Visual effects artists routinely work miracles onscreen, helping Hollywood generate billions of dollars every year at the box office. Still, the VFX industry is now in a state of crisis. In the past seven months, two leading F/X houses, Digital Domain and Rhythm & Hues, have gone into bankruptcy, and several other companies have had to lay off workers. “Right now it’s near rock bottom,” says Peter Oberdorfer, a former VFX artist who now runs a digital-technology consulting firm. “The pressure is building to a point where it could get volatile for everybody involved.”
In this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, The Hobbit director Peter Jackson, a digital effects pioneer who co-founded the F/X company Weta Digital, says studios are taking advantage of an oversupply of F/X houses to drive down prices. “Competition between VFX houses, which the studios obviously use to their advantage, has resulted in VFX houses operating on tiny profit margins,” Jackson says. “And when we talk ‘profit,’ it’s not about the owners buying a Porsche at the end of a big movie — it’s about having a nest egg to ride out the slow periods.” READ FULL STORY »
