VES Visual Effects Bill of Rights – Now what?

VES Visual Effects Bill of Rights – Now what?

By now most of you have heard and hopefully read the VES Bill of Rights. If not check it out here.

This first step was to try to define where we want to go in terms of working experience for visual effects workers worldwide.  The next step is to try to implement what we can and to encourage steps to make it possible. The details are still being worked out. I’m hoping we end up with more concrete approaches and specific working conditions guidelines.

As always if you have input, feedback on the Bill of Rights or have suggestions and solutions, please send email to VES Leadership.  You can post here in addition to emailing if you wish to open it to discussion by all.

The VES Membership meeting is October 20 in Los Angeles and most of the world wide sections can be linked in. The Bill of Rights will be covered. See the VES website for info.

Most people seemed to be positive about the VES making these issues more public and to at least start the ball rolling. As some have pointed out the VES doesn’t have Collective Bargaining, nor is it a union or a trade organization. Yes, that’s true, which can make it tricky but we are the largest organization of visual effects workers. The VES has been in discussions with all 3 groups of players in this industry: studios, visual effect companies and the artists themselves. Hopefully we can help broker some arrangements that will help our industry based on the bill of rights.

A few have suggested it’s a distraction. From what? The VES stand does not preclude a real union or a real trade organization. If anything, the bill of rights should make some issues clearer for everyone. As always I’m hoping by providing information and inspiration here people will join in to help find solutions.

There have been a few that suggest the VES is an elite group made of elite members. The VES is an honorary society. You need to be working in visual effects for 5 years to be a member of the VES and need 2 members to submit letters for you. I don’t think of that as elite. It does mean that VES members are experienced professionals. The main reason the VES has gotten involved in these types of issues is because there are problems in the industry and members were asking the organization to get involved and help find solutions. No other group seemed to be making progress in this area. And the approach for the VES is to try to make solutions apply to all visual effects workers.

IA Union of visual effects artists – The IA would certainly be the natural fit for visual effects workers since they cover most of the crafts in motion pictures, including the camera crew. The IA spent a year ‘researching’ visual effects industry and has now spent almost another year with someone spearheading the effort to unionize the industry. Unfortunately that has yet to result in anything. You would think they would like to get the word out to as many visual effects workers as possible and that they would try to sell the idea of the union with a clear and concise guide of the benefits and costs. They should have also been selling the idea to the visual effects companies as well. But to date most of that hasn’t happened and it hasn’t seemed like the IA has put much into this process. Many visual effects workers have either not heard of the effort or now assume it’s not happening.  For more info on the IA check out their blog here.

Meanwhile the Art Directors Guild (union) has taken a definitive stand to bring in previs artists as part of their union. See their website here.  And the Vancouver IA has a good website and info here. There’s also a movement for the motionographers union.

Will the IA get going or should there be an independent group that forms a new type of union?

David Rand wrote a response to the VES Bill of Rights here.
Dave is correct that the current bidding process is broken. For more info on some of the business models in visual effects check out a previous post here.
To fix this process will require many visual effects companies to get on the same page because ultimately only they can control the situation. Most visual effects companies are very competitive and fiercely independent. The VES has been encouraging the companies to meet and discuss.  Many of the companies are in as much denial about issues as the workers and studios. Those doing well (especially if they’re in a location with tax incentives) see no reason to change. Why should they bother fixing the leaking roof when it’s sunny out? And of course once it’s starts raining it will be too late. The days of milk and honey will not last forever for any location. Scott Ross points out that if 4-5 of the major visual effects companies got together they could lay out some basic guidelines or requirements with their clients.

Currently there’s also been discussion among Indian visual effects workers about their situation that doesn’t sound too far off from the ones in the U.S. As I’ve said before many of these are global issues and do in fact affect you no matter where you are. And they of course make some of the same errors and false ideas as other here do.

1. Unions are only for laborers. We’re artists.
Guess what? The director’s are covered by the DGA (union). The Writers are covered by the WGA (union). The actors are covered by SAG (union). The Cinematographers are covered under the ICG (union). And so on for just about every position in motion pictures except visual effects. Are none of those other people artists? Do you gain anything by being a starving artist? Do you gain anything by not having health care insurance? Do you gain anything by not having a united group of similar artists? Can you change things by yourself and will the company change at your lone request?

2. Unions? Look at what happened to American automobile industry.
Stereotyping everything certain is not a solution nor is ignoring details of history.
Please see this previous post Using the Nail

3. Producing good work is the solution
Producing good work will certainly help you get work but it alone will not guarantee employment nor will it guarantee you fair treatment.

4. Working for free
Many starting out in this business thinks that they’ll work for free to prove themselves and then the companies will hire them.  You’ve already devalued yourself when you choose to work for free. Do you think the company that hires free labor will suddenly start paying people what they’re worth and stop the practice of hiring more free labor? Each wave of new workers comes in and is willing to work for free which means those with experience now will either have to continue to work for free or will have to move on. Some visual effects companies are run by people without the passion for visual effects.  Some can’t grasp the simple business solution that by hiring experienced and qualified people, treating them properly and paying them properly, they will have a true business that grows and can increase productivity and profits. Providing a quality product is of value. By simply hiring free labor they have forever tied themselves to the mediocre and will just continue being in a race to be the cheapest provider. And that’s a game that cannot be won. There will always be somewhere else cheaper, either by cost of living or incentives.

5. Working as independent contractors
One of the notions expressed is to be a remote freelancer for a visual effects company in another country.  Why would a visual effects company in another country hire someone directly in another country? What experience would they have had with that person directly? Most of the major films are covered by restrictions and guidelines so images and other movie data aren’t leaked out. Can you set up to qualify? Can you do an entre shot yourself (animation, lighting, composting, roto) or will they be sending just one step of a shot to an independent worker in another country every day or every few hours? If that were to work there will be websites where artist bid on how much to do a shot. The lowest bid would likely get selected. Every independent contractor is now in a race to the bottom themselves.


As always if you have input, feedback on the Bill of Rights or have suggestions and solutions, please send email to VES Leadership.  You can post here in addition to emailing if you wish to open it to discussion by all. Personally I’d prefer suggestions and solutions over complaints and reasons why none of this will work.

Previsualization Society

For those involved with previs (creating or using it) you should check out the Previsualization Society.
They formed last year and already have several hundred members.  Previs has traditionally been made up of small groups of people or companies. The society offers them a chance to organize with common goals and to help standardize and educate, much as the VES has been doing with Visual Effects.

They had a mixer this last Saturday and it was good to see them breaking into groups to discuss different ideas with people from other disciplines. (VFX, Editing, storyboarding, etc)

One of the directions is to help make the previs more technically accurate, which I'm all for.  I don't think it can be stressed enough that if the previs is to be used as a real tool for production it has to reflect the real limits of live action shooting.  Getting to a location and being unable to shoot the shot as it's been prevised is of no help to anyone.  People tend to accept storyboards as being a rough guide but when they see something cut together and well rendered then everyone assumes this is a template for the film.  If the final previs ignores the sets and camera mounts then there's bound to be problems.

One of the other things discussed was how previs works together with not just the director but the DP, Production designer, Stunt Coordinator, SPX and VFX.

Previs is certainly an area that's been rapidly growing the last few years.

Previs thoughts

Just Misc Previs thoughts from a note I had sent someone months ago.

I think previs encompasses anything that is used to get a visual sense for the final product ahead of time. The majority today is 3D but video, stills, storyboards, film snippets, etc are all possible and useful.
For Star Wars and even some pictures today existing footage (from another film or stock) is seen as a placeholder and visual guide. For Phantom Menace and other projects temp actors have been shot, sometimes against greenscreen, to block in concepts and editing ideas. For some movies such as Amelia they used videos and stills from actual locations or sets to get a sense for how the scenes will work visually.

Misc thoughts

DON’T’T CHEAT!
When working in a 3D environment it is all too easy to make a change at the director’s wish. Scaling an object, moving the camera, placing objects, etc. Usually this is done to try to make the previs as exciting and interesting as possible but these add up to real production problems.

Examples:
Fantastic Four – A major sequence was to take place at the London Eye. The previs team decided to scale the London Eye to less than ½ of its actual size to make better compositions. For months we had been looking at these and all departments were basing their planning on these only to find out that it was all fictional. Since we were to shoot the real London Eye, create accurate 3D models for the final shots as well as potential miniatures that were the correct scale this was a huge problem. We now had to have the previs scramble and redo all of the shots. By now production was in a different country and another previs team had to do the work with a different software package.

Shots moving in the tunnel varied wildly in terms of camera speed, car speed and character speed. In a simple previs it looked right but impossible to make look right if it were to be shot like that.

For Van Helsing some of previs was done in a way that couldn’t be shot. In some cases the cameras were placed in areas they couldn’t possible be or doing something that defied physics. When the production crew is half way around the world 6 months looking at a previs on a laptop and the director discovers they can’t do the shot as planned, it’s very painful for everyone involved.

You don’t want to get to a location and find that you’ll need to jackhammer the road to place the camera where the previs was ‘shot’ from’

You also don’t want to find your lead actor is now somehow supposed to be 10 feet above the ground. On the location cheats are made (actor on apple box, shooting in a different direction, etc) but everyone there knows it’s a cheat and why it’s being done. When a cheat occurs in previs the previs artist may be the only one who knows it. It’s likely the director doesn’t even know that it’s taken place.

Purpose
Determining the purpose of the previs is critical. Make sure everyone, including the director is onboard.
We just need the previs to a certain point to understand how the sequence and shots work, the approximate action and timing, etc. Yet a director can easily spends weeks ‘directing’ the ‘actors’ in the previs. “No, he should smile here and then look toward the camera”.

Previs has a tendency to become like temp tracks to the sound track. Something that the director has been looking at so long that it is the only way the director sees the shots as being. On a non-prevised show the creative team may make full use of the here and now and compose the shots to their advantage. (some feature at the location, the light at that time of day, etc) On a prevised show the director may be unwilling to consider these alternates.


Speed
It’s difficult to get a full sense for speed in a previs. In early previs a car doing a drive by might have been just a colored rectangle moving against a simple background. The director of course wants it faster, faster. If the same scene were shot for real at the original speed it would have been fast enough. All the details of the car, backgrounds and motion blur would give the sense of speed. Even with today’s rendering there’s still some visual speed discrepancies.

Accuracy
When storyboards are done everyone understands these are the basic shot designs and placeholders. It is understood that the perspective and placement of the actual location will be different in real life. One problem with 3D previs, especially the more detailed they become, is everyone thinks this is the actual shot, even if the previs was done months before the actual location was chosen.

Design
A major potential problem is a lot of previs is started before any of the key creative team is hired. It may be just the director (or even just the producer or studio executive) and a team of previs artists. The amount of visual sense the director has can varied widely and the visual sense and experience of the particular previs artist can vary widely as well. On a non-previs show the director works closely with his DP, camera operator and others (production designer, VFX supv) to determine the best compositions. This is likely also based on blocking in the actors motions. Yet the previs may well lock the creative team into design decision that were made by the director and the previs artist in a vacuum. I’ve seen shows where the stunt coordinator was told that he’s to match the action in the previs. Imagine having someone like Jackie Chan being told that some previs person has already designed all the action and action shots and that all he needs to do is get his stunt team to do it that way.

A car stunt may require a special rig be placed and the stunt coordinator may know the best camera angles to capture it but the previs artist knows nothing of this and places the camera exactly where it’s going to be a problem. The director has now grown to love this and wants the stunt team to sort it out.

The same thing has started to happen with DPs but most of them have enough clout to stop it there and do it their way. So how worthwhile is the previs if it’s totally ignored? If the VFX has been budgeted based on the previs but the director, Dp, etc ignore it completely where does that put the budget and schedule?

If the previs is done ahead of time it’s difficult to talk the producers and studios into redoing the previs so the now hired DP, production designer, etc can be involved.

Bidding and Preproduction

Visual Effects Bidding and Preproduction are covered in this podcast.
Storyboards and animatics are included in this discussion.

Transcript
Today I'll be discussing the start of the process, which includes bidding and preproduction.

A studio or producer will contact a visual effects company, which is also referred to as a visual effects house. If a producer or studio has a relationship with an effects company they may provide the script only to that company but more likely they will have at least 3 or 4 effects companies review the script. Studios often have a postproduction supervisor or even a visual effects head who is involved in making sure the postproduction process flows smoothing. If a production company is contacting the effects company directly they may have hired a visual effects producer for the film itself. This is common if the film is very large and will the work will be split out to a few effects companies.

Most of the time the producer will have a script for a film that's been greenlit or is close to being greenlit. Greenlit means that the money has been approved to make the film. Sometimes the producer just needs a ballpark estimate before it precedes any further in development.

At the effects company the visual effects supervisor and effects producer review the script. The visual effects supervisor and effects producer mimic the director and producer but specifically to visual effects. The supervisor's job is to oversee the work from both a creative and technical standpoint and make sure it accomplishes what the director needs. The visual effects producer is in charge of the budget and schedule of the work.

The script is reviewed and the supervisor and producer make notes on what they think the effects work will be. Typically I tag anything that might be effects work and create a list. Details about what the client wants may be minimal at this time. The supervisor and producer sit down and create a ballpark budget based on a rough idea of techniques and their experience. The next step is a meeting with the director and film's producer to clarify exactly what the vision is and what they think they can accomplish with stunts and practical effects work. Based on this conversation the list of effects shots is revised and a new ballpark estimate is created. It's important to provide these estimates in written form so there's no miscommunication.

Before more detailed bids can be created and the job awarded the work has to be very well defined. Scripts usually don't have a lot of detailed descriptions and even when they do the director may have other ideas.

This is the start of the preproduction phase. For a large film this can be 6 to 9 months before shooting even begins. Once filming starts there can easily be a crew of 200 or more people at a minimum cost of $100,000 or more per day. Anything that can be done in preproduction to speed up the actual shoot and make it as smooth as possible is worth it. An ounce of prevention as they say.

The concept phase
In many cases you're being asked to create something that doesn't exist so it's critical to get the design down on paper to allow communication with all involved. The production may start a concept phase where they hire an effects company or their own artists to create artwork. The visual effects art director plays a key role here. The director may not have a clear idea of what the creature or gadget or vehicles is supposed to look like so numerous sketches are done by the artists. The first step usually covers a wide range of possible looks and the artists may also work closely with the production designer to make sure they're on the same page. If there are elaborate makeup or costume designs these are proceeding as well and in many cases the teams work together. Hopefully the director will be clear about which parts of which designs he likes and the designs are refined further. In end color concepts are usually created and in some cases a model sculpture is created. This is sometimes called a Marquette.

Directors vary a lot in terms of being able to visualize and communicate their ideas. It some cases the director may not know what he wants until he sees it. This means you could spend a lot of times doing concept art and in some case this may continue on well into production which can cause further complications.

Sometimes during this concept phase I may shoot some video and do some moving mockups to try to clarify what the effect might look like in motion.

Storyboarding
The next step is to storyboard all the visual effects sequences. There needs to be one storyboard or sketch of every shot that will have effects work. If it's a complex shot with a lot of movement or action then multiple panels will be done similar to a comic book except the format for all shots is the format of the film frame. The production may hire an artist to work directly with the artist or they may have the visual effects company artist work with the director. It's important for the visual effects team to be involved in the storyboarding since they have the most experience in what works and doesn't work in this area. I always suggest to a director he storyboard the shots as if it all existed. This avoids the effect shots being approached differently than the live action and avoids dwelling on a single effect.

Storyboard may seem to suppress the creatively of the scene but they're very important for a few reasons.

A single shot may require a number of departments to work together and prepare for the filming of the shots. With storyboards and concept art the director is able to easily communicate to everyone. A picture as they say is worth a thousand words. Without the boards each person would envision the shots differently.

For the visual effects crew we can't budget a shot until we see what the director sees. It's one thing in the script to set the action as a dogfight in space but it's critical to know the exact number of shots. The effects supervisor has to analyze every board and determine the technical process to create the final image. If an actor is framed one way that might require a bluescreen but if the shot is framed another way it may require rotoscoping or may be a simple split. A single shot may require a dozen different images or as we call the elements. There may need to be a section of a matte painting, a shot of the main actors on location, a shot of some extras against a blue screen, a model shot with motion control and a computer graphic creature all in one shot. Some of these elements may be shot or created over a span of a year so planning is critical. In a film such as star wars there about 2000 shots. Most shots average 5-8 seconds in length for budgeting purposes. In the old days. And I use the term old days to reference pre-digital effects; a large show was 200 shots.

Animatics
If a sequence is very complex, production may want to do animatics. These are essentially moving storyboards. They may be as simple as editing the storyboards together to check the flow and timings of the shots or may involve elaborate 3D models with animation. The storyboards do a good job of conveying the composition and basic action of the scene but moving images provide timing information and camera motion. At times we may videotape models by hand or do other types of mockups using clips from other references.

Both storyboards and animatics are used as a guide and starting point with the understanding that some of the shots will need to change when shooting based on the locations and the actors. It's important not to get too hung up on animatics. Because of their simple texturing they usually don't do a good job of conveying the sense of speed compared to a live action image projected onto a movie screen. It also becomes very easy to create shots you can't actually shoot due to the camera speed or other real world limitations. Some directors try to finesse the animatics in great detail which can make it that much more frustrating to them. They should be used just enough to convey the concept of the shot.

Once the boards are created then it's possible to create an accurate budget for the visual effects work. Budgeting is one of the most difficult tasks in effects work since there are still quite a few unknowns I usually gather the heads of the different departments and review the storyboards. Each department head provides their estimate for the amount of time they expect a shot to take for their discipline. Animation, matte painting, compositing, technical director, etc. Ideally they will bid it based on the performance of their average worker. It's easy to become optimistic when bidding about how quickly the work should be done and how the shots will all flow as planned. Reality and experience quickly temper this urge. Likewise if someone has had a bad experience they may pad their estimates. In either case these deviations from the target add up since there may be several hundred shots budgeted this way.

When reviewing the techniques to use it usually isn't a question of how to do an effect but which way is best for this particular film. Each technique has certain limits associated with it. I'll cover the details to this in another podcast.


As mentioned before it's also common for the studio to bid out the project to multiple effects houses so budget is always an issue. On larger shows the studio may end up dividing up the work among a few effects houses. When this is the case the film usually has an effects producer or coordinator assigned to it to oversee the project to make sure budgets and schedules from multiple effects houses are on target.

Most productions are done on a fixed bid that means that any overages are out of the effects company pocket unless the director requests changes or additions to the from the original planned shots. Part of the budgeting process is determining how much coverage is included for changes. Some places bid a bare minimum, which requires them to request, a change order from the production for additional charges even when a minor change has taken place. Most of the larger effects houses try to include enough funds to cover typical adjustment requests by the director.

The time is also a consideration when budgeting. If there isn't sufficient pre-production or postproduction time the crew may have to work overtime. In this business a 50-hour week is usually a minimum. Days are usually 10 to 12 hours long and a workweek can stretch to be 6 or even 7 days, especially toward the final completion of the project. At the end of Star Trek the motion Picture I worked 90, 12-hour days straight. Since the movie release date is locked at the moment it is greenlit it becomes an unchanging deadline. Obviously this will affect the budget.


You may have to do a fair bit of research and development to create the look the director is after and since this is an artistic endeavor with a different director on each project the amount of time it takes will sometimes be an unknown. One director may like the look of the shots very easily and another may dwell on some detail in a single shot at the expense of other shots.

During the pre-production phase the film departments are busy creating the sets, costumes and other items required for the shoot. On the visual effects side the R&D, research and development, is in process and tests are being shot if new techniques are required. Some of the models (both CG and physical models) can be constructed. Just a note here that CG refers to computer graphics. Visual effects artists usually use CG instead of CGI since it's shorter and not redundant.

We also use this time to work with the director of photography to make sure we're in sync with them. The film stock and shooting process will discussed since this could affect some of the approaches taken in post production.

As the date for shooting nears the visual effects supervisor goes on the tech scout with the other department heads. This may be reviewing the sets or flying to the locations where the film will be shot. The effects supervisor works closely with the director of photography, the practical effects supervisor and the stunt supervisor. Some revisions to budget and storyboards may need to be done once the tech scout is done.

Preproduction on your own
Even if you're doing the visual effects for your own miniDV movie it's important to take advantage of preproduction. It's best if you do a simple sketch or storyboard of your shots. This doesn't have to be anything fancy, it's just to help you review what you're planning to do. When you've sketched it out it's easy to spot some potential problems you might not have thought about.

You'll have to figure out what techniques will be required for each shot. If you haven't done much of this before it's best to keep it simple because a simple shot well done is better than a complex shot poorly done. In most cases a locked off camera will make the shot easier to do. This means use the camera on a tripod and don't move it.

Also consider doing what the professionals do during pre-production. Test. If you have a video camera then try to shoot a simple version of your shot with people filling in for the actors. Step through the process of the shot with this test footage so you're clear about how the technique works. You don't need to finish the shot but this can help figure out how to best shoot the images and how much work will be required in post production. It may not cost you in money but it's important to understand the amount of time required. By doing a test you'll also gain a bit more experience so that your skills will be better for the actual shots.

Well that wraps up today's podcast. Shooting the visual effects will be our next topic. Thank you.

Related post
Budgeting VFX