By Kristin Wilinkiewicz;
Mosaic Staff Writer
If you watched the Academy Awards on Feb. 24, you may have noticed towards the end of the night, one speech in particular was cut off more abruptly than the others. That was the Life of Pi VFX supervisor Bill Westenhofer just as he was about to mention the recent financial crisis facing Rhythm & Hues. As you may or may not know, Rhythm & Hues is the company responsible for Life of Pi’s stunning visual effects. He was able to say, “Sadly, Rhythm & Hues is suffering severe financial difficulties right now, and I urge you all to remember…” before his microphone was cut off, either due to time or fear of controversy.
This compelled over 400 protesters outside of the Kodak Theater into rage, fueling the already flaming debate on the treatment of the visual effects companies in the movie industry today.
The film Life of Pi received 4 statuettes that night and was wildly successful at the box office, grossing $117 billion in the US alone. One of the film’s most compelling features, its special effects, was the main reason for its wide-spread recognition.
Rhythm & Hues, the company responsible for this success, had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy shortly before the airing of the 2013 Academy Awards. The company had worked to create special effects for many other films such as X-Men: First Class, Snow White and the Huntsman, and The Golden Compass. It still has numerous other films to be released within the year.
As a result, close to 300 visual effects artists were left without jobs and many more were left working for less than minimum wage. These artists, desperate for recognition and determined to expose the public to this matter, rallied just a few blocks away from the red carpet on the night of the Oscars. They named their protest “A Piece of the Pi”.
The film industry refuses to acknowledge the struggles the VFX workers are facing. Filmmakers believe that the costs of the special effects alone are too high as it is. Ang Lee, director of Life of Pie, even stated the biggest struggle in making his dream a reality was finding funding for the visual aspects of his film. In essence, the visual effects artists’ work is highly undervalued in the industry, as much of the profit never makes it to the artists’ paycheck.
VFX companies are continually becoming less and less profitable as filmmakers expect artists to work at a higher quality for less money. They also expect these projects to be done faster than they have ever been completed before, sometimes in as short a time span as 6 months.
Since the night of the Oscars, this subject has been circulating through means of the internet. Many have shown their support by changing their social networking profile pictures to a “green screen” block. Hopefully, raising awareness on the subject will help the film industry support the VFX industry more readily in the future and help the industry realize that VFX artists create art, not just code.
