I work as an editor and colorist on commercial campaign videos. The amount of completely pointless retouch work we’re often expected to do (within budget mind you) late into the post-production process is ridiculous. It can be something as silly as removing an object far in the background, like a set of windows barley visible on a large review monitor, or having to produce a normal map for a shot to optically alter the way a shadow is cast on a subject. It’s the kind of feedback that is completely subjective and inconsequential to the quality of the final deliverable, but takes hours to produce a satisfactory, completely arbitrary result. It can cause so much stress and overtime, and really takes the joy out of my work at times. I’m not surprised it causes so much burnout in our respective industries. On some projects I’ve delivered review deliverables with very obvious flaws that I deliberately left in, just so I can distract the client’s attention from starting to ‘pixel f*ck’ the project into oblivion.
For anyone new to the game, this happens because someone higher in the chain of command is trying to justify their job. The best way to combat this is to get paid for it. Have it in your contract you will charge x amount for additional hours of work after delivery. A lot easier to do when you're freelance vs working for a company.
@@Sportsbikeguy nobody is in the position to have something like that in their contract. They'll just outsource to some newbie in India and get it done for $5. There's been hundreds of thousands of layoffs in this area of work I'm quite sure the artist has zero negotiating power right now.
I remember reading a vfx book where a guy who built miniatures for Escape from New York recounted how they showed the finished shot of the glider going into the wide shot of Manhattan at night. It looked marvelous. And Carpenter, who knew how little money they had wanted to know how they got the shot within the budget. So the supervisor explained all the shortcuts they took and all the visual forced perspective tricks and everything. John asked to see it again. And they did. It was clear now, he saw all the shortcomings and telltale signs of cut corners. And as the second playthrough was done. Everyone held their breath for the inevitable nitpick notes. John just said "I'll buy what I saw the first time I saw it", and moved on to next shots. It's a fun little story I tell myself about these situations. Because, sometimes. Just because you can fiddle with details. Doesn't mean you should. Because there's bigger things to tackle in other shots. Unless you're David Fincher, because that sidewalk cobble stone would be totally not accurate and of course bring me out of the movie...
@@TWCLOUDS18000 in a perfect world sadly studios over rely on cgi due to practical being to expensive a regular Hollywood blockbuster is 30% practical 70% VFX
This isn't a phenomenon, its evil, its just that simple, as someone who works in a Studio, our head artist Generic would rather not take a job than have us suffer like this, jo matter the size of the contract, he has a huge oove for psychology and more and by this he ensures we stay sane and happy, because all thsi pixel fucking is just wickedness from dummies
It’s a double edged sword; if it wasn’t for middle managers needing to justify their position via “notes” or pixe f king, vfx jobs would go to AI image gen. The fact is that these middle managers are essential in keeping the vfx industry going and imo they have to make changes no matter what so the only way to deal with it is to limit your hours, deliver work that needs revisions bc they’ll make them anyway. The worst thing you can do to yourself as a vfx crafts person is pixel fk your own work.
I worked on a big project for a city transport project, I think I updated and rebuilt the same entire area of the city about 15 times, and every time I addressed all of the ‘clients’ comments, they would return with another mountain of comments. Sometimes, it was so ridiculous that by the time I had finally done all the things, they had updated the design and we had to start over! I had a bloody nervous breakdown and had to leave work for a couple of weeks because of those guys. Seriously people have no idea, I’ll leave it there!
I'm a 34 y.o. italian guy (sorry for my english) who is now leaving its old job and career in accountancy in order to enter the vfx/videogames industry (I properly studied for this purpose during the past year and keep studying right now). The reason is because I passionate about games, movies, mangas and other nerdy stuff and love the "magic" that it is possible to realize with 3D (and digital arts in general) so I've choosen to follow my passions thinking "One day, I will see my art on that big screen" Now, I saw this video and realized that I didn't know the "hidden side of the Moon". I feel very sorry for people going through such difficulties and now I'm a little bit worried about this environment. :( I want my passion to become my job, but I'm worried about the toxicity of the industry. I would like to see studios to do things for passion primarly and not only for money. Of course, this is a job, this is an industry as any other and money are involved, but first this is a sublime art form that inspires people and can touch their mind and soul. After this video, I feel a little disoriented. I would appreciate if someone more experienced than me shared some adivces to newbies like me. Again, sorry for my english, and thank you. Ciao!
Aaah man! This is so tiresome at some points where you start to question your very existence! Working at outsourcing companies is even worst where you have a deadline the day the project starts, not just marvel but every single movie!! I remember the last time I worked for 50 hours straight without any sleep which most people might say is not possible but I remember spilling my coffee cup over me because I was sleepy af! I have left that toxic job and have never applied to any studio since and now I work as a freelancer which is way better than being at a studio where no one is constantly nitpicking your work and I have a direct contact with the client who tells me what they want and I get the number of iterations done accordingly, without compromising mental and physical health.
English improvement: the word "commonplace" is not indicative of an actual location . The word is an adjective to describe something that occurs regularly. You do mot have something like a hostile effects industry that happens " in a common place " . You do not use the article word 'a' to describe it nor use it before an adjective. The badness is made commonplace (one word) not 'a' common place (there is no location or 'place')
Those practices are just malicious, sure there are lots of toxic mid and high execs that like to abuse but it is not needed, it is sad that am not manager in Disney, I wasn't ever but have been in other artists bases places just in case.
Im tired! Mentally and physically burned out! aahhh but have no other means to survive with family.. sometimes im asking myself why i chose this path! Im fucked!! 😅 I went to sleep at around 12mn, woke up 6am.. tried to sleep more but my head is already bothered by deadlines concepts animation renders comp and so on. Lack of sleep.
Hi guys, it´s interesting to know this issue; because I just came from a one year trainning where they have been told us the VFX industry was hiring new " artists" and they could became the new guys to work ok superheros movies and etc......this is lame anyway...
I work as an editor and colorist on commercial campaign videos. The amount of completely pointless retouch work we’re often expected to do (within budget mind you) late into the post-production process is ridiculous. It can be something as silly as removing an object far in the background, like a set of windows barley visible on a large review monitor, or having to produce a normal map for a shot to optically alter the way a shadow is cast on a subject. It’s the kind of feedback that is completely subjective and inconsequential to the quality of the final deliverable, but takes hours to produce a satisfactory, completely arbitrary result. It can cause so much stress and overtime, and really takes the joy out of my work at times. I’m not surprised it causes so much burnout in our respective industries.
On some projects I’ve delivered review deliverables with very obvious flaws that I deliberately left in, just so I can distract the client’s attention from starting to ‘pixel f*ck’ the project into oblivion.
For anyone new to the game, this happens because someone higher in the chain of command is trying to justify their job. The best way to combat this is to get paid for it. Have it in your contract you will charge x amount for additional hours of work after delivery. A lot easier to do when you're freelance vs working for a company.
@@Sportsbikeguy nobody is in the position to have something like that in their contract. They'll just outsource to some newbie in India and get it done for $5. There's been hundreds of thousands of layoffs in this area of work I'm quite sure the artist has zero negotiating power right now.
I remember reading a vfx book where a guy who built miniatures for Escape from New York recounted how they showed the finished shot of the glider going into the wide shot of Manhattan at night. It looked marvelous. And Carpenter, who knew how little money they had wanted to know how they got the shot within the budget. So the supervisor explained all the shortcuts they took and all the visual forced perspective tricks and everything. John asked to see it again. And they did. It was clear now, he saw all the shortcomings and telltale signs of cut corners. And as the second playthrough was done. Everyone held their breath for the inevitable nitpick notes. John just said "I'll buy what I saw the first time I saw it", and moved on to next shots.
It's a fun little story I tell myself about these situations. Because, sometimes. Just because you can fiddle with details. Doesn't mean you should. Because there's bigger things to tackle in other shots.
Unless you're David Fincher, because that sidewalk cobble stone would be totally not accurate and of course bring me out of the movie...
For this things i love Carpenter :)
Just for the studios to say no cgi and give the credit to practical
Our film was made using practical effects!*** no CGI here***
Illogical it's better to blend both cgi and live action
@@TWCLOUDS18000 in a perfect world sadly studios over rely on cgi due to practical being to expensive a regular Hollywood blockbuster is 30% practical 70% VFX
One of your best videos
This isn't a phenomenon, its evil, its just that simple, as someone who works in a Studio, our head artist Generic would rather not take a job than have us suffer like this, jo matter the size of the contract, he has a huge oove for psychology and more and by this he ensures we stay sane and happy, because all thsi pixel fucking is just wickedness from dummies
Movie-making should become an artform again, where every effect helps to to tell story and not to save money in first place.
It’s a double edged sword; if it wasn’t for middle managers needing to justify their position via “notes” or pixe f king, vfx jobs would go to AI image gen. The fact is that these middle managers are essential in keeping the vfx industry going and imo they have to make changes no matter what so the only way to deal with it is to limit your hours, deliver work that needs revisions bc they’ll make them anyway. The worst thing you can do to yourself as a vfx crafts person is pixel fk your own work.
I worked on a big project for a city transport project, I think I updated and rebuilt the same entire area of the city about 15 times, and every time I addressed all of the ‘clients’ comments, they would return with another mountain of comments. Sometimes, it was so ridiculous that by the time I had finally done all the things, they had updated the design and we had to start over! I had a bloody nervous breakdown and had to leave work for a couple of weeks because of those guys. Seriously people have no idea, I’ll leave it there!
I'm a 34 y.o. italian guy (sorry for my english) who is now leaving its old job and career in accountancy in order to enter the vfx/videogames industry (I properly studied for this purpose during the past year and keep studying right now). The reason is because I passionate about games, movies, mangas and other nerdy stuff and love the "magic" that it is possible to realize with 3D (and digital arts in general) so I've choosen to follow my passions thinking "One day, I will see my art on that big screen"
Now, I saw this video and realized that I didn't know the "hidden side of the Moon". I feel very sorry for people going through such difficulties and now I'm a little bit worried about this environment. :(
I want my passion to become my job, but I'm worried about the toxicity of the industry.
I would like to see studios to do things for passion primarly and not only for money. Of course, this is a job, this is an industry as any other and money are involved, but first this is a sublime art form that inspires people and can touch their mind and soul.
After this video, I feel a little disoriented. I would appreciate if someone more experienced than me shared some adivces to newbies like me.
Again, sorry for my english, and thank you.
Ciao!
Aaah man! This is so tiresome at some points where you start to question your very existence! Working at outsourcing companies is even worst where you have a deadline the day the project starts, not just marvel but every single movie!! I remember the last time I worked for 50 hours straight without any sleep which most people might say is not possible but I remember spilling my coffee cup over me because I was sleepy af! I have left that toxic job and have never applied to any studio since and now I work as a freelancer which is way better than being at a studio where no one is constantly nitpicking your work and I have a direct contact with the client who tells me what they want and I get the number of iterations done accordingly, without compromising mental and physical health.
English improvement: the word "commonplace" is not indicative of an actual location . The word is an adjective to describe something that occurs regularly. You do mot have something like a hostile effects industry that happens " in a common place " . You do not use the article word 'a' to describe it nor use it before an adjective.
The badness is made commonplace (one word)
not 'a' common place (there is no location or 'place')
Those practices are just malicious, sure there are lots of toxic mid and high execs that like to abuse but it is not needed, it is sad that am not manager in Disney, I wasn't ever but have been in other artists bases places just in case.
Im tired! Mentally and physically burned out! aahhh but have no other means to survive with family.. sometimes im asking myself why i chose this path!
Im fucked!! 😅
I went to sleep at around 12mn, woke up 6am.. tried to sleep more but my head is already bothered by deadlines concepts animation renders comp and so on. Lack of sleep.
Hi guys, it´s interesting to know this issue; because I just came from a one year trainning where they have been told us the VFX industry was hiring new " artists" and they could became the new guys to work ok superheros movies and etc......this is lame anyway...
9:34 It's than always ever thing.
First