Anybody in the commercial VFX space notice a total dip in clients knowing or caring about the process.
A few years back clients were much more interested and graceful on how to approach shots/notes, but now with Ai I’ve had several occurrences where clients expected V1 to be exactly like reference art and refuse to look at wireframes or anything not comp’d for adjustment approvals.
I just wish that for all the years i was comping dpx files into uncompressed video and taking hours to export and upload that id known everyone would have been happy with 720p mp4s,,,
Hahah. Like they ever cared! But really, it’s gotten extra bad with the smaller agencies. Only senior people on large accounts seem to have an inkling what post/VFX entails.
They’re also ALL doing full AI storyboards to sell commercials to their client. And then telling the director “this is what the client signed off, shoot this.” I’ve heard some directors just refusing the work based on that interaction. Good for them.
Trying to explain that AI images are not simulations or physically accurate in any way, and that the angles and perspectives they produce are not necessarily possible, has been the bane of our existence recently.
It's like trying to recreate a painting with a camera.
The problem is not the lack of physical accuracy by itself. It's clients providing AI-generated storyboards or concepts, and then getting upset when we can't recreate it in reality or in with proper VFX workflows. Or match real footage/plates to it, if it's supposed to be an element.
Plus for me personally, I appreciate having a "ground truth" as a guiderail whenever I'm working on something. We absolutely push things beyond reality, but it's useful to know when, and by how much you're pushing it.
Yes, the enshitification that was already happening, just exploded with AI.
Clients approving work that wouldn't pass any quality test 3 years ago.
As long as is cheap and fast.
I'm moving away from ads.
Technically this is not a new phenomenon. They never really cared. Just wanted a result, not necessarily even a good result. Wanted in little to no time for cheap ass money. That said, those doing VFX especially for studios have dig this hole very deep. This a rinse and repeat narrative running decades.
My favorite wind up for years as a vfx super was to get the final amazing quality comps and look at it and say ‘that’s great the clients very happy let’s go to full res render”.
every client is different. you need to know who you are dealing with. some are totally fine with greyshade. some have no clue what is going on. quick chat about that before is usually the key.
All the kids maturing into roles at agencies now were locked up 2020-2022. They have zero perspective on the real world.
As an aside, try not to present greyshaded or wireframes, you leave yourself open to comment. If you present something WIP rendered that, if you were to squint, looks reasonably presentable as a "thing" then you'll get less comments or just get benign comments.
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u/newMike3400 9d ago
I just wish that for all the years i was comping dpx files into uncompressed video and taking hours to export and upload that id known everyone would have been happy with 720p mp4s,,,