'Life After Pi' Documentary on the bankruptcy of Rhythm and Hues
UPDATE: The full documentary is now available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lcB9u-9mVE
I just watched it and it's a really telling documentary that shows how f_cked up the VFX industry really is and what the working conditions are like for a lot of people who work in it.
If you care about movies at all and the talented people who make them, watch this film. That's all I'm going to say.
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This sounds really interesting, especially if you're at all concerned about the VFX industry:
http://tinyurl.com/qycstzq
“It was like a perfect storm of crap happening all at the same time,” says Rhythm & Hues president Lee Berger in the trailer for Rhythm & Hues: Life After Pi. The short documentary recounts the amazing sequence of events that occurred last spring when visual effects studio Rhythm & Hues declared banruptcy just before winning the Oscar for its work on Ang Lee’s The Life of Pi. The film was shot on location at the studio in the weeks following the bankruptcy. It will be released online on February 25.
According to the film’s website, this short is “only the first chapter of an upcoming feature-length documentary Hollywood Ending, that delves into the larger, complex challenges facing the US film industry and the many professionals working within it, whose fates and livelihood are intertwined.”
I'm glad that this is getting some coverage. After all, Life of Pi would not exist without the amazing team at R&H.
The working conditions in a lot of VFX studios these days are less then ideal. Long hours (100+ hour weeks at many studios during crunch time), extremely tight deadlines, low pay (salaried at many places... yay for free overtime!), directors being clueless to the process and not knowing what the hell they want, etc.
I hope more stuff like this gets made and VFX artists start getting more recognition, better pay, and working conditions, because people like Ang Lee are certainly not helping the situation (Lee didn't even mention the R&H in his Oscar speech... douche).