

Rhythm & Hues bankruptcy reveals vfx biz crisis - nmudgal
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118066108/

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bsenftner
Rhythm & Hues is in a strategic position which several of the Hollywood majors
have to support, or the competition between these studios is going to
seriously heat up.

R&H is the #1 studio in the world for digital animals: they did almost all the
coca cola polar bears ads and "Babe the Talking Pig" nearly 20 years ago!
Since that time they have dominated in the digital animal arena, doing pretty
much every quality realistic digital animal in a major release film since,
including "The Life of PI" (which is expected to get Best Visual Effects this
year.)

Now look at the VFX studios left: ImageWorks is Sony's, ILM is Disney's, Weta
is Peter Jackson's... What about Universal, Warner Bros, Paramount, Fox, &
Paramount? They will have no one 'of scale' to produce their cute, talking
animal pictures... This may seem minor, but it's not. Not at all. If is in the
serious interest of these non-VFX studio owning film studios to keep R&H alive
and well.

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erichocean
Things won't stabilize until VFX workers unionize and negotiate with the
Producer's Guild collectively for pay, benefits, and residuals. The money is
there to make this work; what's missing is the bargaining power.

I'm not a particularly pro-union guy in general, but given the way the film
industry is currently structured, it's not really optional. They'll have to do
it or they'll just continue to go bankrupt.

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ajg1977
Uhh, no. The last thing the US VFX industry needs right now is to become more
expensive.

The problem is not artists being screwed over pay & benefits, the problem is
that most VFX shops are struggling to stay in the black, period. In part this
is due to overseas competition and expensive bidding processes, but also shops
taking on work at or below cost in an effort to keep people employed.

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anigbrowl
I don't see the contradiction really - if there's pressure to take on work
below cost, then what's missing is bargaining power. I am _very_ much not a
union guy (I tried on 3 separate occasions to join the SF chapter of IATSE and
they refused to even process an application), so I hope the answer is
something other than a typical union structure. On the other hand it's become
increasingly difficult to make a living as a technical professional in this
industry, given the relentless downward pressure on wages.

~~~
ajg1977
Right, and that lack of bargaining power is because in these days of hefty PCs
and standardized software studios can always find other VFX shops, either in
the US or abroad, to do a "good enough" job for less.

There's zero chance of requiring studios to only use unionized VFX shops, so
unionizing them will simply make them either less competitive (need to charge
more to cover guaranteed benefits) or more prone to bankruptcy (cannot meet
commitments to workers if there's a shortage of work)

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm not arguing for unionizing them, although I can't help noting that other
unions & guilds manage to negotiate deals with the studios.

What I'm pointing out is that having VFX shops crumble under financial
pressure from studios doesn't do the studios any good either. Ultimately it's
not about the hardware or software, but about the skill of the people using
it. Given that R&H is a leader in its field and still went down, something is
wrong with the business model.

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ChuckMcM
When I was at NetApp I got to work a bit with the WETA Digital guys (Lord of
the Rings vfx) and I was amazed at how cut throat this business was. I saw
them bringing something that was absolutely critical to the success of the
film and yet they had no pricing authority at all on their services it seemed
like.

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JanneVee
I wonder what role Hollywood Accounting
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hollywood_accounti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hollywood_accounting&oldid=537592477)]
is playing in all this?

~~~
anigbrowl
Technical departments are not typically paid in points on studio films.

