{"id":1955,"date":"2012-09-29T16:04:29","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T23:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anirama.com\/?p=1955"},"modified":"2014-03-02T17:40:59","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T01:40:59","slug":"ves-founders-award-transcript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anirama.com\/newdesign\/2012\/09\/29\/talks\/ves-founders-award-transcript\/","title":{"rendered":"VES Founders Award Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo courtesy of Paul Debevec<\/p><\/div>On Thursday, September 27th, 2012, I received the Visual Effects Society’s Founders Award<\/a>. The award was presented at the Annual Membership Meeting, and included a great video produced by Van Ling, and a wonderful introduction from my buddy and VES Chair, Jeff Okun. I then had the floor for about ten minutes. The prior years’ six recipients had set the bar for the talk pretty high – the topic is usually a personal view about the state of the visual effects industry and how we might be able to improve it. Below is the transcript from my talk. If you’re interested in a break down of the process and a dissection of the speech, I’ve written another post<\/a> about that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I am privileged to be a part of an industry and company that helped change the world. When I started PDI in 1980, I joined a small community of people who believed that we could make something that was impossible to do at the time \u2013 that someday computers could be used to create images to tell stories on TV and in the movies. We knew it would take a long time, maybe 15 or 20 years to do.<\/p>\n

We caused a fundamental shift in the way films are made and the types of stories that can be told. We did this with a passion for inventing, for building and wrestling with the technology until we could conform it to our will.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also had the unique opportunity to have had three different careers around this dream:
\n– As an entrepreneur helping to create and build an industry
\n– As a venture capitalist investing in entertainment technologies
\n– And now as a professor mentoring the next generation of creative talent<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s disheartening to me to see the industry I love so much behave like it\u2019s dying, when in fact it is just being born.<\/p>\n

I wish I was 23 again!<\/p>\n

To understand my frustration, let\u2019s take a quick trip through time, starting in the early 1800s, and look at what our options for entertainment are.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 1820; we can read, socialize, play games and music, and dance with each other. We can create and enjoy art \u2013 paintings, drawings, sculptures. We can go out to hear live music, including classical orchestras with 35 musicians.<\/p>\n

Photography is invented in the late 1830s, and by the mid-1840s becomes a popular way to record images of ourselves, our environments and our daily lives \u2013 dealing a blow to painters, who react by exploring their medium in new, more interesting ways.<\/p>\n

Orchestras continue to be popular, and composers start to make them bigger, swelling to twice their former size \u2013 a trend that lures bigger audiences and creates larger concert halls.<\/p>\n

In about 1878 both the phonograph and moving pictures are invented, and by the late 1890s they start to vie for people\u2019s attention listening to music at home and watching Kinetoscopes in penny arcades.<\/p>\n

Perhaps not coincidentally, composers like Wagner and Stravinsky expand the size of orchestras to almost 100 members, creating huge, loud, exhilarating experiences to attract their audiences.<\/p>\n

In 1906 the first radio program is broadcast, ushering in a new era of live entertainment delivered directly into the house, followed closely by the birth of Hollywood, enabling the motion picture industry to thrive.<\/p>\n

And orchestras get bigger. By the mid-1920s they hit their peak size of 110 to 120 members.<\/p>\n

Then, in 1927, The Jazz Singer is released \u2013 the Talkies are born, and the role of the orchestra changes forever.<\/p>\n

But the movies haven\u2019t won. A year later, in 1928, Philo Farnsworth invents the television and the war for the moving picture audience begins. Movies add color. TVs add color. Movies get bigger. TVs get bigger. Movies add surround sound. TVs add surround sound. Movies get even bigger. TVs get even bigger. They both go 3D. Movies go onto TV. TV goes to the movie theater. Movies add a higher frame rate. TV already has it.<\/p>\n

Our orchestras in the meantime have stagnated. Their traditional performances are funded as much by charity events as they are by ticket sales. The musicians spend much of their careers performing music that is the score behind the motion pictures made by the industry that sidelined them. But that isn\u2019t to say that those changes were bad for music. Those same broadcasting and recording technologies created a new music industry that gave birth to jazz, rock and roll, and down tempo trip hop techno pop.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today, you\u2019re the musicians in that orchestra in the 1920s. There are big changes happening that you can ignore or take advantage of.<\/p>\n

The only issues I hear about are outsourcing, tax incentives, global competition, unfair business practices, runaway production, trade organizations, unions, ownership, piracy, the race to the bottom.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really important stuff; I understand that, I\u2019ve run a business.<\/p>\n

There is no solution, only opportunities.<\/p>\n

If you think a trade organization will solve your problems, then get off your ass and make one. Start small, pick an easy problem and fix it. Grow from there to bigger, harder problems.<\/p>\n

A \u201clevel playing field\u201d won\u2019t solve all the problems. You can\u2019t legislate or otherwise keep people from willingly losing money.<\/p>\n

Getting participation won\u2019t be free. You have to put skin in the game, and in Hollywood\u2019s case, skin is cash.<\/p>\n

Globalization: It\u2019s here to stay, deal with it.<\/p>\n

Diversification gives you a broader base of business. You can invest in change that way without even having to go all in.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t enough movie work to go around. It\u2019s simple supply and demand. You can\u2019t limit the supply of companies willing to do the work; in fact it\u2019s still growing. You need to create demand for something that you can do better than anyone else. And not just better, but you need to be unique.<\/p>\n

The only way you\u2019re going to convince your customers that you\u2019re not a commodity is by being able to offer them something no one else can. If you\u2019re offering the same product with the same terms, then as far as they\u2019re concerned you are a commodity. You have to be different to compete.<\/p>\n

Digital Domain has been a voyeur\u2019s delight, but don\u2019t get too distracted by it. There is only one lesson to learn there, and it\u2019s a general life lesson not a VFX lesson: don\u2019t spend money you don\u2019t have. DD is not a specific indicator of anything wrong in this industry other than that company\u2019s bad management. We saw this happen before in 1987 with Omnibus \u2013 they went public on the Canadian stock exchange, then gobbled up two other companies that were struggling, with the hope that even though they were losing money they\u2019d make it up in volume somehow. That also lasted less than a year. But great companies like R&H rose up out of those ashes and did it right.<\/p>\n

DD\u2019s strategic thinking wasn\u2019t necessarily wrong, but its implementation was crazy. Ender\u2019s Game might have worked. Tembo might have worked. An animation school might have worked. Doing military contracts might have worked. But they only had the resources to pursue one of those things.<\/p>\n

My recommendation: If you weren\u2019t at DD, then don\u2019t waste any more of your time on fretting about DD. Move on and dedicate your precious brain cycles to making things better for you.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t spend money you don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So maybe you think you\u2019ve fixed it. It seems there\u2019s a level playing field, and while competition may be stiff, at least nobody feels like they\u2019re getting screwed. The death of our industry has been averted, or at least postponed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But let\u2019s go back to our history field trip. It\u2019s the late 1960\u2019s and life is good.<\/p>\n

While the movies and TV are duking it out, groups of researchers under a government contract are figuring out how to network computers together, and in 1969 Southern California and Northern California talk over the ARPANET for the first time. Jump forward a bit to 1995, the year the DVD is introduced, and the Internet is set free upon the world, becoming officially commercialized.<\/p>\n

So now again, we find ourselves in 2012. Our options for entertainment and idle time amusement seem endless. The music we used to have to go to the concert hall to hear came directly into our houses with the advent of radio. The transistor radio made that portable, and the Walkman allowed us to select our music while on the move. Now because of the Internet we can choose from millions of songs and have them streamed instantly to us anywhere, anytime in glorious high fidelity. That\u2019s happened with video, movies, and even with our old friend the book.<\/p>\n

Now, we can read or socialize. We can create, share and enjoy music, photos, videos, television and movies. We can play games alone, we can play games with friends, or we can play in a clan against 1000s of other people. We can blog, tweet, follow, unfollow, friend and unfriend. Anytime, anywhere. That\u2019s a lot of competition for our free time.<\/p>\n

It astonishes me that people keep going to the movies at all. But they do because the experience keeps getting bigger and more extreme \u2013 which it must do to compete with all our other activities. Movies have to give us magic we can\u2019t experience in any other way. And that\u2019s what visual effects do, and why every major film depends so heavily on what we do. They have to. Go big or go home; or go mobile.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t believe that\u2019s sustainable. All those other options will catch up. High end game experiences are becoming cinematic and letting us into the action. The march of technology will create dozens of more options for the audience. Inputs won\u2019t be limited to mice, keyboards and touchscreens \u2013 gestures will be common place along with advanced biometrics. And that high end experience is going to go mobile with higher resolution and better displays that eventually will beam directly onto our retinas without the need for a screen. Seriously.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Entertainment will become integrated even more tightly into our lives. But not as movies.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s called \u201cdisruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Right now you\u2019re still the musicians in that orchestra in the 1920s. There are big changes happening that you can ignore or take advantage of. But this time, you\u2019re sitting on the technology and creative skills that will help define the entertainment experience for the next century.<\/p>\n

And still, the only issues I hear about are the same ones: outsourcing, tax incentives, global competition, etc.<\/p>\n

Twenty years from now it does not matter. At all. Because twenty years from now the business that you\u2019re in today isn\u2019t going to be relevant. If you don\u2019t change and figure out what your new business is, then you will be sidelined.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So here is my frustration: Where is that vision? Who\u2019s looking ahead and talking about what they\u2019ll be doing in the future that\u2019s impossible today?<\/p>\n

I care about that future.<\/p>\n

My students do, too. And they are your current audience; they are your employees; and they are your future competitors. They have a big vision for their future, and they will<\/span> make it happen.<\/p>\n

My students are from the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Columbia, France, Spain, South Korea, Singapore, India, and China. That\u2019s this semester. If you\u2019re xenophobic, or are a protectionist about your community, state, country, continent, or hemisphere, you can learn something from them. They\u2019re smart, they embrace their multi-cultural experiences, and they work together easily despite the seven (or more) native languages they speak.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s an interesting irony: like you, they all believe they need to leave their native countries to find work. But they want to come to California because that\u2019s where the opportunities are.<\/p>\n

Your business concerns are irrelevant to them. They want to follow someone with a great vision or they want to be entrepreneurs themselves.<\/p>\n

They are thinking young.\u00a0They have time to pursue their dreams. They are looking far into the future.<\/p>\n

What about you? What\u2019s your vision? What impossible problems are you trying to solve?<\/p>\n

Are you going to be just a member of the orchestra playing the same old song, or are you going to stand up and be a part of the future of this industry?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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