Does anyone remember that one episode of Spongebob Squarepants titled, “Fear of a Krabby Patty”? What happened in that episode is that Mr. Krabs decides to open the Krusty Krab for 24 hours after his arch rival Plankton threatened to open his restaurant, the Chum Bucket, for 23 hours! Because of that along with Plankton secretly ordering 10,000 Krabby Patties, Spongebob and Squidward are overworked to hell and their minds start cracking like an egg from exhaustion! Because of this, Spongebob suffers from cases of insomnia, hallucinations, and so-called “Krabby Patty phobia”, which leads to him needing to see a psychiatrist. The most famous moment of that episode was the montage where Mr. Krabs is keeping track of how many days it’s been since the Krusty Krab is opening while Spongebob is slowly starting to lose his mind and be exhausted from constantly doing his jobs for several weeks with no breaks whatsoever.
That episode managed to be quite ahead of it’s time and honestly overlooked. Not only because it was the first episode to come out of Spongebob Squarepants after the very first movie came out (A.K.A. the start of the so-called “bad” era of Spongebob), but the morals of that episodes are ones that still range true to this day. The morals being that bosses needlessly overworking their employees is wrong and quality should come first over quantity. And if the reported awful experiences that VFX artists have had at Marvel Studios along with the animators behind Across the Spider-Verse is any indication, it looks as though the folks involved in either of those teams have suffered from their own Krabby Patty phobia. Overworked to exhaustion so much that they never want to even take a glance at a digital effect or piece of animation ever again!
If you have been following the Marvel Cinematic Universe in recent years, you would know that Marvel has had a HUGE CGI and VFX problem for a long time now! It got to the point where somehow the works from their previous films from the very beginning have better and more polished effects than the later films despite the increased budgets over time and more advanced technology. While most people will point that problem to many of the Phase Four installments and onwards with infamously awful CGI/VFX work in the likes of Black Widow, Thor: Love and Thunder, She-Hulk, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania this has been a problem going on for almost a full decade now!
My first notice of the iffy at best special effects work came at the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron, where the Avengers are fighting alongside each other in a sequence that looks so cartoony, over-the-top, and unrealistic that it COMPLETELY took me out of the movie along with others when I first saw it. While the effects did get better throughout that film, the results of some of the effects there were just baffling, especially with so much money being spent on that movie. Unfortuantely, it didn’t stop there!
There were plenty of other instances that I noticed that for the rest of Phase Two and Three of said poor VFX work. There was the airport fight scene in Captain America: Civil War where the CGI was painfully obvious, especially with Spider-Man, the big blue blob sequence that took place at the climax in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and of course, the INCREDIBLY poor special effect work in Black Panther! It’s so bizarre how the more this series got popular and the more money spent on it, the worse the special effects actually got!
Whenever the effects in anything looks bad, people always like to point their fingers to CGI being the main problem or even throwing shades at the people who worked on it. However, it’s very clear at this point that neither one of those are to blame for it! The VFX artists are clearly trying their heart out to make it work and make the effects look as convincing as possible! The problems mostly ranges from the studios releasing as many projects as they can with not as much time as before, having very little patience with their workers, annihilating those that won’t put up with their crap, and as a result, the VFX teams become smaller and more overworked the longer the production goes on. If you don’t believe me, just ask the people that worked on WandaVision!
I will leave a link at the end of this piece of the interview with the VFX artists themselves so you can read more into it but needlessly to say, the experience of working on WandaVision was absolute hell for those that worked on it that were a part of the VFX team! From working constant 18-hours shifts to not having any days offs until the show was near completion to being unable to see their families due to work conditions to not even getting any bonuses or raises for working overtime, it had to been an absolutely MISERABLE experience to anyone who had to work on that show!
Just imagine being a part of that team during the making of WandaVision! Can you honestly really blame the VFX artists for any bad effects that might have been on the show? At some point, when working so much and having very little rest during that, you have to stop giving a crap and likely just want to finish it as fast as you can so it can all be over, getting a chance to have a full eight hour long sleep for once! I understand it’s a big show that MILLIONS of people around the world are gonna watch which always results in long work shifts but being overworked to that extend is just not acceptable!
You can also say the same thing for just about every show or movie that Marvel Studios has released in the past two years! Regardless of what you think about the overall quality of them, I think everyone will agree that releasing over 20 products in the span of just two years is quite absurd! Compare that to when the studios were just releasing a couple of films a year. That led to more time being spend on polishing the scripts, effects, and productions so it can make for better, quality pictures. You know the term, less is more! Less is more is certainly what can NOT be said about Marvel for the past two years!
While that likely has to do with Disney demanding so much Marvel content at once for Disney Plus and theaters, especially during Bob Chapek’s brief time as CEO, at some point, the pressure is going to get to the people working on these things eventually. At some point, they are simply gonna stop caring about the quality of it and just focus on getting it done as fast as possible so they can see their families sooner rather than later. There’s only so much the human body can take before it has had enough and your brain completely goes into “I don’t give a F!” mode! To put it all simply, the treatment that VFX artists have been getting at Marvel Studios is quite frankly cruel!
Thankfully, the Marvel VFX workers seem to think the exact same thing! Earlier this week, it’s been reported that the VFX artists will indeed go on strike and set up a vote to create a new, national VFX union. A union that will likely create a better work environment for the team with plenty of fresh, young blood, flexible work scheduling, and plenty of rewards and bonuses for those that chose to work overtime! Â If successful, this would be the first group to certify union participation amid a wider call for unionization in the VFX community. The election date for it is August 21st and will last until September 11th.
I don’t know how that will played out but something like that NEEDED to happen badly. Not just for the sake of the quality of the VFX for future Marvel projects but also for the sake of the well-beings that take so much time out of their day to do that work for all of us to watch in the comforts of our own homes. However, VFX artists are not the only ones that desperately need a strike to voice their displeasure with their working conditions, that should go to animators as well.
As much as we would all love to turn a blind side of any potential behind the scenes drama to any one of our favorites movies, they are always worth bringing up when they happen to make sure you know of the unstable working conditions that the people involve in these movies are going through for several months and possibly even years while they are making it. In this case, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is still one of my favorites films of 2023, I can’t deny the reports of the absolute hell that animators and artists went through when it came to making the film as masterful as it is. It hurts to admit but it’s just the truth, to paraphrase a very wise someone from the same said film!
Just like with the article involving the VFX artists, I will also provide one involving the making of Across the Spider-Verse that goes more in-depth to everything the animators of that film went through but once again, it was NOT a pleasant experience whatsoever. This interview that came out in June referred to four animators on Across the Spider-Verse that left the project due to it not being a pleasant experience and they were far from the only ones.
The working conditions for Across the Spider-Verse were very difficult for everyone involved, from numerous revisions to full 11-hour shifts, seven days a week, for over a year. This had to do with producer/co-writer, Phil Lord, constantly re-writing the script and overseeing production, forcing animators to constantly re-work certain scenes until he 100% approves of it. This led to hundreds of hours of hard work with the animation being thrown in the trash because it wasn’t what Lord wanted and hundreds of extra hours of work to make it the way he wanted. This stressful workload was so overwhelming to many animators and artists that over 100 of them left the project halfway through.
The four went on to say that there was no way that the next film, Beyond the Spider-Verse was gonna makes it’s March 2024 release date (which they were correct), as both movies were not made at the same time and they “barley crossed the finished line” when it came time for the second movie to premiere. While the highers ups from Sony such as Amy Pascal and Michelle Grady attempted to downplay on those work conditions that these four animators addressed, there is no denying that grueling hours and workload demands were a major factor on getting Across the Spider-Verse into shape before release. While this is far from the first instance where a genuinely great film was a complete nightmare to work on for the people involved, it is quite said to see animators get such harsh treatment like this.
What makes it worse is the reports of there being completely different versions of Across the Spider-Verse that were released in theaters and also through digital last week! While the versions aren’t so different that it affects the plot or viewing experience, certain changes and details that were removed have been noted from people that have watched the film multiple times! Could that have to do with the film “barely crossing the finished line” like the animators mentioned and not taking one last glance at the picture before releasing it everywhere worldwide? I can’t say exactly but the fact that the people involved didn’t bother making one more edit before publication before release and only did it after release says a lot!
There is hope that Beyond the Spider-Verse might not get the same story when it comes to the overworking hours for the animators. The film has been delayed from it’s initial March 2024 release date and even taken off the release schedule until further notice. While a large part of that has to do with the current strike that’s currently taking place with the writers and actors, that does at least mean that there will be more time for those involve to publish the film and help make it the best possible version of itself. And even producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller claimed that the film will only come out “when it’s ready”!
Even if I can take their word for it, that does not change the fact that the animators went through a lot when making Across the Spider-Verse and received very little reward for it in return. While there has been a strike in place for VFX artists in regards to Marvel Studios, animators and artists are more in their right to go on strike. Their contract with the SAG-AFTRA is set to expire sometime next year. When that happens, I would not be surprised to see them go on strike! Or if the studios want to avoid another situation like the one happening now with their writers and actors, they should leave by example like what Seth Rogen did to the animation crew of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.
Yes, you read that correctly! In a recent interview, it was confirmed by TMNT director Jeff Rowe that him along with producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg made sure the staff could work on the animated movie while continuing to maintain a good work-life balance. It was something that the three of them took to heart and made their top priority every day when working on the picture. Come on studios, if Seth Rogen of all people can take good care of his crew, then you can too! I’ll also leave a link for that interview as well but yeah!
Keep in mind, I’m not trying to get you to change your mind on what you think of the new Marvel stuff and Across the Spider-Verse! It’s perfectly okay to still enjoy them if you do. Even I will admit I still enjoy most of them! I don’t necessarily think folks who worked on these things are coming out to get you to hate the things they worked on but more to understand their perspective on what they’ve been going through when making these things as a result and hopes it will lead to more stress-free productions for the immediate future.
In conclusion, VFX artists and animators deserve to join alongside the writers and actors right now and take a stand to the toxic work environment they are forced to work with every day. While the VFX crew from Marvel Studios are doing that right now and the animators may have to wait another year to do so, they have fully earned the right to do that!
What’s going on with film and television production in Hollywood right now is unacceptable and it’s time for changes! Changes such has treating the people that make you who you are with some damn respect! First the writers and actors, now the VFX artist and animators! And I promise you, A.I. won’t bail you out of this one!
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