olivertaylor

Thanks!

Oh right, of course. I agree. But as with any technology, new possibilities emerge. Perhaps someone will come up with a new paradigm.

You’re right about the productivity. And many movie studios already own VFX studios. Netflix has Scanline, Disney has ILM, etc. But it is not super common.

There are a lot of factors, but you’re not wrong.

Exactly. Is that a basic economic principle? I think it’s called the efficiency paradox.

Not really. I’ve never worked for a studio that treats people like that, and wouldn’t. And I’ve been in a unique position to see how these situations unfold. It is very complex, very fluid, and difficult to manage. I think the bottom line is just that it is too difficult to do correctly for most studios (people).

The labor shortage situation has changed a lot since then but it was never a wages problem. I knew people at studios offering double their standard rate who still couldn’t find enough qualified people.

I arrived at exactly the same conclusion, but I use Notes for my todo list (I like mixing checklists and notes in one document) and leaving reminders for… you know, reminders.

I honestly enjoy it less than some of the more complex plain text systems I’ve used/built in the past but it has the advantage of actually being practical for me.

Remember S1m0ne? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/

Or 20 years from now… “would you like 45 year old Tom Cruise in your movie? No problem, just pay his estate $20M.”

Also, talent agencies have been paying for 3d scans of their top talent for years, just to have banked in case anyone should need it. I would guess that all the A list actors plan on getting scanned every 5 years so they can be in a movie at any age.

Like this? https://github.com/jamesroutley/news.routley.io

You can also do this with the system's built-in mail program. I set this up for doing bulk emails a while ago and it has proved very useful and versatile.

    (defun compose-mail-macos (&optional to subject body)
      "Compose a message using macOS's default mail program."
      (interactive)
      (start-process "Open Mail Message" nil "open"
                     (concat "mailto:"
                             (when to to) "?"
                             (when subject (concat "&subject=" (url-hexify-string subject)))
                             (when body (concat "&body=" (url-hexify-string body))))))
    
    (defun compose-mail-macos-multiple (list subject body)
      "ADDRESSES should be a list of email addresses in the form of:
    (setq mail-list '(\"Mail 1 <[email protected]>\"
                      \"Mail 2 <[email protected]>\"
                      \"Mail 3 <[email protected]>\"))"
      (while list
        (let ((to (car list)))
          (compose-mail-macos to subject body)
          (setq list (cdr list)))))

Never heard of contexts before, this app is awesome. So many great features. I even like having the shelf to the side, feels like a more Mac-like Stage Manager or something. Thanks!

Hammerspoon - http://www.hammerspoon.org

Bike Outliner - https://www.hogbaysoftware.com/bike/

Magic Lasso - https://www.magiclasso.co

I just use an Airtable database with a bunch of customization. It’s great.

I wonder about this. The global total of agricultural workers is lower than it ever was, even if the total output is higher than it’s ever been.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-employed...

I have all my newsletters delivered to [email protected] and filter them into a folder. You could create one folder as a newsletter “inbox” and one as an “archive”.

In my view the skill of the artist is to transfer an idea into the medium they work with, and if they work in a collaborative format that’s 50% of the job. It takes an enormous amount of skill to master the medium, and some mediums are easier than others. But the quality of the ideas they have matters a great deal. As does their ability to collaborate effectively.

True, but there are way more typesetters employed today than in the 1930s, and what they are able to do with their skills has changed a lot. I guess I’m just arguing that animation will follow the same path.

Yeah, but the total amount of money earned in movies or TV has only gone up. As has the total number of jobs in the industry.

As it has been with every technology. Sure, the dynamics and specifics change dramatically, and maybe there are less people doing the work, but the idea that those workers are somehow not needed doesn’t make sense.

> prompting an AI requires much less skill than animating it yourself

s/much less skill/different stills/

> Do you think "AI prompters" will earn the same amount as animators?

I do, because animation is not inherently valuable. The value they are paid for is solving a problem, the same problem AI prompters will solve. It is totally valid to argue that AI will reduce the total amount of animators, I think that will happen.

Television will kill movies because people don’t have to leave their homes. The entertainment industry is doomed because people now have social media. Recruiters won’t have jobs any more because we have LinkedIn. Restaurants are obsolete because anyone can learn to cook with YouTube.

I work in an animation adjacent field and this is hogwash. What happens when the person responsible for the creative content says “I don’t like the way this part of the sky looks in the background”? Or “The way this character falls down the stairs is too violent and not funny enough”? Who’s going to sit there with the AI and make it do the thing that someone has asked for? It’s not going to be the director or producer because they have too many other things to do. They will delegate that task to someone. Is that person an animator? Does it matter that they’re working with an AI instead of moving keyframes around?

100%. This became clear to me when I started commuting by bike. Cities are built for cars not people.

"End-to-end virtual production is complicated. I like to compare it to aerial photography. We’re still in the helicopter stage. To fly that helicopter, you need expensive, specific equipment and someone who knows when it’s too windy. It’s complicated. It is getting more democratic, for sure, but we aren’t quite at the drone stage yet."

Personally, I think it's sarcasm.

I found it totally fascinating myself. And now that I've read it I see the effects everywhere (musically).

Related: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/an-mbw-reader-just-bl...

100% true.

I work in the VFX business, formerly managing a VFX house and now negotiating contracts with studios and production companies.

A few random thoughts…

There is a massive industry-wide labor shortage and a massive surplus of work to be done. Artist rates are way up, there are more junior artists than ever, there are more shows with more VFX than ever, VFX shops are turning away tons of work, new shops are springing up, investment groups are buying and consolidating VFX houses to try and become big players, etc. This is a boom time for VFX.

This is absolutely a (labor) seller’s market. Individuals and companies that are not taking advantage of this to create a better environment for themselves are missing a huge opportunity. There’s never been a better time to quit a job you don’t like and find a better one. Or to start a company!

It’s not actually true that the contracts allow studios like Marvel to make whatever changes they want at any time. I’m sure it can feel like that to artists at times but that’s not how it works. Contracts are negotiated at a fixed price for a certain scope of work, with the tacit understanding that both parties will be flexible. If requests for changes push that scope of work outside the original deal VFX studios can negotiate overages and schedule changes (and they’re free to attempt this at any time). It is totally within their power to be firm and demand livable contracts. But… it’s a subtle art. Like any human endeavor or any contract worth tens of millions of dollars trade offs and accommodations are made. No vendor wants to leave a client high and dry or totally screw them over, and no client wants to ruin their relationship with a vendor they rely on. I can’t imagine there’s anything about this that is specific to either the visual effects industry or the movie industry. There are a lot of people running VFX companies that are simply bad at this part of the job and get themselves into hot water. When that happens it’s the front line workers (as always) who have to work the extra hours.

That said, there are a number of (very large) companies where it is absolutely normal to work 6 days a week 10 to 12 hours a day. This is not a secret, it’s been very common for a very long time. Personally, I wouldn’t work for a company like that.

What we’re experiencing is a huge shift in how movies are made and an industry that is struggling to keep up. Workflows, infrastructures, and tool chains designed for how movies were made for decades are being pushed to the limit, both because of the volume of work and the way in which people want to work. We’re moving from a world where everything had to be planned way in advance (because of how massively expensive and slow everything was) to one where we’re expected to be more improvisational (because of how much much cheaper and faster it is to do the work). You can’t characterize that as a change from a good way of working to a bad one, it’s simply change. One with countless industries have also faced.

And keep in mind that just like any other industry, many of the changes to the film/tv business are technology driven, and VFX is at the forefront of that. So producers looking to totally reinvent how movies are made end up using the VFX industry to do it. If you take VFX out of the conversation there is little that’s changed (technologically) about how movies are made in the last 20 years. So VFX is baring the brunt of the changes that are happening in the larger industry.

Yep! And it’s part of a contract.