—seems menacing at a distance, but would it be scary up close? This was the question that dogged Julien Héry, a supervisor at the Montreal visual-effects studio RodeoFX, in the spring of 2020.
In the old days, filmmakers bewitched and terrified audiences with paint, prosthetics and puppets. Today, they draw up 3D digital images, which they bring to life using simulation algorithms and key-frame animation. Visual effects is a never-ending game of one-upmanship. Each year, central processing units for computers get just a little bit faster. Faster CPUs mean that artists can render digital images with fewer delays. Fewer delays mean more images per workday.
This isn’t just a matter of ambition; it may also be a matter of survival. Last year, the global market for VFX likely exceeded US$10 billion. Much of that money wound up in Canada, primarily Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, which employ thousands of VFX artists between them. In the early 2010s, Rodeo started taking on commissions for creature work – including some wallowing hippos in The Legend of Tarzan – treating the opportunities as chances to prove their capabilities.
But if the U.S. is where big new films are conceived and financed, Canada is where much of the work gets done. Our arrangement with Hollywood is a bit like our relationship with Ford and General Motors. We may not own the means of production, but we perform a lot of skilled labour. “When it comes to the large-money film ecosystem, Canada plays a vendor role to its American colleagues,” says Kevin McGeagh, head of virtual productions at Toronto-based film studio The Other End.
That’s how Rodeo got its first client. It got its name from Rodeo Drive, the L.A. shopping corridor known for its high-end fashion boutiques. Moreau wanted his studio to have a boutique sensibility. It wouldn’t be the biggest player in VFX, he reasoned, but it would do the most challenging, specialized tasks.
In the early 2010s, Rodeo started asking clients for whatever bits of creature work they could offer. The company treated every tiny commission—a pickled monster brain in—as an audition, a chance to prove their capabilities. “We didn’t ask, ‘How much is each contract going to cost us?’” says Jordan Soles, a senior vice-president at the company. “We asked, ‘What does it allow us to do?’”, the first-ever TV show with cinema-worthy special effects.
But do we still crave these spectacles? Are we still willing to pay to be grossed out, charmed or dazzled? Last summer, everyone talked about Barbenheimer. Less talked about were the many box-office disasters: thespinoff that resulted in two Disney executives getting fired, the Expendables sequel that not even 50 Cent could save, and the Adam Driver dinosaur caper whose name you don’t even remember. Two blockbusters in one weekend? That’s news. Another Hollywood flop? That’s business as usual.