LIFE AFTER PI (Official)

Keith Goldfarb: As people, we naturally focus on turnarounds or deltas or endings and a lot of people look at 25 years and then we go out of business in year 26 and, it's like, well, what happened? They do it wrong. Is the question correct? Sorry, 25 years, what did we do right? Lulu Simon: What do I love about Rhythm and Hues? Eh, above all, the people. Jack Fulmer: It's not corporate, it's very family-oriented. Lois Anderson: My husband and I moved into our first house, because my husband also worked here. John Hughes is one of the people who helped us move our stuff.

John Hughes: I think our first contract was actually a movie logo, so that was back in 1987 and the computers weren't that fast and then there was no way to print it, so we had to film it to film it. Keith Goldfarb: We were just trying to get something, anything, to stay employed so we could pay each other and do computer graphics. I think the biggest unifying factor was that we saw character animation as kind of the long-term future. Baby: ♫ La la la, la la la ♪ 0:02:14,000,0:02:17,500 John Hughes: I look at some of the work we do and I don't know how we do it.

You know, to me it's just magic. The work that goes into the tiger, or some of the other things that we do, is just amazing 0:02:28:000,0:02:30,500 Amanda Dague: As an animator, I just like the creativity of it. I can take a blank slate and create a performance out of nothing. Jack Fulmer: They're like you know concert artists and pianists who play in the Los Angeles Philharmonic. They are at the top of their game. Amanda Dague: We are at our peak, our pinnacle, it's very exciting! Walt Jones: I think all of us, at the end of the day, are motivated to create, and that's what really excites us and drives us.

The challenge with this is that, in many cases, that can take over. Or at least it can cloud your judgment. You're going to put in extra hours because you want to go the extra mile. And you're going to try to take things as far as you can as an artist. Even if the project and the money for the project do not require or facilitate that to happen. Jack Fulmer: Nobody does this for money anymore, maybe they did at one point, but they don't do it for money anymore. People do it because they love to do it, and that's why I do it.

Scott Squires: It's not the computer that does it, a lot of people do it. And there are many people behind it working, day and night, to carry out the projects. We, as visual effects artists and as visual effects companies, do not participate in the profits of any of those films. Michael Conelly: The visual effects business is a broken business model right now. And the only people who thrive in this industry, in the movie industry, seem to be the ones who have a share in the profits. John Hughes: At the beginning of 2012 we knew we had to raise money.

I made four trips to China. You know I visited Taiwan a couple of times. Hong Kong a couple of times. You know, we hired an investment banker. Amanda Dague: You hear little rumors, you hear things in the hallways, little whispers. Have you heard this, have you heard that? Uh, it just makes your mind spin like you have all the hypotheses of what could be going on that you don't know. John Hughes: 20 months of delays, that is, between 1.2 and 1.6 million per month. This represents between 24 and 30 million dollars of additional costs that we had to assume. Saraswathi Balgam: Other projects were supposed to bring people to that project.

And that project was delayed. And delaying all these projects puts you in a really bad situation. John Hughes: You know I was willing to sell my shares for a dollar if someone would invest the 15 to 20 million we needed. Lee Berger: And then we had investors waiting who fell out at the last second. Prashant Buyyala: We even had wire transfer information and bank account information. "Here, give us the bank account we will send to you and we will send you this money by Monday morning." And over the weekend we thought, "Okay, great, this is good, we're going to get the money because everything is signed." And on Monday, the money just didn't show up.

Lee Berger: And then we went bankrupt. Prashant Buyyala: It's not about making the studios the bad guy or anything like that. It's just that the model of how we've set up this business is flawed. We billed for 500 injections, let's say for approximately 10 million dollars, and that's what it is. Lee Berger: We hire by contract and then sometimes things just change. Filmmaking is not a precise science. There are creative problems in a film while it is being made. During the post-production process and sometimes even during filming, the film begins to evolve. Prashant Buyyala: If the film runs long and suddenly we have to work for three more months or four more months from the studio's perspective, they paid us $10 million for 500 shots.

But, from Rhythm & Hues' perspective, we are now paying the same artists for three more months and we have to continue paying their salaries. There is no other source of income than what comes out of Rhythm & Hues' own pocket. John Hughes: So our options were to cut people's salaries, or lay off a significant number of people, or work overtime without paying them overtime by restructuring their contracts. So those kinds of changes are very difficult changes to make and I felt that any of them would have altered the culture of Rhythm & Hues so dramatically that it would have destroyed Rhythm & Hues.

And, well, you know, instead, we're bankrupt. So, I ended up destroying the rhythm and tones anyway. So, you know, maybe I should have done something along those lines to try to preserve Rhythm & Hues. Prashant Buyyala: We have had to chase a price that has been falling very rapidly. And the reason why prices have been going down quite a bit, or one of the fundamental reasons, is actually the tax subsidies that are given in Canada, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. If a studio decides there's a $10 million project they want to take over, say in Vancouver, and award it to a Canadian company.

The Canadian company will offer a $10 million bid, but the studio receives, say, $3 million as a tax refund. So the only way to be considered for that movie is to bid for $7 million. So now we receive less money for the same amount of work. Scott Ross: And so the movie studios told the visual effects facilities that if they want to get this job, they have to do it in Vancouver, where they're spending a million, a million and five, to build a facility there. So of course what happens is another country or region, state, says, well, that's a good idea, we'll do that, we'll take our money and we'll take it from our taxpayers and we'll give it to the movie studios and then Of course, all those people now go to this other place because what states and countries don't realize is that every movie they see, where is the cheapest place?

So you move to Vancouver, find a house, live there for about 9 months or a year and eventually end up getting laid off. Barack Obama: Oh, it's good to be in Los Angeles. This is one of America's economic engines: hundreds of thousands of middle-class jobs. There is still no better place to make movies, television and music than here in the United States. Entertainment is one of the bright spots of our economy and that means we have to do whatever it takes to make sure this industry and all major American industries maintain that competitive advantage. So that more people can find professional careers like many of you.

And get good middle class jobs that allow you to support a family and get ahead Dave Rand: I live the

life

that some of my comrades have started on a Facebook page called Pixel Gypsy. You know, and it's not that it's never been good enough to land somewhere while it lasts, it's that there's never a duration. I've been on staff at five VFX shops that were well-known, did amazing work, and all of them went bankrupt, most owing money to the artists. You know you're constantly on the go, chasing which government will give the most support to studies.

I have started living in hotels in recent years and I think it is much easier. I have suitcases that were designed to fit in the trunk of my car, all the layers are there: Yay VFX. I have a king size bed, I have a jacuzzi in my room, I have those little soaps that make me feel like I'm on vacation every day and I love using those little soaps. I love how they feel when you open them. Rhythm and Hues was like a new girl in my

life

, I fell in love again, you know what I mean?

Then, at a Friday meeting, I got my heart broken, like it's happened a million times, and now I'm kind of a nervous, gray-haired old bachelor. Matt Shumway: People want to have lives and families and homes, just like anyone else. They are not trying to live rich; They are just trying to live their lives. And you can't do that when you have to live in a different city every six months. Because, while studios chase tax incentives, a group of artists have to follow Lee Berger: I don't think studios want VFX studios to close, because they have a lot of work to do. be done.

And they want us to be healthy, yet they like anyone else who has a job, they give them a budget, they give them a movie, and you have to do this job for this amount of money. : Remember that this is a fixed offer. You cannot charge us at all more than the fixed offer. You said there were some changes to the boards, what visual effects are involved? The bonus shot has beautiful footage of a car driving through salt flats, then the car turns into water and transforms into seven unique animals, all made of water... but one is made of fire.

It may be a little more than we expected. This is a fixed offer. Lee Berger: A fixed bid would be: you bid the job and then no matter what the job is, that's the price you get. John Hughes: Nowadays, filmmaking is a very fluid situation, shots change dramatically. You easily know that half of the shots we propose could disappear and be replaced by other shots. Lee Berger: You know, this is the process of making a movie, and it's really hard to go into and know exactly what you want. Dave Rand: Most construction you see, most houses, skyscrapers and airports, are built with a fixed bid.

Which makes sense because there is a plane where everything is laid out, down to every screw, every I-beam, every piece of glass. Markus Kurtz: People always compare it to building a house. You know that if you go to an architect and you want to make the changes right, if you accept a plan and lay the foundation of your house, it will be difficult for you to rebuild that. home. In visual effects it doesn't work like that because we don't get paid for the hour we work, we get paid for the completed project. Lee Berger: If the shots change, if they get longer, if they get shorter, if you add characters, you can ask for an overage.

John Hughes: But unless we can prove to the studio that there were additional takes or that there was actually a very clear change of direction on the director's part, we just won't get much in the way of surplus. Dave Rand: Now we have this fixed price, you know this fixed price offering model where there's a fixed price and the director just doesn't have to be there. Because visual effects artists can do it again. John Hughes: The art of movie making seems to have changed quite a bit over the years. It used to be that you had a script and a storyboard, you had the three acts and then...

I would go out and shoot. But nowadays, many times they start filming without really knowing what the third act is going to be. You know it's very difficult to have a fixed offer and a fixed deadline when the studio and the director haven't even agreed on the third act yet. Jack Fulmer: It's like getting in the car to go somewhere and not knowing where you're going. You say, "Well, don't you... have enough gas?" "Well, I don't know, I'm just driving!" Dave Rand: When you're creating these huge fluid dynamics simulations like we did in Life of Pi, and they want to change this wave from that way to this, or make the rain completely different.

It's a lot of simulation time, just to make the change. And then you finally show it to the client, who says something like, “Why is it raining in this shot? “It’s not supposed to be raining in this shot.” Walt Jones: Now we go back and do the job we think we should do. We present it again, it goes back up the approval chain. Whoever makes the decisions sees it and gives their opinion on it. Then it comes back through the chain in the other direction and we find out if we are done or if we need to continue.

John Hughes: And we understand that if you have a vision and you're moving toward that vision, but as long as you're moving in the same direction toward that vision, that's fine, you know we'll get there. But what we often see is that you know they're going to move toward a vision and you might move toward that vision.for six months and then suddenly they turn around and head in a completely different direction. Jack Fulmer: If you're not a visionary, or if you don't have a visionary involved in a project and you rely heavily on visual effects, you won't be successful.

John Hughes: The studios wouldn't allow a director to film for a week or two on set and then tear down the set and build a new one. You know that just wouldn't be tolerated because in the live action part of filmmaking everything is paid by the hour. Dave Rand: Almost everyone who makes everything happen on the movie set does it for hours. So, as the meters run, the approach is dynamic. Because it makes the director and the decision maker, whoever that person is, usually the director, has to be there. And there is someone who tells you every second what the meter is at.

And the creativity just happens because everyone is so focused and decisions are made in real time. But when you remove the decision maker from the process, which is what happens in visual effects, the artist ends up getting to version 15, 16, 20, 30 and the clients haven't even seen it yet. You know, if the decision maker wandered among the visual effects artists like they do on the movie set, if there's ever a platform where that's necessary, it's in visual effects. Lulu Simon: It was a Friday when they told us that they were going to delay our salary. Walt Jones: John announces to everyone that we will be late for payroll.

Matt Shumway: I've been here long enough to know that was the last thing John would want to do. And that's when you really realized how bad it was. Lee Berger: It was like a perfect storm of shit happening at the same time. Michael Conelly: We've almost hit a wall in the past, but I think we were close enough that there was that feeling of "things will be okay" and this time it was different. Walt Jones: My phone starts ringing like I don't know what at 8:30 or 9:00 at night. People are freaking out, because apparently managers are now calling people and telling them they're getting fired.

Amanda Dague: 9pm, Sunday night, all these posts. Walt Jones: Facebook probably has the best information about what's going on. Amanda Dague: Just checking the news 0:18:14.000,0:18.18.500 Walt Jones: There are people fired at all levels of the chain. You know, from the janitorial staff to the high-level visual effects supervisors. People who have been with the company in some cases for 17 years. Amanda Dague: It's a complete shock to stay up all night, texting, emailing friends, calling friends. Not knowing if I'm about to receive a phone call. Mentally preparing for it. It's like 9 o'clock. I wonder what time it will be.

It's midnight? Do I go to bed at midnight? Do I go to bed at 1 in the morning? Do I stay up until 2? Walk Jones: Monday morning we had our coordinators running around. And what they would do is go to people's desks to see if they were there or not. If they were there, then they had to find out if they were supposed to be there. Or if they simply hadn't found out, they had been cut off. Michael Conelly: And that was like a punch in the gut. Amanda Dague: Sad to see all the empty seats. I didn't finish any work that day.

Walt Jones: And all the time you wonder why that person? Why this person? Why is that person still here? Why is this person gone? That guy, that guy was sitting next to me and he left. Why am I still here? Keith Goldfarb: For me, this workplace and this my job, it's about my interaction with other people. I have met the best friends of my entire life here at Rhythm. And people I'm very attached to, you know, and that's why it's very sad. Amanda Dague: I really didn't expect it to affect me so much. : It's still difficult to talk about it.

Saraswathi Balgam: I asked him today and said, John, how are you? And he is really very sad. He is very, very sad because we are bankrupt; he is really sad about how many people will be affected by this. And I feel sad about that. John Hughes: You know we run this company for people, and then…: And then to have hurt them so much, it's really the antithesis of what we wanted to do. Seth McFarlane: You know 2012 was a great year for movies. Hollywood broke box office records with $10.8 billion in domestic sales. In fact, studio accounts have never had to work harder to prove that nothing made a profit.

Bill Westenhoffer: Life of Pi is the most rewarding experience I've had since I started working in visual effects. Seth McFarlane: This is going to be a big night for some of you because, as we all know, winning an Oscar guarantees a long and successful career in the industry. Michael Conelly: Having two nominations for the company was incredibly exciting and validating and, on the other hand, full of irony. The company was falling apart at the same time that all this recognition was piling up on us. So Oscar night… what a mess. Lois Anderson: This has been a very dramatic juxtaposition between being nominated for two Oscars and declaring bankruptcy at the same time.

Samuel L. Jackson: And the Oscar goes to… Life of Pi! Bill Westenhoffer: Having worked on this for many years, I wanted to thank a few people and I thought it was very important. To our director Ang Lee, you are an inspiration and made it an incredible journey for all of us. Michael Conelly: Everyone has this little bubble of, hey, look at this, we did it... and then this weird slap in the face. Bill Westenhoffer: 45 seconds later I started seeing the flashing red light in the back saying you had to finish. Matt Shumway: And then when they started playing that stupid Jaws theme, it was pretty insulting, I mean, in any other year that might have been really funny.

Bill Westenhoffer: To my children Christopher, Thomas, Alexander and Samantha. Thank you for inspiring me every day. To my mom and dad, thank you for telling me I could choose any crazy career I wanted. Finally I want to thank all the artists who worked on this film for over a year, including Rhythm & Hues. Unfortunately, Rhythm and Hues is experiencing serious financial difficulties at the moment. I urge you all to remember... Walt Jones: Bill goes completely crazy offstage. Michael Conelly: He was emblematic of something that is wrong in this industry. Lois Anderson: I don't know how they felt about the protest.

Maybe they didn't want anything said about it, I really don't know what was at stake. Bill Westenhoffer: If I can get the phrase into the cultural lexicon, I think the whole experience would have been worth it. Matt Shumway: And to top it all off, we have Claudio, the director of photography, and Ang Lee, not thanking the people who 0:23:32,500,0:23,35,000 actually made about 75% of the movie. 0:23.35.500,0:23:40.000 Ang Lee: I can't make this movie without the help of Taiwan, my Indian team, my Canadian team Tom, Jim, Gil Nader, David Womack, David Lee, my agent Karen Sage and lawyer, Joe Dipallo… I have to do that.

Lois Anderson: Unfortunate isn't a strong enough word, but it was. 0:23:58.500,0:24.01.500 However, look what he did. It galvanized the entire industry. Bill Westenhoffer: Ironically, I think having my microphone cut off has done a better job of getting the message across to the audience than if I had said it on stage that night. Walt Jones: He made the entire VFX community feel terribly angry about the way they were treated. Jon Meier: It's a catalyst for change in this industry, that will put it in the right direction. David Begnaud: Hello everyone, I'm David Begnaud and this is NewsBreaker. Log in to your social media account and you may see green.

People are changing their profile photos to green squares, you know, like a green screen. It's all in solidarity with the visual effects industry. Teague Chrystie Tweets: If you see a bunch of VFX artists with green icons on Twitter and Facebook, we're just showing people what movies would look like without us. Walt Jones: We're having a fantastic conversation. There are people who get little green screen pins put in them. Showing that they at least support the idea of ​​having these discussions even if at this point we don't necessarily have a clear view of what the answer is.

Many articles come and go as if trying to review them and figure out what went wrong with Rhythm & Hues. Rhythm & Hues had everything going for them, they knew what they were doing. They had international facilities, they made use of tax incentives, they won an Oscar. What the hell happened? And no one has clear answers. It's as if each of these articles repeats the same thing over and over again. VlogginEgan: VFX companies and post houses are like nomads wandering the world trying to find an economically viable place to work. And it shouldn't be that way because, damn, you need us.

And when I look at this from the perspective of someone who wants to get into the industry and do VFX work and I sit down and color correct my own video, or do a chroma key, and I think about how people can't be paid for ... hurts. Scott Squires: If that trend continues, we continue to bend over backwards and we continue to do extraordinary things in a shorter period of time, and we will continue to lose money. The visual effects industry will become extinct. Lee Berger: Every day things change in this business. It changes like your laptop changes.

Technology changes. The world's economy changes. Jack Fulmer: I've talked to a lot of people who are so affected by this and so hurt and distraught that they'll probably do something else. Keith Goldfarb: I don't consider closing the business after 25 years of producing what we produce, I don't consider it a failure. On the contrary, I consider it a success. And I think people need to appreciate a little more how difficult it was to stay in business as long as we did. Lee Berger: The visual effects and animation business is a business. It's show business. And artist, or whatever your calling is here, is still a business.

Jack Fulmer: People who are artists will always be artists. And no one can ever take that away from you. Good? No one will ever be able to say, “Oh, well, we're going to close this business. Then you are no longer an artist.” There is no way I will always be an artist, you can never take that away from me. John Hughes: It's... it's the process that you have to enjoy what you're doing. And I did it. You know, I really enjoyed it. Christina Storm: Oh, and I need your badge. Subtitles by: Hedgehog_International