The COVID-19 pandemic forced VFX studios to complete projects with most of the crew working from home. Necessity being the mother of invention, they were able to rapidly overcome technical and cultural hurdles, delivering complex projects with remote teams to a degree that would previously have been unimaginable.
So, we know it can be done. The pandemic also left lingering questions about the pros and cons of onsite and remote work. It’s easy to assume people work faster or harder at the office than they do at home. A 2023 study of 10,000 professionals at an Indian technology firm found that skilled workers had to spend more time in meetings and coordinating with colleagues while working from home. As a result, they worked longer hours to accomplish the same amount. Productivity is just one of several factors, though. Above all, VFX studios need flexibility to win in today’s competitive marketplace.
Several of the biggest VFX hubs in are notoriously expensive cities, where the square footage to accommodate a large onsite team weighs heavily on overhead. Some studios have opted to remain 100% remote after the pandemic, sparing themselves the cost of office space. In theory, these costs savings alone offset a modest increase in the amount of time spent communicating and coordinating remotely.
As an industry, we’ve moved beyond having a small workforce of skilled VFX professionals who are willing to put up with the high cost of living in these hubs -- or long commutes -- for the privilege of doing this type of work. The tax rebates on labor that drive spending in film and TV VFX are tied to geographies; it doesn’t matter whether the worker is at home or at the office provided they are working in the country, state, or province in question.
Film and TV VFX clients and their vendors are very used to meeting and reviewing work remotely. Most clients have never set foot on the production floor of their overseas vendors. If anything, these VFX studios maintain small offices in LA, New York, or London focused largely on sales, while the bulk of the VFX crew is in a different geography where tax rebates are bigger, real estate is cheaper, and/or wages are lower. For advertising and gaming work where tax rebates are less of a concern, VFX studios with robust support for remote workers enjoy the flexibility of tapping into the best talent when they need it, no matter where they are in the world.
Of course, traditional VFX studios also serve as places to meet and review work with the crew as well as clients, perform job interviews and performance reviews, house motion capture and green screen stages, data centers, editorial and color bays, training events, wrap parties, and much more. Then there are the less tangible factors, like the impact over time on career development, relationships between colleagues, and innovation. Remote work is a huge challenge for new entrants into the industry. There are fewer happy accidents that lead colleagues to collaborate on new solutions, and no more bumping into a new ally at work in the cafeteria.
As with productivity, it’s easy to assume that content is more secure when as many employees as possible are physically inside a facility. Content security standards in the VFX industry are already high for both onsite and offsite work, and hard data on the risks of working from home versus working at an office is difficult to come by. A small, informal poll here on LinkedIn found that 90% of respondents felt the frequency of content security incidents in VFX had either decreased or stayed the same since work from home became much more common in recent years.
In addition to security-conscious clients and productivity-oriented managers, creative leaders who care deeply about studio culture are some of the strongest advocates for bringing everyone back to the office. When your team really enjoys working together, it doesn’t feel like a hardship to come into the office for real-time, face-to-face collaboration. And it’s hard to inspire the same level of creative discovery, passion for the work, or chemistry between artists communicating through little video windows and messaging platforms. Ironically, team leaders who care most about in-studio culture often do the best job sustaining culture and camaraderie on a remote team.
How can we innovate our use of physical spaces to gain competitive advantage? Online bank Capital One asked themselves this question back in 2012. Their answer was the Capital One Cafe. These locations are designed like coffee shops, not traditional banks. They are open to the public (you get a discount on coffee if you’re a Capital One banking customer) and offer free Wi-Fi. Unobtrusive Capital One ambassadors are on hand to chat with guests, and there are ATMs in the lobby. Other than that, and plenty of Capital One branding, there aren’t many clues the location belongs to a bank.
Capital One’s customer research revealed that many people find traditional banks stressful places to visit. Capital One Cafes emulate the types of retail experience that their Gen Z clientele find comfortable. They can lounge on sofas while they bank on their mobile phones, with friendly attendants on hand to answer their questions. It’s a reimagination of a bank location that serves the needs of a modern online bank.
Thanks to VFX pipelines in the cloud and an international workforce, VFX studios no longer need to cram artists into a factory floor in a location with sky-high real estate prices or restrict themselves to working with talent who can physically commute to the office every day. Instead, they can focus on the highest value activities for which people need to be physically present.
Many international VFX studios open a small sales office in cities with a high concentration of clients, like LA or London. In addition to in-person client meetings and screening rooms, these locations can host technology showcases for interactive and immersive experiences. Clients come by when they want to work interactively with VFX artists, supervisors and editors. Nothing that can’t be done remotely -- rather, this provides clients with options for how they collaborate, and a uniquely engaging experience.
Remote work is an enormous challenge for new entrants joining the industry. Physical studio locations need to host a deliberate mix of entry level and senior roles, even if they are a small portion of a much larger, distributed workforce. Junior talent needs exposure to industry experience; recruiting events, job interviews and classroom training sessions all benefit from the option of being in-person.
In locations that are hubs for potential clients and talent (Soho, London, for example), it makes sense for a VFX studio to be visible and engaged with the community. A café provides a public space where employees and clients can enjoy a break, and community members can mingle with the company. If Capital One can solve the security and privacy issues of a bank operating a café, a VFX studio can too. You might even find yourself owning a modestly profitable café, enjoying the benefits to reputation and marketing as a bonus.
The idea of a compact VFX studio location with a buzzing community café out front instead of a stuffy reception area for clients may seem far-fetched. But it’s really just an evolution of small outposts that VFX studios already maintain near their clients in expensive cities. Smart decisions about the relative merits of onsite, remote and hybrid work require examining more than just day-to-day employee productivity. Innovation comes from taking a fresh look at the tradeoffs between real-estate, client experience, content security, productivity, and employee development -- and coming up with a better formula.
