Why television's visual effects look so bad, as explained by an anonymous TV writer

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https://defector.com/writer-x-offers...ecial-effects/

Last week, Defector's Drew Magary wondered if there was a special effects crisis in Hollywood because the visual effects on Moon Knight looked so cheap, despite a production budget of more than $10 million an episode. In response, an anonymous TV writer explains that "there are more TV shows being made now than ever before, many of them with more reliance on VFX than ever before, and nobody wants to give things the time or money they deserve, because they don’t want to spend a single cent they’re not forced to. n your original piece you asked, How is it possible for a $10 million dollar an episode series (Marvel’s Moon Knight) to have CGI that looks like this? Part of it is that those budget numbers are deceptive. Ten million dollars an episode doesn’t necessarily mean you’re spending more time or money on VFX. It might just mean a larger percentage of that money is getting funneled into above-the-line costs." What are above-the-line costs? "Above the line is basically everything except crew," says the writer. "Crew is below the line and production expenses are below the line. Above the line is writing, directors, talent. Marvel is pulling in legit A-list movie stars to do their six-episode television miniseries, so my first question is, 'Okay, but how much is Oscar Isaac getting paid? How much of that budget is talent sucking up?' In the early days of the Netflix/Marvel partnership, the lead actors—who weren’t movie stars—were mostly getting $20-$30k/episode, with some exceptions. Then you start to look at when all the movie stars started coming in. There are plenty of movie stars who only want to do $200 million movies and make $20 million for doing it, but there are just as many actors who are like, 'Man, I just want to work. I want to stretch myself. I want to do something interesting.' So they come to TV, where you don’t get paid nearly as much."