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Posted by: Mikhail Feb 27 2013, 09:21 PM

Those beautifully rendered movies were made by hard working and skilled VFX artists, and yet they get no respect from Hollywood. Film directors continue to demand cheaper and cheaper prices, and yet ask Visual Effects, or VFX, artists to work more and more and more. they get no over-time pay, they are demanded to work things cheaply and quickly (if you have ever done VFX works, you know how impossible this is), and they are all given a paltry sum of money as work wage. Where is all that money, the billions of dollars that film has made, go to? We all know who get's the biggest piece of the pie. Now, imagine how movies will look without visual effects. You would not have movies like Life of Pi, made by Rhythm and Hues VFX company, who is planning to file for bankruptcy and have already fired over 200 employees, despite the fact that they won the Oscars for Best Visual Effects, and Hugo, made by Pixomondo, who also won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Pixomondo, a German VFX company, was forced to close the doors on divisions in London and Detroit. Digital Domain was forced to lay off dozens of artists.

http://io9.com/5987131/why-the-visual-effects-industry-protested-the-oscars-and-how-the-academy-insulted-them-in-return

http://www.slashfilm.com/why-visual-effects-artists-protested-outside-the-oscars-and-the-dire-financial-state-of-the-vfx-industry/

http://thebillfold.com/2013/02/why-there-were-400-visual-effects-artists-protesting-at-the-oscars/

This is how Hollywood treats VFX artists: https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=648888875656 Bill Westenhofer, the supervisor for Life of Pi had attempted to bring to light the fact that R&H was going to file for bankruptcy, not only was he over-rided by the Jaws theme,but his mic was cut off before he could even say anything further. http://www.businessinsider.com/special-effects-artists-protest-the-oscars-2013-2. It's funny, because Anne Hathaway was allowed to give a speech MUCH longer than his and they didn't even boot her off the stage. Not only that, but the crew of Avengers, of course their skit was scripted, fabulously back-handed every VFX artist out there, even though they spent more than half of the film animated to look like the characters they were acting, thanks to brilliant VFX artists. I would love to see Film Directors make winter look like summer, and make a pool look like an ocean. I would love to see them make a blue doll look like a real tiger. I would love for them to turn an empty warehouse into an entirely different fantasy world.

Film Directors seem wholly ignorant that the VFX artists are the ones making their movies to stunning effects. They want things done cheaply and quickly, but fail to realize how much time and man hour it takes to create their beautiful movies. The top grossing movies, like Avatar, rely heavily on visual effects. Without visual effects, this is how a movie would look like:http://bitcast-a-sm.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/wp/wp-content/images/tumblr_miujvni91D1s6mknho1_1280-550x309.jpg(That is one sexy Tiger, no?) http://beforevfx.tumblr.com/. Now, do you want to see a movie that looks like that? I think not. Prometheus, Avatar, Life of Pi, Harry Potter series, Twilight, and Snow White and the Huntsman are made by a team of VFX artists.

A friend of mine, a good VFX artist, was offered a job one day by a Stockholm film company. Do you know what they offered him in exchange for months of hard work to create the VFX for their movie? $50. In Stockholm, that is only enough to buy a pizza and a taxi home. Of course, he politely told them "No thank you", in which they gave him a condescending letter that many people would work for them for that amount or for free. What a subtle way of flipping artists off.

Now, I will ask this again. Where is all that money going to? The billions, not millions, but BILLIONS of dollars they make go to? You know what the real kicker is? Most have to either chase their employers down to get paid, get a partial pay or are not paid at all, even when they ask for their paycheck.