11 ms·

Hollywood in general has a surplus of hopefuls. But Hollywood is largely unionized. VFX is a glaring exception. My friends who work in animation describe a con

Hollywood in general has a surplus of hopefuls. But Hollywood is largely unionized. VFX is a glaring exception. My friends who work in animation describe a constant back and forth between the union and the studios over demands for more work for the same pay. Generative AI will just make it easier for directors to ask for even more ludicrous tasks.

CyberDildonics 3y ago
Generative AI will just make it easier for directors to ask for even more ludicrous tasks. What are you basing this on and why would this be the case?
munificent 3y ago
> But Hollywood is largely unionized. VFX is a glaring exception. And, in fact, this one of the reasons why VFX gets so heavily overused for stuff that you could do in-camera. Is the actor wearing the wrong pants? Well, reshooting that requires paying union actors, gaffers, camera operators, etc. to shoot it again. Fixing it in post means you pay a couple of ununionized VFX artists.
- pavlov 3y ago
  The problem is that when you start relying on this too much, then you eventually start shooting entirely without the pants. “We’ll fix it in post!” It doesn’t happen with the actual costume department quite like that, but properly lit sets have definitely been widely replaced by expanses of greenscreen awash in nondescript lighting that hopes to vaguely match whatever the rendered surroundings turn out to be.
  - underwater 3y ago
    The Avengers films did exactly that. They filmed characters with random costumes because they hadn't done the designs yet. Then replaced the costumes with CG later.
    - pavlov 3y ago
      Why even bother with a script? You could just assemble a cast, bring them into a greenscreen studio, and shoot a complete matrix of poses and angles and lighting variations. Then synthesize the film from that when someone decides what it should be about.
      - munificent 3y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_actor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_actor
    - WorldMaker 3y ago
      They even did fakeouts by the trailers using even further different CG costumes. Some of the reason they gave for that at the time wasn't just saving on real world costume designers by outsourcing it to "cheap" VFX teams, but also for added "security" to avoid "spoilers" leaking to the press in tabloid photos. (Spoilers of a sort: My favorite meta-joke on all this was Spider-Man: Far From Home's "primary" Mysterio costume which had tabloids and fans doing all sorts of speculation what the CG composited costume on top of it would look like, given the Avengers situation, only to find out that was actually the outfit for many of Mysterio's scenes because it very well fit the character in that medium.)
    - CyberDildonics 3y ago
      This is ridiculous and completely untrue. They filmed the actors in special suits that could be tracked more easily. They added the suits as CG because the CG suits look much better and let the actors actually move around. Not only that but if the iron man or war machine masks go down and obscure their face they can transition to a full CG character and have them fly off.

CyberDildonics 3y ago

Generative AI will just make it easier for directors to ask for even more ludicrous tasks. What are you basing this on and why would this be the case?

munificent 3y ago

> But Hollywood is largely unionized. VFX is a glaring exception. And, in fact, this one of the reasons why VFX gets so heavily overused for stuff that you could do in-camera. Is the actor wearing the wrong pants? Well, reshooting that requires paying union actors, gaffers, camera operators, etc. to shoot it again. Fixing it in post means you pay a couple of ununionized VFX artists.

pavlov 3y ago
The problem is that when you start relying on this too much, then you eventually start shooting entirely without the pants. “We’ll fix it in post!” It doesn’t happen with the actual costume department quite like that, but properly lit sets have definitely been widely replaced by expanses of greenscreen awash in nondescript lighting that hopes to vaguely match whatever the rendered surroundings turn out to be.
- underwater 3y ago
  The Avengers films did exactly that. They filmed characters with random costumes because they hadn't done the designs yet. Then replaced the costumes with CG later.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    Why even bother with a script? You could just assemble a cast, bring them into a greenscreen studio, and shoot a complete matrix of poses and angles and lighting variations. Then synthesize the film from that when someone decides what it should be about.
    - munificent 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_actor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_actor
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    They even did fakeouts by the trailers using even further different CG costumes. Some of the reason they gave for that at the time wasn't just saving on real world costume designers by outsourcing it to "cheap" VFX teams, but also for added "security" to avoid "spoilers" leaking to the press in tabloid photos. (Spoilers of a sort: My favorite meta-joke on all this was Spider-Man: Far From Home's "primary" Mysterio costume which had tabloids and fans doing all sorts of speculation what the CG composited costume on top of it would look like, given the Avengers situation, only to find out that was actually the outfit for many of Mysterio's scenes because it very well fit the character in that medium.)
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    This is ridiculous and completely untrue. They filmed the actors in special suits that could be tracked more easily. They added the suits as CG because the CG suits look much better and let the actors actually move around. Not only that but if the iron man or war machine masks go down and obscure their face they can transition to a full CG character and have them fly off.