Sausage Party | Rogen/Goldberg Animation | August 12, 2016 | Support the Sausage Party Artists!

[Plain Old Tele]

VFX profit margins are so razor-thin. It's crazy/scary.

[Kvikk Lunsj]

1 hour ago, Tele the Jet Baller said:

 

Union shows, absolutely. Non-Union, it's a crapshoot, oftentimes you don't get horribly dicked but there are small ways companies will consistently try to avoid compensating you: giving you a flat rate per day so you don't get paid for OT (even if you have to get a cut done), only paying a flat day if you have to work a sixth or seventh day in a week, or (the opposite) giving you a furlough day unexpectedly but not paying you for it, paying a much-lower rate simply because they're editing on "cheaper" software.... and these are things the nicer companies do. 

There are editing companies? I assumed you just worked for the studio. 

[Plain Old Tele]

4 minutes ago, Dexter of Suburbia said:

There are editing companies? I assumed you just worked for the studio. 

 

Production companies. Almost of the non-union shows are reality shows, so they're produced by whichever company makes the show. A lot of these are really big and produce dozens of shows -- Fremantle, Endemol, A. Smith & Company. Basically, they pitch show concepts to networks -- when these sell, they hire teams of production and post-production freelancers to make the actual show (usually there's some in-house people who're essentially staff, but may or may not be paid as such).

 

Even for scripted shows, the studio is not necessarily the same as the network and neither are the same as the production company (who literally does the work). In many cases, the production company may be a subsidiary of either a studio or a network. For example, Lab Rats was a show made for Disney (who owns and airs it). In this case, Disney is both the studio and the network. However, the production company for Lab Rats is It's A Laugh Productions, who makes all the Disney sitcoms (whether for Disney Channel or DisneyXD). And to complicate things slightly more, while the production companies have account departments to deal with payroll, they contract all actual formal paperwork for timecards, work eligibility, paychecks, and so forth out to these big payroll companies. So my pay-stubs and my W2s come through the payroll company, meaning that in the eyes of state unemployment and the IRS, technically I'm an employee of them.

 

Okay, now I'm way off topic.  

[ZattMurdock]

I'm not following this thread but this is what Tele meant that we wouldn't like to see how the sausage gets made. Literally.

[AniNate]

Seems like the best places to work in theory end up being the shittiest ones in practice 

[filmlover]

Free press = bigger box office!

[goldenstate5]

I saw this yesterday on Cartoon Brew and it's really despicable. All for this Greg asshole to make a name for himself. I hope Sony restores all credits for the home release.

[vc2002]

Damn I guess I'm really late to the party but I just saw the SP trailers for the first time. What a brilient idea and what a bunch of great funny trailers. I hope it gets good legs.

Edited August 16, 2016 by vc2002

[theultimatebiu]

18 hours ago, tribefan695 said:

It's definitely possible and humane to do a good animated movie on a small budget, but I don't understand why people who aren't Hollywood accountants get so hung up on it. If you make a terrific movie on a small budget, great. If you make a terrific movie on a gigantic budget, also great

[Sal]

A lot of people aren't aware of just how badly animators get treated in general.  I wish this entire Nitrogen BS was a rare occurrence, but in reality it's just endemic of the industry attitude as a whole.  I've got a lot of friends involved in different areas of the animation industry and it's awful what the studios can put animators through, both in feature films and in television.

 

The trouble is that boycotting something like Sausage Party isn't going to send the message that studios should treat animators better... it'll just reinforce the mistaken belief (in North America, at least) that animation is a medium only suitable for kids.  This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.  I'd love for animation to be accepted as the versatile medium it truly is and if it means a few movies like Sausage Party (for better or worse) need to exist in order to prove that animation can be used for that, then I hope it succeeds enough to persuade other people to create more varied (and higher rated) animations.  If the studios stop farming out all their work to severely underpaid animators in other countries, that'd be even better since it's awful how many animators are out of work in this country.

 

 

[Plain Old Tele]

Here's a new article about the SP issue and the larger issue concerning animation and VFX artists.

 

https://www.inverse.com/article/19973-sausage-party-animator-abuse-highlights-industry-issues

[The Futurist]

Things I Know :

 

- Canada (and the rest of the world) completely destroyed the Los Angeles VFX industry, it s basically dead.

EVERY big VFX movie has the Logo of Canada at the end, because every VFX company has facilities in Canada so every movie benefits from the big Tax Credit there.

 

- ILM opened a very big facilty in London, all big VFX companies have offices ALL over the world now.

 

- Pixar movies are expensive because the guys who worked on Toy Story (1995) worked on Finding Dory (2016). Pixar never really outsourced, they kept they workforce without firing much people and stayed in their luxury big complex so a Pixar animator must cost twice the price of an Illumination Animator.

Also, Pixar movies are the most beautifully rendered CGI movies, they are the ultimate pioneers of the art form, they started it all, they do a lot of R&D which costs much, followed by the best looking movies from Dreamworks (Dragons, Croods especially)

 

BUT I know that seeing the differences now is difficult for most people and for a very good reason :

 

you can buy Renderman from Pixar if you want to do CGI work (CGI movies or VFX heavy films), Massive from Weta  or Maya and all the big VFX software the pionnering VFX & animation  companies created years ago that allow lots of clever & talented people to start their own VFX companies without doing any R&D, lots of tools, assets & templates are now availbale to buy.

If you see a CGI crowd in any movie, yup, it s probably Massive.

 

- Dreamworks Animation started to have the same budget problems as Pixar, movies that were too expensive so what did Katzenberg do ? He fired hundreds of people and outsourced everything in India & China : check out the Kung Fu Panda 3 credits and you ll see what I mean.

 

- Big VFX movies cannot cost less than they do, they have become so complex with so many minutes/hours of animation in it.

A Marvel movie is basically a Live action movie and & Pixar movie rolled all into one, plus the gruelling work of compositing.

 

-Each second of CGI rendered animation you see in all these movies are worked over by thousands of ultra qualified artists for hours and hours until their eyes get out of their sockets.

 

- I am pretty sure that all people that work in VFX companies are in the credits of movies right now, those big VFX movies credits are 8-12 minutes and feature now thousands of names in each departement, carefully mentionned and detailed.

 

- Every movie now has VFX work done, everyone from your 500 000$ indie to your 300M$ blockbuster, it has become one of the many tools of every filmmaker.

 

- Inarritu is a buffon and the Revenant had CGI snow, CGI animals, CGI everything. Basically your standard Marvel Studios movie.

 

- BB-8 was in CGI in Force Awakens in some shots (or at least some CGI tinkering). Practical my ass, JJ.

 

- It has become increasingly difficult to know who did what on a movie because most big VFX movies are done by at least 3 different companies, in general 5-8 up to 15 !

To give you an example, ILM did the first CGI Iron Man in the first movie in 2008, since then, I think 5 or 6 different companies did a CGI Iron Man, sometimes inside the same movie even.

 

- All Illumination movies are done in Paris, by people who seem to be happy to get work. How long Universal will be able to pay them with rocks is anyone s guess.

 

- Visionnary director Peyton Reed(Ant-Man) said in an interview last year that the VFX industry is the fastest growing industry in Hollywood, every six months, a new tool or technology or idea or concept or software is developped.

The number of VFX companies boggles the mind even if there are like 10 big ones that do most of the work in the AAA movies : ILM, Weta Digital, Sony Pictures Imageworks, MPC, Double Negative, Framestore, Cinesite, Scanline VFX, Method Studios, Digital Domain, Luma Pictures etc etc etc 

 

- Traditionnal make-up will die.

 

- CGI is love, CGI is life. Even Christopher Nolan & George Miller like it.

 

- Best Cinematography for VFX heavy movies is a joke, plain and simple.

 

- If you have any question, ask James Cameron, he knows.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2016 by The Futurist

[NoobSaibot]

On 8/16/2016 at 2:46 PM, Sal said:

A lot of people aren't aware of just how badly animators get treated in general.  I wish this entire Nitrogen BS was a rare occurrence, but in reality it's just endemic of the industry attitude as a whole.  I've got a lot of friends involved in different areas of the animation industry and it's awful what the studios can put animators through, both in feature films and in television.

 

The trouble is that boycotting something like Sausage Party isn't going to send the message that studios should treat animators better... it'll just reinforce the mistaken belief (in North America, at least) that animation is a medium only suitable for kids.  This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.  I'd love for animation to be accepted as the versatile medium it truly is and if it means a few movies like Sausage Party (for better or worse) need to exist in order to prove that animation can be used for that, then I hope it succeeds enough to persuade other people to create more varied (and higher rated) animations.  If the studios stop farming out all their work to severely underpaid animators in other countries, that'd be even better since it's awful how many animators are out of work in this country.

 

 

 

A friend of mine was in the animation business. I say that he was in the animation business because the pay was $50,000 a year in a city where breathing is expensive (Los Angeles), and he was expected to devote free time to projects just to ensure that deadlines were met. He couldn't take it and only lasted two years over there. Where I live, $50,000 sounds like a middle class salary, but that's absolutely not the case in Los Angeles where I hear houses can cost north of $700,000 depending on where one looks. But what I've heard about the animators for Sausage Party is one hundred times worse. Tiernan and Vernon should have had no part in this movie's production. They sound like the bosses that nobody wants.

[Plain Old Tele]

2 hours ago, NoobSaibot said:

 

A friend of mine was in the animation business. I say that he was in the animation business because the pay was $50,000 a year in a city where breathing is expensive (Los Angeles), and he was expected to devote free time to projects just to ensure that deadlines were met. He couldn't take it and only lasted two years over there. Where I live, $50,000 sounds like a middle class salary, but that's absolutely not the case in Los Angeles where I hear houses can cost north of $700,000 depending on where one looks. But what I've heard about the animators for Sausage Party is one hundred times worse. Tiernan and Vernon should have had no part in this movie's production. They sound like the bosses that nobody wants.

 

"North of 700k"?! That's, like, a decent house in a solid neighborhood. More upscale stuff easily runs in the $1.5-2m range. It's hard to find any place under 400k that doesn't need serious repairs or isn't in a total shithole neighborhood. (Which I understand makes your point even more emphatic.)

[MovieGuyKyle17]

Saw this at my local Regal while buying tickets for Kubo and the Two Strings.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Blankments]

7 minutes ago, Blankments said:

Updated Sausage Party projections:

 

Weekend 3: 9.6M (-37.8%) cum 84.9M

Weekend 4 (3-Day): 7.1M (-26.8%)

Weekend 4 (4-Day): 9.0M (-6.6%) cum 99.8M

Weekend 5: 2.5M (-64.2%) cum 104M

Weekend 6: 1.8M (-28.2%) cum 107M

 

DOM: 109.857M (3.206x)

WW: 202.581M (45.8% foreign share)

[Plain Old Tele]

36 minutes ago, Blankments said:

43 minutes ago, Blankments said:

Updated Sausage Party projections:

 

Weekend 3: 9.6M (-37.8%) cum 84.9M

Weekend 4 (3-Day): 7.1M (-26.8%)

Weekend 4 (4-Day): 9.0M (-6.6%) cum 99.8M

Weekend 5: 2.5M (-64.2%) cum 104M

Weekend 6: 1.8M (-28.2%) cum 107M

 

DOM: 109.857M (3.206x)

WW: 202.581M (45.8% foreign share)

 

I think your weekend 3 and 4 numbers are crazy optimistic.

[CJohn]

2 minutes ago, Tele the Jet Baller said:

 

I think your weekend 3 and 4 numbers are crazy optimistic.

4 is Labor Day weekend and the openers are shit. Holds will be crazy good as every year. Time to accept that this is gonna get 100M, Tele.

[filmlover]

CJohn the ending of this movie is gonna change your life.

[That One Girl]

54 minutes ago, Blankments said:

1 hour ago, Blankments said:

Updated Sausage Party projections:

 

Weekend 3: 9.6M (-37.8%) cum 84.9M

Weekend 4 (3-Day): 7.1M (-26.8%)

Weekend 4 (4-Day): 9.0M (-6.6%) cum 99.8M

Weekend 5: 2.5M (-64.2%) cum 104M

Weekend 6: 1.8M (-28.2%) cum 107M

 

DOM: 109.857M (3.206x)

WW: 202.581M (45.8% foreign share)

 

When discussing the numbers of Sausage Party, I propose we use a different abbreviation other than "cum" to prevent threads to derail into the sex thread