Scott Ross's career began in 1988. At that time, he served as the head of the computer synthesis special effects company Industrial Light Magic (ILM) as the chief executive. In 1993, he created another industry pioneer company as co-founder with James Cameron and Stan Winston: Digital Domain.
, co-founder of Digital Kingdom
In recent years, Ross has been busy making movies, participating in teaching, and is committed to the establishment of the VFX Trade Association. In this interview, he talked about the founding and rise of the digital kingdom, some unpleasant but interesting experiences in working with top directors like George Lucas and James Cameron, the survival challenges that VFX companies are currently facing, and the possibility of future changes. By reading this article, you may be surprised that these top special effects companies that Hollywood relies heavily on have survived so hard. This article is intercepted from "Voices of Labor: Creativity, Craft, and Conflict in Global Hollywood". The original text is long and has been deleted. The full text is narrated in the first person.
"Partner Cameron wants to dismiss me"
When digital technology was just emerging, I happened to go to Industrial Light and Magic and participated in the company's restructuring. At that time, many links had been switched to digital processing. The emergence of this emerging technology can better help us manipulate images in the digital field.
The San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s was a entrepreneurship paradise. Everyone, no matter who you are, is busy starting a company. At that time, I was managing Industrial Light and Magic, surrounded by a strong team of the best creative talents and Oscar winners. However, our boss basically won't show up, he's like an invisible landlord. During my five years or so years in my business, I have seen George Lucas for only a few times, and I can't remember whether it's three or four times.
To film Star Wars, we founded the "Industrial Light Magic"
5 years ago, we have turned a non-profit company into a slightly profitable company, and turned a company with stagnant technology into a company at the forefront of the times. After that, Lucas rejected our proposal to acquire the management, so I quit the company and made a decision: to create my own company - the Digital Kingdom.
James Cameron came to ask me if he could join after hearing that I started the company. On the day of the meeting with James, Stan Winston (the most famous makeup specialist in the world at that time) also appeared at the meeting. In this way, the Kingdom of Digital was born in a meeting of three founding partners.
James Cameron
In 1994, we won the movie "True Lies" directed by James Cameron. The emergence of this project allowed everyone to see the existence of the digital kingdom, and even was nominated for the Oscar. It was a year of great harvest. The Budweiser beer advertisement we produced won the Golden Lion Award, and the MV of "Love Is Strong" that worked with the Rolling Stones also won the MTV Music Video Award. we became the most popular visual effects company in the Los Angeles area.
Movie "The True Lies" Stills
Visual Effects The biggest feature of this industry is: its production is amorphous and unique. Even people in the industry may not necessarily understand it. Visual effects are more like art than science, very complex, always with countless changes.
This means that when you set a budget for visual effects, you can only guess as much as possible. In Hollywood, almost everything depends on budget, and the people responsible for making decisions always care more about the buying and selling process than the actual price. They always want to bargain on the price you give.
Even if it is James' own movie, he has no right to decide who to use the visual effects for this movie. All he could do was strongly advise the film studios he worked with to put the digital kingdom in his selection.Because after all, this budget is similar to a studio like 20th Century Fox, so it should be their final decision for whom to do the work.
Before making "Titanic", 20th Century Fox had had some unpleasant experiences with James because he would exceed his budget every time he made a movie. So when we learned that producer Jon Landau decided to take charge of this project, 20th Century Fox was happier than anyone else because Jon knew how to make a movie. In other words, Jon's appearance might avoid overspending again.
James and Qiaoen set up a total budget for Titanic in the range of $100 million, and the VFX budget is 18 million. However, after I studied the project, I found that 18 million is far from enough, and what we need is about 27 million.
Movie "Titanic" Stills
At that time, the biggest competitor of the digital kingdom was Industrial Light and Magic. The director of Industrial Light and Magic believes: "If I collaborate with James Cameron on a movie, but he can't afford to hire his own company for visual effects, then I can give the Digital Kingdom a fatal blow." With this idea, Industrial Light and Magic expressed that it was willing to accept a budget of 18 million, but it may end up with 25 million, which is two million less than us, and these two million are enough to make the Digital Kingdom go bankrupt.
In order to prevent the company from falling into a dangerous situation of bankruptcy, we accepted this project after consultation with the board of directors. But James has not given us the film material for a long time. In order to rush to work, our entire team worked overtime desperately, and every day at that time it seemed like "burning money" was like crazy. Although
still failed to be released as scheduled, the results of the postponement are satisfactory. If it premiered on July 2 as originally planned, "Titanic" would collide with several other blockbusters at that time. By chance, the film was completed in October and premiered in November, successfully avoiding conflicts with several other blockbusters, and has been popular until the summer of the coming year, becoming the box office champion in the history of film.
"Belated Movie Material" brings unexpected surprises. Although the film has gained a super high box office and reputation, and both James and 20th Century Fox benefited from it, it seems that we have completed a job on the tip of the knife, which not only far exceeds the cost, but also has a nearly damaged reputation.
After "Titanic", one day James suddenly announced in the company that he felt that maybe the Digital Kingdom needed a new CEO and he didn't think I had the ability to manage the company. The directors were shocked by this sudden incident. They asked the chairman of the board of directors James to explain the whole story.
James is very tough: "We don't think Scott is competent." The directors also made it clear: "We don't think so! We not only want Scott to come back and continue to be CEO, we also want you to resign, and he will be CEO and chairman of the board."
James immediately grabbed his coat and threw it on his shoulder. When he was about to leave, he turned around and quoted a sentence from "Titanic": "Gentlemen, it is indeed a great honor to have fun with you." Then he walked out the door. I never saw him again, and I didn't meet again at Stan Winston's funeral many years later.
visual effects business model has never been successful
Whenever people start a conversation with "thinking of the past", I always reply with cold water: "I'm wrong, I never thought of the past" good times." The visual effects business model has never been successful.
You work very hard for a long time to complete the special effects work. From an artistic point of view, it has indeed left some very classic pictures for everyone, but from an economic point of view, it can be said that you are empty-handed.
Around 1994, I tried to create a trade association named AVEC, which means "and" (with) in French. The full name is the Association of Visual Effects Creators.
I want to bring together important figures in the VFX industry to form a trade association and change the existing business model. But in the end it failed.
In the visual effects industry, the managers who run companies are often not businessmen, but because they are not businessmen, they are afraid to die. As George Lucas said of Star Wars staff: "If you give them enough beer and pizza, they can do anything!" People in the VFX industry are no different from movie fans, just let their names appear on the Star Wars cast and crew list and they are willing to do anything.
We all know that the competition in this industry is very fierce, and to be honest, we don’t trust each other at all, but the problem lies in the customers and business model. We go hungry and do all the work, but they make billions of dollars. The industry must unite to stop such things.
, and more so, the situation has changed again now. Now every visual effects company management operator has become a salary manager, and there is no need for them to "get on the boat" to take risks. Anyway, they will be fired because they cannot make the company profit in a few years. Why do they have to show off and do some long-term planning?
From the perspective of studios, they have always thought about where the subsidies are the highest. So if the studio says to me, "You move to Vancouver, I'll give you the project." Then I move to Vancouver. If suddenly Montreal gives a better price than Vancouver, the studio guy says, "I really want to give you the project because we have a partnership, but..." The studio knows in his heart that you will go to Montreal, there is no doubt. From a studio perspective, everything is perfect.
subsidies are received, but they are not directly given to the visual effects company. The good news is that if you are in London and qualify for subsidies, the program is yours. The bad news is that the project is yours, not that the studio gives part of the subsidy to the VFX companies, but that they take it away and use their ability to minimize the money they pay to the VFX companies as much as possible.
VFX companies have no way to balance their income and break even and have been losing money. In order to survive, you can only manage your cash flow correctly and control your labor expenses.
If I are the studio manager, where can I save money? I can stop providing donuts to my staff, but what's the point? We don't pay overtime, and even reduce their health insurance, and we do everything we can save money. At this time, the artist employees still had the wrong impression that the managers were doing things to make money. Not true! There is only one group of people making money, and that is the film studio.
In my opinion, the ten most powerful studios are Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), Sony Pictures Imageworks, Digital Domain, Weta Digital, Method, Double Negative, Framestore, Pixomondo, and Prime Focus World. A few years ago I would also add Rhythm Hues.
All of these companies we discuss, the top ten, none of them are profitable, they are in dire straits. If our four companies gather together to raise $500 million, we can buy another 5 or 6 companies. At that time we could control the entire film industry. That is the pricing of "new companies".
So to improve this industry, the only possible direction in the future is merger. You buy these companies first, lock in the best talents, and after the merger, you can make small profits and quick turnovers. Then manage it well, because the management of these companies is unsatisfactory. With good management and business quantity, the cost will be reduced. Then you can go back and discuss the price with the studio again. Because in the end, the most powerful studio blockbusters rely on world-class visual effects technology.
— The End —
Extended reading: The glory and setbacks of the Digital Kingdom
- 1993, Scott Ross, former general manager of Industrial Light and Magic, collaborated with director James Cameron and film special effects master Stan Winston to establish the special effects company Digital Kingdom, contributing many fine works such as "Titanic" and "Transformers" trilogy, and won Oscar recognition seven times. The market value once reached US$400 million.
- In November 2011, Digital Kingdom landed on the New York Stock Exchange, and its market value has been stable at US$300 million. Later, due to excessive expansion, it filed for bankruptcy protection procedures in early September 2012.
- In 2012, the American company joined hands with the Indian media giant "Reliance Media" to jointly invest 30.2 million US dollars to acquire the digital kingdom, which caused a sensation in the Chinese and American film industry.
- On March 28, 2013, Hong Kong listed company Aoliang Group announced that it would spend HK$392 million to acquire 70% of the shares of Digital Kingdom owned by Xiaoma Pentium American Company. The transaction was finally completed in July. In December, Aoliang Group was renamed Digital Kingdom and announced its pursuit of transformation. Later, the Digital Kingdom began to bet on the VR field and used VR technology to live broadcast Faye Wong's "Fantasy Music" concert at the end of 2016.
Reference materials:
①: Voices of Labor: Creativity, Craft, and Conflict in Global Hollywood (This article was interviewed in 2014)
②: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/MjyWDp_gU4o1k7wtM9R9Bg
Translation: Xu Zheng
Edited by Cai, Fei Xiaohou
Design: Wen Xiaozhao
