The first recorded use of computer-generated imagery, or as its more commonly known, CGI, was nothing more than a pixelated image. What began as the creators of the 1973 feature film, Westworld, attempting to imitate the perspective of a gunslinging android, would transform the movie industry in the next half a century.
The first recorded use of CGI in a feature film, Westworld
With the recent release of Avatar: The Way of Water (the follow up to the first Avatar movie), CGI is once again in the public discourse. For a decade, the first Avatar ruled the charts as the highest grossing film of all time. It was later overthrown by another CGI reliant film: Avengers Endgame.
In the thirteen years since the first Avatar film was released, CGI has become a tool used so frequently in Hollywood, that we barely even notice it anymore.
Movies can now generate whole landscapes from greenscreens, in a way that formerly looked decidedly more tacky. The creativity of special effects like the ones used in the original Star Wars trilogy, now pale in comparison to Hollywood blockbusters using 60% computer imagery.
Admittedly, some CGI leaps still have a long way to go, like de-aging terrible enough to give you nightmares (cough, Leia in Rogue One, cough).
Leia in Rogue One, yes, this was in a movie
However, CGI has fully infiltrated its way into the movie ecosystem, and it's not all sunshine and rainbows.
Animation in the film industry has long had a rocky history. Animators are often overworked and underpaid, even in the days of Disney’s Golden Age. In 1941, Disney cartoonists held a strike which would go on to establish pensions, medical insurance, and a higher standard of living in the animation world.
Disney animation strike, 1941
In the present day, the same tensions between film studios and animators are once again coming to a boiling point. Big companies like Marvel (a subsidiary of Disney) hire smaller VFX studios to do the brunt of their special effects work. These smaller VFX studios depend on the bigger, effects heavy, studios like Marvel to sustain themselves. This creates a system where each VFX studio underbids themselves in order to get chosen by the larger studios. Now, VFX studios are forced to work at a remarkably low profit margin.
Bigger studios also have the option to outsource VFX from all around the world. For example, UK companies are not legally required to pay their employees overtime. Overworking their employees never affects their bottom line. In an anonymous interview with Vulture, one VFX artist stated that working on a Marvel project was “almost six months of overtime every day” and also, “every person is doing more work than they need to.”
When talking to Linda Codega from the publication Gizmodo, a VFX artist who is referred to as “Sam” recalls a moment where an artist “collapsed at their desk” and the office had to call an ambulance. Clearly, this problem is more systemic than just work stress. The constant overtime and looming deadlines can have drastic effects on people’s mental health.
Furthermore, animators have a lot of difficulty unionizing. VFX studios have massive employee turnover, so it is difficult to get enough people on board.
With the seemingly endless slog of Marvel movies and projects coming out in the next couple of years, VFX studios, and by extension artists, are becoming a cog in the superhero machine.
Marvel release schedule, Phase 5
History repeats itself, and we are getting to the point where the industry needs to have another fundamental shift. Because the way that the system is working right now, crushing artists and destroying passion, is far from sustainable.
We have come a long way from grainy robot perspective shots, and the doors that CGI opens for the future of film are endless. However, unless Hollywood, and big companies like Marvel, start treating their artists with basic human decency, CGI will not mean movie magic, it will mean movie purgatory.
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