The agenda for this first VES Production Summit focused on a high-end lineup of those who make decisions that affect the visual effects industry. Perhaps half of the attendees were from that same group, and the other half were those brave artists that wanted to hear the opinions and share their concerns. The result was more questions were asked than answered, and I assume even more were left unasked, but my, what a dialogue. In a year where conferences galore are operating in the red, the 2009 VES Production Summit appears to have broken through that barrier and put on a very successful day discussing the ever growing list of pipeline problems that are rapidly approaching a breaking point.

The volunteers who organized the event, Bob Coleman, Jill Smolin, Rita Cahill, Jeffrey A. Okun, Colin Ritchie, and Susan Zwerman, managed to pack a room even at nearly $500 a ticket on a Saturday event starting at 7:30 AM. Held at the Ritz-Carlton, the event drew enough attendees to require extra seating along the outside walls.

First session, Preproduction panel

PRE-PRODUCTION
The first three sessions, co-moderated by Jeffrey A. Okun and Grant Curtis, focused on production, including pre and post. In the first panel one question posed was to EVP of VFX & Post Production Victoria Alonso of Marvel Studios. “What are you doing to make sure the wheel is not invented over and over and over?” In two drawn out syllables, she replied, “nothing”, an honest answer that drew appreciative laughter. The word for the day was set. She discussed how Production Designers had become so cost prohibitive that they couldn’t be kept on staff and perhaps a position of VFX Art Director that watches the vision through the entire film until it’s delivered should be considered. She suggested if a budget was set, shots would have to be culled to meet that budget. “Its $125 million, don’t come in and give us $175 million. It’s your responsibility as the artist to come in and give us that vision because you did it last year for $75 million.”

(Left) Coli Brown: British Film Commissioner, UK Film Council, (Right) Anshul Doshi, Global COO, Prime Focus Group.

In the session wrap up, one speaker asked what would happen if the shoot time was reduced from 105 days to 50 days, “What would Walt Disney say about that? You could do it, you would save a lot of money” to which Okun added, “what you are fighting against in visual effects has effectively made it possible for you to defer every decision to the last possible moment.” But perhaps it was the anecdote that followed that expressed it best, about a renowned photographer who said ‘I don’t necessarily know where I’m going to take a good photograph, but I know where a good photograph is going to occur, and I wait for it to happen.” Production Designers were supposed to be doing that; creating those places for really great photographs, where the director guides his actors, to make the images happen, and the cinematographer is there to capture that moment. The imagery should evolve in the beginning; this is something you should be able to figure out in pre-production. Applause.

Second session,- production panel

PRODUCTION
“Let me ask you this question,” Okun began. “It's ten years from now, all actors have been digitally scanned and refuse to leave their trailers. So we are animating them, you are directing your actors through the artists. Your ability to capture on film is gone, but we are going to shoot it Digicam and D5 camera, flat light and we do all our setups at one time and go into post and figure it out then. Is that our future?”  Silence, finally broken by nervous laughter.

There was a confession that those in the production stage had become lazy and the solution of “fix it in post” was terribly overused. By contrast, Director Catherine Hardwicke mentioned how a month before shooting the film 'Twilight' the VFX budget was cut from four million down to one million, thus eliminating much of what had already been planned.

Richard Hollander.

POST-PRODUCTION
The post production session took on a different tone, with several thought-provoking comments. One interesting question was “How many times have you started with a script of white pages and how many of those white pages end up at the end of the movie?”,  pointing out the old adage that it all happens in post production and where the “fix it in post” phrase originated.

One surprising opinion was that previs, the way it is done today, kills the vision. One said he remembered what Spielberg said, ‘I love doing previs now that I know how, and then I throw it away.’ And another talked about how he was on the set of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and saw a book of storyboards “this thick" that were never referred to.

“The budgets aren’t getting bigger, the schedules aren’t getting bigger on the back end, so the more planning we do on the front end helps everybody. It helps the studio, it helps us, it helps us figure out how many people we are going to need.” And another, “The tools are just giving capabilities of making different types of movies, of different styles and different looks, and tools for creative people to tell the story. I don’t think it’s going to make it any faster or any cheaper at the end of the day. The future will be technologies that will help tell stories in real time, a director making choices, a future sense of what Inferno used to be for commercials.”

Keynote speaker: Dr Haseltine

A brilliant Keynote brought some relief in time for the knots to dissolve in the community stomach, just in time for lunch. I can’t do justice to the lecture in just a few words, but I’ll touch on some of the topics.

Dr. Haseltine touched on Smell-O-Vision, on optical illusions, and visual perception, and how the brain interprets and assimilates information, and the results. Then he asked one fundamental question. “What business are you in? Are you in the business of presenting pixels on the screen that create an emotional effect on the audience, or are you in the business of creating an emotional effect? Because just as technology is blurring the distinction between animation and live action, between pre- and post-production and so forth, I believe it also has the potential of blurring the distinction that we’ve artificially drawn between our senses, because your brain integrates all this information. It doesn’t care whether it’s visual, auditory, sensory, or extra-sensory. It’s the emotional impact that the brain cares about. You might want to start redefining what you think of as the business you are in.”

Using examples available on YouTube, Haseltine discussed the McGurk effect. With our eyes closed, we listened to the audio of a man saying what sounded like 'Ba Ba Ba', but when viewing the video, we perceived it as 'Da Da Da'. This example was to show how the soundtrack can enhance the visual effect without changing a single pixel. He used another YouTube of a 528MHz alpha binaural beat. By listening and watching the video, you could put yourself into an Alpha state. He then tied that to how the audience can have a heightened experience in relation to what a character on screen is going through.

Afternoon panel

X-RAY: DECODING AND THRIVING IN THE 21ST CENTURY POST-PRODUCTION PIPELINE.
A discussion prompted the point of ever-changing technology. “We’re working at a pace now where technology rebuilds are coming out on a weekly or monthly basis. Just keeping up with what everyone else is talking about what they're going to come up with next” to which one of the speakers replied, “I’m so happy that digital cinematography has given us the dream of faster, cheaper, better”. The audience enjoyed a hearty laugh.

In defense of those outside of VFX, one valid point is simply that, sometimes, plans change. “We used a cinema scanner on 'Shutter Island', and through the process we learned new ways to use it. No matter how much you prep, you go in with a game plan and you are going to change it on the fly every time the ball hits the grass. Now we are in digital cinema, we’re dealing with so many technical issues that exceed the capabilities of the decision makers to comprehend, that you ultimately find yourself in a position where people who don’t necessarily understand what they are deciding on.” Another interesting point was the suspected demise of the rectangle film format due to the push of stereoscopic, but that stereoscopic viewing doesn’t belong in the rectangle, it belongs all around you.

Late afternoon panel

HOT, FLAT, AND GETTING CROWDED: THE BUSINESS OF PRODUCTION AND THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMY
The international market, tax incentives and how to keep more work in California, the birthplace of film was a leading topic before moving on to exploring the reasons, both pros and cons, of why many studios are opening studios abroad. Some companies realized that half their animation staff was international so locating facilities elsewhere was a logical step. Tax incentives, education incentives, equipment incentives, grants and fluctuating sunset clauses have made the list of considerations formidable. “Are we buddies? Or are we lobbing things at each other?” And “is there an end to this? In twenty years are we going to be here taking about VFX shops in Bolivia? Is there a point you just run out of low labor markets and things have to come up or are we going to continue to migrate as long as there is an educated work force as a chance to cut costs?”

In case all this doesn’t give you enough to think about, I’ll leave you to ponder the words of one speaker, EVP, Digital Production, Animation and Visual Effects from Warner Bros Pictures, Chris DeFaria. He responded to a question from the audience pointing out how the VFX industry might be able to charge what amounts to five percent of the profit for a film's international release, yet they’ve contributed substantially more to its success. His reply: “In these deals the risk has to get spread around. You can’t separate risk and reward in this relationship. Don’t confuse the significant artistic accomplishments of your company with the financial risk involved with filmmaking.”

IN CLOSING
It would be impossible to cover what became a fourteen hour summit in just a couple of pages, just as it would be absurd to say this summit solved everything, or even a single thing. But it was an eye opener to witness the void between worlds inhabited by those that should be on the same team. There is much work to do, and none of it will succeed if this first step hadn’t been made. One step forward by the VFX community in unison can cover a lot of ground. That is what we need to do: line up, link arms, and get moving.

A second VES Production Summit is already in planning. Compile your thoughts and prepare to make your voices heard.