I’ve been pondering some serious questions lately in my own journey… and now that I am alone and have to help my soon to be ex-wife support my daughter as well… my short term income generating abilities are coming to the forefront more than my long term film production goals. I need a plan quick that is going to keep a roof over my head, help me cover my responsibilities and keep me writing and developing business plans around film.
I’m not looking for a quick fix and I can’t afford to work a unskilled general day job at a fast food restaurant either. I need to apply my skills and so I’m looking for trends… for potential opportunities and windows of need that will not simply disappear overnight, and that not everyone is in a position to fill.
I think I may have found that niche and it is surprisingly close to home.
I’ve been working for two months on a full motion animation for an engineering consortium that have been developing new technologies to mine gold at 5km depths and beyond. The consortium has been assembled by Virtual Consulting International on behalf of AngloGold Ashanti.
It’s been the hardest two months work I have ever undertaken but it’s been rewarding in a number of ways.
First of all, I’ve been required to create things that do not exist… environments, machines, all from scratch… not even from blueprints or engineering sketches.
I’ve been required to problem-solve and navigate some very complex waters to produce the results I am so proud of. There are no simple workarounds, automated applications or one button wonder solutions… it is something that is still far from accessible to the man on the street, or the average snap happy DSLR shooter or final cut editor.
The combination of 3D modelling, texturing, rigging, environment, lighting and rendering with fluid dynamics, particle systems, pyro and smoke systems, and then complex layer or node based compositing and effects is something that nobody is about to make accessible to the masses… at least not as far as I can see.
However, better and better results are achievable for the small vfx studio through increased processing power, but the skill sets remain pretty much in the “traditional” domain of specialized vfx artists. Such skills are rare compared to videography and editing, rare enough to still have value… and that value is increasing not diminishing.
The value is increasing because demand is increasing faster than the ready supply of skilled artists, and because vfx needs are increasing in complexity, the skills are becoming more complex, not less. Regardless of overall budget… films and television commercials are having to spend less and achieve more on the screen.
As a writer and producer currently writing a movie set in Las Vegas with period scenes, I know that I can shoot green screen in a small studio and composite vast interior and exterior locations for far less than I could dream of building actual sets.
This is going to be the case more and more… and the barriers to entry are still pretty steep… the kind of mind and combination of skills necessary to produce visually stunning and believable vfx shots make it one of the last areas of post production where demand still outstrips supply… and the trend I believe is for that demand to continue, and the ratio to hold.
There are so many opportunities for technical and workflow innovation in vfx design which can further set one apart from the crowd.
So, vfx may be my immediate future… and I’m excited to have a upcoming meeting with a friend Adrian Bergoff, a colleague that worked at Condor VFX while I was at Waterfront Studios who is interested in seeing how we might share resources and maybe I will be able to build a client base… and a good portfolio of work.
However, I feel the pressure of time like a ticking bomb and so my challenge is to get this off the ground as quickly as possible. I have no time to waste.
