Tony Sealy Animation & VFX Director

There is real trouble in the VFX industry in the US. Despite the massive number of VFX-based movies being regularly produced, VFX is an industry in crisis. The US dollar has been under severe pressure for some time, so this isn’t helping. Films being released into overseas markets are not making the money they used to, but this is only one of the symptoms.

The real crisis is the financial pressure applied to VFX, animation and post production studios who are being squeezed by movies studios and clients like never before to create more work for cheaper fees. The US has a very transient labour market in this industry, many people are hired on contract or freelance basis so they work without health benefits or any kind of insurance plan. Because VFX is deadline sensitive, many artists are obliged to work long hours and weekends, often without additional compensation. The VFX companies are delivering content for movies and TV shows at a fixed price so they are hardly in a position to pay overtime.

This author has some very strong views: http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/node/2425

But the pressure has moved past squeezed budgets and tight deadlines. Movie studios outsource as much work as feasibly possible. Asian and European countries with lower socio-economic levels can provide cheaper labour than the US, although the quality is debatable. The result is US artists are working longer, for cheaper wages (with little job security) in an effort to compete.

Therein lies the dilemma. What can US studios (or artists) do to stay competitive? Adapt and change? With such high living standards in California in particular, this is not easy without severe economic changes (rationalization) and history tells us society resists this to the bitter end.

This author has some very sensible responses to the first: http://www.awn.com/blogs/idea-pioneers/examining-ves-open-letter

Once the pillar of the Californian economy, live action TV shows have been taking a beating in recent years. The advent of more and more reality TV has seen TV drama in steady decline for about 15 years.

Yet there seems to be “old-fashioned” TV drama production holding out against the tide. Sons of Anarchy (SOA) is certainly not the only TV drama still being made, there are plenty of others and those formulaic police dramas (CSI, NCIS etc) are as popular as ever.

SOA is a TV show about bad people, generally doing bad things. Gun running, murder, extreme racism, drug manufacturing and pornography are some of the subjects that would not make this a popular show in Singapore where the locals have been force-fed the sub-standard Mediacorp swill for decades.

This is an interesting article how TV production actually contributes to the economy and why there should always be a place for stories about human frailties.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/

It’s not often that rugby league and animation collide. Now I have a chance to share something with you from both of these seemingly disparate worlds.

First a little bit of background. Rugby league is a game played primarily in Australia, although also played in the UK, New Zealand and France, Australia is the primary market. Rugby League is not to be confused with Rugby Union and the recently completed Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. These are actually different games (although very similar).

Like most professional sports, Rugby League has its fair share of controversy. Sydney newspapers are filled with Rugby League player indiscretions and adventures. One of the most notorious is a guy called Todd Carney. He’s been shown the door (Aussie term for sacked) from 2 clubs and now moves onto his third next season. He is still only 25 years old. All of his misadventures are alcohol related and he admits to having a drinking problem. But Carney is a professional sportsman and drinking and sports are closely related in Australia and therefore excesses are generally tolerated, no matter how damaging.

What made me laugh was the Taiwanese animation company, NMA caught onto the drama surrounding Todd Carney and created one of their funny animated shorts about him. Now he is up there with Obama and Tiger Woods.

Check it out here: http://www.nma.tv/rooster-todd-carney-blown-chance/

Hi friends and clients, please have a look at the revamped Intense Animation Studio website at www.intense-animation.com. We’ve included our engineering, commercial and TV broadcasting projects. Look forward to your feedback.

The rugby world cup is over for another 4 years, for us Australians anyway.

Watching the Wallabies has long been an exercise in frustration, certainly for me and probably my furniture and the neighbours too. Thankfully, I don’t have a dog.

You can’t deny New Zealand, they are just very, very good. There was a kind of inevitability about Sunday’s game. Australia didn’t want to win badly enough in contrast to last week against the Springboks when they were sufficiently bloody minded enough to prevail despite the lack of possession and territory. Against the All Blacks, without the majority share of possession, you’re sunk.

I realise Justin Marshall is employed as an expert commentator because he was such a great player, this is generally the case in sports, but he does himself no credit with his All Blacks bias. Coming from an Australian, this is hardly objective. We have so many biased sports commentators it’s not funny, but listening to Justin Marshall is painful. In some ways I can understand. Marshall was belted by George Smith in 2003 when the All Blacks lost the corresponding world cup semi-final to Australia and he is still very bitter. This much is very obvious in his commentary as he clearly wants the All Blacks to win the world cup, something they were unable to do in his time.

This time, they are good enough.

The All Blacks don’t have the same attack without Dan Carter, he is irreplaceable. But their defence and forward domination is amazing. They belted the Wallabies and established a physical domination that won them the game. Will Genia and Quade Cooper must be very tired of getting poor quality possession on a regular basis. Genia was assaulted at the back of a ruck again in much the same way he was manhandled against Ireland, this time by Richie McCaw. The clean out around the ruck by the Kiwis was very impressive and the French will have to be very physical to counter this. Luckily this is something they do very well.

Which French team will turn up? The sorry mob who lost to Tonga? Or the dominant team who belted the sad English.

I can handle the Kiwi’s winning the world cup, they have a heck of a good rugby team. As an Australian, at least we made it further than the English, so one of the boxes was ticked.

Next week, I will still be obligated to go for France.

Prospective clients are all saying the same thing nowadays. Production costs are a big factor in commissioning any agency (PR, advertising, production, animation). We are often presented with an ultimatum that the cheapest quote wins.
 
A big part of this cost rationalization comes because so many prospective clients are unaware of effective ways to use 3D animation.
 
Here are 5 reasons why using 3D animation can save you money.
 
1. Modern 3D animation tools are very efficient. Environments, fluids, explosions, all very expensive and time consuming live action special effects can be reproduced in 3D animation extremely quickly. Rendering (calculation of finished imagery) and simulation times are a fraction of what they used to be. Quad core machines plus dedicated software for specific effects have enabled the heaviest of scenes to render in hours, or at worst a day, compared to the weeks we suffered as little as 5 years ago. 
 
2. 3D environments are now realistic. Almost every modern-day feature film contains some aspect of CGI (computer generated imagery) enhancement. In many cases location filming requires the addition (or replacement) of buildings, sky, cars or people, in fact any number of background objects. This means some of the huge production costs previously dedicated to build sets, hire helicopters and extras can be saved. 3D environmental software can produce everything from dense forest (Avatar) to exploding skyscrapers (Transformers) and provided the scenes are well executed, the audiences wont know the difference. 
 
3. Animation assets are suitable across different mediums. A feature we discover many prospective clients are unaware of. Provided the animation company knows in advance, assets used in a TV commercial, documentary or film can be reproduced for print, web or any other delivery medium. 
 
4. Animated characters have no shelf life. Actors, models or personalities can change in appearance as they age. Additionally, real people occasionally come under scrutiny for transgressions in their personal life. Animated characters on the other hand can evolve, become better looking, speak multiple languages and may never look a day older than when first created. The Michelin Man or Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger have never been photographed by the paparazzi leaving a nightclub after a few too many beers.
 
5. Animation can be revised. Unlike photography, 3D animation can be changed or manipulated to generate vastly different results. Even the greatest Photoshop artist in the world cannot make an underexposed photograph taken in the middle of the night look like it was captured on a sunny day. 3D animation cant do that either, but it can be re-lit and re-rendered to produce any image, in any light, in any weather, under any circumstances. 
 
So you get it by now, I am obviously a strong advocate of 3D animation as a flexible and cost efficient production tool. If your production unequivocally requires a real actor, then by all means go spend the money. However, if there’s need to save money and still come out with a great product, why don’t you give me call.

Can you remember going to the movies, when the movie was…well an actual movie? As a kid I rejoiced in the attraction of the cinema, it was a rare treat. There were “shorts” played before the main attraction. These were either cartoons or short films (usually comedy) and any commercials were slides (stills) with voice over. More than once the projectionist got the slides in the wrong order to the sound so the kebab shop’s photos were seen with a men’s wear sound track. This gave cinema a charm, admittedly from a child’s perspective, that it doesn’t have now.

In  those days, movies were played from rolls of film, normally 3 or 4 per feature (Gone with The Wind was an exception). Occasionally the film would break, leaving a white screen and no sound. Pretty much every movie had a circular countdown at the beginning that served as a warning to sit down and shut up.

In recent times, we watch movies (and the bombardment of commercials) that’s played from a hard disc. It’s all very precise and clinical, no charm or excitement.

Now it seems the very delivery medium we all fell in love with is in danger of extinction. Thankfully, there are a few well-known diehards holding out. Read about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15238480