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Commentary, behind-the-scenes features, bloopers: What did we lose when we said goodbye to DVDs?
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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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Technology
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CGI gives the producers the ability to re-do complex shots over and over again. With practical effects you don't get to say "That fireball isn't red enough, make it redder" without a ton of extra work.
You can sort of redden it frame by frame, like they do when colorizing movies. A lot of work, yes.
My point was that a qualified person will do good things with CGI too. It doesn't have to look worse.
But again, about time spent - for a hobby I can spend hours on making a burning torch look realistic in my POV-Ray scene. For actual work - I suspect they just take available things from enormous libraries of ready meshes, normals, textures, shaders, which sort of fit all cases, but are not perfect. But I haven't yet even learned to use Blender, so.
Totally agree that qualified people can do good or even great CGI. But the reason everything is CGI these days - and why end credits are getting longer and why budgets are going through the roof while VFX firms are going bankrupt - is because it allows executives to send shots back over and over to get "fixed."
This is a real problem in the VFX field, and leads to a ton of burnout. They even have a term for it: "Pixel fucked."
This seems a business problem. Something in the contract should make it impossible to just go on until such a person likes what they get. Maybe pay per time. I dunno.
It is definitely a business problem. I deal with similar sorts of contract work and we always put in clauses about rework and going over time and I've got strict restrictions on what work I'm supposed to do. (Actually dealing with this now, honestly. Customer wants extra work done and I need to get approval for it.)
The problem is the VFX firms are at a disadvantage when dealing with studios. The studios have the work and all the lawyers, so they have the power in negotiations. If they studio says do more work and the VFX firm doesn't they'll get blackballed and go out of business.
So you're saying there are greener pastures outside big cinematography?..
Maybe joking, maybe not.