LOS ANGELES – There’s a high-stakes fight brewing here, between the digital artists who create the movie-magic effects that many blockbusters depend on and the studios that employ them. Audiences got a taste of it on Sunday, when Bill Westenhofer, a visual effects winner for “Life of Pi,” was played off the Oscar stage with the “Jaws” music, just as he was talking about the bankruptcy of the film’s effects house, Rhythm & Hues.  In a related protest, more than 400 people, many of them laid-off Rhythm & Hues workers, demonstrated just a few blocks from the theater where the Oscars were taking place, voicing their grievances against the industry. According to Deadline.com, they protested working conditions (long hours without equivalent pay) and the foreign subsidies that draw jobs overseas. Some talked of unionizing. A plane bearing the banner ““BOXOFFICE + BANKRUPT = VISUAL EFFECTS VFXUNION.COM” was scheduled to fly over the Dolby Theater during the Oscars red carpet.  Rhythm & Hues is not the only casualty of the business. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the German company Pixomondo, which won an Oscar for “Hugo” last year, is closing its London offices because of financial strain, and shutting its Detroit office in November. At a time when the entertainment industry is sustained by tentpole movies driven by visual effects, it seems bewildering that so many are floundering. (The site Before VFX illustrates what blockbusters would look like without the digital add-ons.)  Many thought that playing off Mr. Westenhofer was poor form, especially after an introduction by the cast of the effects-heavy “Avengers.”  “It’s particularly galling that the FX guy, speaking about a protest that was happening outside that directly addresses the financial realities that are starting to damage the FX community in a way they may not be able to fully recover from, was cut short at a ceremony where they actually had a computer-animated character give away an award on live television,” Drew McWeeny, an editor at HitFix, wrote.  In an interview in the press room at the ceremony, Mr. Westenhofer elaborated on his speech.  “The visual effects are definitely in a challenging position right now, and we’ve got to figure out how to make this business model work, because there are artists that are struggling right now,” he said. “And I wanted to point out that we aren’t technicians. Visual effects is not just a commodity that’s being done by people pushing buttons. We’re artists, and if we don’t find a way to fix the business model, we start to lose the artistry. If anything, ‘Life of Pi’ shows that we’re artists and not just technicians.”  Backstage, Ang Lee, the best director winner for “Life of Pi,” also took up the cause of the effects workers. “I refuse to think those are technicians that work, hundreds of them work by the computers. We create something that’s visual art,” he said. “The bad news, it’s too expensive. It’s very hard.”  “Once it gets cheaper and easier,” he added, “more filmmakers are going to dive into that and create something more and more interesting. And that language will establish the audience in the future.”
With visual effects firms under great financial strain, their artists are protesting their working conditions and the loss of jobs.