Not all those gathered in Hollywood just prior to the Red Carpet proceedings this past Oscar Sunday (3/2) were there to star gaze. Some 500-plus folks were on hand to instead voice their concerns and call attention to factors that are hurting the visual effects industry and the many talented artists in that discipline trying to make a living in California. Organized by the Association of Digital Artists, Professionals and Technicians (A.D.A.P.T.), the protest drew assorted VFX professionals and their supporters from other industry sectors.
A similar protest took place right before last year’s Oscars but this time around there was a larger turnout. Ironically the 2013 Oscar ceremony sparked the making of a documentary short, Life After Pi, which was released online last month and showcased on a website (HollywoodEndingMovie.com) which carried a message urging VFX artisans to join this week’s pre-Oscar protest in Hollywood.
Life After Pi chronicles the massive layoffs at Rhythm & Hues, which declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2013, a mere 11 days before that studio won the Visual Effects Oscar for the Ang Lee-directed Life of Pi. Some 45 seconds into his Oscar acceptance speech–just when he was about to address the hard times suffered by Rhythm & Hues–Bill Westenhofer, VFX supervisor at the studio and on Life Of Pi, was cut off as the orchestra began to play the ominous theme from Jaws.
Catalyst
Sharing the backstory of the making of Life After Pi, its director/editor Scott Leberecht–who continues at Rhythm & Hues as an art director–recollected, “When that first round of 254 layoffs happened, I can’t tell you how much of a shock it was to everyone. For a week we were walking around in a daze. Then the Oscars happened. Everyone knows what took place on stage that night with Bill Westenhofer. It snapped everyone out of the daze and got people thinking about what they could do to address the situation.”
Leberecht and his then Rhythm & Hues colleague, manager of digital production Christina Lee Storm (who’s now at non-profit industry organization Act One), did just that, deciding to make a documentary filmed largely at the company’s former El Segundo facility during the weeks following the bankruptcy filing. “We got permission from the company’s owners [John Hughes and Keith Goldfarb] to document what was happening,” said Leberecht. “I think because they felt so badly about what the employees were going through, John and Keith wanted to help in any way so we could all better deal with the situation. I felt our making this documentary short was part of a therapy thing, putting our feelings down in a permanent way on video. And then maybe somebody could use it as a tool to understand what’s going on.”
Life After Pi shows the impact of layoffs and labor uncertainty on people and their families. It captures executives talking openly about what happened and why they think it happened. And the significance goes beyond Rhythm & Hues, affirmed Leberecht, noting that some 20 VFX houses–most of them in California–have closed or declared bankruptcy over the past decade. These include accomplished shops–Rhythm & Hues, for example, is a three-time VFX Oscar winner, the first coming for Babe in 1995, then The Golden Compass in 2008, and Life of Pi in 2013. (Following its bankruptcy declaration, Rhythm & Hues was acquired in March 2013 by a company with ties to VFX/animation house Prana Studios, which has offices in L.A. and a subsidiary in Mumbai, India.)
At press time, another VFX house, Gravity in Brooklyn, NY, was also in the process of closing (see separate story in this week’s SHOOT >e.dition and on SHOOTonline.)
Life After Pi uncovers a two-fold problem: the subsidies offered by other states and countries which are causing California to lose the film and TV business it had one time been synonymous with; and the working relationship VFX vendors have with the major feature studios, making for a flawed business model that puts effects houses on a financial precipice. Often VFX studios are paid a fixed amount by studios, at times without accounting for extra costs that have to be absorbed by project delays, a change in creative vision or other 11th hour alterations.
Life After Pi has already generated feedback from throughout the industry. “People are coming out of the woodwork to tell us their stories, which are relevant to the plight of the VFX industry here,” said Leberecht who would like to share some of those stories in a long-form feature.
Indeed Leberecht and Storm–both members of A.D.A.P.T. who attended this week’s protest prior to the Oscars–are seeking financing to make a feature-length documentary, titled Hollywood Ending, which will delve more deeply into the erosion of the movie business, including VFX, in California, particularly Los Angeles. Leberecht hopes that production on the documentary will get underway in the next couple of months.
