Hollywood Paying the Price for Special FX

We've come a long way since George Lucas made Star Wars for $11 million. From Spider-Man 3's "Birth of Sandman" sequence to swirling ship-gobbling vortex in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, this summer more than ever illustrates Hollywood's expensive love affair with the seemingly limitless cinematic possibiities that special effects offer. Forbes breaks down some of the FX financials today, stating that producers are now using 25%- 40% of their overall budgets for this kind of digital magic making. And even dramas and rom-coms are using special effects on a regular basis to create weather or backdrops (called "invisible effects"). In WB's Blood Diamond, for example, "the visual effects team placed actors in dozens of off-limits locations, such as Sierra Leone, enhanced spilled blood, altered out-of-focus shots and made parked vehicles drive." FX costs have gotten cheaper over the years, but productions don't seem to be saving any money.

While there's no doubt that improving technology has helped film studios get more for their money when they outsource effects work to specialized houses, there's some debate as to whether digital effects save money over live action effects. Of course, many scenes attempted digitally would be completely unsafe in the real world. Digital effects definitely improve safety for the crew, says PDI/DreamWorks' Pearce, but their ease only increases directors' appetites for wilder and more fantastical effects.

"Because of that, we can't say visual effects have lowered the cost of filmmaking," he says.

The cost of basic effects themselves has gone down dramatically in recent years, says USC's Hanson, who estimates that 12 years ago, one second's worth of effects on an average film cost $4,000, but today costs $1,300. "It's because of the democratization of the tool set," he says. "I hear from 14-year-olds who have access to the software by finding it for free on the Internet."

What the article doesn't mention is the quiet backlash from audiences to all the mind-numbing CGI (it seemed to tip with Uni's Van Helsing). Personally, I'm a purist when it comes to stunts, prefering live-action over all else. That's part of the reason why Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof has been one of my favorite films this year. All stunts were done by real people driving real vehicles. I had forgotten that a simple car chase could give goose bumps.