Working with VFX

The traditional thought regarding the cost of locations typically was a sliding scale between the production value gained from a practical location vs the cost of building a comparable set on stage. 

If it could be procured practically for less, it is generally considered to be the most favorable option as it provides variety to the viewers in scene setting and additional depth that cannot be recreated in the limited confines of a stage or backlot unless the scene was to be set in a location that doesn’t exist or isn't possible to shoot in reality.

A scene involving a popular high-end restaurant requiring the buy-out of a day’s receipts plus parking for trucks and other support facilities totaling in excess of $100k can be justified by the production value of filming in a recognizable location that viewers would immediately identify with the characters versus the cost of building a restaurant on stage at an equal or lesser cost. 

For shorter scenes, other strategic considerations such as filming overnight after closing or before they open might make the difference between a reasonable cost or being forced to compromise the creative concept of the shot.

This thought has recently been supplanted by the increasing dependence on VFX to stretch the production budget, however ignorance of its limitations can greatly affect the cost of such a decision. In the best case scenarios, VFX is used to extend a practical location by camouflaging its physical limitations as opposed to creating a whole new world in the digital space, exponentially increasing its cost compared to practical alternatives.

The “virtual backdrop” has best been used to modify the physical limitations of a practical location in a way that that could not be altered in real life. A perfect example would be in a period feature where certain elements of the period might remain, but is now surrounded by contemporary elements that require removal to successfully sell the viewer that the characters truly exist in the time portrayed.

A VFX heavy feature such as those produced by Marvel Studios are the extreme example of this case and the VFX budget can easily equal a third to half of the physical production budget that is already in excess of $100 million dollars, however not all VFX needs are quite so expensive.

An additional 50% of one’s budget isn’t a practical alternative to most independent filmmakers, and simply believing that one can “fix it in post” as if waving a magic wand will save the production money is a common misconception of many producers inexperienced in using VFX.

VFX isn’t Photoshop, and you can just pull up the scene at home on your computer and add or erase something with a click of a button. VFX is more time intensive and like traditional animation where you would have to go through each frame and repeat the process over and over again, adjusting for light and camera angle, adding hours and hours of work on the back end that might have been easily and cheaply fixed with another take on set. 

It is that balance that makes investment in a VFX supervisor worthwhile, and one whose advice you’ll want to compare practical considerations such as an actor’s time in the make-up chair vs VFX or simply weighing in on what is or is not possible based on your needs and budget. The advice they can offer on simple fixes that you can do in camera to reduce the amount of rotoscoping or keying can save valuable cost and time in post.

One of the most successful examples of VFX as used to expand on the physical locations has been on the ABC series “Lost” which filmed almost exclusively in Hawaii. During the course of its 6 seasons, “Lost” featured scenes set in Iowa, Iraq, London, Los Angeles, New York, Nigeria, Seoul, Sydney, and around the world without ever leaving the island. 

“Lost” achieved this by finding and dressing practical locations that provided the necessary foreground elements for the characters to believably interact in, and then extending the background to mask the distinctly tropical elements for elements more appropriate to the location they were cheating. 

This allowed the series to maintain their network schedule without the cost of flying the entire cast and crew around the world every week just to portray what would in most cases have been less than a day in each country. 

The alternative to this would require block scheduling across the season to couple as many scenes in one area as possible, as recently used by the Netflix series “Sense8”, however this generally isn’t an option for most networks or even lower budget features with a page or less of work in a distant location.

An option that has been used quite extensively by USA’s “Covert Affairs” has been the use of the VFX crew already hired to shoot plates of various international locations for the “virtual backdrop” to bring along one of the show’s actors with them to practically shoot the actor in the location in question for the establishing shot as a splinter crew without the cost of traveling the full production and three ring circus that it brings with them.

They have found that the production value of physically filming the character in the actual location greatly enhances the scope and quality of the scene and is offset by the reduced time in post paring the first unit foreground element with the VFX unit background plate shots.

Another benefit of VFX is that the location where the VFX house is based doesn't necessarily need to be tied to the creative needs of the production. It's great if they're in the same town as your post in case your director or DP wants to be able to pop in and personally supervise some of the sequences or to make real time changes without dealing with upload speeds and time differences, but if the budget is tight, a little pre-planning and a trusted VFX supervisor working with a VFX house in another city might help stretch some your limited dollars. 

While California is still one of the top markets for VFX talent, Australia and New Zealand offers some great talent and now has incentives to productions that come to them just for VFX regardless of where the project was shot. Developing VFX markets such as India offers great value for the dollar for the grueling less creative but labor-intensive work. 

The increasing costs of filming on location and the impact to the community is aways a concern for many location professionals and film commissioners who sometimes mistakenly believe that VFX is either stealing their work or is a quick and easy fix for difficult practical effects, while many VFX artists bemoan the unpredictable nature of practical locations and additional work it can create. 

In reality, the best visual effects supervisors and location professionals understand that the best results are reached through collaboration and a basic understanding of each other’s craft can yield dividends in cost savings to the company.

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