4 ms·
>> There's a real growing unrest out there about how a few greedy people control [the movie] business - making their billions Those greedy people understand t
by nwatson 13y ago
>> There's a real growing unrest out there about how a few greedy people control [the movie] business - making their billions
Those greedy people understand the importance of "story." The Gooseberry trailer showed no promise there. The industry story telling isn't always that great but I could see none in the Blender trailer.
If this is just a technical showcase label it such. The early pixar public demos were such but their stories were so great audiences looked forward to the five minute delay to see them before the main feature.
- Ygg2 13y agoWait, what about Sintel? Didn't it have a story?
- watt 13y agoThe quote goes on and in fact references the "Rhythm & Hues" VFX company that won the Oscar for work on "Life of Pi" visual effects. While at the same time filing for bankruptcy and firing 238 employees. (Life of Pi made $609mil worldvide on budget of $120mil.) Those greedy people.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoIsn't that just bad business? It sucks they went bankrupt but if you're working on a film of that size and can't make a profit you've either spent a huge amount of money and the profits you get from the film don't cover it or you've worked out a shitty deal and you get very little profits from the movie.
- panzi 13y agoThis 30min documentation explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lcB9u-9mVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lcB9u-9mVE The problem is in the way the industry is organized.
- bsenftner 13y agoFormer R&H'er here. The VFX industry is plagued with three major issues: 1) it's a work for hire business with no equity participation, 2) up front bidding on dynamic deliverables, and 3) international government tax incentives create a nomadic existence for VFX people and the companies who have to chase the work from country to country (who ever offers the better tax incentive at the moment.)
- panzi 13y agoAs former R&H employee, do you find blender to be usable or are there big missing features? Does it's open source nature make it more usable because you can patch whatever you want, or are things like Maya customizable enough? Blender and Maya are both scriptable in Python. Blender uses Python 3. Would you say Python 3 was a good decision?
- berkut 13y agoTo a degree - but VFX companies are pretty much forced to underbid themselves in order to get contracts in the first place. Several companies (Cinesite is a prime example - they underbid on John Carter heavily) underbid in the hope they'll be picked for future films as well. And because VFX is generally the last (ignoring final grading) part of doing a film (occasionally the VFX for shots is still being done up to 2 weeks before the film's released), there's a hard deadline set that the VFX companies most of the time have to meet. Often, while doing the VFX, the director's changed their mind several times regarding what they actually want, and any planning / previz that was done to agree on the shot is wasted, as is a lot of the work that was done do get to that point. You can often reuse assets and stuff, but that's about it if there's a change of plans. Thankfully over the past few years, previz of VFX is getting more and more realistic (in terms of animation / layout - the look is still quite crap), giving directors a more accurate view of what they'll be getting at the end.
- panzi 13y agoBesides the problem illustrated in LIFE AFTER PI I think that AutoDesk seems to buy up all/most of the competition is a bit worry some and every bit of more competition is a good thing.
- berkut 13y agoWell, Rhythm and Hues used their own proprietary software for just about everything other than texture painting (Mari), so that doesn't really apply here.
- panzi 13y agoI mentioned two different problems. One of them was that there is not enough diversity in 3D software. If you say that Rhythm and Hues used their own software, now that they are no more this means that there is even less diversity. So what does not apply here? I'm not sure you got what I meant and if that's so then I don't understand what you thought that I meant.
- berkut 13y agoThat VFX companies often write their own software (happening less and less these days) to do something commercial packages can't - or at the very least heavily customise something like Maya. So the lack of diversity in software for VFX doesn't hurt the big studios that much.
- panzi 13y agoNow I understand what you meant.
- jscheel 13y agoYep, Autodesk just recently announced that they were shutting down Softimage, after promising they would not shut it down post-acquisition. They are a plague on the VFX software industry.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoDid you mean this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfezG5M2ICg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfezG5M2ICg, teaser when you mentioned a trailer? I think you do it a disservice to say that it showed no promise - a mysterious force has transformed cartoon sheep in to other things, they don't know why, or who they are, one expresses a desire to go home. What happened, how, why; how will that cute little lamb get home? Seems to be on the right lines for a framework for an animated story: I assume what I linked was directed mainly at creatives rather than consumers.
- pekk 13y agoWhatever the hype, Gooseberry is a demonstration of technical and economic feasibility. Stories are cheap, lots of people are out there who have great ideas for movies but just can't realize them for technical and economic reasons
- sosborn 13y agoIdeas for stories are cheap. Fleshing those ideas out to a great story/film takes rare talent.
- jonnathanson 13y agoI wish I could upvote this more than once. Story is the last thing in the world we should be undervaluing. Look at Pixar. Pixar made some fantastic advances in animation. That's not the only reason, or even the primary reason, why its movies perform so well. They do well because they are exceptionally well written, they have heart, and they are firing on all creative cylinders: tech, writing, directing, acting, post production, music, etc. John Lassiter himself will often credit story with the success of his movies. Ideas for movies are cheap, just like ideas for tech companies are cheap. But story execution is extraordinarily hard, every bit as hard as putting the effects together. My guess is that a lot of folks don't understand how hard writing great fiction can be. So they tend to dismiss it. They take it for granted. Or they over-attribute the success of their favorite movies, books, etc., to the elements that are most immediately visible: the actors, the effects, the direction, etc. All of these things are important, but they'd be entirely worthless without a strong story. Michael Bay movies are fantastic examples of what happens when you combine A-list actors with AAA special effects while devaluing story.
- qq66 13y agoI don't know what you mean by "stories are cheap" but popular movies with great, unique storylines are extraordinarily rare (yes, that's equally the audience's fault). Most top grossers are sequels or derivative of other properties (comic books, teen fiction, etc).
- 13y ago
- jbarrow 13y agoOne of the Blender video projects that I really liked was En Passant[0]. Although it was a short movie (only around 15 minutes) it tells a powerful story, and shows some of the impressive capacity of Blender. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7HI1Ujx7B8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7HI1Ujx7B8