know shit about how VFX are time consuming to get it right).
.... Ofc they take reference. Even amateur CG artists use reference.
For Kiki's Delivery Service, Miyazaki spent a day in a train station to see how women's dress flow (at the risk of looking like and old perv lol)
Getting irl references is important when you want to animate something like it was real
UNIONS
That's what they are for.
That's not how you spell onions.
they are an uphill battle that most people cant get into, its a lot of work to fix the most minute things, to the point where the pros dont outweigh the cons, thats why we need people who are truely dedicated and willing to fight greed
@@mattdowds8505 oño
Unions are good and bad, but today they are pretty much awful. Often they can end up hurting the employees joining the union, but i dont know if its a bad idea for this type of thing
The only way to fight organised greed is with organised labour
You flipped my Fury Road head replacement shot of Max on the bike! Nice to see my sky replacements on that film featured too. Good video though, really highlights our work condition struggles. I don't work in the film industry anymore. Opted to have a life and work toward a pension instead.
Thank you for your cervix.
ARTIST: Will I be paid overtime?
INTERVIEWER: No.
ARTIST: Good! I love a 40 hour work week!
If you're good at something, never do it for free!
All the new cgi movies are looking “too” cgi
100% agree, or just CGI that's unnecessary, look at Spiderman Far from Home. CGI Spiderman suit is great, but the one that was made for filming was brilliant and well-crafted, completely unnecessary to have a full CGI suit filled in over it.
@@tbriecheese But i meant the most VFX shot you wont even notice
@@jokybones I do. A lot. Everything looks so sterile.
@@theatheistbear3117 sadly not the artists fault
@@tbriecheese cgi suit would help with collision simulations, Water simulations, fire simulations for colliding cg objects. But they could of made that cgi suit invisible so it would look like the real suit
As a 2D animator, I thought this was just common knowledge. We also can't technically unionize because most of us are individuals. Yes there is an Animation Union but it only lets you in if you have a while in the industry, so it's hard to break into the industry that's going to underpay you anyway.
AkiraKeoro2
“As a 2D animator” l o fucking l. You draw fury shit guy. Chill.
No One
Shut up bitch. You’d didn’t even use a period. What the fuck is broke about it.
That's just making excuses. People working on Hollywood movies are hardly individuals (aside from concept artists maybe, but the animations are literally beyond what a single person could do) and even without a union there can be an agreement to not go below a certain wage. If there's noone that's willing to be underpaid then the commissioners have no other choice but to pay proper money to receive art. That's all there is to it. Artists tend to have a really poor understand of how this works and then complain that people are underpaying them, but it is artists that provide the market, so we just need to ask the proper money and then there's nothing to complain about. Try to wrap your head around it and then go do some research on how to establish your hourly wage properly.
YamiKisara, there’s competition from foreign animation studios that pay their workers even less. It makes it hard to get hired with an expectation of being paid well.
As societies we allow corporations to operate in this way, so unless we change that all of this will continue.
The general problem with CGI is not CGI, it’s that CGI is a substitute for poor acting and plot
You could not have said in better. You have bad actors getting paid tens of millions of dollars, and they do not even have to act. The CGI guy is doing everything for him while getting none of the praise.
I feel like this could be said of special effects at most points in movie history, however special effects do not get worse nor does acting, it's the use of it. Now I'm obviously not blaming the artists, but if the CGI guys are doing everything and the whole experience is off, you can't blame the actors, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Very few movies bring in audiences because the CGI looks great.
Funny how all this money goes into these productions and it's like the animators are the only ones expected to make an effort.
yeah bring that spaceship up to a black hole in interstellar for real in a sequel...
That's a very one-dimensional perspective. Nowadays, CGI is essential to make most films look good, no matter whether it's an action film or a rom-com. Usually though, you can tell when they use extended CGI battle sequences as a substitute for plot and substance, so you are not wrong that some movies are made purely for the visuals, and those visuals are computer-generated.
I worked as a VFX and motion graphic storyboarding artist starting in 2002, but ended up quitting the business after a couple years because the pay was horrible. You can't rush and overwork an artist. You can't ask him/her to work 18 hour days for 2-3 weeks and expect their best work. Artists don't want to create "good enough." They want to create their best.
The VFX artists of Jurassic Park certainly tried to do their best!
I just rewatched Hobbit 1-3 recently and personally they did outstandingly on Smaug... his CGI is amazing and he looks realistic in his scenes.
The rest of the CGI was utter garbage and stood out embarrassingly however... I think the main things are
1. How much time VFX artists have
2. How much they’re being paid
3. How much CGI is being used
Again referring to hobbit, the battle of five armies the scenes where there’s armies fighting is just pure CGI and looks like a mess... it’s really a shame that CGI has so much potential and wonder + creativity yet its usually done horribly and comes off unrealistic.
the whole making of these movies was pretty much a total disaster, not just the CGI. I recommend the videos Lindsay Ellis made about them ...
@@goodial Lindsay is amazing. The Hobbit situation was definitely a colossal mess for sure.
goodial that’s so funny, I literally just watched her videos on it last night! All were great.
@@goodial The whole thing just makes me so sad. Like, those movies had the potential to be just as amazing as Lord of the Rings, but like, they are such a slog to sit through these days. I like the character interactions, but the amount you have to get through just for those isn't worth it in the slightest. A friend and I tried rewatching the movies a few months ago and we had to stop somewhere in the middle of the second one; where as the Lord of the Rings movies tend to barely feel as long as they are, the Hobbit just starts to feel exhausting at a point.
The thing with the Hobbit it's that Guillermo Del Toro was going to direct the movies and had made pre production for it but just before they were about to start filming he pulled out because of differences with the studio (if I remember correctly he wasn't aloud to stick to his whole vision for the piece, what a shame).
So in the end Peter Jackson had to take the leash and jump to the directors chair without any planning for the movie what so ever (for Lord of the Rings there was planning for many years before they started filming). Because of that Jackson had to wing it and plan every scene on the spot, it's fucking crazy impressive it came out even that good in the end even tho the movies are pretty bad. Also because the were pretty much no pre production/planning he couldn't do anything practically so he had to dumb impossible amount of work for the cgi department.
Whole thing was big ass clusterfuck, nightmare for everybody. No wonder Ian Mckellen got pissed off in front of green screen and Jakcson was stressed out out of his mind the whole shoot.
It could have been something glorious if studio would have been a bit smarter about it. If Jakcson didn't decide to direct it and it would have gotten delayed it could easily have meant that it wouldn't have gotten made at all.
Sorry for the novel..
Its like Miracle Max said "You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."
This stuff happens way too often. We live in a time of insane graphics in both films and videogames and in both industries animation and vfx artists are pressured and underpaid. It's good that you made this video to create some awareness, this needs to stop. CGI is everything in almost every post-2010 blockbuster, the people who make it deserve appropriate compensation.
My god i always forget how amazing Davy Jones looks. They really nailed that 🤯
Watching it as a kid, it didn't even occur to me that it could be CGI. It was so REAL!
Davy Jones is proof that a fully CGI character can work. So long as the artists are given the proper time/funds/freedom to make it work.
@@ShadowVincent3 I would say that Davy Jones, Gollum, the Na'Vi(the blue aliens from Avatar), Smaug The Dragon, Caesar The Chimpanzee from The Planet Of The Apes movies, The Hulk, Rocket Raccoon and Thanos are all proof of that, along with the animals from The Jungle Book and The Lion King.
I never forgot how amazing Davy Jones looks.
Davy Jones is one of the most impressive accomplishments of CGI and so is Thanos. Thanos looks pretty amazing, too.
@Neo Anomaly what about the cgi in star wars episode 3,any thoughts on that?
A moment of silence for the artists that are trying to rework Sonic in record time, right now.
I was honestly dismayed when I heard about them trying to fix Sonic because I know they probably aren't getting paid for it.
Totally agree. I work at a mocap studio that also does complete cutscenes for video games.
Our salaries are ridiculously low, we work long hours to compensate for clients' bad decision making and even our boss sees us as easily replacable animals (because there are enough struggling artists out there who're just waiting to get a job).
I feel like they should film more real locations rather than just do cgi
Kind of what they do. We often use "extension sets", which basically means that there's a little physical set created around the actors that they act in, but around the set there's green/bluescreen and then the rest of the environment is CGI. That's a very common technique.
(Now I interpreted "real locations" as "physical locations". If you mean real real locations, then that's great but costs a ton of money to fly an entire crew and big amounts of tech + expensive actors across the globe.)
Bazz vid I agree. The reason Jurassic Park still holds up is because of its use of practical effects alongside cgi. It’s easier to trick the eye that way and makes the whole thing look a lot more cohesive. I love the Solo movie for that reason: for the alien dogs, they actually had dobermans in costumes!
@@tenlongfingers70 yep, CGI went from a film enhancement to the ENTIRE FILM. It's a tool, and a lot of studios are using it incorrectly. if CGI is a precision CNC machine, studios are using it like a bludgeoning device
TenLongFingers yeah
Totally agree. It's actually kind of astounding how much locations in modern films are entirely fake, it can really break immersion. Having real sets makes the movie feel more grounded in reality and easier for you to see yourself in its universe.
Also every aspect of the film industry except VFX has unions, so it's the one piece of the pie Hollywood can exploit fully.
Remember the writers strike in Hollywood? It's going to come to the point of the CG Artist ate going to strike.
Let's have that happen!
Well, it's 3 years later and Disney VFX artists unionising? It's progress, I guess
Thank you for creating an actually well crafted video delving into VFX, I get extremely tired of people looking at the surface of the problem then declaring CGI is terrible.
My concern is since the studios are basically becoming so awful at managing their films cost, it's quite likely the VFX firms simply won't be able to continue and we might see a kind of market crash in film, where there's all of a sudden nobody to do the work.
They're trying to offset this by moving a lot of work to places like India etc
But it seems more like a patch than a fix.
Only the future will tell.
Step 1: Stop hiring overpriced actors
Step 2: pay all the people essential for the production of movies and games a fair amount and give them proper, humane working conditions.
Naw, they'll just outsource the work to India/South Korea/China with a few production supervisors to look over the results for "good enough" results. Not that I agree with this/condone it, but that's how these things work.
Without Step 1 you don't have money for step 2 lmao.
The "overpriced" actors are the ones bringing the audience to see the movie, you don't only pay for the acting but also the actors brand. Get a famous actor, get tones of "free" advertising and good branding ect. believe it or not but they are actually worth the money they are payed.
@@klobmuk I know right, these people here just dont get how this shit works.
@@klobmuk And how often does a movie bomb after the lead actor/actress is paid 20+ million dollars? I'd say quite often.
You were right the first time. Its getting worse…Industry insiders are just supplying you with further understanding concerning the “why?”. Much of what you said is still true. I almost graduated in digital media decades ago until I understood how long Id work and how little Id be paid. Changed directions.
LOTR VS Hobbit. End of discussion
Limitations breed creativity. LOTR was a masterpiece, and pushed the boundaries of the technology, it was limited but used very creatively. Hobbit was an overblown trash fire that looked like a badly made children's animated movie, with cartoonish action and uncanny valley looking characters. CGI needs to be used sparingly, and tastefully. Not make the whole damn movie with it. Live action is dead these days. Then you get these bizzare contrasts between scenes where characters are just talking ect where few VFX are used apart from CGI "makeup", and the action sequences, where often there isn't a single real thing in them. It's the over use that's killing it.
@@Patrick-857 The problems of "The Hobbit" production go much further and are far more fundamental than just a bad taste in CGI placement. It's worth looking into.
@@heli0ns There was even a DVD extra that went into it. Jackson was called last second to save the movie that was almost ready to shoot before they lost the director. He just had to make do with what he had available, and he didn't look pleased about it. That's not a recipe for success
@@heli0ns I'm from NZ. I witnessed the political fiasco that happened as the big Hollywood companies tried to move shooting overseas to cut costs and the government did everything in its power to keep it here in NZ. Not sure how much effect that had.
I enjoy more how they used real actors as Orcs in LOTR over the CGI in the Hobbit.
Well in total it's like in almost every business:
There's a customer and a creator.
And even though the creator might be able to do a job absolutely perfect from his point of view, it still might not be what the customer wants.
If crap is ordered, crap will be delivered.
Solid point actually.
Finally videos that don’t just say “ONLY USE PRACTIAL EFFECTS BACK IN MY DAY THEY WOULD HAVE PUT RDJ ON A SKI LIFT AND PAINT IT SKY COLORED
I just found this channel a couple of days ago. And as a film buff. I love your channel :)
Thanks!
ditto. I am already loving it.
Aside from rushing art, and being underpaid, sometimes the studio just has really bad management. I've had a few friends who basically can't get things done in time because the management is just terrible, thus leading to crunching and rushed art.
ooof.. tell me about it! I work in a AAA video game development studio. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I called our management team a bunch of false-confident morons.
Been there, done that. The film industry chews you up and spits you out. While the game industry is run by people with the mentality of 12 year olds. Most people in both industries decide to drop out around 30 so that they can have a life, family, good health etc. The essential problem is that there are always 100+ other people willing to replace you. So the studios don't have to grow up and run their businesses properly. They can just hire the next bright-eyed kid, destroy their health, hire the next kid... and rinse/repeat.
As a humble 2D animator myself, I wouldn't even say it's just time that would help. Sometimes I pump out something amazing in less time than if I have a ton of time. At the end of the day it's the direction that makes something great or not.
Last time artists were paid well: Late Renaissance Era. With a few more modern exceptions of course.
I am sick to death of over the top CGI most of it is just plain ridiculous.
*cough cough Terminator Dark Fate.
@H M It was shite
Definitely. I’d say the less CGI a movie has the better is it
@@xPlatiinHD I can probably name like 30 different movies you didnt even CGI was a huge part of...
mandookie im definitely talking about other movies than you think.........
Many other industries need to learn this same thing. This is a model example of greedy companies not caring about workers, they only see employees as a huge financial stress in their accounting books. Too many companies have regressed to the 1900 and just grind money out of people, consuming their time, sweat, pain, suffering and health into dollars.
It's sad
Well said. I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out of the modern film industry (and the modern economy, truth be told, but that's a story for another day) and it just isn't happening. Yes, there seems to be a mini practical effects renaissance in some genre films (Guillermo del Toro is steering this ship), but that's still a very specialized, niche movement. If anything, the negative trends you highlighted are only accelerating.
It's also concerning that a lot of the practical VFX masters of the late 20th century (like Rick Baker) are retiring. I worry that a lot of that old-school craftsmanship and artistry will be lost forever. I was kind of hoping that streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon would offer a home to old-school practical effects in the same way they've revitalized the mid-budget non-franchise movie, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Yeah, most digital VFX artists are capable of doing amazing work (and CGI can be amazing when it's blended with practical elements to maximize audience immersion; The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the recent Planet of the Apes movies, and Mad Max: Fury Road come to mind) and this is completely unfair to them. This isn't a talent problem, it's a top-down resource problem, and I don't see it improving any time soon.
There is an over reliance on CGI and not on actual story.
*cough* Marvel *cough*
@Kent Arnold This right here. What you just said. Is why people hate the new star wars movies. That and the political stuff crammed in.
"vfx artists make what dreams are made of"
Damn man, that was beautiful.
The "Fix it in post" mindset is so prevalent, that there is even a software called Fxitinpost built for the sole purpose of fixing it in post production.
It's getting better, but looking worse in some cases.
It's not weird if you actually understood the video.
did you watch the video?
It's getting worst not better.
What a valuable and insightful comment.
Dennis Villeneuve is single-handedly saving modern effects work. I hope his approach becomes the industry standard.
No, the exploitation and deadlines are getting worse. Compositing could be better. Look at Jurassic Park 1993. Crappy low-res textures, hidden well in rain etc. CGI + Machine learning will achieve photorealism every time
I wanted to get into VFX since after I graduated college. I always had a hard time breaking into the industry (probably from moving around a lot) and ended up stuck on a lot of smaller projects, often branching out into editing and colour grading to get more work. I had one great client, though. He paid me hourly for the job and was strict about working 40hr weeks, no overtime. He threw so many ideas at me to try out, stuff I've always wanted to try like day for nights. In the end about 30% of my shots were edited into the short film.
Well, some time ago I had a major career change. I came back to Los Angeles to work for that client, but not for VFX. I now work in a practical effects shop focused on animatronics for theme parks. I feel like I've completely dodged a bullet looking back at the state of VFX. I knew for some time the VFX industry was pretty awful, especially since Rhythm and Hues went under. But even that didn't deter me from wanting to work on these bigger films.
I feel bad for the whole VFX industry getting oppressed by the big studios... but man, I'm glad I didn't get in.
As someone who used to work in the arts, AMEN.
NOBODY wants to pay what something is work. You end up making like $12 an hour...and for the VFX artists who see these behemoths they helped launch make billions? That's gotta sting.
They went "we can do anything with this" and forget many things can still be done with practical effects
Very true. One rule in movie making is to take the easy solution - its kind of fked up that creating a cgi wall to jump over is easier than just jumping over an actual wall.
@@tomb-rider one LOTR movie cost 150M dollars, adjusted for inflation in 2019
The Battle of Five Armies cost twice that, and without inflation adjusted.
I don't get how cg is cheaper than practical
@@tlotpwist3417 What I mean is (& i am agreeing with your original comment) that the go-to solution is to use CGI when simply doing it for real would be more effective. (often cheaper, easier & more effective) but they turn to CGI as the fix for everything. Because it is so prevalent, it has become the easier option.
@@tomb-rider that's why i am hyped for the Dark Crystal show, it sounds unreal to have this not done in cg like everyone else do lol
It's no surprise that the first X-Men movies look best than Marvel-Disney movies
These reasons are very accurate, exact same thing you can see in Anime industry where they are paid meager amount for 100s of frames so they are hugely underpaid and stressed which sometimes results in not so perfect animation
weeb! ew
Vfx artists and people with jobs alike should unionize, hollywood depends hugely on them yet they're underpaid.
I do agree with you on everything, but still, I think you're not taking very seriously one other option: as artists, they can and they will fail. There is a lot of try and error, expecting all cgi to be amazing is the same as expecting that all the scenes of a movie are acted amazingly as well, or crafted amazingly, always. I think we are so used to incredible cgi that we expect only mind blowing presentations, but if you think of it as a canvas of a painter, not all paintings of an incredible painter are "perfect" or amazing. I agree with your points of view, but sometimes I feel that we forget that the technology is changing very fast: vfx artists have to adapt and try different methods, sometimes with brand new technology. and after all, they are humans, artists but humans, and humans tend to fail, sometimes
Fair point.
_" as artists, they can and they will fail."_
That's just it. It happens often, of course. But if the deadline is fair, then it's ok. Then you can try a different approach or get some other artists into the team. The problem is often the deadline. If you only have 3 months to do something, and it will require exactly 3 months to do, then a fail will be a fail. But if you have 4 months (in other words, some extra time), then you have the possibility to fail, fix it, and get a good final result.
@@synsam12345 Also a fair point
This is actually a really good point that I haven't thought about. I'm so used to big-name companies to never fail
Being an artist, I can't relate more.
And the sad part is CG artists are being abused and neglected because they love their work, so they end up sayin "ok, we'll redo it in two weeks. a fourth time already". Still no valid protection by some trade union, or decent contract that from abusing the deal with extra work within same time schedule and payment. And whats absurd is that all best selling movies are heavy on cgVFX work, yet don't give almost any credit to people that actually made that iron man, thanos, or hulk. Instead, you'll all know and give credits to underlaying, well paid actors. Who actually made that golum, smaug, stoke ? Who did relight, roto, matchmoving, rigging, or fluid sim on aquaman, deepwater horizon, Far from home, or who was lead animator for oscar winning Spiderwerse? And don't forget numerous tv shows that are constantly getting more VFX demanding and quality wise on line with feature movies - like GoT, Love Death and robots, expanse, STdiscovery, westworld, stranger things etc.
I have to say the team behind Spiderverse got the praises they deserved...
However, you're right, CG artists are given credit only when their works broke people's expectations, but how often is that???
I feel really bad for VFX artists and animators, and they should be given more credit and welfare. The word just has to get out.
that explains a lot of why so many recent CGI blockbusters all feel the same even if they have completely different storylines and characters. If similar studios with the same goals are wanting to redo everything in post, no real artist's creativity and originality is allowed to stand out. It becomes a set formula instead of an artistic expression.
Which is fine if you just want entertainment. But I want to see some heart if I'm going to sit through 2 hrs of a movie.
Disney is notorious for treating everyone who works for them terribly. Disney is a pretty wretched corporation. It does not surprise me that they give their artist little time, little pay, and no overtime for the Marvel movies. I wish people would stop supporting Disney or at least start having conversations about how terrible of a company they are.
lol yes bc the other studios are better are you fucking kidding me ..................
He's right.
One of my favorite cgi work was in pirate of the Caribbean. The Dutchman to be specific
You’re absolutely correct in reality. Most departments in the film are not being properly paid, or given the right amount of time to do their part in the film. I think it was about 15 years ago. The big studios decided that they would no longer give eight weeks pre-production. They cut it back to six weeks of course that varies a bit.
So now i know why BP had bad cgi. The vfx company had only 6 weeks unlike for Infinity War where they had 3 years.
this video drops right after the Cats Trailer. coincidence, I THINK NAWT!!!
I will always believe that props with a mix of CGI is the best result, you get something tangible for the actors/actresses to work with, and it helps the CGI team to build off of and give a more natural appearance to.
Edit: Artist lack of pay and time is such a sad problem, they deserve better especially now that so many studios need their abilities!
There’s going to be a new golden movie era soon, they will start putting way more time into the movies and everything, the story, the music, the CGI will be SO good you won’t believe it
...then you’ll wake up
So it's like being a web developer too, there are lots of crappy clients that will agree to specific work, then do anything to make you work outside the original scope of the job.... for free.... Dude I need to eat
Except there aren't "a lot" of clients in CGI period. Its just the big 6: Universal, Paramount, Columbia, Warner Brothers, Disney, and now Netflix. (would be the big seven if Disney had not eaten up FOX). They talk, and if you refuse a fixed bid, your studio becomes blacklisted.
i have a new found respect for digital artists and animation artists. I am a graphic artist myself but no where near marvel movie blockbuster skills. but Its great to learn more in depth what designers and artists put up with. i had no idea they were under paid and rushed at times.
Viewers: is CGI getting worse?
Center Row: *well yes, but actually no.*
I think lighting and reflection are the most important things, in many movies things just look too glossy or the light just doesn't feel right, in Zootopia for example I felt like the animator's just tried to flex on us with their lighting software, it was simply too much
What makes you think zootopia was flexing on us with its lighting? Felt like a cartoon with cartoon lighting.
@@ColdNorth0628 Well the lighting was great, I really was impressed, but I thought it was way too bright
Solution: turn down your screen brightness
@@videomissionary lighting doesnt just mean brighteness
@@dantan1249 great thx
Robert Martin and Sandro Mancuso have some great books about Software Craftsmanship and what is means to be a software professional. Studios will put whatever pressure they can to get a product as fast as possible, and a lot of software workers will overpromise and end up having to work grueling schedules to make deadlines. You can't make customers less demanding, but you can make responsible estimates for your own work so as to not make your life any more hectic(this goes doubly so for managers of software employees).
I know for sure that Lord of the Rings has better scenes than Hobbit.
but lord of the rings was not in 3d its was a regular movie using less CGI and real imagery also its was in HD1080P and its not the level of detail of a 4k movie
@@jejeroy none of that added to the hobbit films, it just took away and put pressure on the team and in result they underdelivered :(
The studio forced in the whole romance plot with reshoots. Coerced a third and unecessary third movie out of the production company and rushed even more little changes in here and there.
When you do what you love for a living there are constantly people with the same dream who are willing to work for less compensation. This, in turn, leads to low pay for the entire profession with poor working conditions.
i'm a 3D artist, the problem you talked about is really serious and I confirm what you said. everything. not only in vfx production, but also in 3D production for everything from fashion to architectural visualization. Now the time is less and less and the budgets are getting lower to do anything. I always hope that our work as digital artists is recognized, that our value is understood. Unfortunately this is not the case. Those who do not understand anything about CGI are the ones who often make the decisions and it is up to us, passionate about our work, to remedy with stressful periods of hectic racing. Thank you for you're video
As a VFX artist, this is 100% accurate. It's also true within the gaming sector, though it's not nearly as bad.
It's the main reason why I completely gave up on working in the film industry and instead settled for a marketing company with set pipelines and a fixed location.
In the film business you will be told: We won't pay you for overtime, but you'll get the time back in post-production! So if you work an extra 8 hours, you can take 1 day off in post!
Sounds alright yeah?
You'll never make it to post. Instead, when post was about to start, the manager would come and say: Yeahhh but we need you in PRE-production on another project now sooo.
if you outright refuse to do overtime hours for, say, family reasons. They'll quickly find a way to replace you. And since many of the big studios talk to each other. You can even be blacklisted and have a hard time finding work again.
It's also real fun when the CEO gathers everyone and is like: Yeah so Vancouver is offering a 40% VFX Subsidy right now so to stay competitive, we have to move. All of you. You will all have to move. Or be let go.
This is not a rare occurrence and I've seen it happen anually over the course of 3 years with certain companies.
The problem is that the profession is super-glamourised. So there's a long waiting line of blue-eyed, early 20's graduates who are naive to how the working world works, and will happily eat crap for a chance to "Get a Foot in" as its called these days. They then get used and abused and spat out after a while. Some having ruined relationships and family life. Only to be replaced with another starry eyed graduate.
Studios are also often forced to PITCH for the "HONOUR" of doing a project. Like with big box-office movies, the production company comes out and says: Give us your pitch and price. Cheapest one with the best pitch wins the project.
Not to mention that the process of making a pitch costs a pretty hefty sum of time and money. This also leads a lot of studios to sell their services at a loss from the get-go, as they figure the exposure they get will be a net-gain in the long run. That's BEFORE adding on the bullshit tactics Production companies pull with having entire scenes redone in literal weeks after they've been long finished.
Spot on, brother. Spot on.
Although that is also true for animation studios unless they are a part of the animation union, which most of them aren't, so you can guess. As a result, I completely left the entertainment industry and am now studying computer science to become a programmer, as I would at least be able to have a life as a programmer rather than have none as an animator.
@@animeforever8508 I'm just glad to be out of it. You can't live like that, especially not if you have a girlfriend or worse yet; Wife and kids.
-Sorry hun! Daddy's gotta go work in London for a year now because of BS subsidies and it will be literal overtime-toiling hell.
Oh but at least you'll earn a LOOOT of money, right dad?
- Hahaha no, but I'll be helping the PRODUCTION company make box-office
What really hurts is that when a film does poorly, "expensive CGI" or "poor CGI" is the first culprit. I've seen plenty of directors like Ang Lee blame VFX artists, it's astounding.
As an avid fan of cg, this breaks my heart. I am a grown man and it brought a tear to my eye. THE ARTISTS ARE THE MAGIC! I am so sorry you are treated that way. This must change.
The reason why the scene in Doctor Strange looks so good, is because it isn't animated. The street is a 180m long set outside of Hong-Kong where they created 60-70 real buildings and shops, including working equipment and everything. They show this in the bonus material and it's really amazing, you could actually cook food in those shops or get something mended it one of the metallworkshops etc . I don't know what the artist was telling you or if he meant something else but for what I can tell they only used CGI in moderate doses. That's probably why it looks so real, further proving your point!
post-production artists and technicians often work in bad conditions, trying to do what is asked of them. Makes no sense cos literally everything relies on them
Another factor with the Black panther fight was that it had two characters in nearly identical black suits with a dark background. Even with the slight differences in the suits, it's easy to lose track of who is who, so the VFX artists had to artificially brighten the characters so you can actually see what's going on, except that clashes with the lighting of the environment and makes everything look off
Damn, Marvel is so inconsistent with their CGI.
Hagar TheHonorable that’s because they’re hiring too much VFX studios around the world to do too much work.
Yes, it's bad or terrible
I agree. The cgi in movies aren't getting worse. The way we use it is. Within the past decade I've seen awesome cgi films. Like lion king jungle book infinity war endgame. Then you have cgi failures like black panther hobbit and more
Wow I have never gotten more than 5 likes lol 😆 😆😂😂😅😅
I agree and the cgi used for the dragons in GOT is very good IMO
My thoughts exactly
The cgi in Black Panther is bad? I thought the movie was good.
I have to disagree about the hobbit. While some of it is bad the smaug and Gollum cgi are amazing. One of the main problems was there was only supposed to be two movies but the producers forced Peter Jackson to make it into three films once filming had already been like halfway done
Jesse King. The movie altogether may have been decent. However when compared to other marvel comic movie the cgi is not great
The combination of unusual (but real) camera travelings with real action can produce spectacular results. For example, fight scenes in HK movies from the 80’s/90’s.
"VFX artists create the stuff that dreams are made of" so freaking true
CGI is getting worse because 1) lack of proper funding, you can't cook a decent meal with fast food budget, 2) lack of talent (caused by reason 1). It actually takes years of practice and hardwork to be really good at CGI, but if the reward is not there, nobody with the potential talent to be a good CGI artist would wanteto stay in that role. Usually people good at CGI are also good at many other roles that probably pays more. This is the vicious cycle in the CGI industry and why movie CGI are getting worst and worst (remember the company that made most of Sonics' CGI, they actually went bankrupt after a major studio project!)
Well, this is certainly eye opening and explains why I felt some things, while they looked awesome to me, felt incomplete. Hmm... more to think about now.