Life After Pi - the sad end of R&H

In this excellent 30 minute documentary, the film-makers explore the sad end of Rythm and Hues, one of the world's finest visual effects houses, pioneers in photo realistic character animation. The film explores how R&H strove to be the best in the world, but also what was the financial cost of that search for excellence.

The chief villain of the film is the film subsidies coming from countries like Canada and the UK, where the Government offers tax rebates to create financial incentives for work to be done at home, stimulating domestic creative industries. What this leads to, of course, is a competitive auction for visual effects work, with artists acting as "pixel gypsies", following the studios to far-away cities in search of work, as changing tax subsidies send work to different countries.

Rhythm & Hues Wins a BAFTA, gets an Oscar nom - and Goes Bust

It seems that Rhythm and Hues is going under. The pioneering VFX studio, responsible for some of the most ground-breaking visual effects work ever done, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It hardly seems credible that the studio that did such extraordinary work on Life of Pi (you can see FLIP's review of the movie here), has gone bust, even as they collect a sack full of awards, and their Oscar nomination looms.