“Pirates of the Caribbean ruined my marriage!”

Pardon the tabloid headline. But after reading this story in Variety on the stresses that people in the visual-effects industry have had to deal with lately, my heart does go out to them:

If the visual effects industry had its way, the Disney tentpole that sailed into theaters May 25 might have been named “Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wits’ End.”

Industrial Light & Magic topper Chrissie England, who’s seen many blockbusters come through her shop, calls the editing/post-production race to the pic’s delivery deadline “about the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.” The film’s vfx supervisor, John Knoll, calls it “a freakin’ miracle” that the film was done on time.

“Pirates 3,” warn England and Knoll, is just one tip of an iceberg that’s sending a chill through the visual effects industry. Visual effects houses are worried about the increasing demand for more product, at higher quality, in less time. Some effects houses have been losing key workers, and a few are threatening to shutter, because of the shifting economics. . . .

Call this increased pressure on effects houses the “War of the Worlds” effect.

Two years ago, ILM delivered eye-popping visual effects for Paramount’s “War of the Worlds” only three months after the end of principal photography. That set the bar impossibly high, so that producers now routinely demand “the ‘War of the Worlds’ schedule.”

In fact, that schedule was only possible because of unique circumstances, including the involvement of two men who are extraordinarily technically proficient: helmer Steven Spielberg and vfx mastermind Dennis Muren.

That movie, and the carefully planned, $60 million “300,” which was almost all effects, have created increasingly high demands from studios.

The beleaguered f/x houses also find their pay eroding as rival shops open up around the world. Effects budgets may be soaring, but they’re being spread over many more houses and many more shots. Effects houses are still paid by the shot, and per-shot fees have fallen 30%-40%.

The studios complain that the visual f/x shops always go over budget. Shops complain that they’re asked to absorb costs of poor studio and producer planning. . . .

One common complaint is that while studios ask for the “War of the Worlds” schedule, they also reserve the right to demand last-minute changes (something they wouldn’t dare do on a Spielberg film without the director’s say-so). That can turn a tight-but-attainable schedule into a crisis — or, in the parlance of the vfx industry, a “911,” where additional shops have to be hired for last-minute work.

To be sure, pressure is nothing new for effects pros. As the last link in the production chain, vfx shops traditionally have worked punishing hours in the run-up to release dates.

Now, though, there’s evidence that things are reaching a breaking point. Experienced vfx artists are changing careers, and at least one highly regarded shop is getting out of the vfx biz. Even industry leaders like ILM and Sony’s Imageworks are feeling the pain, worrying not only about their artists’ quality of life, but about the quality of the films they are working on. . . .

But the vfx industry is maturing. Digital artists have followed their work from London to New Zealand to California, but as the more experienced artists move into their 30s and 40s, get married and start families, they are less able to relocate and less willing to work 70-hour-plus weeks for months at a time.

“We haven’t worked our staff harder,” Vegher says. “If anything, we may have worked them less, because we’ve become more efficient.”

But the handwriting was on the wall. “We saw we weren’t going to be able to regulate that time anymore. It’s not good for the company, and it’s not good for our staff.”

So six months ago, [Giant Killer Robots] closed its doors while its founders pondered their future. They have decided to reopen, but to get out of the visual effects business, turning instead to CG animation and developing their own projects.

In the meantime, many GKR artists wound up at ILM, where they were caught in the same kind of crunch.

After four or five months of punishing hours on “Pirates,” there was still “Transformers” to finish. “The best artists,” says Knoll, “the ones who are most in demand, who can do the most to help a show make its final push, go from one show to another.”

Since they are also less likely to be recent college grads happy to subsist on ramen noodles, they are also more prone to family strains, divorces and even career changes. . . .