Quendrith Johnson

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

You may not have heard of Life After Pi, but you certainly remember Life of Pi, which continues to dazzle in VFX and revenues.

Life After Pi, from now-bankrupt studio Rhythm + Hues, is the story of a movie made by hand by 100's of VFX artists whose movie won an Oscar in 2013, only to find themselves out of work in 2014. Out of work on a picket line outside the Academy Awards this year. It is a 30-minute documentary made by the studio that was sunk by this big-budget extravaganza.

On the $600+ M USD grossing Life of Pi, the budget was around $120 M USD. This was a fixed bid situation. So the studio did not have to pay for overages, extra workers hired and another 3 months added to the release schedule.

R+H spent $10 M USD on approximately 500 shots for Life of Pi. Slowly, the cost of their input outpaced the receipts on jobs coming in. Bankruptcy was followed by massive layoffs, the departure of founder John Hughes, with the company broken up and sold to outside investors in the aftermath.

Things like this didn't just happen to R+H, protracted projects and studio budget cut-backs have killed off many other effects houses in the past few years.

Stats, that are widely used and polished in Hollywood, always show upticks in Box Office to much fanfare. Except when it comes to the numbers that VFX artists are paid versus what the studios gross on pictures. Those numbers are kept under wraps.

Consider that 49 of the top 50 highest grossing movies of all time use CGI. Meanwhile, tax incentives in the US, especially LA and SoCal, have dried up for movie studios. Enter Canada, India, and Asia. 

Artists that once had stable jobs, homes, and family-like work environments are cast adrift.

Who knows where the next VFX blockbuster will be pieced together, somewhere in a hotel room, beyond the reach of many artists.

Makes sense that "Pixel Gypsy" is  now the industry nickname for nomad-style living forced by far-flung projects on these itinerate crews.

This story is as old as the history of animation itself, when, as a robust business in the 1930's with many pen-and-ink players, innovation sent most work overseas by the 1970's. 

All that is left of those great artists is the physical animation cel art, now a collectible, for sale online and in private collections.

Technological advances caused a sea change then, and the next wave is cresting today.

For an in-depth look at the VFX business model, and why it needs to be changed, see Life After Pi on www.screenmancer.tv.

And the next time you buy a movie ticket, think of all the human effort that goes into powering those so-called special effects that seem so effortlessly machine-made.

SCREENMANCER is a gathering place for people who make movies 

www.screenmancer.tv

MADE IN LA

(Footage courtesy of the Makers of Life of Pi, and Life After Pi.)

# # #