The VFX Tipping Point: Complete Video of the International VFX Town Hall Meeting Pi Day 3.14

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Complete Video of the International VFX Town Hall Meeting Pi Day 3.14

Here is the video of the event with a breakdown of times for each presenter:

0:00:00 -- 0:15:26 Mariana Acuña -- Introductions and pop around to various cities
0:15:26 -- 0:23:45 Dave Rand Introduction and History
0:23:45 -- 0:46:07 Scott Squires -- State of the Industry
0:46:07 -- 0:55:39 Dave Rand
0:55:39 -- 1:00:19 Steve Kaplan, IATSE Local 891 Animation Guild
1:00:19 -- 1:02:35 Dusty Kelly, IATSE Local 891 Vancouver
1:02:35 -- 1:11:32 Gene Warren, Jr. Fantasy II Film Effects (Visual Effects Oscar for Terminator 2)
1:11:32 -- 1:21:51 Mike Chambers, Visual Effects Society
1:21:51 -- 1:34:26 Scott Ross
1:34:26 -- 2:48:29 Q&A from remote locations and Los Angeles

As far as I'm concerned The International VFX Town Hall meeting held tonight was a success. Considering the turnout though, I fear it is a small sampling of the actual artists working in the industry, especially at the big houses, but I'm sure many will or have already caught the action on youtube. Unfortunately there are no stats to see how many views it has... FXGuide covered the event with constant updates last night.

FXGuide's VFX Town Hall Photos and Notes (fxguide.com) - Mar 14, 2013 @ 7-10:30pm

For me, the biggest news from the night was when Scott Ross referring to the letter he sent out on March 5th to 15 CEO's & managing directors of the top visual effects companies around the world, (almost all of them, he mentions, except some from across the pond, which may be in part due to a timing issue, still working on that) announces that finally the visual effects houses are now interested in and have agreed to investigate the possibility of a trade association!

Scott Ross Announces Top VFX Houses Agree to Meet Up and Investigate a Trade Association (youtube) - Mar 14, 2013

There were many important topics covered and constructive ideas shared, most of which were in regards to unionization and subsidies... So if you haven't yet, and your reading this now, you need to go and watch the VFX Town Hall in it's entireity, if you somehow found yourself here reading this, yes, you should go and watch the whole thing, required viewing.

Dave Rand spoke to us all, his gentle but firm delivery shared through stories along with welcoming insight served and represented us well. Here are a few key points I found of great influence. (more links coming below as I have time to hunt the rest down, zZzZz time)

Scott Squires discussing Post Production Supervision (youtube) - Mar 14, 2013
Dave Rand Speaks, Round 1 (youtube) - Mar 14, 2013
Dave Rand Speaks, Round 2 (youtube) - Mar 14, 2013
Scott Ross Discusses Fear and Forming a Trade Association (youtube) - Mar 14, 2013

Scott Squires on Post-production supervision
A director is given so many days to shoot live action. The producer, line producer and 1st AD all encourage and guide the director to shoot their moving in the allotted time. They have to shoot so many setups a day to meet their schedule. A director is less likely to do 100 takes or change their mind after shooting a setup or ask for a lot of reshoots because they have a limited time and they have others who keep them on track. Once into post-production there is no one working with the director to keep them on track. Because the vfx is done by an outside company that may not charge for all changes and overages, the changes continue. As these changes continue workers work more overtime and the company loses more money. If the studios had a strong post-production person and treated visual effects more like live action that would stop.