Budget

[Pitry]

put this way: it doesnt nessecarily mean big booms and massive fights. it would mean more ships, aliens, techs, better effects, etc

You are definitely right. It doesn necessarily mean. But so far, it mostly has.

What I'm saying is, a smaller budget would force them to seek a creative solution in the story and plots, which isn't somethign they always do.

[Xylian]

What I'm saying is, a smaller budget would force them to seek a creative solution in the story and plots, which isn't somethign they always do.

No it wouldn't, it would make the show suck even more. They wouldn't have any money for ships, planets, aliens, etc.

[General Yogi Bear]

No it wouldn't, it would make the show suck even more. They wouldn't have any money for ships, planets, aliens, etc.

I remember Season 1 of Atlantis and Season 8 of SG-1 had smaller budgets too and I thought they were both pretty good.

[jenks]

I remember Season 1 of Atlantis and Season 8 of SG-1 had smaller budgets too and I thought they were both pretty good.

Did they?

[Pitry]

No it wouldn't, it would make the show suck even more. They wouldn't have any money for ships, planets, aliens, etc.

well, the reaosn I started watchnig SG was never the ships, planets, aliens etc, so I wouldn't mind - and, erm, as for planets, they always shoot in the same village set and the same forest anyway. I swear, I've never been to that forest but I could probably find my way through it blindfolded after 15 seasons of episodes!

The reason I became a Stargate fan was exactly those low-budget episode in the earlier seasnos where they had no choice but really working on the characters cos they had no money left. Think about it - There But For The Grace of God, for example. Complete bottle show - no one even leaves the existing SGC sets. The same with Enigma, except for the pre title sequence. Two of the finest episodes in season 1. And there are quite many more.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I can think of a piece of VFX software that TPTB could use and majorly cut their budget down and that's Blender.
I downloaded it for free from the Blender website and have had a lot of problems with it crashing my computer, but that's most likely coz my computer's quite old, doesn't have that quick a processor, an independent graphics card or much RAM but other normal people using the software at home have made some amazing looking visuals.
Just have a look at the Big Buck Bunny movie that's on Youtube which I believe was made by the Blender production team.
People who are experienced with modeling and VFX software could most likely duplicate the kinds of effects we've seen on episodes like BAMSR or The Lost Tribe, maybe even make an identical or better looking copy of Atlantis on their home computer, provided they had decent enough hardware and time on their hands.

[smurf]

The cost of VFX is mostly in wages not software. The professional software is only a few thousand now, whereas the professional person using it is not on a few thousand.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

The cost of VFX is mostly in wages not software. The professional software is only a few thousand now, whereas the professional person using it is not on a few thousand.

Oh right I thought software and hardware can both be quite expensive.

Does the SG:VFX team create it's own software in house or outsource it and customize it for their needs?
How much would the average VFX team individual get paid per season or episode?

[smurf]

Oh right I thought software and hardware can both be quite expensive.

Does the SG:VFX team create it's own software in house or outsource it and customize it for their needs?
How much would the average VFX team individual get paid per season or episode?

Software and hardware can get expensive, but it depends whether you want to buy the big guns or not. We're talking anywhere from $3000ish for kit and software to $250,000.

Brick House/MGM VFX provides the vfx for Stargate so I would guess, since it's no longer as big and established as Rainmaker, they mostly buy in. The big VFX companies have entire R&D departments which will create and customise software specific for whichever job requires it. For example, most of the major VFX companies will by now have developed software similar to the "Massive" programme designed by Weta for LOTR, because it's cost effective not to have to buy the license to someone else's work - competition between companies means the price is usually pretty steep, they don't want customers going somewhere else to use their software.

As to individual costs, I wouldn't like to say, but it's worth keeping in mind that most of them will likely be on short term, freelance, contracts which are generally more expensive (for the amount of time worked) to offset the insecurity of the job.

[SGFerrit]

slightly off topic, could they possibly use vuisuals from stargate worlds as like a template for a planet/race? as most of that has already been done so it'd be cheaper but "its stargate worlds' coolness abounds so i dont think the fact that it wouldn't cost so much would have a negative effect on the show. but still, its universe, what the frell is a senators daughter doing on a gate team??

No one has said she's on a Gate Team? She ends up on the Destiny because the senator and his aides (one of which is the man's daughter) were touring the Icarus Base at the time of the attack.

[knowles2]

Budget doesn't come in on a per-episode basis. There is no "2 million per episode budget". That's just the average you usually get. A show gets a total budget and TPTB need to work things out, so that the money is enough for a full season. That's how you get a VFX-heavy episode like BAMSR and also a low-budget one like "Inquisition". They balance things out. You need to be careful not to blow all your VFX budget on one episode.
The budget for SGA was around 40 million per season, if I'm not mistaken.
But for a brand new show, where actors get paid far less than in their sixth season, such a budget would be pretty good, since this isn't a network show.
Yes, that's the example of a network show. A lot of location shooting(LOST is filmed in Hawaii) and huge casts, with big-name actors(network stars always get paid far more). SG would probably blow any other TV show out of the water with a 100 million budget per season. Unless, of course, TPTB feel that such a budget would be better spent on hiring big name, pretty actors. They always tend to bring in more viewers than the VFX. Or...they COULD hire some new writers. Seriously, is there no eccentric billionaire out there who's a fan of Stargate?

Yeah we need a arab prince to buy the series, may be the same guys who own Man city, I hear they got a few hundred billion in the bank.

cgi is getting cheaper by the year, with the industry expanding, as well as becoming more like old cottage industry at the same time. When I say cottage industry I mean working from home.
I think Sanctuary has gone a long way in proving cgi heavy shows can be produce profitably with cable tv budget.