California established its first film tax credit program in 2009 in response to the increasing number of productions being lured away to other locales offering attractive tax credits, a phenomenon called “runaway production.” In an effort to keep pace with competing incentives from Canada, the UK and several US states, the size of California’s program ballooned from $100 million per year in 2009 to a proposed $750 million per year in 2025. But as the financial incentives expanded, the eligibility requirements became more stringent. More “principal photography days” and overall production expenditures were required to be California-based to qualify for those coveted tax credits. All admirably protective of California’s film industry and its beleaguered workers, except for one overlooked group: California’s computer-generated imagery (CGI) artists. These professionals were, and are, routinely excluded from any eligibility requirements. Worse, in an act of oddly specific indifference that has conveniently benefitted film studios’ bottom lines, California did nothing as its CGI industry hemorrhaged away due to the very ills that the tax credit program was purportedly created to address.

The Slow Death of Hollywood’s CGI Industry

It is not surprising, therefore, that a significant number of once-premier, even legendary California CGI houses have either merged, relocated out of the state, or simply closed shop (Rhythm and Hues, Sony Imageworks, Ring of Fire, Cinesite, DNEG and Method Studios, to name but a few of dozens). The implosion of Technicolor in February 2025, following years of alleged mismanagement, further sealed the long downward spiral of Hollywood’s once-thriving CGI industry. Along with Technicolor went thousands of jobs at its global and US-based subsidiaries, including MPC and the Mill – two storied visual effects (VFX) companies with operations in Los Angeles, where the closures couldn’t have come at a worse time. For cinematic history buffs, the timing of Technicolor’s collapse is uncanny. In 1937, Disney’s “Snow White” was shot using Technicolor’s then-novel and innovative color film process. In 2025, Disney released its widely panned, corporate-woke readaptation of Snow White, whose effects were created by one of Technicolor’s premier VFX houses, MPC. Disney and Technicolor have come full circle together, from once-thriving and respected household names to blandly undistinguished, monochromatic behemoths (and in the case of Technicolor, a deceased behemoth, despite even MPC’s top-notch work).

The closure of these CGI houses resulted in a significant reduction in US-based CGI jobs, not to mention the additional loss of countless supporting businesses and jobs (including restaurants, coffee carts, food trucks and janitorial services). Many career CGI professionals, slowly depleting their savings while waiting for work that still hasn’t come back, are being forced out of the industry. Does Tinseltown care? No. Despite the overwhelming significance of the work these artists perform, their behind-the-scenes contributions never seem to matter. While it would be foolish to presume that Hollywood would forever remain the global capital of feature film CGI, it seemed like a natural for inclusion in the tax credit program. Sadly however, when it comes to digital rather than physical production, the powers that be at the studios and in Sacramento have written it off as unworthy of the same consideration.

The Actor-Driven Domino Effect

The CGI workforce includes a vast array of highly skilled specialists – VFX, cloth/hair/fur, character animation, lighting, compositing, de-aging, and more. These are the artists that made movies like the Star Wars prequels and spinoffs, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Titanic, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Harry Potter, the myriad of Marvel Comic Universe films, and yes, even Top Gun: Maverick (with its widely misinterpreted claims of “no CGI”) – top-grossing films that the public has deemed worth paying to see.  Yet those in the industry with the platform and name recognition to speak up – namely, A-list actors – do little, if anything, to acknowledge the immense contribution that CGI artists bring to so many film and TV shows. Indeed, it is currently fashionable to treat CGI as a dirty little secret – one which those same actors continue to rely upon quite heavily. Are their illustrious egos so fragile, or inflated, that they truly believe the public would spend 20-plus dollars to watch actors clad only as themselves, miming the exaggerated movements of fantastical creatures, against an empty greenscreen backdrop instead of starscapes and space explosions? All their training and formidable powers of expressiveness would not spare them from looking ridiculous.

During the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, there was a lot of woe-is-me coming from Fran Drescher, President of SAG-AFTRA, and her cohort of A-list celebrity besties. Aside from concerns over being cut out of future revenue sources, especially from newer media platforms (namely streaming), Drescher and the actors she represented were concerned about the impact AI would have on their profession. Nobly altruistic, except that they excluded lowly rank-and-file actors and their CGI artist brethren, who have been treated instead to little more than complicity, complacency and sanctimonious hypocrisy. In the Fall of 2023, WGA and SAG-AFTRA struck respective deals with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (representing TV and movie production companies and studios), ending the strikes. All was supposed to be well. The underlings were told production would return, and soon everyone would be back to work. The rest of 2023 and 2024 came and went with little to show for it, as did production, jobs, livelihoods, and the hopeful refrain “stay alive till ‘25”.

The Lasting Impact of the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes

In 2025, Hollywood has yet to recover. On April 3, FilmLA, a non-profit organization that facilitates and monitors location and sound-stage production in the Los Angeles area, reported year-over-year declines in “sound stage occupancy levels.” Purportedly, occupancy levels averaged in the 90th percentile from 2016-2022, declined to 69 percent in 2023, and continued their downward trajectory to 63 percent in 2024. Even more telling however, is the falloff in filmed projects and “stage shoot days.” According to FilmLA, “a total of 1,225 projects filmed in the 477 stages included in FilmLA’s analysis.” This corresponded to 8,671 stage shoot days – “fewer than were recorded in any studied period except 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic halted all production for a time.” Sadly, there was no letup in the decline of LA-based film production in the first quarter of 2025. According to FilmLA, on-location production declined 22.4%, feature film production sunk 28.9% and television production plummeted 30.5%; all from the same period last year.

So, why is film and TV production struggling in the Golden State? While competition from other states and countries participating in the non-stop tax subsidy race to the bottom is a principal factor, it is not the only cause. Some would have you believe that the recent LA fires are to blame, but the decline in LA based production started well before the fires. Others blame newer streaming platforms. What Hollywood would prefer not to discuss however, are the impact the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes had on production, the backfiring of clumsy attempts at incorporation of woke ideology into industry decisions, and the enormous salaries of A-list celebrities.

WGA and SAG-AFTRA union leaders go to great pains to not admit any lasting impact the strikes have had on the average Jane and Joe entertainment industry creative. Yet it is hard to deny their destructive effect. A year after the strikes, The Hollywood Reporter queried industry personnel as to whether the strikes were “worth it.” To no one’s surprise, union leadership and more affluent industry players felt the strikes were worth it, while regular members viewed it otherwise. One person who wished to remain anonymous saw the WGA strike as “one of the great self- inflicted wounds in union history.” Another noted, “We are in a worse place as an industry due to the strikes.” LAFilm’s lackluster film and tv statistics lend credence to these assertions.

The Stifling Effect of Woke Ideology on Hollywood

Hollywood’s overwhelmingly liberal political affiliation, combined with its gratingly cynical pandering to woke ideology, likely also played a role in its current downward spiral. Disney is testament to the public’s growing displeasure with inferior woke retreads of classic films. In an industry where originality was once prized, it appears to have been supplanted by a uniquely off-putting mix of anxiety-tinged aversion to risk combined with dogged conformity to a single political ideology, no matter how unpopular it proves to be with audiences.  

You may wonder who the overwhelmingly liberal Hollywood is turning to for emotional support in these dark times. That very likely depends on where in the Hollywood Pyramid Scheme one exists. Some A-list celebrities commiserate with one another by taking luxurious and exotic vacations. Others take trips into space. Money really doesn’t matter to this group, unlike C-listers, and those who haven’t yet attained C status. These unknown and below-the-line, rank-and-file union cardholders typically work paycheck to paycheck. They do not have the financial resources to weather the production droughts plaguing California. We have seen first-hand how well the guilds and unions protect these members post the 2023 strikes. It is undeniable that said unions focus their attention on their top-tier members to the detriment of their less publicly visible ones. Given that CGI artists remain largely ununionized, and are scarcely viewed at artists at all, it is no wonder they are hardly given a fleeting thought. And besides, why spare a moment’s concern for a bunch of invisible non-members when you’re busy blowing up the industry?

The Perception that CGI Artists Aren’t Really Artists at All

Case in point, in a CNBC interview on the impact AI will have on the entertainment industry, Ben Affleck provided a characteristically predictable take on AI from a Hollywood A-lister. Ben believes that “AI is a craftsman at best….it cross-pollinates things that already exist…nothing new is created.” Consequently, he believes that AI will not be able to replace actors such as himself in the near or “meaningful” future. The art of acting is simply too nuanced for that. However, he does believe that the “more laborious, less creative [emphasis added] and more costly aspects of film making,” will be significantly impacted. Of these lesser occupations, Ben places VFX artists right in the crosshairs, adding “I wouldn’t like to be in the visual effects business. They’re in trouble because what cost a lot of money is now going to cost a lot less. And it’s going to hammer that space and it already is.”

Affleck’s callous disregard for VFX artists, their artistry, and all of the subspecialties that make up the art form of CGI is not surprising. Despite the cinematic eye that is required to conceptualize and create the images that movie-goers flock to see, Ben and many of his silently complicit colleagues don’t view CGI artists as “real” artists. What is interesting, however, is that if Ben and other actors who share his viewpoint believe that acting is too nuanced and indispensable for AI generated “synthetic skins” to replace them, why was SAG-AFTRA so intent on adding language during the 2023 negotiations to protect them from having “digital replica[s], or “non-human ’synthetic performer[s]’ using generative AI”? Why bother worrying about something that, according to Ben, won’t be that good anytime soon? Could it be that AI is an equal opportunity job destroyer, even for the mighty A-listers? Or could it be that actors’ total disregard for CGI artists has been silently replaced by hostility and apprehension? After all, it is CGI artists who will likely wield the AI that may one day replicate and replace actors like Ben.

Regardless, it is not a matter of if, but when, AI will permanently alter film and TV effects production. It has already begun to do so. What remains to be seen is if highly paid actors will be as necessary as they are today. Or will the ever-shrinking group of CGI artists, with more powerful tools at their disposal, become the top banana? In collaboration with motion-capture performers, many of whom are brilliant actors in their own right, will CGI artists create and animate not only the next Gollum, Davey Jones and Na’vi, but completely believable human characters as well, leaving traditional actors asking themselves “what happened” to their once illustrious profession? Maybe Ben was only half-right in his prediction about the future of his craft. Yes, you’ll still need a real human actor in there, at least for the more demanding roles. But when looks and talent are decoupled, filmmakers will have many more options, and skins are interchangeable. Perhaps Ben should be concerned after all.

How VFX Houses Became Sweatshops

Lastly, I would be remiss if I failed to discuss money. In reference to VFX, Ben states that “what cost a lot of money is now going to cost a lot less.” So why do VFX cost so much? What contributes to the high cost of CGI (such as VFX)? The top factors include: (1) a large number of specialized artists to perform a vast array of complex tasks, (2) expensive software and equipment, including high-end workstations and racks of power-hungry computers known as render farms, (3) the studios’ staggering appetite for CGI, numbering in the thousands of shots in some films, (4) addiction to endless noodling, revision and changes in creative direction on the part of directors and studios because they can, and (5) fixing outright problems with a movie by patching them up with CGI. I’m sure many producers, and actors like Ben Affleck, would prefer to focus on the first two factors, artists and equipment, when evaluating the return on investment (ROI) of VFX. What they would like everyone (studios, VFX houses, producers, directors, actors and even the artists themselves) to ignore is the fact that by the time VFX artists are tasked with their role of making a film or TV show watchable, the film production budget is largely spoken for. Yes, non-VFX expenses – including other forms of CGI such as character animation – typically account for the majority of a film’s budget, not only in dollars but also, importantly, in precious time. Major theatrical release dates are locked long in advance of a film’s production, or even the first draft of a script, and pushing a date can be enormously expensive. As a result, VFX artists are often expected to accomplish their tasks in unreasonably short time frames, uncomfortably close to the almighty release date. This leads to a lot of overtime (both paid and unpaid), as the client keeps changing their mind, producers squeeze VFX houses to be more and more frugal, and VFX artists feel more pressure just to stay employed. Quietly working off the clock “for free” is too often the unspoken norm. Welcome to the sweatshops of the entertainment industry. Oops, did I say “sweatshops” out loud?

Take the Money and Run

In the end, Ben Affleck and his peers make multi-millions of dollars whether their movies tank or not (ahem –  Gigli and Jersey Girl). In contrast, CGI artists typically get paid one percent or less of what top actors are paid. Many are contracted per-show. This means that despite sporadic yet intense bursts of overtime due to unrealistic delivery schedules and the unpredictable whims of a director’s or studio’s “creative vision,” CGI artists are at constant risk of weathering lengthy dry spells in between gigs. And those dry spells seem to keep getting longer and more punishing, with long-term job security largely a foreign concept. Sound like a lot of other jobs these days? It is, lest anyone think CGI artists live the easy life as a bunch of overpaid button-pushers. Is this the artists’ fault? No. It is not really even the VFX house’s fault. The true culprits lurk somewhere higher up in the production pipeline. You know, where Ben and his colleagues (big-name actors, writers, directors, etc.) are firmly ensconced with their guaranteed salaries, as the dwindling ranks of CGI proletarians are over-worked until the last of the jobs dry up, and they are forced to change careers late in the game.

Worth – The Hollywood Illusion

The CGI profession would like to thank Ben Affleck, Fran Drescher, and all the other A-list celebrities that profess their support for the average Jane and Joe with platitudes of equal pay, DEI . . .  ad nauseam.  The reality is, the only people the top-tier support are themselves. Just ask their own unnamed, everyday dues-paying guild members. The question for the American public is, are they worth it? Is the escapism worth paying twenty-plus dollars per movie to underwrite actors’ enormous salaries? With all the boycotts planned for this summer, possibly one or two should be aimed squarely at actors for the gross overcompensation of their roles while the rest of America, and the world, is increasingly finding themselves unemployed and struggling just to put food on the table.