VFX artist explains why CGI in superhero movies is so bad now
If you've been watching certain superhero movies of recent years, you might have spotted some of the visual effects and thought they looked a little bit bad.
Considering the budgets for these movies keep ballooning and they can bring in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office and still not be deemed a financial success, you might have thought films ought to look better than ever.
However, that's not always the case and while some big budget blockbusters really do look like they were made with love and care, there are others which have taken a tumble down the uncanny valley.
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One of the more recent examples of this is The Flash, the DC universe's attempt to slam the reset button and pave the way for James Gunn's fresh cinematic universe with new actors, with fans divided over the quality of the CGI.
Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Thor: Love and Thunder were also hit with complaints about their VFX shots.
TikToker and VFX artist @no_the_robot, who claims to have worked on The Flash, decided to explain why this was by lifting the lid on just how it all works behind the scenes.
He said: "If you thought The Flash had bad CGI, I can tell you why 'cause I worked on the movie.
"The way VFX companies get work is that Marvel and Warner Bros and other studios will approach VFX companies and say 'hey I have 2,000 shots that I need for this sequence'. The VFX studios will place a bid based on that quantity of shots.
"But here's the catch: the amount of work per shot varies dramatically, so one shot could have wire removal, another shot could have wire removal, smoke simulation, fire sim, face replacement, green screen.
"Despite the difference in workload between those two shots they both are considered just one shot each. Because of this, VFX artists are forced to work relentless hours, overtime almost every day including weekends.
He went on to explain that if the VFX company couldn't keep up with the 'unrealistic expectations' of the work then 'they risk losing out on future contracts'.
On top of that he pointed out that there were only a handful of studios making the big budget superhero movies these days, pretty much just Warner Bros, Disney and Sony, so if a VFX company ended up on their bad list, that was a lot of future work lost.
Pointing towards some visually stunning movies like Avatar: The Way of Water as examples of what industry pros could do given time, he explained that it took them 10 years to get it all done.
Unfortunately, he said most movie studios don't care about their films looking good as long as the bottom line stayed healthy.
As long as the movies with bad CGI and VFX continue to boom at the box office, studio bosses will be looking for ways to make lots of films for less money instead of fewer films on bigger budgets.
Without proper time to work on the effects the VFX studios are struggling with poor working conditions and putting out shoddy shots with audiences starting to notice the dip in quality.
UNILAD has contacted Warner Bros for a comment.
Topics: Film and TV, Technology, DC Comics, Marvel, Warner Bros, Disney
Joe Harker