Feedback is vital when something is presented to an individual or audience. Whether it is a teaser trailer or a passion project video. Listening to feedback is a way to improve your weaknesses and maintain your strengths. Sometimes, feedback comes with great demand and a result of change. In the past 3 years, we have seen examples of this happening in VFX.
– The live action Sonic the Hedgehog movie and Cats.
Sonic the Hedgehog design comparison:
On the left-hand side is MPC Vancouver’s version of Sonic the Hedgehog before re-design. On the right-hand side is the re-design of Sonic which is faithful to the original design. They had changed the eyes colour and size, the colours of the face and tummy fur, the fur looks much neater compared to the first design and the nose.
Sonic’s iconic and original design:
The reason why fans demanded a change of Sonic the Hedgehog’s first design in the movie is because it looked dreadful, and it wasn’t faithful to the original design nor was it respectful to the Sonic fans and fandom itself. It was essentially a spit in the face. After high and overwhelming demand from fans, Jeff Fowler (director of Sonic the Hedgehog movie) replied to the audience feedback through Twitter this is what he had to say: “Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear... you aren't happy with the design & you want changes. It's going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be...” (Elderkin, 2019) (Jeff Fowler, Twitter, 2019) MPC Vancouver is the studio responsible for the VFX for Sonic’s design. They went ahead and redesigned Sonic’s design for VFX. Later on down the line, this would bite them in the back later on down the line before the Sonic the Hedgehog movie got released in 2020, MPC Vancouver shut down in 2019.
This can happen in any industry where redesign requires to go back and work on things that need to fix. In Sonic’s case, this was due to the feedback and high demand that the company and the design of Sonic the Hedgehog needed a re-design. This also caused Paramount and MPC Vancouver to go back and re-edit the scenes which meant more investments into the movie was needed. Sonic the Hedgehog’s movie production budget was "$90,000,000". Its worldwide box office made "$304,978,999". Making "$214,978,999" in profits. Despite the result of MPC Vancouver shutting down before its Cinema debut, the movie scored "#1 in Top Based on Game Weekend and Day Domestic movie milestones". (Numbers, n.d.)
The questionable and disturbingly weird VFX design in Cats:
The VFX techniques used in Cats were rotoscoping (backed up with tracking markers), props (costumes), and makeup (done by Karen Dawson.) According to the actors, they had the fursuit costumes on set. They used ‘digital fur technology’ creating the ideal covering for fur.
The Cats movie trailer spurred up some controversy due to its VFX design choices on the actors.
Later on, the director, Tom Hooper went out of the to say that the Cats movie underwent a ‘redesign’ due to ‘insane’ fan reactions. When the trailer came out, the people were ‘horrified’ from the VFX and character design that is Cats.
Before and after Cats redesign:
Tom Hooper explained about the VFX in the trailer “They had only finished shooting in March 2019. Meaning that all the visual effects (in the trailer) were at a very early stage. Possibly there were, in the extremity in some of the responses, some clues in how to keep evolving [the production]. When you watch the finished film, you will see that some of the designs of the cats have moved on since then, and certainly our understanding of how to use the technology to make them work has gone up, too.” (Evans, 2019) Therefore, they went back and made design changes to the actors using the same VFX methods only this time refining them and polishing the designs much more. There were improvements to the designs themselves such as the sheer amount of fur. The Cats movie was released in cinemas on 20th December 2019.
A YouTuber, Corridor Crew reacted to the Cats Movie trailer. They mentioned that the movie “looked fine” although the art direction is what “seemed strange to them.” “The VFX is A-OK.” Their opinions are neutral. (VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 7, 2019)
The Cats movie production budget sits at "$100,000,000" it scored no profits and its worldwide box office sales sit at "$75,486,351" and its total estimate domestic video sales is "$3,105,906" with a total of "$78,592,257". (Numbers, n.d.)
Despite changing their VFX techniques for the actors of Cats, the movie still did terribly with no profits whatsoever. It is possible that the changes made to the actors were not enough to justify the movie overall.
On the other hand, Sonic scored 2-3 times of profits from its movie’s production. They made the effort and decided to delay the movie to ease the ‘crunch time’ of the movie’s production. Furthermore, Sonic's movie production budget was $10,000,000 less in comparison to the Cats movie.
Conclusion:
It depends on how you go about interpreting the feedback, the changes that are made, and how much effort goes into them. When demands become overwhelming and insane, the industry has to decide whether the VFX piece is worth changing. They should be convinced of why something doesn’t look right. It’s why technical and VFX artists need to be critical in what they do preventing budget issues and crunch time.
Elderkin, B., 2019. VFX Artists Explain What It Would Actually Take to Redo Sonic the Hedgehog. [online] io9. Available at: <https://io9.gizmodo.com/vfx-artists-explain-what-it-would-actually-take-to-redo-1834653108> [Accessed 11 May 2021].
Evans, N., 2019. Cats' Controversial CGI Changed After Viral Online Response. [online] CINEMABLEND. Available at: <https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2485783/cats-controversial-cgi-changed-after-viral-online-response> [Accessed 11 May 2021].
Numbers, T., n.d. Sonic The Hedgehog (2020) - Financial Information. [online] The Numbers. Available at: <https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Sonic-The-Hedgehog-(Japan)-(2020) #tab=summary> [Accessed 11 May 2021]. https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Sonic-The-Hedgehog-(Japan)-(2020)#tab=summary
VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 7. 2019. [video] Directed by C. Crew. Los Angeles, United States of America: Corridor Crew.
Numbers, T., n.d. Cats (2019) - Financial Information. [online] The Numbers. Available at: <https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Cats-(2019)#tab=summary> [Accessed 11 May 2021].