Difficult Directors to Work With11 of 25
Tom Hooper
Was accused of being harsh and condescending by the visual effects artists on Cats (2019). The film's CGI, which was widely criticized as one of it's worst aspects, was apparently the result of Hooper's incompetence, according to an anonymous source from the film's vfx team.
As he was apparently unfamiliar with the visual effects process, Hooper would insist that full renders be done of each of the film's characters before deciding whether he liked the designs or not, which cost the vfx artists much time to complete. If Hooper was ever shown a model of one of the characters that wasn't fully rendered, he would criticize it as looking like 'garbage', apparently unaware that it was not the final design. He also made many ridiculous demands such as insisting the vfx team show him videos of actual cats performing the same motions the characters were performing in the film for reference on how they should move.
According to the source, Hooper also personally emailed the effects artists to tell them their work looked awful, and said of working with Hooper, "When you go into a conference room, you're not allowed to speak, and he talks to you like you're garbage."
When all was said and done, the vfx team ultimately had six months to complete the CGI for the film's trailer, and just four months to fully complete the CGI for the film, causing them to work eighty-hour weeks and sleep under their desks for several days at a time. "It was pure, almost slavery for us," the source claimed. "How much work we put into it with no time, and everything was difficult. We were so rushed on the project that we'd have no time for anything. So, when people say, 'Oh, the effects were not good', or 'The animation's not good', or anything, that's not our fault. We have no time. Six months to do a two-minute trailer and four months to do a film of an hour and a half. My math is pretty good... you could figure out that doesn't make any sense."
Was accused of being harsh and condescending by the visual effects artists on Cats (2019). The film's CGI, which was widely criticized as one of it's worst aspects, was apparently the result of Hooper's incompetence, according to an anonymous source from the film's vfx team.
As he was apparently unfamiliar with the visual effects process, Hooper would insist that full renders be done of each of the film's characters before deciding whether he liked the designs or not, which cost the vfx artists much time to complete. If Hooper was ever shown a model of one of the characters that wasn't fully rendered, he would criticize it as looking like 'garbage', apparently unaware that it was not the final design. He also made many ridiculous demands such as insisting the vfx team show him videos of actual cats performing the same motions the characters were performing in the film for reference on how they should move.
According to the source, Hooper also personally emailed the effects artists to tell them their work looked awful, and said of working with Hooper, "When you go into a conference room, you're not allowed to speak, and he talks to you like you're garbage."
When all was said and done, the vfx team ultimately had six months to complete the CGI for the film's trailer, and just four months to fully complete the CGI for the film, causing them to work eighty-hour weeks and sleep under their desks for several days at a time. "It was pure, almost slavery for us," the source claimed. "How much work we put into it with no time, and everything was difficult. We were so rushed on the project that we'd have no time for anything. So, when people say, 'Oh, the effects were not good', or 'The animation's not good', or anything, that's not our fault. We have no time. Six months to do a two-minute trailer and four months to do a film of an hour and a half. My math is pretty good... you could figure out that doesn't make any sense."
PeopleTom Hooper
Photo by Frederick M. Brown - © 2016 Getty Images - Image courtesy gettyimages.com