Mike Seymour:

In the one VFX category which will run to tens of millions of dollars on a Hollywood film there are actually multiple departments being serviced, of course one of them is effects, but the move to increased budget size has not lead to greater control and influence by the visual effects team. It has lead to less understanding of the financial breakdowns of modern feature film production. In an absence of knowledge, facing an opaque VFX bid, the producer can only seek to lower the overall bid. If VFX represents a vast percentage of the budget and companies will aggressively bid, the role of the producer is to seek to lower one of their largest single line items.

This was a background episode on fxphd this term. I am really glad Mr. Seymour wrote about this for all to read. Thanks Mike for doing that.