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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy do visual effects costs so much?
Why do visual effects costs so much?
http://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-do-visual-effects-costs-so-much.html
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Short version: Visual Effects is incredibly time consuming and labor intensive work done for very little profit. In some cases it may actually cost less for the studio than the real costs incurred. Changes and compressed schedules increase the costs further.
Full version:
Visual effects is a very competitive market worldwide. There are a lot of visual effects companies and all of them eager to get work so competition alone does not allow any company to have huge mark-ups.
The visual effects industry suffers from tax incentives in other states and countries. Some as much as 40% off. Note that these figures are not reduction of taxes but actually funds applied directly or indirectly to a movie. That means its not a level completive field and any visual effects company in California has to drop their prices if they wish to compete with other companies on the basis of price. Many visual effects companies actually underbid the work when required to try to keep money coming in. This means in some cases its costing the studio less than it actually costs. Same thing with the tax incentives. In those cases the local tax payers are in fact helping to fund the movie and thereby lower the studios expense for the visual effects.
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If visual effects were really such a profit center the studios and investors would be breaking down the door to buy or create their own visual effects companies. Some studios have had their own visual effects departments in the past. Disney had Secret Lab and Image Movers at different times. They closed both. The only major studio currently with a visual effects component is Sony with their Sony Imageworks. Sony had moved a number of jobs to Albuquerque, New Mexico a few years ago in an attempt to get in on the New Mexico tax incentives. Theyve now closed that and are moving many jobs to Vancouver for the tax incentives there. There may be a future where all visual effects for Hollywood based movies are all done out of this country simply due to tax incentives. This is the outsourcing that isnt talked about.
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Highly lucrative films like the Avengers and Batman have hundreds of visual effects artists working on them, many who work insane hours with few benefits and don't even get credit.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)...in intense composite scenes.
It can be like making 50 or more films simultaneously.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)begin_within
(21,551 posts)villager
(26,001 posts)now...
IATSE is making attempts to organize VFX workers, but that won't necessarily change any of this, either, given the outsourcing possibilities, etc...
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)It may have made a difference. But then maybe not. Many non union workers complain about the work hours, lack of credits and ever decreasing benefits but are afraid that organizing won't solve those problems given that union workers also work insane hours and have seen benefits reduced. (They do seem to get credit though)
You're right that it is impossible to compete with the tax incentives offered by other nations. Why can't our elected officials do anything to stop other countries from luring jobs away?
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)They are a large part of the most lucrative films. But the workers who create them have seen their benefits reduced, their pay stagnate, increasingly get no credit and are powerless to stop their jobs from disappearing from the US altogether vs movie stars who get top billing, residuals and great pay.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)gadgets505
(15 posts)After a decade and a half of work by, first moderate (R) Gov Gary Johnson and, then (D) Gov Bill Richardson to bring film business to New Mexico, and having done so very successfully, one of the high priority attacks from our new Repug Gov Martinez was to dump the lefty liberal Hollywood biz outta town. She's been quite effective in her purge, as Sony NM Digital closed down one of the largest visual effects shops in the world here in Albuquerque last month in response to her attacks on film biz incentives. Over one hundred highly paid (and tax-paying) employees have now relocated mostly back to Culver City, and local support businesses are feeling the pinch as well.
Live film production is down as well while Hollywood scatters away from what has become a clearly hostile atmosphere. What a shame, because a lot of talented people moved here and are now leaving, and a lot of locals became trained in the various trades specific to film production and are now having to sign up for unemployment.
Thank god for those Republican job creators...
villager
(26,001 posts)Jobs, sanity, or anything else be damned...