The Night Knight, VFX by DOUBLE NEGATIVE VISUAL EFFECTS, located at London
好萊塢的血汗工廠 ── VFX，繁華中的衰敗
Hollywood's VFX Shops: Trouble in Boom Times (2 of 3)
By Rebeccca Keegan / Hollywood Monday, May. 31, 2010
正當全球特效產業還沒開始分裂，喬治盧卡斯長達35年的影視帝國，正化作僅為開張幾個月的工作室，分布在中國及印度各地。Digital Domain公司的前CEO，同時也是ILM的總經理史考特羅素，估計VFX每年產業總值在13.5億美金左右，五大特效公司就佔了其中的8千到1億美金(市占率74%)，而其他的小特效公司拿很少很少的一百萬美金。除了電影特效之外，還有電視節目、電腦遊戲、商業廣告、音樂錄影帶等，這些特效公司不斷地雇新員工，資遣員工，全視當時手上有多少案子。(所以說標題定的sweatshops ，就是在於這VFX產業除了被大公司壟斷之外，財務來源嚴重不穩定，也是被稱為「血汗工廠」的原因之一...poor artist... )
Yet the global VFX industry has been fragmenting. It encompasses everything from Lucas' 35-year-old state-of-the-art empire to months-old shops in India and China. Scott Ross, a former CEO of Digital Domain and general manager at ILM, estimates that VFX is a $1.35 billion industry, with the big five shops each pulling in $80 million to $100 million a year and the many smaller shops taking in as little as $1 million. Effects companies work on movies, TV shows, video games, commercials and music videos and are constantly hiring and firing, depending on their project loads.
但VFX特效產業應該還是會繁榮興盛。
2009年，全球十個最賺錢的電影裡頭，就有9個嚴重依賴特效視覺效果。這些讓特效成為好萊塢比「大明星制度」更耀眼核心。好萊塢的工作室就將賺到的辛苦錢，2~3億美金的三分之一，這麼多的血汗錢押寶在特效預算中。
「電影中在意的，再也不是湯姆克魯斯或是湯姆漢克了」羅素說：「我們在意的是，大水淹沒紐約市，或是製造藍衣人。」 (特效演員演出時多穿藍色緊身衣，方便電影後製時加上特效。)
The VFX business should be thriving. Nine of the 10 highest-grossing movies worldwide in 2009 relied heavily on special effects, making the industry more central to Hollywood's business model than movie stars are. As much as a third of the budget of the $200 million — to — $300 million movies that are the foundation of Hollywood studios' earnings are devoted to special effects. "It's no longer about Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise," says Ross. "It's about flooding New York or creating blue people."
但在過去15個月當中，包括在加州的迪士尼數位電影影像公司，多倫多的C.O.R.E數位影像公司，以及其它散落在舊金山的孤兒特效公司等等，都遭遇到一個困境。
「這就像這個圈子裡頭公開的秘密──做特效是為了「名聲」，是為了一場美麗的雙人舞，為了讓旗下的藝術家們開心；但是，它無法讓你賺錢。」《浮華世界》(Variety) 一期以VFX作為封面故事，助理專題編輯大衛‧科翰這樣說道：「如果你夠幸運，你會因為它們而破產，但如果你不夠幸運，你會因為它們而一蹶不振！(out of business)」
But in the past 15 months, companies including Disney's ImageMovers Digital in Novato, Calif.; C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures in Toronto; and the Orphanage in San Francisco have shuttered. "It's pretty much an open secret in the business that you do feature-film visual effects for prestige — to get a great reel, to keep your artists happy — but they don't make money," says David Cohen, an associate features editor at Variety who covers the VFX industry. "If you're lucky, you break even on them. If you're not lucky, you're out of business."
最根本原因就在於VFX產業的組成。大部分的公司都在欣欣向榮的1990年代成立，那是一個錢多到淹腳目，導演和藝術家被像高科技沙箱 (sandbox，一種高級音響設施) 珍貴對待的年代。1993年，Digital Domian公司以1,500萬美金之姿創立了。占有一半股權的大股東IBM，還提供了每個價值五萬美元的圖像工作站給Digital Domain公司使用。
The root of the industry's problems is in how the companies were formed, most of them in the go-go 1990s, when cash was plentiful and shops were treated like high-tech sandboxes for directors and artists. In 1993, Digital Domain was founded with $15 million, and 50% partner IBM provided dozens of $50,000 graphics workstations — a VFX company's costliest investment.
過去三年中，經濟的流動打壞原本的劇本。更優惠的稅率政策刺激VFX產業外流，它們傾巢而出到更便宜的地方，像是加拿大、歐洲、澳洲、紐西蘭，。同一時間，美國的公司也開始向外面像是中國、印度等地方對外發包，像是清除鋼絲 ( wire removal，演員若吊鋼絲飛起來，一種專門將鋼絲在畫面上清除的動畫技術)、轉描機技術 ( rotoscoping )這種吃力不討好的產業代工。
In the past three years, economic mobility spoiled that script. Generous tax incentives in Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand siphoned off much of Hollywood's VFX work and drove down prices. At the same time, U.S. companies began outsourcing the grunt work — unglamorous tasks like wire removal and rotoscoping (an animation process) — to India and China.
The original site of TIME magazine
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