Yet smaller budgets obviously do influence to what extent visual effects are used in a film. Kerri Schwarz states that, "It is a challenge, but at the same time I think that's what makes us innovative in our industry. It's because we have to be, with the sort of budgets we have to work with. It's not a case of having a lot of money to splash around. It's trying to solve problems and coming up with ideas within the budget range that we have."

Photon VFX proves that there is more than one way to severe a hand in When Good Ghouls Go Bad. © Fox Television.

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It is an opinion shared amongst Australia's effects houses. Soren Jensen, who has just wrapped work on the U.S. tele-movie When Good Ghouls Go Bad, states that, "We pride ourselves that there is always more than one way to achieve an effect. If our clients need a severed hand, we can let them know that you can make a 3D hand, or you can film a real hand and doctor it, or you can do it as a prosthetic hand with wire removal. There are always different methods of attacking the same problem."

The growing confidence in Australian visual effects has enabled some of these methods to be used together to make possible any complex shot required in a script. In the upcoming film Subterano, remote control toys terrorize humans trapped in an underground car park. Peter Webb, who is the film's VFX supervisor, states, "I always advocate that if you can achieve an effect in-camera for real, it's always the best way to go. However, if the drama calls for something that you can't do, then you use computer effects to do that. Peter Stubbs and Filmtrix developed animatronic creatures that they used on set with remote controls, but at certain times there were things that they couldn't physically do. So we've created CG versions of these creatures to carry out those tasks, such as when they break down into little balls."

Another Australian visual effects film on the horizon is Cubbyhouse. Chris Schwarze believes, "It is actually one of the most intensive Australian visual effects films ever. We had to create the demon that inhabits the cubbyhouse, and vines that come out and attack people. Quite often you might get a large shot count in a feature film and a lot of it is simple work like wire removal, but basically every shot in this film was a challenge."