
Hollywood’s Most Thrilling Scenes Are Now Orchestrated Thousands of Miles Away - touchofevil
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/magazine/why-hollywoods-most-thrilling-scenes-are-now-orchestrated-thousands-of-miles-away.html?smid=pl-share&_r=2
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touchofevil
I've worked in the VFX industry and I find the subsidy situation fascinating.
Canada and England have provided large subsidies to movie studios on visual
effects work in a (successful) attempt to create visual effects industries of
their own. Visual effects production is technically very complex and the
artists who work in that industry often have years of training, so it's a bit
disturbing to see that an entire industry that was created in the US can be
uprooted pretty quickly simply through a government subsidy.

I'm actually surprised Canada hasn't tried this strategy with tech. One other
interesting note about this situation is that the WTO (World Trade
Organization) has rules that appear to be violated by these subsidies, but it
seems doubtful that a case will ever be brought forward because VFX workers
aren't unionized/organized and powerful movie studios have a huge financial
interest in keeping these subsidies going.

