Tippet Studios laying off 40% of its staff

Sounds like there were lots of new VFX graduates from film schools, computer prices came down, the software to do vfx came down, and lots of VFX studios cropped up and competed for the limited Hollywood jobs. They got a job or two and then spent the money on new offices, new hires, new better faster computers. Turns out there's not enough consistent work to keep them all in business, so there will be consolidation just like any industry that experiences fast growth.
 
What is the cost of someone opening up a VFX facility in another country and competing? It looks to me that the entry barrier is not much?
 
indiawilds said:
What is the cost of someone opening up a VFX facility in another country and competing? It looks to me that the entry barrier is not much?
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Equipment, software, and the bankroll to hire a good crew, plus marketing expenses which can be considerable until you make a name for yourself.
 
So from the Facebook post it seems like the headline is more "Tippet Studios not re-newing contracts as work wraps, until new work comes in." instead of "Tippet Studios laying off 40% of its staff."

Isn't this how most of Hollywood works? Movie wraps, people are cut loose. When another job comes along you re-hire the people you need for the next job until that finishes. Or is it different in the VFX industry?
 
zijital said:
So from the Facebook post it seems like the headline is more "Tippet Studios not re-newing contracts as work wraps, until new work comes in." instead of "Tippet Studios laying off 40% of its staff."

Isn't this how most of Hollywood works? Movie wraps, people are cut loose. When another job comes along you re-hire the people you need for the next job until that finishes. Or is it different in the VFX industry?
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I believe a VFX studio functions like a movie studio. MGM or Paramount doesn't disband and fire everyone that works there until they need to make a movie, then suddenly the board of directors starts hiring a President, VP, accountants, marketing director, financial analyist, etc.

It's not like a Director or DP, AC, etc. that gets a job on a movie, shoots it, then is out of work until they are hired on the next movie.

If you browse these jobs you can see that these people work at MGM or Paramount year around, during production, in between production, etc. Otherwise the studio would fall apart. Same thing with a VFX studio, only different job descriptions.

http://www.seeing-stars.com/showbiz/career/studiojobs.shtml

If you had to put together a VFX studio from scratch that can do the quality of work needed for a big budget Hollywood production for each movie, the movie would be finished and released before you got your studio in working order.
 
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Actually VFX facilities don't keep full staff year round, they are contract vendors. They have a core group of people, leads, pipeline development folks, R&D people that they can't afford to lose, and if there is no project to roll the freelance folk onto, they get laid off. What Tippet is doing is normal. It's how VFX has worked since the studios cut their in house departments loose in the mid seventies.

Film Studios have some permanent staff to manage projects, and also expand and contract depending on the needs of those projects. Studios own the sound stages, much of the grip and lighting gear, and the mill facilities on their lots and rent those services back to the individual productions that they finance with other peoples money. The business models are very different. Film studios rely on getting funding, but are the client. VFX facilities are vendors that, unless they create their own content, will always be waiting for the next job to award, and have to minimize their overhead between paying projects.
 
This is unfortunately normal for the industry. Its just topical now. Having a child made me rethink my job and made me look for different pastures.
 
Gillvane said:
Equipment, software, and the bankroll to hire a good crew, plus marketing expenses which can be considerable until you make a name for yourself.
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I hate to break this to you but we are in a state where clients dont look at names... they just want cheap cheap cheap. The circle is spiralling and it's not going to stop.

I have a steady job besides my own shop and all the footage we deliver goes through Bangladesh (ad agency's choice......). Then you think "oh... but they aren't as good as a guy from xxxxxx", that fact is, yes they are, or yes they can become as good in a short time. This is true for any kind of work that is digital. Ofcourse sometimes you'd want someone close to sit and discuss minute details, but for workhorse stuff... send it away!

Now do I condone this development? Well, it's hard not to because it's not going to go the other way any time soon. In fact what we might be forced to learn from this is that the world is trying to balance out and maybe, just maybe our salaries have been a tad too high. The same can be said of producers, studios, actors etc etc.

So sadly, I can see myself being forced to work for cheaper money in the future, and if I don't I either will get surpassed by some young kids with a camera, or have my work sent to Bangladesh, or rendered in 3D.

The industrialisation punished the working man, the current development will punish the creative man.

Adapt or perish may soon become the key train of thought.
 
ILM still gets plenty of work, reputation counts for something. But Toyota sells more cars than Ferrari or Rolls Royce, and VFX is no longer a luxury for most films, it's a necessity whether they can afford it or not. They don't seem to know how to make films without it these days. Not that I'm complaining, it keeps me busy and pays the bills, but it would be nice if they planned a bit better, and knew what they wanted from the start like they did before CG. They could cut the budgets by 50% or more if they did.
 
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legrevedotcom said:
I hate to break this to you but we are in a state where clients dont look at names... they just want cheap cheap cheap. The circle is spiralling and it's not going to stop.

I have a steady job besides my own shop and all the footage we deliver goes through Bangladesh (ad agency's choice......). Then you think "oh... but they aren't as good as a guy from xxxxxx", that fact is, yes they are, or yes they can become as good in a short time. This is true for any kind of work that is digital. Ofcourse sometimes you'd want someone close to sit and discuss minute details, but for workhorse stuff... send it away!

Now do I condone this development? Well, it's hard not to because it's not going to go the other way any time soon. In fact what we might be forced to learn from this is that the world is trying to balance out and maybe, just maybe our salaries have been a tad too high. The same can be said of producers, studios, actors etc etc.

So sadly, I can see myself being forced to work for cheaper money in the future, and if I don't I either will get surpassed by some young kids with a camera, or have my work sent to Bangladesh, or rendered in 3D.

The industrialisation punished the working man, the current development will punish the creative man.

Adapt or perish may soon become the key train of thought.
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This is what I was suspecting.

I think rather than fight the inevitable, it is better to reinvent. May be you should start giving consultancy for up and coming VFX agencies and teach them how to do it. Collaborate with them, offshore the work and lower your costs. Frankly speaking a lot of producers don't give a damn as to how good it is. They weigh the value based on the price and decide to compromise.
 
We had the same thing happen in the software business a decade or more ago. Some work is gone for good but there's still plenty here for software developers. Be careful what you wish for with a consultancy. The man in the middle is not a creative job. It's a bottomless pit!

I had colleagues that offshored some development. It went great until you had to change anything. They wound up taking all that code back in and doing the changes themselves. So offshore was great for original development but eventually they had to pull it back in. Managing that project, differences in time, lag, made it untenable.

Not sure all that applies to VFX but there is a point of diminishing returns in software that might prove useful. That point comes when you require a lot of back and forth.
 
If they could have done Life of Pi in Bangalore, why didn't they? I agree that low prices are attractive, but from high tech I know that the quality of the work and the management headaches in dealing with India made outsourcing highly overrated. Now in high tech the pendulum is swinging back because these senior managers have realized we do high quality work and don't always say "yes" when the answer should be, "there's a better way to do this." Don't get me wrong, i hired and worked alongside excellent people from India, but I saw far too many fakers (a word that originated in India if I remember right) too. This mornings NPR story on H1A visas show we want their top people working here, not there.

maybe the sequel to Life of Pi will have a Bollywood song and dance routine.

my thoughts on vfx in the US is that I wondered if a lack of business management skills wasn't at least partially to blame for some of the studio collapse.The articles have not been well researched, nor looked very deeply into that angle.
 
8string said:
If they could have done Life of Pi in Bangalore, why didn't they? I agree that low prices are attractive, but from high tech I know that the quality of the work and the management headaches in dealing with India made outsourcing highly overrated. Now in high tech the pendulum is swinging back because these senior managers have realized we do high quality work and don't always say "yes" when the answer should be, "there's a better way to do this." Don't get me wrong, i hired and worked alongside excellent people from India, but I saw far too many fakers (a word that originated in India if I remember right) too. This mornings NPR story on H1A visas show we want their top people working here, not there.

maybe the sequel to Life of Pi will have a Bollywood song and dance routine.

my thoughts on vfx in the US is that I wondered if a lack of business management skills wasn't at least partially to blame for some of the studio collapse.The articles have not been well researched, nor looked very deeply into that angle.
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Yep.. I agree. The articles are not well researched that I've seen. I also agree with the notion that outsourced software was really overrated. Like with software, not every project is "big." Perhaps the VFX world will break up into smaller organizations as has happened with a lot of software.
 
8string said:
maybe the sequel to Life of Pi will have a Bollywood song and dance routine.
Click to expand...

I've seen some snippets of really well done Bollywood movies. I couldn't watch them all the way through because of the singing and dancing which is horrendous and not in the least entertaining from a purely American point of view, but the look and production values are great.
 
slightly off topic but I wonder how many of these Bollywood movies are still being shot on film?
apparently a good number of the labs that have been closing down lately have been selling their telecine machines to places in India
 
sportique said:
slightly off topic but I wonder how many of these Bollywood movies are still being shot on film?
apparently a good number of the labs that have been closing down lately have been selling their telecine machines to places in India
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I think that just like in the US it's a combination of film and digital depending on the preference of the producer, director, etc.
[h=1]Major Bollywood movie shot using ARRIRAW[/h]http://www.arri.de/news.html?article=1113&cHash=46ee60d448f8c49a928798ccc19ddef3

I have to say this looks bad, in a great and entertaining way:

 
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