Tony Clark ACS is a veteran cinematographer who sees some serious challenges for the VFX business in the very near future. He sees several challenges on several fronts from the sheer proliferation of VFX infused projects to a potential talent drain at the top of many current and near future VFX teams. Clark is one of the founders of Adelaide, Australia, based Rising Sun Pictures and was the winner of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement in 2011 for inventing the remote collaborator tool known as cineSync.
Rising Sun Pictures creates inspirational visual effects for feature film, television and transmedia clients around the world. From humble beginnings, the company was founded in May 1995 by Tony Clark, Gail Fuller and Wayne Lewis who named it after the Rising Sun Inn in Adelaide, South Australia, where the first board meeting was held over a Coopers Ale on a Chesterfield. Now with over 100 films under its collective belt, Rising Sun has achieved some truly amazing, technically challenging work, and has built a team of artists who are among the best in the world.
His VFX Supervisor credits include such films as Alfonso Cuarón’s
Gravity, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Last Mimzy, The Core, Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, X-Men: Apocalypse, Prometheus, Game of Thrones, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Great Gatsby and The Wolverine to mention just a small sampling.
For the near future, Clark sees tremendous opportunity in the industry because there has been such a tremendous increase in the production outlets taking on an ever increasing number of projects. There will be opportunity as production and distribution takes on new channels with the likes of Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Hulu and others creating vast amounts of original content. These non-Hollywood players, he says, are driving high end production value as well as is the growing streaming phenomenon.
Perhaps the most serious challenge to the industry for Clark is what he feels may be a dearth of talent. As more and more projects become available, the talent needed to bring that high quality production value may not be there in the near future. He recently told PostMagazine that,
"For me, the key weakness is the depth of talent, in particular high-level leadership of the VFX teams. As the volume of projects grows, there’s an increasing need for production and supervision talent to take leadership of the projects and deliver success. There’s a long-term deficit of experienced VFX producers, and when they’re controlling increasingly-large quantities of the film’s budget, there is a natural desire to have that budget in safe hands. In an industry that’s challenging in terms of the pressures it puts on people’s lives, we need to take a long view on helping these roles be sustainable so we can keep great talent available on both the production and vendor sides.”
He also believes that VFX teams should stay together rather than keeping to the current nomadic life it has tended to generate. He thinks both the clients and the industry would benefit from the stabilization. He sees the talent pool as migrating around during the slower production months of May to October causing an instability in production facilities in general and in the VFX industry in particular. Because most profit margins for facilities stay on the slim side, he feels it a shame that there can't be more of a pooling and sharing of knowledge. He hopes it doesn't become a full blow threat to the future.
“Talent, again, is at the heart of this. In a business that’s all about the quality of your teams, losing talent is a major threat to the viability of a facility. If your business is the sum of your talent, then keeping them engaged and motivated has to be a key part of your thoughts for the year. This needs to go beyond just money too; if you’re negotiating on money alone, you’ve already lost. It’s made complex by an ongoing [effort] to achieve more for their budgets, and the plethora of opportunities for artists to relocate to facilities in various locations, which puts pressure on facility margins."
On the proverbial bright side, however, Clark sees some major growth opportunities coming for the industry. He believes that there must be a serious nurturing of new talent so that the ranks can fill and provide all of the upcoming work that will need to be done. He is also hopeful that this new talent will be brought along and nurtured so that they may, one day, step into those supervisory leadership positions. He sees much grow coming and he sincerely hopes the industry is ready to take advantage of it.
"The huge opportunity is in the growth of new markets, in particular China. Rising Sun Pictures has been engaging there for a number of years and built great relationships. As Chinese box office rivals and surpasses other major markets, there’s a strong desire on their part to see local content with global production values, and for facilities that can partner with them to deliver at that level.”
