Christopher Nolan Forgot To Credit Over 80% Of VFX Crew On ‘Oppenheimer’
Christopher Nolan Forgot To Credit Over 80% Of VFX Crew On ‘Oppenheimer’
VFX workers get screwed by Hollywood yet again.
From the linked article…
In a day and age when literally everyone connected to a film production gets a credit, from craft services to on-set teachers of child actors to random “production babies” who didn’t even work on a film, it is utterly incomprehensible that vfx artists, whose work makes possible the final images that appear onscreen, are routinely omitted from screen credits.
I can attest to this, having worked in the field. Most of the work in TV and cinema goes uncredited, with team leaders or just the post houses at most being recognized with an end credit placement (by contract, of course). I understand totally that it is always a team effort and hardly any of the viewing public sits through the entire end credits roll. I totally get it. But when it happens that you are included, that small token of recognition does remind you why you're doing 12-hour days erasing power lines, making day look like night, adding/removing people and/or signage from shots they weren't supposed to be in and pushing greenscreened people in front of moving cars.
Is that really up to Nolan? I don't know anything about the industry but is a director in charge of making sure everyone is credited?
He's also a producer in all his films. He definitely has the clout and oversight to ensure its done. But he's also a luddite and so it's not natural for his brain to consider things like that. Remember, this is a guy that doesn't even have a mobile phone.
I mean, there are also production offices, editors, post-production supervisors, and Universal's contract with DNEG involved.
If he missed it, then so did dozens of other people. Though the fact that DNEG just laid off like 8% off their workforce in London makes me think that it was a deliberate decision from the studios rather than "Nolan forgetting to do it"
He’s not really a “Luddite” : https://thenib.com/im-a-luddite/
He's also producer.
Probably not, but the movie is pretty much defined by him. It's not just Oppenheimer, it's "Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer".
As someone who had his name left out of film credits before (actually, it listed the guy’s name who didn’t get the role I got instead of mine), I know how this stings. Sadly film & television is full of neglectful morons, they fuck up, ultimately all you can do is move on.
it listed the guy’s name who didn’t get the role I got instead of mine
That’s particularly rough. I’d be livid. Did the mistake stay in the credits for subsequent publications of the project?
Surely the producers could update the credits when the error is discovered?
Assuming the film is listed on IMDb, were you not credited anywhere?
I was very young then and much easier to push around. This was well before IMDB existed.
At some point, when it comes to the way VFX people are treated in the industry, it goes beyond simple neglect imo. These people are constantly being fucked over.
I sincerely doubt it was neglect, but a calculated decision either to support his "no CG" bullshit or to hide the fact they used outsourced CG farms with terrible working conditions.
I think the various unions are the only reason anybody gets a credit at all. George Lucas got fined for not putting enough credits at the start of Star Wars, iirc.
Kind of sucky that people get no credit, although sitting through the credits of Red Dead Redemption 2 will probably give an idea of why they don't list everybody at every studio and contracted company that worked on it, since they were about half an hour long.
The fine Lucas got was from omitting the director's credit from the start of the movie. It's not like anybody was defending the guys doing the work behind the scenes.
This might be a needless nitpick, but had to bring it up, as it's not the first time I've come across this.
Yeah, that's the one. The director's guild (not union, although I guess similar) imposed the fine, even though it was his own name he omitted.
Even James Earl Jones didn't get a credit although that was at his own request apparently. He'd rattled through the lines in like 2 hours, pocketed his money and went home. Didn't feel he'd deserved it, vs the poor guy who'd sweated in a suit for weeks and didn't even get to be seen or heard.
This is a really interesting issue within the industry. I work within the film and television industry, both in Australia and the UK, and have never been credited for the roles that I do that, some would argue, should be credited for.
But when you break down something like a mega-Hollywood-super-feature-blockbuster-film like Oppenheimer, the amount of ancillary and auxiliary bodies working on a movie like this, would amount to a credit role that would be very hard to keep track of.
For example, do you credit the data wranglers who might be assisting the DIT, or the courier service who delivers dailies to the post house? Or the team of edit assistants who make proxies for OCM? Do you credit every person who was on craft catering for the entire production run?
On one hand, I can see why it is “consolidated” to team leads, or heads of departments, but personally I think that ANYONE who worked on the film SHOULD be credited, as their time is equally as important as everyone else’s.
I have learnt to accept that my name won’t be appearing in any credit role, despite the hours I put in to make sure it happens, and I am okay with that, but totally understand and support anyone who feels like they should get the recognition… as I said at the start… interesting issue.
This is why we have unions who negotiate the contracts that outline who gets a credit and who doesn't. Keeping track of everyone who worked on VFX in a movie is a trivial exercise. Those comparisons to menial tasks done by interns aren't at all appropriate.
but personally I think that ANYONE who worked on the film SHOULD be credited, as their time is equally as important as everyone else’s.
Well that's just not true. If it was, they'd all be paid the same for their time. It's nice to think in egalitarian terms, but it's not true. Some people are more vital than others.
in that case crafty is probably more vital to a movie happening than the DP.
Ive spent months working on the VFX for a show only to not appear in the credits, yet the dude who brought lunches to the crew on set who gets paid significantly less than me gets a credit.
I get that if 100,000 people work on a film they don't want to fit all of them in the credits. But also, why not? Sure there would need to be some sort of threshold, you can't just Uber someone to work and get a movie credit. But someone who actually did work should get credited. If the credits last 10 more minutes, who cares? Physical discs have plenty of space now, granted, streaming is now king. But that only proves my point more.
The only argument I can think of is that movie theaters need time for one movie to end before the next one starts because of post-credits or something. But that's so niche and can easily be worked around with mid-credits scenes, or faster scrolling credits on the theater version.
"forgot". The guy really went above and beyond to sell his gimmick "no cgi". I've even seen some of his fanatics defend this by saying "IMAX reels can only hold 3 hours of film which is why the CGI people had to be removed from credits". As if they couldn't have been credited early in the credits and as if the movie wasn't less than 3 hours (don't know where that person was but where I am, the movie is supposed to last 2h40 something minutes, aka less than 3 hours)
The official runtime is 180 minutes exactly, so actually is 3 hours.
He also claims there isn't even one CGI shot in the entire film. I don't believe that. There aren't any backgrounds filled in at all? No touch ups? If he used matte paintings you would be able to tell with IMAX, there's too much definition to pass off a painting.
Permanently Deleted
That was so disappointing...
While I will agree that maybe Sir Christopher is possibly stretching the truth regarding CGI (it's entirely possible there isn't one entire, totally computer-generated shot), but computer-aided, computer-enhanced, no. Especially in this day and age, everything is touched by Inferno/Flame/Smoke/Nuke/AE/Blender/Maya/blah blah blah.
When you say "matte painting" you mean traditional, non-digital, paint-on-glass? Forgive my ignorance, but why would that be any more or less noticible in IMAX?
Imax has a huge resolution. It's like watching a 4k copy of an old movie and being able to see how fake the materials used were.
He meant there's no full CGI/green screen shots. He's not completely averse to CGI.
The Dark Knight has Batman flying over Hong Kong and that was a CGI shot. Inception had folding city. Interstellar had mathematically created CGI of black hole.
Otherwise CGI is used by him to enhance existing shots or to hide wirework. Such as zero gravity scenes in Inception.
Damn, does his hate for VFX even extend to the people working on it?
I wonder if it's really hate for VFX people or that they just think so little of the cheap Indian labour they used to produce this to not even mention them in the credits.
Or maybe they just wanted to hide the fact that most of the VFX was produced in India (I assume from the names and DNEGs offices), not in the US?
Well, in their defense, we are a despicable lot. 🤣🤣🤣
In my job, I often ghost write extensive legal arguments for Supreme Court litigation, on behalf of Senior Counsel (we call the practice ‘devilling’).
I do weeks of research, strategy, writing, rewriting, and the senior will then submit and argue my papers as their own.
Most of the time, I don’t even get to attend. I’m not officially on record. And when I do a great job, judges might praise the senior for ‘their’ excellent work, and I’ll hear about it second-hand.
It can be hard to stomach because everyone likes affirmation and appreciation for their labour, but I’ve learned to take all my satisfaction from the work alone, and doing an excellent job.
At least in my case, I know this is how it goes so it’s never a surprise. But it’s lonely behind the scenes in a thankless role.
I empathise with the uncredited, but at the end of the day the reward is in the quality of your output.
If you are a permanent employee and get a good salary I can follow your argument, you are a cog in a machine and get reimbursed regularly. But if you are hired project by project and get paid some lump sum (and probably not a good one), then exposure in credits and on IMDb is really valuable.
And you have the other side of movie credits where they add the crew pets , new born kids and deceased during filming.
I geuss that for a movie like Oppenheimer the credit would last longer than the movie itself.
🙄 While I'd agree with you if I didn't doubt you about credited pets and kids without actual roles, I'm pretty certain nobody has a problem with the memorial title cards.
I barely watch any movie and yet i saw pets and new born being credited. It happens, their's no doubt about it. As for the memorial, i didn't say it was a bax thing. Neither of this is a bad thing. i was just pointing at something i observed that is in a striking contrast with 80% of the vfx team being uncredited in Oppenheimer.
I haven't noticed pets being credited, but I for sure have seen babies that were born during the making of a movie get mentioned during the credits.
This is pretty normal. When I worked in vfx the studio I worked for took out pages in variety to give everyone a credit.
Most of the people who work on a film don’t get credit. There is above the line and below the line , they get credit. Most people aren’t even on the page.
I was able to get a credit once and my parents were proud.
I wouldn't think the recognition from the public would be main reason. I figured that the biggest reason you'd want the credit is for future employers to see your name attached to a film. I would imagine they would be the ones to either sit through credits or search a credits database to see who worked on which films or worked on films recently.
At the very least add a QR code with links to a document containing all names involved. Wouldnt be hard and a database like that wouldn't cost much to run.
I don't like this idea at all. QR codes are just a different way of encoding a URL, so as soon as someone stops paying the hosting bill that extended credits document is gone. Credits are in the movie itself so they can't be erased or forgotten. I highly doubt a web server for a movie, even an Oscar winner, is going to be online in 20-30 years from now.
Yeh…that's all we need . More people pulling out their cellphones at the movies and shooting the screen. 🫤
People who think a Hollywood director sits down with a list of names and reviews all the credits should really get a reality check. Thousands of people work on a film like this, and sometimes not even directly with the director. In case of these VFX artist they were most probably a third party studio not at all affiliated with Nolan. How should he know who works for one of their service providers.
I don’t understand why this keeps happening. It’s zero effort to add a person, a dozen or even a thousand to the list, and nobody loses anything by simply writing in a name.
Good thing AI is taking the jobs of all those scammers
Wh-what? 😕
I gave up on movies the moment jar jar binks appeared on screen. I walked out and have never been back. However when I did watch movies, I always watched to the end of the credits as the musicians were always last. I am a musician.
So sick of hearing about this damn show/movies.
🤣 Pal, did you not see the name of this community?!? You are definitely in the wrong place!
Maybe try here instead. 🧘