With visual effects films swinging to new heights, the supervisor’s job is becoming more crucial. ™ & © 2004 Marvel Characters Inc. © 2004 Sony Pictures Digital. All rights reserved.

A transformation is occurring in the entertainment industry that could have as much impact on production roles as that which occurred in the early days of film when filmmakers stepped from behind the camera to direct the action and the cinematographer stayed behind the camera to capture the performance. The roots of this transformation lie primarily in the increasing reliance by productions on digital technology and the constant drive by directors and creatives to deliver increasingly elaborate visual stories to audiences.

Once upon a time, visual effects supervisors were in charge of shooting the elements or plates required to make a shot. Today, clients expect visual effects supervisors to deliver flawless plates along with a tremendous variety of ancillary services such as production and shot planning, general technical problem solving and providing creative input at all phases of production. Supervisors regularly make on-the-fly decisions, which impact the bottom lines of the production and the organization responsible for delivering the work.

At the same time, supervisors and their teams design, create and deliver partially and completely virtual sequences in record time and at the lowest cost possible. And these sequences can be upwards of 1,000 shots or more, even in primarily live-action projects.

As a result, some suggest that visual effects supervisors are becoming as important to the typical production as the director, writer and editor. One of the possible ramifications of this expanded brief may be a renewed drive to establish industry-wide standards for a new screen credit and rate schedule.

There are as many ways to be a supervisor as there are to make a shot work. The roster of professionals interviewed for this article includes people who work in the U.S. and abroad and those who work or have worked on commercials, episodic television and effects-driven blockbusters. Some are currently on hiatus, some are deep in production. Some work for facilities as in-house supervisors, others are freelance or independent supervisors working on behalf of the production. Some have come up from the stage floor as camera operators, others learned their craft at a computer screen before stepping on to the shooting stage. Some supervise other supervisors; others are one-person bands. Most have worked for several companies and in many capacities during their careers.

This article will examine how this key production role has changed over the past five to 10 years and may change further over a comparable span.

The visual effects supervisors interviewed include (in alphabetical order): John Gaeta (The Matrix trilogy), Darin Hollings (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), Chas Jarrett (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Troy), Tim McGovern (A Sound of Thunder), Erik Nash (I, Robot), Jeff Okun (Elizabethtown and The Last Samurai), Rocco Passionino (Spider-Man 2 and The Day After Tomorrow), Loni Peristere (Serenity and Firefly) and Scott Stokdyk (Spider-Man 2).

Great Expectations: What Clients are Asking for
Clients see the same work the rest of us in television shows, commercials and movies. So it is natural for clients to ask visual effects supervisors to create newer and better ways to tell visual stories using current work as a starting point. But unlike a decade ago, today the underlying issue is not “if” but “when.” And “when” inevitably leads to “how much?” As Stokdyk of Sony Pictures Imageworks puts it: “In the past, the question was: `Can you do this?’ Now everyone assumes that it can be done and that the big question is: `How much does it cost?’”