The animation studio responsible for a significant portion of the Sonic redesign reportedly shutdown.
ign dot com/articles/2019/12/12/animation-studio-responsible-for-sonic-movies-redesign-reportedly-closed
Sadly they likely did not. And if they did- that still would probably be a sad thing in many ways. the way VFX contracts are handled in Hollywood is really sad. But most of the time- the basic way it works is that in order to stay in business and get work at all- the VFX company has to underbid the competition unless they’re super established (and even then...) to get work. So they agree to unrealistic deadlines and a fee less than the cost and then figure out how to make it happen. This ends up with VFX artists being worked like crazy. On Sonic- 17+ hour days in 7 day work weeks weren’t uncommon to meet the demands.
So you look and say- this artist made maybe $70k a year on average- but for a 119 hour work week- that isn’t the almost $40 an hour $70k implies- that’s that’s closer to $15 an hour. Some VFX artists make closer to $50k a year- making the hourly wage below minimum wage- but they aren’t union like actors or writers and are usually contractors of “exempt” employees- so they basically have no protections. As contractors it’s even worse because of how taxes etc work.
But for a VFX artist- especially someone who went to school and has loans for their trade- what else is there to do asides work in their trade? They COULD go work somewhere else but then they aren’t following their dream and their expensive schooling goes to waste- and yeah- you’d make more per hour of time spent working flipping burgers at in and out- but your total pay would be lower. Your only hope of a career is to gain prestige and recognition working these A list films and hope you get picked up by a big name in house or somewhere that things are slightly better- or to get enough clout and money to open your own studio- then join in the cycle by having to underbid your rivals and hire new artists like you once were and work them to death like you were- so someone else can get rich.
That’s without mentioning the effects on the mind and body that 119+ hours a week sitting, in front of a computer can have on the body. Asides long term heart issues and various tendon, back, joint and other problems- you can suffer vision damage and even detract he’s retinas over time as well as common repetitive stress injuries like carpel tunnel or neck/back/etc.
There’s no shortage of artistic youths who dream of being in movies and brining their imaginations to life on the big screen- and the current VFX and arts school system is happy to gobble them up and put them through a grinder. For every burnt out kid that makes it to Hollywood and decides a couple films in that the dream is a nightmare- there’s a kid somewhere at a home depot or running a website and maybe doing booths at cons who has $20k plus in loans from an art school and big dreams who would jump at a chance to take the seat of the kid who quit the industry after having to redo sonic.
The internet celebrated when they redid sonic- I got downvotes to heck for saying I like this sonic better- but it wasn’t as clean a victory as people wanted to make it. Imagine it. You worked 119 hours a week to animate the sonic that you were told to animate- the one the execs and committees and focus groups all said was the sonic they wanted- and then- you had to redo huge parts of the work you did- and Especially If you were a contractor- you may not have gotten paid because contracts often include provisions that include redos or tweaks as part of the initial fee for the job.
And what are they supposed to do? Refuse? There are 100 other VFX firms and 1,000s of free lancers who would just take it instead- and getting a reputation with major studios and with big execs who move to other studios and take their “lists” of people to deal with with them- doesn’t work long term. Because these studios have no protections and are mostly seems as disposable- it’s the same thing retail workers hate- “the customer is always right..” “give the customer whatever they want...” because if you won’t deal with rude and abusive studios- for the money- someone will.
To the guy who owns the VFX firm- the two concerns are how much they’ll make and keeping their doors open. But if you personally make a few million and your studio goes chapter 11- you open another one and rehire who you can and fill the empty spots with fresh faced young artists and go again- much as the president has done you can fail multiple tiles in business and increase your personal wealth as you do so. It’s the VFX artists and techs etc who suffer for it and don’t make millions so they can’t just get off the ride when it stops being fun. When you see news a major release went under VFX rework- that most likely means a lot of people suffering for it.
Fun fact... when I see a meme has 10+ messages I either assume a fight happened or @guest_ dropped a knowledge bomb. I've been right since I can remember. I enjoy the knowledge bombs, the fights not so much.
@kevman not in any instance I've ever heard. It might have happened before, but it's not the norm. The studio itself, probably, but not the individuals. That'd probably be paid out in bonuses, so tracking that information down would be even more complicated.
@kevman- GENERALLY not. VFX has no unions or trade associations or unified representation. It isn’t common to give out “points” or a cut of the movie to what are “support” roles like caterers or the guys who rented or operated the lights... or the VFX teams. VFX supervisors rarely make the main credits of a film- even ones that are made or sold strongly on effects.
Because VFX artists and studios have no one behind them, because some desperate studios will bid below what they know a job will cost, and because there is such a HUGE talent pool in VFX etc- there isn’t a lot of room for VFX firms to make deals. HUGE firms might have the muscle or clout to take points on a deal- but why will I give you even .5% of avengers for coloring in RDJ’s cod piece when you’re in my office in a pile of a hundred firms all begging me to choice them?
That VFX talent poop is so full or amazing artists- and it has to be. Modern movies use over 100x the effects shots of some of the early “huge CGI” movies like titanic. Cheap TV shows and indie films have access and demand for digital effects work- so a single film like avengers is likely hundreds or thousands of artists working crazy hours for 8,10,12.. more months. It’s labor intensive- an army.
So it just doesn’t make sense to be able to give them all a “cut.” Think of the truck drivers hauling Amazon or whatever else across the country, and the crews loading and unloading the trucks- patching it up... it’s not common for this guys to get a cut of the profits either. They make a salary and possibly performance bonuses based on the speed and volume of work they deliver- but if the stuff doesn’t sell at all or makes billions... their pay is the same.
Because when 300-1000 people put hundreds of thousands of labor hours into a project- all are important but few or none are irreplaceable from a business perspective. There are 300 peeps on your team with your skill set and skill level and thousands more in the world. Your name likely won’t be known or won’t draw a crowd. “Sun Kim isn’t returning to shade the foliage in Avengers End game? Screw that man. I’m not going to watch it now...” “Oh? Claire Martinez is 1/30 people on the rotoscope team for this new Movie? I’ll check that out. I love her work..” nope.
VFX people make or break films- (Sonic... cough cough...) bad VFX can sink a film before it takes off- and modern films rely on VFX. But they are essentially completely undervalued and work in what are often basically sweat shops where you as an individual don’t mean anything to the business. A newer common practice is that VFX work is spread between multiple firms. Even a single “major sequence” like a climactic giant robot fight- might be 3,10 VFX firms work.
They each get paid for the parts of the shot they do, if one misses deadlines or the work is deems poor, goes out of business etc- they can push the release or lean on one of the others to redo the shot to make their release date. That way they aren’t too reliant on any one firm- which 1. Makes the individual firm even less “important” 2. Takes more work from any one firm (if you have 100 people on your staff you’re still paying them a salary wether they do 30 hours on a film or 3,000- but doing 30 leaves you scrambling for jobs to make your monthly break point on expenses..) 3. Makes it even less likely any one firm might get a piece of the profits of a film- or that piece will mean anything.
So think of it this way- a studio and producers pay their own money to make a film. They are the ones who will likely want and need to see the biggest share of profits. You project what you think a film will make- let’s say you expect at least $200 million world wide. Off the top marketing might be a quarter or half (sometimes more) of that money. So let’s say we have $100 mill to use. Ok. So we need to keep a parent for the producers and studio. If they pay $10 mill each they’ll want at least $10 mill back. Let’s take $20 mill out- 20% of our “budget.” So we have 80% left- $80 mil. We need all the fairly “fixed” expenses like lighting and sets and camera people and support staff- transport and blah blah. So we have let’s say- $70 mill. Now we need our stars-
They’ll draw crowds and influence the quality of the film. They may soak up... let’s just say we don’t go crazy and we spend $10 mill on Star and talent salary. We have $60 mil- 60% of our budget. But talent usually takes points on top of salary. So chip off just say- 10%. Ok. 50% left- 50 mil. We have to pay for VFX and editing and distribution, all the other stuff. Producers and studios get points, and so we have to be real careful who we give points of what- because we can easily chip our budget down until there isn’t any profit left in the film.
We only have 100% of the budget to spend in hard cash, and 100% of the POSSIBLE profits to spread as points incentives- and we don’t want to give away crazy money. It’s kinda like stock except you can really print more. And if I give you even a half percent of merchandising... if this is a “Star Wars” scenario- I may have just given away several billion dollars over the future years. Billions the studio or the backers could have kept.
And it isn’t all about greed either. Some films just lose money at launch. You’ve put $20 mil of your money into making a film and you lose it all. BUT- those back end points from syndication and merchandising etc- the long game- the year the film drops you’re out $20 mil- but if you’re set up to float awhile in a decade or two the sales of home media or money from airlines and such showing your film, the toys etc- you might get all it back or even make money long term.
So if you got a salary draw- youre producer and director. You put $20 mil in, got $5 mil flat cash to direct, and 2% on the backend? The film flops and you’re out the $20 mil. Tax time comes and you made $5 mil this year you have to pay taxes on. But... you lost $20 mil- so things are a bit tight. Well- you can write off the loss on the 20 and pay little or no tax on the 5. You’re doing ok. Then the royalties start coming in and you’re only looking at $1 mil or whatever a year- much easier to swallow tax time- but you still have some of that $20 to offset it for the next so many years- so you keep the money. Over 20,30 years- you make and keep more money than otherwise, and that cycle lets you do more films.
If you’ve got 5 such films under your belt and all do the same- you have $100 mil to write off and are getting a steady $5 mil a year, and you can keep going. You’re set. If you hit one mega success here and there and profit back $100 mil in one $20 mil investment- you wipe out your tax relief but you made $100 mil and kept most. Go make more movies. If they’re all hits who cares you lose 50-70%? That’s still hundreds of millions. But it only takes a flop or two here and there to shield up your cash flow- and the successes let you keep doing it as long as you want and can.
So points are VERY important and very finite. They are in essence- less about getting a piece of some mega film so you can cash out and more about getting a piece of the LONG TERM earnings to float you through failures and the often gets between when you do the job and the job hits the screen and starts making money back.
With that said- for many VFX firms- a grab on points wouldn’t matter. The firm that did life of Pi flopped before the movie hit the screen. Not so uncommon. So Life of Pi did well- ok. Let’s say the VFX firm got 50% (crazy number) of the films profits from ALL sources? What good does that do a bankrupt firm? If Star Wars has been made and the firm flopped- they wouldn’t have started to see the real money until after they’d been through bankruptcy court and dissolved.
What that means is that X amount of the profits would be seized to pay their creditors back- and then likely in the bankruptcy someone bought the rights of the firm or inherited them through whatever mechanism- so that money wouldn’t even go back to the firm or the employees. It would go to whoever the rights defaulted to. To get the long term profits you must be around in the long term. The owner of the VFX studio could set it up to retain the rights- but unless they were very foolish or generous- no one working for them has direct rights to their work or to additional profits.
And alternatively- how would it work to cut the VFX team in on percents on an individual entitlement basis? If you have 100 VFX artists what do you do? Give them 1/1000 of a percent each? Then they can get yearly checks for a penny or whatever? For the VFX artist- waiting 1-5 years to get your penny check annually probably wouldn’t be much help.
And there is the BIG rub. It is very uncommon- especially in a business like film where there is such a huge instability on the bottom line- to give percents on net. Percentage is usually GROSS profit. Gross is what profit is left after everything is paid off. Say you and me make a deal- we make a bike-I sell the bike and you get 20% of the gross.
We build it and sell it for $100. 20% of 100 is $20 you are owed. Not so fast. We spent $10 making the bike. So that’s $90 we made after the costs. You get $18 right? No. Pay pal and the eBay took $10. So $80? No. Here’s the bill for my hours packaging and transporting and working on selling it. I paid a local photographer to take good pictures and a marketing agent to make the ad. Oh. And don’t forget the shipping and handling or my gas and the depreciation on my vehicle. I had to pay to park down town too. So we made $100 and spent $200... you get nothing. I get to keep my fees and charges- and I got 1% of the Net so I am owed $1 on top. And depending on the deal we made... you might actually owe ME money for selling the bike since I need my pay and we are $190 red. (That last part is more common in music..)
Tl:dr- generally VFX houses don’t make percentages of a film for many practical and also just greedy reasons- but even if they did it generally wouldnt help the most at risk for exploitation firms- and it almost certainly would t make any tangible differences to the employees doing the VFX work.
You should write a book called "Thoughts from a Guest on Earth" and just talk about everything, you certainly have a large enough assortment of knowledge to do so!
Ngl.... It is a pretty good movie. :)) Sonic feels like a little kid tho, and I honestly didn't mind it. It was a cute fun movie for kids which achieved what it wanted.
ign dot com/articles/2019/12/12/animation-studio-responsible-for-sonic-movies-redesign-reportedly-closed