Several special effects professionals denounced Marvel’s working conditions and it seems that more and more people refuse to work for the studio. Find out more details in this note!
It is nothing new that the MCU It is the highest grossing film franchise in the world, it has accumulated more than 25,529 million dollars. However, this does not mean that Marvel be the best place in the world and much less that all the people who work in that study are satisfied with the working conditions.
In recent times, many complaints have been made known regarding the working conditions of artists, professionals and VFX experts who work in Marvel or that they used to. As the days go by, more and more people join the complaints and it seems that there are many who no longer even want to have anything to do with the study.
The latest projects of Marvel (both series and movies) gave something to talk about. This time we are not referring to the plot, but to the complaints that were (and still are) about the visual effects, the CGI and the image quality. Some of the criticism was directed at the upcoming series of Disney+ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and also the recent Thor: Love and Thunder.
As we know, the big studios have a lot of weight on their shoulders, more than anything when it comes to providing quality content, something that all consumers expect. However, producing these huge projects takes time and, considering that Marvel releases a movie or series every few months, it is essential to manage it well. This doesn’t seem to be working as it is one of the main complaints from various VFX studios, companies and freelancers.
The high rate of release, the complexity of its special effects shots and the lack of fair working conditions in Marvel led to quite a few VFX professionals not wanting to work for the studio. And, as The Gamer reports, there are more and more complaints. According to anonymous industry sources, many refuse to work there because they don’t know how to properly handle their visual effects requests, impossible deadlines, and immense pressure leading to stress and unsatisfactory end products.
Many of these accusations were made on the r/VFX subreddit, with artists from across the industry sharing their negative experiences with the company. In a thread titled “Frankly, I’m sick and tired of working on TV shows. Marvel“, the user of Reddit Independent-Ad419 noted that the study “has probably the worst VFX production and management methodology out there“.
He also added: “They are never able to fix the special effects of a series before the time allotted for the sequence in question is up. To the artists who work on the series and films of Marvel they are definitely not paid the equivalent of the amount of work they do”.
The responses accumulated and most coincide with the initial message. “I have been working almost three years in a row Marvel. Welcome to the seventh level of hell”, said one user. While another remarks that his time in the studio was a “black hole of lack of sleep and poor diet.
“In Thor they order a complete mini-sequence about 2-3 weeks before the delivery date“, explains samvfx2015. On the other hand, Mickeym00m00 assures that he asks not to work for them, either in movies or in series, but “unfortunately”, they are becoming his biggest client. “They expect a smorgasbord of options to be able to change their minds three more times.”he added.
That’s not all, but there is also another Reddit thread that has even more criticism. These accusations began when a VFX artist shared that he was disappointed to miss out on the opportunity to work with Marvelsomething their industry peers assured them was not a huge loss.
“I’m on my third project Marvel followed and I literally woke up at 5:30am on a Saturday with the stress of ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’RANDVR wrote. On the other hand, he added: “It’s 6am now and I’m making a reel to apply somewhere I have other projects besides Marvel because I can’t do this anymore.”
Another comment comes from the hand of Raistlinuk, who said: “It took me more than six months to recover from the crisis of WandaVision. Not worth it. Not when there are better-executed projects that look just as good.”
So just because a lot of folks have mentioned it, this has been the case since the earliest days of the MCU. It didn’t start recently, and it’s not because of Chapek.
The issue is #Marvel is too big, and can demand whatever they want. It’s a toxic relationship.
— Dhruv Govil (@DhruvGovil) July 10, 2022
A more recent comment was Drhuv Govil, who participated in films like Guardians of the Galaxy Y Spider-Man: Homecoming and tweeted: “work in series of Marvel it’s what pushed me to leave the VFX industry. They are a horrible customer, and I have seen too many colleagues collapse after being overworked, while Marvel tighten the nuts”.
So if you were wondering why some movies from Marvel they have visual effects that leave a lot to be desired (despite their large budget), they already have one of the reasons. The working time and conditions to which VFX specialists are subjected within Marvel It seems that they do not give for more.