One of my friends sent me a link to an interview with John Favreau from an NPR radio show... in it, the interviewer made a comment about “one of the biggest reasons for the increase in the cost of big budget movies is Visual Effects...”  Now, there may be truth in that... visual effects are costly when done right... but it’s not their presence in a film that is the danger to the budget.  It’s the reliance on vfx to fill in gaps in the plot, or fix mistakes during shooting, or beef up a thin second act of a script that went into production unfinished.

 

Planning saves money. A lot of money.  It’s the Director and Producers’ role to plan.  When things stick to the plan, the budget doesn’t go out of control.   Decisions help make the plan... and a Director who doesn’t know how to make decisions and stand by them is worse than useless... he’s out of control.  Some productions have gotten into the bad habit of putting off decisions until it’s too late, and half-measures have to be taken to even shoot what is intended in the script.  These quick fixes almost never accomplish what is intended or what works, so this needs to be trashed or fixed somehow to be included in the film.  Usually it is editing and visual effects that are used down the road to repair or augment these fixes... and by the time they are finally brought in, the rush to finish the film necessitates enormous amounts of money funneled into these bandages.