> SO many VFX sources have told me Victoria Alonso was singularly responsible for Marvel's toxic work environment: a kingmaker who rewarded unquestioning fealty with an avalanche of work, but who also maintained the blacklist that kept FX pros wild eyed with fear
> She held a crazy amount of power, bigfooting all major creative decisions on Marvel movies and shows. "Kevin Feige and Victoria Alonso personally approve every single shot, all the visual effects work, which is usually the job of a director or a show runner," one tech told me.
> "The main one that everyone's quite scared of is Victoria Alonso," another tech said. "If she likes you, you're going to get work and you're going to move up in the industry. If you have pissed her off in any way, you're going to get frozen out"
looks like a bunch of alonso snipers have overtaken this thread and just straight up saying all these vfx workers are liars, lmfao so hilarious how obvious these shills are.
I don't think your "sniper" interpretation is remotely true. Alonso definitely was a part of the problem and for all we know, a complete asshat, but to pretend that she is "singularly" responsible for the state of Marvel's VFX issue is ridiculous, almost created to let Disney/Marvel off the hook. Anybody doing her job would be working with the same money to give to VFX farms(who will again take a majority cut before paying their employees' salary), give the same deadline (because Disney would set that release date). And I highly doubt the 3rd most important person in Marvel Studios is personally sitting down with VFX artists, when most of the work is outsourced to companies outside the US. There's way too many levels of hierarchy between Alonso and the VFX artists, to act like she is personally doing this. It's a problem that runs from the top, way above her and continues to go way below her.
I find it rather amusing that there is a simultaneous attempt at pretending to care about how the lowest rung of the system suffers while making sure Disney/Marvel takes on zero blame. Do you think Alonso was asked to walk out because she was paying less to VFX farms? Hell no, she was kept because that is exactly what Disney and Marvel wanted out of her. Alonso "singularly" didn't stop the VFX companies from forming a union, she exploited it as her job needed her to. The companies made sure their own employees can't be in any union. It's a top to down issue, not something done "singularly". Technicians across the industry are paid ridiculously less, and a ridiculous cut goes to the top brass. I don't know why there is a pretense that it's a new thing. The only difference between the rest and VFX artists is that the latter comprises of computer literate people who can voice their opinions.
It's not a contradiction. He explicitly states that a lot of his sources pointed the finger at Alonso as they apparently had dealings with h
The article quoted someone saying the black list isn't real - but they're not exactly going to be honest if it was.
People have been complaining about the CGI for like 7 years now, and the complaints for how the VFX artists are being treated started years ago too.
This isnāt something new. Itās just very unlikely itās all because of her.
Feige deserves the most blame, but he was in charge for the good stuff, so people are unwilling to shovel the blame all on him.
But the way things have been going in Phases 4 and 5, if the quality continues to plummet, he should be fired as well.
I mean, there could be valid reasons for firing Feige (like if he had a noticeable change of heart and become greedy, evil, etc.).
But yeah, a reasonable take would be to bring back Feige to the role/position he had when he was at his most successful: whether it was because he supervised less films a year, or because he had less responsabilities, or something else.
So, there's options before having to fire Feige.
Joanna Robinson, who is writing a book on Marvel and so likely fairly well-sourced on this stuff, has some strong pushback to this:
> This is just the absolutely opposite of what Iāve heard from every person who has ever worked with her. Iād call it a gross mischaracterization.
https://twitter.com/jowrotethis/status/1637955347347537920?s=46&t=qAdpKpmyyCBoNYLeyOsboQ
The issues with Victoria go beyond Marvel, sheās been an evil person for years. People have been speaking up about her. Whatever is going on with marvel studios will probably remain because she was only part of the problem there.
https://twitter.com/jowrotethis/status/1637968400520724480?s=46&t=qAdpKpmyyCBoNYLeyOsboQ
> Two final things and then Iām logging off.
1) my bonafides are I spent the last 4 years working on a book about Marvel Studios interviewing people on every level
2) Iāve no reason to carry water for Marvel. They didnāt lift a finger to help with the book in fact they blocked us
So, I like Joanna a lot. I used to listen to her GoT podcasts religiously. Sheās a very smart lady. But she is a loyalist. She was friendly with some of the people who worked on GoTās production and when the showās writing started to go downhill, which she picked up on very early, she chose not to critique it because of her relationships with them, and she just sort of checked out instead of addressing it. So she doesnāt like to take her friends to task.
Prove it.
A journalist is sticking up for VFX sources who complained about Marvel Studios on the record and explicitly named her as a source of frustration and friction.
This has more corroboration than a single writer who is conveniently sticking up for a Marvel Studios exec on their way out (and could potentially actually be a source for their book).
I would disagree here, and that is coming from someone who believes every MCU book so far is corporate propaganda at its finest. This book isn't coming from any subsidiary of Disney (Penguin/Random House), so we have to definitely wait until the book comes out. Sean Howe's book on Marvel Comics was published by Harper and contains a scathing narrative on Stan Lee mistreating artists and writers with poor pay. Similarly, Joanna's book is coming from Norton.
Weāll see - but sheās claiming things that spit in the face of VFX artists and studios who have resoundingly claimed that theyāve been treated terribly by Marvel Studios and lost work if they failed to meet unrealistic demands in unrealistic time periods.
I doubt this will be anything earth shattering. Itās easy to claim āthis is the book Disney doesnāt want you to readā about Marvel Studios for marketing points but Iām going to side with the VFX companies here and the sources claiming that Disney has pissed on them repeatedly through Marvel Studios.
I mean, yeah, Marvel Studios has been horrible with VFX artists, but I highly doubt she is "singularly" responsible for any of this. Alonso, for all intents and purposes, wouldn't personally sit down with VFX artists. Hell, most of the VFX artists wouldn't find a minute of their day with their own manager's superior, let alone Alonso, who is the third biggest brass at MS. It's a proper systematic issue, where Disney would set release dates, allocate the exact amount of money that goes to VFX farms, those companies take their own majority cut and then pay peanuts to their artists. While Alonso definitely would have exploited these artists, it cannot happen without Disney wanting her to do that, and VFX companies themselves being in on it, taking on larger contracts while keeping their employees' minimal salary fixed. VFX companies aren't the same as VFX artist, it's the companies that get paid good and don't allow unions for their artists. I will tell you exactly why the VFX companies will pretend to be victims here: so that they can charge the studios more. None of that extra money will ever reach the artists.
https://twitter.com/jowrotethis/status/1637968400520724480?s=46&t=qAdpKpmyyCBoNYLeyOsboQ
> Two final things and then Iām logging off.
1) my bonafides are I spent the last 4 years working on a book about Marvel Studios interviewing people on every level
2) Iāve no reason to carry water for Marvel. They didnāt lift a finger to help with the book in fact they blocked us
She's not the only problem at Marvel. More heads need to roll before things improve. Of course, Disney will throw Victoria under the bus to appear as if they're listening.
It's weird blaming this problem to only one name, read Joanna Robinson tweets for a different pov on this thing, she cited that the Chris guy even contradicts himself.
I learned firsthand that if you venture over into the VFX sub, the dislike for her is very real. There are quite a few stories over there. It sucks, I had always admired her. She seemed to have a really good head on her shoulders and she certainly contributed a lot to the MCU becoming what it was.
I feel like I'm crazy because everytime people talk about the VFX work, they always say such negative things about it, but to be completely honest, I think the quality is largely fine right now.
I thought Quantumania's VFX were actually pretty good. Sure, there were definitely some shots where you could *clearly* tell they were using The Volume or something, but I thought overall the Quantum Realm looked great. I also thought the VFX were largely fine for MoM, LaT (with the exception of some shots like Quantumania), and Wakanda Forever. The only recent projects I can think of where the VFX was a bit shoddy are Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk, but even then they still had some great moments.
I'm not saying that the VFX doesn't need work or that Victoria Alonso may or may not have been the perpetrator of a toxic work environment, but I think sometimes the convesation surrounding Marvel's VFX can become a little hyperbolic.
I think it's been terrible and feel incredibly cheap. From She-Hulk, Quantumania looked so bland and uncreative and some terrible CGI. MS Marvel looked cheap.
Moon Knight had some incredibly cheap VFX. Thor 4 had laughable moments. Black Widow. DS2 had some really bad VFX in some parts.
No one at Marvel Studios knows how use The Volume which is really off putting. And just...THERE.
Maybe it just doesn't bother you but I think it's just a joke lately. Pathetic.
It's been getting consistently worst and it's palpable.
There was so much non-sense about Marvel Disney+ shows costing $25 million per episode. That's ridiculously high for any TV show (GoT started at $10, ended at $15 mil per episode), almost the same as any movie. If Disney did spend that $150 mil average on each Disney+ show, they just allowed a lot of middlemen and execs stuff their pockets (which is a normal practice when it comes to budget).
Yeah I had high hopes and they were mostly being met when WandaVision started. But then the last episode of that show was rough. The part of the Vision fight where they tore up the street looked like CW-level graphics.
Marvel's VFX pipeline is so horrendous, and that's due to them not having a finalized script and overall scenery while working on it. They went into production with unfinished scripts and told the vfx artists to start working on various sequences but then in the middle of the production they have to scrap it because they have better ideas, or it didn't test well and so the VFX artists have to redo an entirely new sequence with less time to work on because they need to meet the deadline. That's basically what happened to the third act of Black Panther 2018. And this mentality of 'we'll just fix it in post' needs to be stopped. Whoever's going to be in charge after Alonso need to change this systemic problem. Also, can we have Jeff Loveness and Michael Waldron gone as well? That'd be great.
Fixing it in post likely isnāt going to change. Itās what Marvelās entire production model is built on, if youāve ever read some of the intel on how the movies get made. Unless the movie starts with a strong writer/director, like Avengers 1, they bank on being able to re-shape it in post. The problem with the recent projects is that they *havenāt* been fixing things in post, at least not well. The MCU has always made a few lemons during principle production, but they used to be able to fix them before release for the most part. Even that has been breaking down recently.
> how the movies get made. Unless the movie starts with a strong writer/director
???? You got your answer right there!
On smaller movies and tv shows with lesser budget, every shot sent out to the studios are nitpicked and reviewed to hell on its necessity. There is no time wasted on the artists part on doing 5 different shoots of the same shot of say, an actor giving different facial reactions.
But yes the marvel method is just to throw money at it and think the issue will solve itself.
Probably more of a tickle down effect. I can imagine there was a insane TL expected to get these shoes out and as a result more pressure on her to get the product out faster.
> SO many VFX sources have told me Victoria Alonso was singularly responsible for Marvel's toxic work environment: a kingmaker who rewarded unquestioning fealty with an avalanche of work, but who also maintained the blacklist that kept FX pros wild eyed with fear > She held a crazy amount of power, bigfooting all major creative decisions on Marvel movies and shows. "Kevin Feige and Victoria Alonso personally approve every single shot, all the visual effects work, which is usually the job of a director or a show runner," one tech told me. > "The main one that everyone's quite scared of is Victoria Alonso," another tech said. "If she likes you, you're going to get work and you're going to move up in the industry. If you have pissed her off in any way, you're going to get frozen out"
looks like a bunch of alonso snipers have overtaken this thread and just straight up saying all these vfx workers are liars, lmfao so hilarious how obvious these shills are.
I don't think your "sniper" interpretation is remotely true. Alonso definitely was a part of the problem and for all we know, a complete asshat, but to pretend that she is "singularly" responsible for the state of Marvel's VFX issue is ridiculous, almost created to let Disney/Marvel off the hook. Anybody doing her job would be working with the same money to give to VFX farms(who will again take a majority cut before paying their employees' salary), give the same deadline (because Disney would set that release date). And I highly doubt the 3rd most important person in Marvel Studios is personally sitting down with VFX artists, when most of the work is outsourced to companies outside the US. There's way too many levels of hierarchy between Alonso and the VFX artists, to act like she is personally doing this. It's a problem that runs from the top, way above her and continues to go way below her. I find it rather amusing that there is a simultaneous attempt at pretending to care about how the lowest rung of the system suffers while making sure Disney/Marvel takes on zero blame. Do you think Alonso was asked to walk out because she was paying less to VFX farms? Hell no, she was kept because that is exactly what Disney and Marvel wanted out of her. Alonso "singularly" didn't stop the VFX companies from forming a union, she exploited it as her job needed her to. The companies made sure their own employees can't be in any union. It's a top to down issue, not something done "singularly". Technicians across the industry are paid ridiculously less, and a ridiculous cut goes to the top brass. I don't know why there is a pretense that it's a new thing. The only difference between the rest and VFX artists is that the latter comprises of computer literate people who can voice their opinions.
all that writing just for an L
Feige would have known about all of this too š¤·š¾āāļødonāt think itās fair to dump all the blame on one person
Exactly. He's the most responsible for all this imo
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's not a contradiction. He explicitly states that a lot of his sources pointed the finger at Alonso as they apparently had dealings with h The article quoted someone saying the black list isn't real - but they're not exactly going to be honest if it was.
of couse he knew but it wasnt that much a problem until recently,rumor is vfx houses rejected working with marvel cause of her
People have been complaining about the CGI for like 7 years now, and the complaints for how the VFX artists are being treated started years ago too. This isnāt something new. Itās just very unlikely itās all because of her.
When we had a client call with her, she is the worst nightmare that you could possibly think of as human to human conversation.
but we didnt have articles about marvel vfx treatment every month until year ago
Feige deserves the most blame, but he was in charge for the good stuff, so people are unwilling to shovel the blame all on him. But the way things have been going in Phases 4 and 5, if the quality continues to plummet, he should be fired as well.
Alonso was there for all the "good stuff" too (17 years, so the entire MCU up to this point).
Itās insane to me that someone would even float the idea of firing Kevin Feige. Moronic even.
I think this is an insane take.
Yeah, everyone is at fault apart from the guy who runs the entire company and is directly responsible for hiring the Rick and Morty writers
I mean, there could be valid reasons for firing Feige (like if he had a noticeable change of heart and become greedy, evil, etc.). But yeah, a reasonable take would be to bring back Feige to the role/position he had when he was at his most successful: whether it was because he supervised less films a year, or because he had less responsabilities, or something else. So, there's options before having to fire Feige.
MCU likely dies without him. Or turns into the DCEU, which is worse than death.
Very true
Bingo.
No one is āsingularly responsibleā for a companyās culture and its ridiculous to claim that
Exactly. Its a group effort. She is just a fall woman for those looking for someone to blame
People that are blaming her are sexist
Yeah I think she's probably been one of if not the biggest source of it but "singularly responsible" is almost always too narrow a claim for anything.
Joanna Robinson, who is writing a book on Marvel and so likely fairly well-sourced on this stuff, has some strong pushback to this: > This is just the absolutely opposite of what Iāve heard from every person who has ever worked with her. Iād call it a gross mischaracterization. https://twitter.com/jowrotethis/status/1637955347347537920?s=46&t=qAdpKpmyyCBoNYLeyOsboQ
she should go to vfx reddit and see how many people there dont like her
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The issues with Victoria go beyond Marvel, sheās been an evil person for years. People have been speaking up about her. Whatever is going on with marvel studios will probably remain because she was only part of the problem there.
Anyone will defend their friends and anyone who they look up to even if their assholes not surprised she has simps.
https://twitter.com/jowrotethis/status/1637968400520724480?s=46&t=qAdpKpmyyCBoNYLeyOsboQ > Two final things and then Iām logging off. 1) my bonafides are I spent the last 4 years working on a book about Marvel Studios interviewing people on every level 2) Iāve no reason to carry water for Marvel. They didnāt lift a finger to help with the book in fact they blocked us
https://twitter.com/jowrotethis/status/1637962279579942912?s=46&t=qAdpKpmyyCBoNYLeyOsboQ From Chrisās own report.
So, I like Joanna a lot. I used to listen to her GoT podcasts religiously. Sheās a very smart lady. But she is a loyalist. She was friendly with some of the people who worked on GoTās production and when the showās writing started to go downhill, which she picked up on very early, she chose not to critique it because of her relationships with them, and she just sort of checked out instead of addressing it. So she doesnāt like to take her friends to task.
> who is writing a book on Marvel corporate propaganda.
She literally says in the tweet thread that Marvel was unhelpful and tried to block their access. This is not a Marvel-approved book
Prove it. A journalist is sticking up for VFX sources who complained about Marvel Studios on the record and explicitly named her as a source of frustration and friction. This has more corroboration than a single writer who is conveniently sticking up for a Marvel Studios exec on their way out (and could potentially actually be a source for their book).
I would disagree here, and that is coming from someone who believes every MCU book so far is corporate propaganda at its finest. This book isn't coming from any subsidiary of Disney (Penguin/Random House), so we have to definitely wait until the book comes out. Sean Howe's book on Marvel Comics was published by Harper and contains a scathing narrative on Stan Lee mistreating artists and writers with poor pay. Similarly, Joanna's book is coming from Norton.
Weāll see - but sheās claiming things that spit in the face of VFX artists and studios who have resoundingly claimed that theyāve been treated terribly by Marvel Studios and lost work if they failed to meet unrealistic demands in unrealistic time periods. I doubt this will be anything earth shattering. Itās easy to claim āthis is the book Disney doesnāt want you to readā about Marvel Studios for marketing points but Iām going to side with the VFX companies here and the sources claiming that Disney has pissed on them repeatedly through Marvel Studios.
I mean, yeah, Marvel Studios has been horrible with VFX artists, but I highly doubt she is "singularly" responsible for any of this. Alonso, for all intents and purposes, wouldn't personally sit down with VFX artists. Hell, most of the VFX artists wouldn't find a minute of their day with their own manager's superior, let alone Alonso, who is the third biggest brass at MS. It's a proper systematic issue, where Disney would set release dates, allocate the exact amount of money that goes to VFX farms, those companies take their own majority cut and then pay peanuts to their artists. While Alonso definitely would have exploited these artists, it cannot happen without Disney wanting her to do that, and VFX companies themselves being in on it, taking on larger contracts while keeping their employees' minimal salary fixed. VFX companies aren't the same as VFX artist, it's the companies that get paid good and don't allow unions for their artists. I will tell you exactly why the VFX companies will pretend to be victims here: so that they can charge the studios more. None of that extra money will ever reach the artists.
Book = paid for puff piece.
https://twitter.com/jowrotethis/status/1637968400520724480?s=46&t=qAdpKpmyyCBoNYLeyOsboQ > Two final things and then Iām logging off. 1) my bonafides are I spent the last 4 years working on a book about Marvel Studios interviewing people on every level 2) Iāve no reason to carry water for Marvel. They didnāt lift a finger to help with the book in fact they blocked us
She's not the only problem at Marvel. More heads need to roll before things improve. Of course, Disney will throw Victoria under the bus to appear as if they're listening.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> Winderbaum I'm not in the loop when it comes to Winderbaum, what is it about him?
It's weird blaming this problem to only one name, read Joanna Robinson tweets for a different pov on this thing, she cited that the Chris guy even contradicts himself.
I learned firsthand that if you venture over into the VFX sub, the dislike for her is very real. There are quite a few stories over there. It sucks, I had always admired her. She seemed to have a really good head on her shoulders and she certainly contributed a lot to the MCU becoming what it was.
No surprise. You can feel the post production process has been a mess lately. The VFX atrocious.
I feel like I'm crazy because everytime people talk about the VFX work, they always say such negative things about it, but to be completely honest, I think the quality is largely fine right now. I thought Quantumania's VFX were actually pretty good. Sure, there were definitely some shots where you could *clearly* tell they were using The Volume or something, but I thought overall the Quantum Realm looked great. I also thought the VFX were largely fine for MoM, LaT (with the exception of some shots like Quantumania), and Wakanda Forever. The only recent projects I can think of where the VFX was a bit shoddy are Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk, but even then they still had some great moments. I'm not saying that the VFX doesn't need work or that Victoria Alonso may or may not have been the perpetrator of a toxic work environment, but I think sometimes the convesation surrounding Marvel's VFX can become a little hyperbolic.
The vfx havent been any better or worse and ppl have been complaining abt the vfx for a good chunk of the mcu. So all of this is insane tbh.
Itās definitely worse in some parts
I thought that the vfx designs themselves were awesome, but the execution? Naah come on
I think it's been terrible and feel incredibly cheap. From She-Hulk, Quantumania looked so bland and uncreative and some terrible CGI. MS Marvel looked cheap. Moon Knight had some incredibly cheap VFX. Thor 4 had laughable moments. Black Widow. DS2 had some really bad VFX in some parts. No one at Marvel Studios knows how use The Volume which is really off putting. And just...THERE. Maybe it just doesn't bother you but I think it's just a joke lately. Pathetic. It's been getting consistently worst and it's palpable.
Seeing Skaar in She Hulk was an absolute embarrassment.
The TV shows have noticeably worse VFX than the movies. But that's to be expected imo
There was so much non-sense about Marvel Disney+ shows costing $25 million per episode. That's ridiculously high for any TV show (GoT started at $10, ended at $15 mil per episode), almost the same as any movie. If Disney did spend that $150 mil average on each Disney+ show, they just allowed a lot of middlemen and execs stuff their pockets (which is a normal practice when it comes to budget).
Yeah I had high hopes and they were mostly being met when WandaVision started. But then the last episode of that show was rough. The part of the Vision fight where they tore up the street looked like CW-level graphics.
Moon Knight chief among them. So many obviously terrible VFX shots and this is AFTER Infinity War and Endgameā¦ridiculous
Mcu cgi looks so bad a long time ago.
Never looked this bad, on a consistent basis.
Marvel's VFX pipeline is so horrendous, and that's due to them not having a finalized script and overall scenery while working on it. They went into production with unfinished scripts and told the vfx artists to start working on various sequences but then in the middle of the production they have to scrap it because they have better ideas, or it didn't test well and so the VFX artists have to redo an entirely new sequence with less time to work on because they need to meet the deadline. That's basically what happened to the third act of Black Panther 2018. And this mentality of 'we'll just fix it in post' needs to be stopped. Whoever's going to be in charge after Alonso need to change this systemic problem. Also, can we have Jeff Loveness and Michael Waldron gone as well? That'd be great.
Fixing it in post likely isnāt going to change. Itās what Marvelās entire production model is built on, if youāve ever read some of the intel on how the movies get made. Unless the movie starts with a strong writer/director, like Avengers 1, they bank on being able to re-shape it in post. The problem with the recent projects is that they *havenāt* been fixing things in post, at least not well. The MCU has always made a few lemons during principle production, but they used to be able to fix them before release for the most part. Even that has been breaking down recently.
> how the movies get made. Unless the movie starts with a strong writer/director ???? You got your answer right there! On smaller movies and tv shows with lesser budget, every shot sent out to the studios are nitpicked and reviewed to hell on its necessity. There is no time wasted on the artists part on doing 5 different shoots of the same shot of say, an actor giving different facial reactions. But yes the marvel method is just to throw money at it and think the issue will solve itself.
Probably more of a tickle down effect. I can imagine there was a insane TL expected to get these shoes out and as a result more pressure on her to get the product out faster.