VFX Artist Explains What It's Like Working for Marvel (Vulture)

[James Cameron]

https://www.vulture.com/article/a-vf...or-marvel.html

It’s pretty well known and even darkly joked about across all the visual-effects houses that working on Marvel shows is really hard. When I worked on one movie, it was almost six months of overtime every day. I was working seven days a week, averaging 64 hours a week on a good week. Marvel genuinely works you really hard. I’ve had co-workers sit next to me, break down, and start crying. I’ve had people having anxiety attacks on the phone.

The studio has a lot of power over the effects houses, just because it has so many blockbuster movies coming out one after the other. If you upset Marvel in any way, there’s a very high chance you’re not going to get those projects in the future. So the effects houses are trying to bend over backward to keep Marvel happy.

To get work, the houses bid on a project; they are all trying to come in right under one another’s bids. With Marvel, the bids will typically come in quite a bit under, and Marvel is happy with that relationship, because it saves it money. But what ends up happening is that all Marvel projects tend to be understaffed. Where I would usually have a team of ten VFX artists on a non-Marvel movie, on one Marvel movie, I got two including myself. So every person is doing more work than they need to.

The other thing with Marvel is it’s famous for asking for lots of changes throughout the process. So you’re already overworked, but then Marvel’s asking for regular changes way in excess of what any other client does. And some of those changes are really major. Maybe a month or two before a movie comes out, Marvel will have us change the entire third act. It has really tight turnaround times. So yeah, it’s just not a great situation all around. One visual-effects house could not finish the number of shots and reshoots Marvel was asking for in time, so Marvel had to give my studio the work. Ever since, that house has effectively been blacklisted from getting Marvel work.

Part of the problem comes from the MCU itself — just the sheer number of movies it has. It sets dates, and it’s very inflexible on those dates; yet it’s quite willing to do reshoots and big changes very close to the dates without shifting them up or down. This is not a new dynamic.

Some of the problems I mentioned are universal to every show and every project. But not every client has the bullying power of Marvel.
I remember going to a presentation by one of the other VFX houses about an early MCU movie, and people were talking about how they were getting “pixel-fucked.” That’s a term we use in the industry when the client will nitpick over every little pixel. Even if you never notice it. A client might say, “This is not exactly what I want,” and you keep working at it. But they have no idea what they want. So they’ll be like, “Can you just try this? Can you just try that?” They’ll want you to change an entire setting, an entire environment, pretty late in a movie.

The main problem is most of Marvel’s directors aren’t familiar with working with visual effects. A lot of them have just done little indies at the Sundance Film Festival and have never worked with VFX. They don’t know how to visualize something that’s not there yet, that’s not on set with them. So Marvel often starts asking for what we call “final renders.” As we’re working through a movie, we’ll send work-in-progress images that are not pretty but show where we’re at. Marvel often asks for them to be delivered at a much higher quality very early on, and that takes a lot of time. Marvel does that because its directors don’t know how to look at the rough images early on and make judgment calls. But that is the way the industry has to work. You can’t show something super pretty when the basics are still being fleshed out.

The other issue is, when we’re in postproduction, we don’t have a director of photography involved. So we’re coming up with the shots a lot of the time. It causes a lot of incongruity. A good example of what happens in these scenarios is the battle scene at the end of Black Panther. The physics are completely off. Suddenly, the characters are jumping around, doing all these crazy moves like action figures in space. Suddenly, the camera is doing these motions that haven’t happened in the rest of the movie. It all looks a bit cartoony. It has broken the visual language of the film.

Things need to change on two ends of the spectrum. Marvel needs to train its directors on working with visual effects and have a better vision out of the gate. The studio needs to hold its directors’ feet to the fire more to commit to what they want. The other thing is unionization. There is a growing movement to do that, because it would help make sure that the VFX houses can’t take bids without having to consider what the impacts would be. Because a lot of the time, it’s like, you get to work on a Marvel show, and you’ll work on that for cheaper just because it’s cool.

Some of the problems I mentioned are universal to every show and every project. But you end up doing less overtime on other shows. You end up being able to push back more on the directors. When they say something like, “Hey, I want this,” you can be like, “This doesn’t make sense.” Not every client has the bullying power of Marvel.

Have a story to share about working as a VFX artist? Let us know at stories@vulture.com.

Certainly harrowing but not surprising, it is a shame that Marvel continues to overwork these artists and purely out of greed since these people are largely not unionized and they can get away with overworking them for less pay as opposed to makeup artists, costume designers, set designers, etc

[HollowSage]

https://www.vulture.com/article/a-vf...or-marvel.html



Certainly harrowing but not surprising, it is a shame that Marvel continues to overwork these artists and purely out of greed since these people are largely not unionized and they can get away with overworking them for less pay as opposed to makeup artists, costume designers, set designers, etc

Sounds like the solution as mentioned is unionization. The effects houses themselves are responsible for the understaffing and low bidding on a project when you know you can’t realistically do it for that price.

Any company is always going to want the best quality for the lowest price. The only way to prevent all the low bidding is unionization which will force the effects houses to have a minimum that they can’t go under.

[Timothy Hunter]

Yeah, hiring indy directors with only a handful of films under their belt to helm 100 million dollar blockbusters doesn't seem like the smartest idea.

[Omega Alpha]

Yeah, hiring indy directors with only a handful of films under their belt to helm 100 million dollar blockbusters doesn't seem like the smartest idea.

They are cheaper and less likely to complain much.

[HollowSage]

Yeah, hiring indy directors with only a handful of films under their belt to helm 100 million dollar blockbusters doesn't seem like the smartest idea.

How do you get the experience to helm a 100 million dollar blockbuster until you actually do it?

[Immortal Weapon]

Yeah, hiring indy directors with only a handful of films under their belt to helm 100 million dollar blockbusters doesn't seem like the smartest idea.

They're cheap. It's why they get the job.

[James Cameron]

They're cheap. It's why they get the job.

This, and I also have a theory that with less experience they are more willing to relinquish any creative control

[Timothy Hunter]

How do you get the experience to helm a 100 million dollar blockbuster until you actually do it?

You work your way up. Take Christopher Nolan for example. His first movie was Following made for 6,000 dollars. That movie made a profit, so he moves on to direct Memento with a budget of 9 million dollars. Memento was a success, so Nolan's next film is the medium budget Insomnia. After three exponentially successful films, Nolan is chosen as the director of Batman Begins. Most well known Hollywood directors from the past 50 years follow this trajectory, small budget-medium budget-big budget.

I can understand why Marvel Studios is reluctant to work with big name directors nowadays. They cost more and are more likely to butt heads with producers. However, the other extreme, hiring indy movie directors with no experience with action or cgi has it's obvious downsides as well.

I think there is an obvious middle ground to be had here. Hire directors who don't really have much of a following, but who specialize in action or science fiction movies. There are tons of journeyman directors working in those genres who Marvel can probably pay the same amount.

[WebLurker]

Sounds like the solution as mentioned is unionization. The effects houses themselves are responsible for the understaffing and low bidding on a project when you know you can’t realistically do it for that price.

Any company is always going to want the best quality for the lowest price. The only way to prevent all the low bidding is unionization which will force the effects houses to have a minimum that they can’t go under.

Unionization should be a universal right. Wonder if big business being a powerful government lobby is a reason why it isn't?

[Timothy Hunter]

Unionization should be a universal right. Wonder if big business being a powerful government lobby is a reason why it isn't?

I would assume so.

[Fridays]

I saw this news yesterday, Marvel can just easily escape this problem if they make all their movies as self contained. the mass production style of their movies was always a bad idea to film makers. It overburdens the staff though a fantastic explanation of why their CGI are so awful.

The new Nolan film trailer is the best approach on how to use your staff for VFX



I don't know who Nolan friends are but what I know is that Nolan is not making this movie with any leftovers from the other studio movies and I will not be surprised if he is doing it for half the price.

[Fridays]

https://www.vulture.com/article/a-vf...or-marvel.html



Certainly harrowing but not surprising, it is a shame that Marvel continues to overwork these artists and purely out of greed since these people are largely not unionized and they can get away with overworking them for less pay as opposed to makeup artists, costume designers, set designers, etc

their artists are overworked because it is a mass production system of rinsing and repeating the same thing.

[James Cameron]

their artists are overworked because it is a mass production system of rinsing and repeating the same thing.

For sure and Disney/Marvel is one of the greatest culprits. They are intentionally offering lower pay on their projects to cut costs, so their projects are understaffed but they end up working those people past the point that they should be. No one can deny it is an industry-wide problem but what Marvel in particular is doing is absolutely disgusting.

[HollowSage]

You work your way up. Take Christopher Nolan for example. His first movie was Following made for 6,000 dollars. That movie made a profit, so he moves on to direct Memento with a budget of 9 million dollars. Memento was a success, so Nolan's next film is the medium budget Insomnia. After three exponentially successful films, Nolan is chosen as the director of Batman Begins. Most well known Hollywood directors from the past 50 years follow this trajectory, small budget-medium budget-big budget.

I can understand why Marvel Studios is reluctant to work with big name directors nowadays. They cost more and are more likely to butt heads with producers. However, the other extreme, hiring indy movie directors with no experience with action or cgi has it's obvious downsides as well.

I think there is an obvious middle ground to be had here. Hire directors who don't really have much of a following, but who specialize in action or science fiction movies. There are tons of journeyman directors working in those genres who Marvel can probably pay the same amount.

The MCU list of directors is large so let’s just look at phase 4.

Cate Shortland: Somersault, Lore, Berlin Syndrome, Black Widow

Destin Daniel Cretton: Short Term 12, The Glass Castle, Just Mercy, Shang-Chi

Jon Watts: Clown, Cop Car, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Far From Home, No Way Home

Chloe Zhao: The Atlas Mountains, Daughters, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider, Nomadland, Eternals

Sam Raimi: (too many to do them all) The Evil Dead, Darkman, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Taika Waititi: Eagle vs Shark, Boy, What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Thor Ragnarok, Jojo Rabbit, Thor Love and Thunder

Ryan Coogler: Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, Black Panther Wakanda Forever

Seems like a good mix of directors with different backgrounds. Some have directed a lot while others have only directed a few. Does quantity matter more than quality?

I really don’t think the directors are the real issue here anyway. The real issue brought up by this thread is simple mismanagement. An effects house promises they can deliver work for an agreed upon price knowing that the price they agreed to is too low. This leads to understaffing to keep costs down which leads to overwork or what’s commonly known in the video game industry as crunch.

Hiring more experienced directors won’t solve crunch. It has been a problem in the video game industry for decades and only recently have some workers started to unionize. That’s the only real solution. VFX artists in the movie industry should learn from their video game counterparts and start the unionization process now and not wait because this isn’t just an issue with Marvel, they are simply the biggest player.

This in an industry wide problem that only continues to get worse as more and more movies rely heavily on cgi. That means more work and job security for vfx artists but without a union they are at the mercy of badly managed effects houses who will work them to the bone and replace them if they complain about it.

The problem is bigger than one studio so the solution must be as well.

[Kirby101]

Watch the Disney+ show about ILM and get back to me.

Hollowsage is spot on.