The talk shed light on their upcoming projects and the expansion of the studio from LA to Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur. Rhythm and Hues have 22 years experience in the industry and have contributed heavily to the industry standard of VFX today. Currently the studio, amongst many other projects, are in the process of creating a Yogi Bear feature and putting the final touches on the blockbuster reinvention of the A-team.
Rhythm and Hues are in a changing Industry, the bar has been raised and now more complex characters, higher photo realism, shorter time frames and increasingly detailed backgrounds are all a film necessity. These factors require the studio to change its approach and the working style they use, these 3 key points help them determine their production cycles:
- Technical Capabilites
- Audience Expectations
- Client Expectations ( these points directly influence one another)
Production cycles vary from production to production, they grow and shrink depending on dedicated workforce size and deadlines. It is hard for studios to maintain a talent pool and over half of Rhythm and Hues workforce are contracted freelancers on temporary contracts. This allows the studio to get out of company health care plans for freelance artists. Another way in which they avoid health care costs is by outsourcing to England and it's heavily built VFX Industry in Soho, in doing this there are also tax incentives in the form of rebates. The industry, which was focussed in Hollywood and the Bay area in LA, is now global due to the financial incentives for the American film industry. With this spread of technology comes the application of visual effects to an increasing level of productions and the growth of smaller studios into major competitors for Rhythm and Hues.
The nature of the industry has historically been the growing competition between studios in re-establishing the standard of visual effects, this prompts the giant leaps in technology we see from motion picture to motion picture. To do this studios need to have improving technology in the pipeline being researched and tested while current technologies are in practice on current projects. Rhythm and Hues have established new facilities abroad in India for example to allow these current technologies to be in practice and allow the LA facility to focus more on technological development. This business plan was described by Hans in great detail but in short the costs of living are considerably cheaper in the new facility's countries, lowering the cost of man-power but allowing all employees a very comfortable wage in relation to their economy. This globalisation has meant that the search for talent has become global and therefore more artists than ever are recruited in VFX than ever before. The rich cultures of the countries are embraced at the studios and make for new inspiration and influence on the art in visual effects. The challenges Rhythm and Hues look to face now are:
- a New Industry
- Severe shortage of trained talent
- lack of exposure at new facilities to high quality work
- the establishment of a new facility in China
I shall most likely add to this post at a later point with more detail on Rhythm and Hues working on a global scale from facility to facility. Some detail on what was expected from trainee staff was somewhere in my notes as well so hopefully all this will be up soon. Thanks for reading and remember to follow this blog if you are interested in the upcoming posts from Animex 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment