Game of Thrones VFX boss warns of potential catastrophe for post-production industry

We’ve heard a lot about how damaging the COVID-19 pandemic has been for the TV and film industry. With many productions on hold as studios try and figure out how to return to set in a way that ensures the safety of everybody there, a lot of people aren’t working. Most obviously, that includes actors, directors, and crew members, anyone who’s on a set. But the people who turn in work later in the process are also suffering, like the VFX professionals.

Take Pixomondo, an Oscar-winning VFX company famous for creating the dragons on Game of Thrones. Like many other companies, it was able to work for a while on footage that had been shot before the pandemic really picked up — it worked on the third season of Westworld, for example. And a lot of VFX work can be done from home, although the quick transition presented some problems. But the work only lasts as long as studios are shooting new stuff, and no one is shooting new stuff.

“There’s a stalemate and that’s making the potential second lockdown news so depressing,” CEO Jonny Slow told Deadline. “It’s fueling cautiousness, and I’m not saying that’s not right – once you start production it’s very expensive to stop it – but it’s going to mean a while before we get clarity from our clients.”

"There’s not a lot of work and there won’t be for a few months. We’ve accepted that. We’re still working on VFX heavy things that were shot pre-pandemic, and we’ll be on those over the summer and I think everyone got some of that. But there’s an inevitable slow moment that starts around now, and could run well into Q3, depending on the number of ‘second waves’ and restrictions on actually filming anything. That is something that, as an industry, we need to be shouting about."

Let’s break from this very serious talk very briefly to note that the guy in charge of the company who did the VFX for Game of Thrones is named Jonny Slow. I will be calling him Jon Slow for the rest of the article for obvious reasons.

“VFX companies have lots of fixed costs in the form of employees, offices, and tech,” continued Jon Slow. “That relies on a steady stream of new business to keep it going. Post-production is a bit like an airline, if you haven’t got any passengers, you burn through your cash very quickly – most companies will struggle to stay solvent for more than a couple of months.” Indeed, Slow has already had to “have a conversation” with around one third of his 600-strong workforce, implementing reduced hours, unpaid leave, and in some cases layoffs. “We’ve tried to keep one foot in the door for people,” he said.

"We want to get the word out there [about the challenges]. The industry needs us to survive and there needs to be recognition of that,” he states. “We need to have conversations about when we [post-production companies] are paid. There’s a real need for cash in this part of the sector and the payment terms need to be amended accordingly.We need people to be sympathetic to how the shutdown is progressing down the line. Communication with us helps hugely. We need clients to give us clear communication on timing and be flexible with moving payments towards the start of the work – that would help hugely."

All that said, there are signs of Hollywood getting back to business, with plenty of big movie and TV shows scheduled to resume production…for better or worse. Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show and Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop remake are the latest to be granted travel exemptions to start shooting in New Zealand again.

And there are other options. For example, much has made of the unique way Disney shot The Mandalorian, the first-ever live-action Star Wars series. It made extensive use of digital sets that Jon Slow thinks provide a real opportunity. “The Mandalorian was a watershed moment, Virtual Production is now getting a lot of traction with our clients,” he said, noting that he had 15 calls one day about how the tech could be used to make crowd scenes easier. “Long term I am pretty positive on the outlook for VFX. If traveling is harder, and if it’s harder to do crowd scenes, and if producers can only get insurance for working inside studios, there are opportunities for VFX companies.

So it’s all bad news, but a lot might depend on who can make it through this coming rough patch. It’s gonna be hard on audiences, too; thus far we’ve had a pretty steady stream of new stuff that was filmed before the pandemic, but there’s a dead zone coming. And if there are VFX studios that don’t make it through this period alive, it could have a chilling effect on the big budget TV renaissance inspired by shows like Game of Thrones, which raised the bar for visual effects on the small screen.

Well, if the worse happens, there’s always books:

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