The Performance and Materiality of the Processes, Spaces and Labor of VFX Production
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Sarah Atkinson Interactive ‘making-of’ machines: The performance and materiality of the processes, spaces and labor of VFX production Abstract This article analyzes and interrogates two interactive museum installations designed to reveal behind-the-scenes visual effects (VFX) materials from Inception (2010) and Gravity (2013). The multi-screen, interactive, and immersive installations were both created in direct collaboration with the VFX supervisors who were responsible for pioneering the new and innovative creative solutions in each of the films. The installations translate these processes for a wider audience and as such they not only provide rich sites for textual analysis as new ancillary forms of paratextual access, but they also provide insights into the way that VFX sector presents itself, situated within the wider context of the current global VFX industry. The article draws together critical production studies, textual analysis, and reflections from the industry which, combined, provide new understandings of these interactive forms of ancillary film “making-of ” content, their performative dimensions, and the labor processes that they reveal. Context their conception and presentation within the wider context of the current global VFX industry. This article analyzes and interrogates two interactive The decadent displays of VFX excess and access museum installations that were designed to reveal presented in both installations are representative of behind-the-scenes materials from Inception (2010) the currently flourishing VFX industry within the and Gravity (2013) in order to showcase the UK which has been boosted in recent years, by a acclaimed, breakthrough visual effects (VFX) of system of tax incentives which have been in place 3 each of the films. The two interactive installations since 2008. The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer were featured within the “Creative Spaces” section George Osbourne states: of the “Digital Revolution” exhibition1 at the Barbican, London, 2014. They are illustrative of The UK film industry is on the crest of emergent digital delivery mechanisms through a wave, with Oscar success and a boom which contemporary audiences can now encounter in the number of new films being made and interact with the behind-the-scenes ancillary here. The UK film tax relief, significantly materials of cinema.2 expanded by the Chancellor at Budget The multi-screen, interactive and immersive 2014 targeted to support further installations were both created in direct collaboration investment in the UK visual effects with the VFX supervisors who were responsible for industry, has played a key role in this.4 pioneering the new and innovative creative solutions in each of the films. The installations translate these The UK is globally considered as an attractive processes for a wider audience and as such they not center for VFX production due to these incentives only provide rich sites for textual analysis as new and its strong domestic television and commercials ancillary forms of paratextual access, but they also market.5 The UK is also considered one of the provide insights into the way that the VFX sector world-leaders within the global VFX industry, and it presents itself. This article purposefully situates is estimated that the UK VFX industry contributes 36 Performing Labor in the Media Industries Kate Fortmueller, editor, Spectator 35:2 (Fall 2015): 36-46. atkinson £250 million a year to the country’s economy.6 deployed in each film’s production are used within As a result, many VFX firms and Hollywood the installations in order to materialize, perform and VFX productions have migrated to London, with reconceive VFX processes such as computational Inception and Gravity being just two examples of and machinic labor. I contend that through the productions created on UK shores. presentation of such processes, these installations both disenfranchise the creators in their lack of Introduction presence and elevate VFX work as a creative and innovative vocation. This article will firstly interrogate how both Thirdly, the installations are framed (by the installations are reflexive of the aesthetic conditions wall-mounted exhibition placard), as being seen in which the cinematic innovations of each of the “‘through the eyes’ of the Oscar-winning VFX films were produced and which characterize each Supervisors Paul Franklin from Double Negative of the film’s productions. Within Inception, the and Tim Webber from Framestore.” This input installation simultaneously mirrors the complexity from the creators, coupled with the fact that of Christopher Nolan’s renowned multi-layered- the installations are designed and produced by diegesis through its breakdown of the complex a company which draw upon VFX techniques, layering of the visual effects and compositing technologies and practitioners in the realization processes that were required in its production. The of many of their own projects, suggests that these installation comprises of one central screen, which installations can be conceptualized as “worker is reflected in two mirrors, one positioned above, self reflections,”8 which are used to educate the and one positioned below the central screen. The surrounding screen industries, and their audiences. installation involves the non-linear navigational John Caldwell, at the time was referring to “demo- playback of one key sequence in the film – where tapes” (or showreels) as manifestations of this the streets of Paris fold in on themselves. Within phenomenon as “tangible, industrial critical media the installation, the viewer can shuttle back and forms,” which “define the industry and manage forth within this sequence and access the different both its internal and external cultural significance.”9 compositional layers that constitute the sequences’ Within the installations’ aesthetic manifestations VFX construction. Within Gravity, the installation of routine processes and working practices of the involves the playback of a linear documentary, industry, I will explore how the installations enable which drew from a number of different VFX the creators to understand and represent their own resources taken from various scenes across the film. approaches, creative input, artistry and labor. In a The installation is comprised of eighteen screens, similar vein to the screen trade publications that sixteen of which were spatially organized in order Caldwell interrogated within his investigations of to represent the LED light box invention that industrial reflexivity, these installations could be was used to emulate the hyper-realistic luminance seen to “invoke modernist notions of “cutting-edge” qualities of outer space. I will contend that these originality, innovation, and radicality to promote reflexive aesthetics, in which the content, style, and progress in their respective industries.”10 Moreover, presentation of the behind-the-scenes materials (as they are symptomatic of the current social, political framed and presented within these installations) and cultural status of the troubled global VFX labor take on the representational characteristics of the economy in which they are situated, where VFX film’s diegetic worlds and present a conflation work is effectively hidden, and in some cases the between the film and the processes of its making. voices of the practitioners are silenced. Secondly, each of the installations use the latest Fourthly, both installations enabled the technological innovations in order to both celebrate communication of creative intentionality, which and cohere complex visual special effects (VFX) augments the critical commentary of each of the processes, and the aesthetic and technological films’ productions. In their approach to demystify breakthroughs for which the films received the technical wizardry, and the granular set of numerous accolades.7 I will examine how the same step-by-step processes, both installations represent digital tools and computational methods that were manifestations of new screen-pedagogies within PERFORMING LABOR IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRIES 37 InteractIve ‘makIng-of’ machInes the context of bonus materials providing educative industry characterized by bidding wars between tools, as acknowledged by a number of scholars. VFX houses who are operating within a competitive Barbara Klinger has previously conceptualized the global market steered by the tax incentives offered DVD extra “[a]s a kind of film school in a box, by certain countries in order to attract the work to DVD represents a mainstreaming of the educational their shores and to subsequently take it away from imperative.”11 Similarly, Jonathan Gray comments others.15 As such, the VFX vocation is one that has that the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) become characterized by long hours, temporary extra features “ […] teach a significant amount of contracts and minimal benefits. This has created the production literacy, familiarizing audiences with conditions for a transient VFX demographic, where the vocabulary of pickups, Foley work, mime passes, practitioners are forced to move from company second units, matte painting, and key frames.”12 to company, and country to country to secure In its interrogation of these four key areas, this temporary working contracts. The diaspora of VFX article addresses such questions as: How do these artists is illustrative of trends elsewhere in the film installations privilege other forms of labor, such production cycle and the screen industries at large as machine processing,