A visual effects artist has revealed the reason why special effects in movies are so much “worse” now.

Fans have long lamented the declining quality of computer-generated imagery (CGI) as a seemingly increasing number of blunders are picked up by eagle-eyed viewers upon almost every big release.

From movies such as Cats, Hulk and Aladdin to Avengers: Infinity War and the latest Mad Max instalment, Furiosa, on-screen glitches and some low-quality visuals have been jarring for moviegoers. The phenomenon is now so ubiquitous that flaws are apparent even in trailers for unreleased movies, such as the forthcoming remake of The Crow.

“VFX artist here, heres what happened,” he began. “Clients continually change the brief. Shot design and planning are no longer a priority, and we have a lot more work to get through in a shorter amount of time.

“We have and can create work better than back in the day, it just needs the right leadership team, planning, and time to make sure it happens.”

Edji explained that the average film now changes a lot more during postproduction than it used to, adding, “This means new work gets added to our plate and work we’ve already started (and sometimes even finished) gets scrapped. The ‘fix it in post’ mentality also doesn’t help.”

He implored people to not blame VFX artists, saying: “It’s almost always the studio/leadership team who is responsible for when things don’t get done up to scratch and never the actual artists’ fault.”

  • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    No reason to blame a single accountant for the errors of a producer. Do you think producers take orders from accountants?

    • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Yeah they do. If the accountant says the producer has X money to do something, then that’s it. The producer will need to ask for more.

      This is how it works everywhere. This is why it’s so fucked up when you see companies with a higher budget for new hires than for keeping the staff. I can assure you that one or more accountants filled out an excel sheet and it has to track.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Uh, no it’s not. Producers are in charge of getting more money and representing the interests of the investors. They take orders from investors. They only hire accountants to count revenues and expenses.

        Accountants are just human calculators. They literally just count. They don’t make any decisions unless they’re asked very specific questions like “how much revenue do we expect in the next quarter?” Or “how much money would it cost to do x, y, and z?”

        Do you blame your calculator if you spend too much money? Or do you blame your bank if your account has no money in it? That’s crazy.