The VFX vs. Marvel situation has been doing the rounds for a while now. And a recent report showed that Marvel didn’t even inform the studios of the release date of Avengers: Endgame until it is already made public. Which came as a shock to the studio working on the film, as the announced date was much closer than the deadline they were working with.
With the number of films announced by Marvel since The Avengers every year, it’s no small feat what the VFX studios working behind each of these superhero thrillers have achieved. Now, not only movies, but even TV shows have joined the foray, and it’s only an increase in workload.
Marvel Forgot To Inform Their VFX Team Of Expired Release Dates
Can you imagine working on a project with a deadline in mind that takes weeks upon weeks of your work, and then suddenly being told that the submission will be much sooner than you were told? The workload placed on you and the kind of anxiety and mental stress it creates are beyond imagination.
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Speaking about the incident where Marvel forgot to inform their VFX team that they had pushed back the release dates by an entire month, one of the artists working on it said:
“The worst was when Avengers: Infinity War and End of Game were going out. They actually increased this version by a month, but they hadn’t told us. I remember being on the floor with my team and one of my artists came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, see that?’ and he shows me the article saying Marvel pushed the release date back a month. He continued further, “So we learned through a press release that we had one month less to work on all these plans.”
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Initially, when Marvel got down to business and started hiring studios for their CGI work, it was like a dream come true for a lot of artists – working on superheroes, who doesn’t like that ? But with the times and the ever-increasing workload, it’s no surprise to see people walking out of the carpentry, complaining about appalling working conditions and cut wages.
The transition from excitement to anxiety
From being excited about working on a project to dreading it, that’s where it all happened. When Marvel announced its Phase 5 and 6 plans at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, VFX artists everywhere could be heard groaning just thinking about the workload that lay ahead.
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With so many projects underway, not only locals, but also studios around the world are bidding on who will work on each project. And maybe this bidding war is what leads to so much tension. By the time someone gets the drafts, they’re barely breathing above the surface. So it’s not a stretch to assume how much overtime artists will need to put in to complete a project within the given budget, as well as the time.
Many artists who have worked with Marvel over the years have complained about the difficulty. One even called it the worst of the worst, saying: “[Marvel] is the worst example of many problems in the industry.
Why only Marvel in the headlines?
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The name Marvel has grabbed the headlines because of all of this, it’s probably because the company itself is such a giant in Hollywood. And again, the number of movies and shows they produce each year is no small feat. So the people who have to work on it behind the scenes are not a small group. An artist who recently worked on a project with Marvel said:
“From my very first day on the project, until the plans were delivered, we were working overtime and weekends. It was just months of being literally nailed to my desk,” he continues, “Even Until last week, they still didn’t know what they wanted this gigantic set to look like, we were still doing concept art.
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Marvel Phase 4 has come under a lot of criticism for lousy CGI work, and the reason for that is probably the amount of work that is put on the shoulders of those VFX artists who are supposed to get their job done in less time and even less budget. With the way things are going, someone will have to give. And it’s probably going to be the smaller studios doing the work behind the scenes.
We can only hope there’s a reprieve when it comes to these Marvel projects. Because as much as we love watching these movies and shows, it weighs on those performers which are probably the main reasons we enjoy these features so much.
Marvel will be the next release Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on November 11, 2022.
Source: Twitter
