VFx Solidarity

[rcallicotte]

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/we-petition-obama-administration-protect-and-help-vfx-and-cg-studios-and-artist-america/DYqWxtsT?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

https://www.facebook.com/VfxSolidarityIntl

[AP]

I can not personally support this course of action. The last thing the VFX Industry needs is help from the Government. Government is well known for creating more problems then solving them. Having less Government and a true Free Market should be the only solution to this crisis.

[TheBadger]

[edited] Bad idea 

[gregtee]

Yeah, I think this sucks too.  And now the VES has come out and officially endorsed California subsidies, much to the ironic dismay of subsidized jurisdictions outside the US.

The whole thing is turning into one giant mess. It makes me want to get the hell out of the field. 

[Tangled-Universe]

Well Greg, I think people should get out of the field if after all this turmoil still no strong VFX union and/or representative organ has been created which would reinforce the VFX industry's employees and it's negotiating position in the movie industry.

From early 2000 signals were increasing that this would be coming and anything but the VFX industry organized itself to make sure they are getting their credit and bucks. In that regard the VFX industry is the weakest link in the movie industry and thus falls first.

[TheBadger]

The petition requires 100,000 signees to be considered by the white house (The problem with that is pretty obvious. ). It is also poorly worded unspecific and makes little sense politically, since this white house only backs donors.

Most workers in the industry are represented here by at least one union. Correct me if Im wrong but, only VFX workers specifically working in 3D are without representation. So modelers, riggers, animators. Compositors are usually editors ? And Editors have a guild.

Then you have the problem of just about every university, college and trade school with an art program, where the graphic design program and then 3D make up the largest aspects of the school programs. So how many schools graduating how many workers into a trade, with-in a very small industry, every year?

The market is saturated with skilled workers and not enough jobs, plus over seas competition. The result is obvious.

I support organizing , a guild, a union. But the facts being what they are, thats only going to help so much. Movies can be made without 3D. So striking is risky. For game makers the odds are better. Not forgetting that to unionize when the film and game industries are opposed to it, you better be prepared to get bloody.

But the best thing anyone can do is have a large skill set, 3D + a represented trade.
When I was an editor I was under the International Brotherhood Of Electrical Workers. Where I live, this would have been my union if I was also doing 3D then. But I cant say its the same every place. Anyway, I felt like the union was just about completely useless. The wages they negotiated were a joke.

For most people the only hope is independent contracting, and independent project development. There is tons of money to be made because there is a great hunger for content that is not being met! But you must ALSO be a content producer. And you will have to want to be a boss rather than an employee, and so take all the risk that goes with that.

Mice or men?
Its hard to earn a living as an artist of any kind in a good economy, its a fight to the death in a bad economy. If you thought you were going to learn a few software programs and thus have a nice life, I am sorry, but someone lied to you. And I am sorry to say it, but that lie should have been pretty darn obvious... Just like the lie "if you go to college, you will make more money than most people who do not", and My personal favorite (I fell for this one big time) "college debt, is good debt".

[gregtee]

Most VFX workers aren't represented by any union, to answer your question. The bottom line is that while the IA as a whole would love to have us, the individual guilds and locals do not.  The last thing any of them want is thousands upon thousands of new workers flooding their rosters and diluting the job pool.  They like it just the way it is. Having to compete for jobs with a bunch of artists whose trade they really don't use or understand is the last thing on their minds, but unionization as a whole has a lot of other problems besides the established members themselves wanting no part of us.


There's been a lot of discussion lately amongst artists about some sort of union or guild or trade association and at least with regards to a union, I can't see how it'll work because in order to be an effective one you'd need the consent and signing on of the studios, which is something that'll probably never happen since there's zero leveage from artists for them to sign on, and not just because some are scared or what not.  The whole industry is too global as its just too easy to quickly set up shop somewhere where the rules don't apply and hire people who'll be all too happy to come in and work for nothing for the glamor of saying I worked on Transformers. 

We'd otherwise just be unionizing against the facilities we work for and that's suicide since they're at the mercy of the studios who are under no obligation to book the work with them.  It's lowest bidder now who has set up shop in the country that's offering the biggest tax rebates back to Hollywood.  This is a fantastic leverage to have if you're a bean counter at Warner Brothers or Universal.  It sucks big time if you're a facility trying to survive or an artist working for one.  All the risk is with the artists and the companies they work for and all the gain and upside potential is with the studios who ultimately own and distribute the films. 

I don't know at this point.  I've worked for the same facility now for 17 years, and another smaller place prior for almost 3, all in the Los Angeles area.  That's nearly 20 years now that I've worked for only 2 places in the same geographical location, something of a huge anomaly it seems. I've never once felt I needed to globe trot to find work. I have globe trotted over the years on behalf of my respective employers be it to speak at conferences or supervise aspects of location shooting from New Zealand to Canada to the UK to Prague, but never chasing work, something that seems to be the norm these days for most artists as they follow the tax rebates around the world at the demand of the studios who use them to help finance thier big summer tent pole movies. 


I wish working as an independent contractor from home was the answer.  It actually is for some.  I know guys who largely work from home regularly as they've built relationships with various FX houses over the years who allow that arrangement, but its rare.  Most places require on site employment for a variety of reasons, and there's things one can only do working for a facility at its physical location. It's that those locations now can literally pop up anywhere the most aggressive rebates occure that's killing the industry and turning artists into nomads chasing their next gig around the planet. Most of my fellow artists are these nomadic people who work in Vancouver for a while, then off to London for a stint, then down under for a bit, then back to LA, lather rinse repeat. I suppose that's an exciting arrangement if you're young, single, don't expect much and look at it as an adventure.  Get paid to travel the world, meet new and interesting people, and unlike the military, you don't have to kill them.  It's horrifying if you're older, married, have a family or otherwise aren't interested or willing to uproot your life every 6 to 9 months.

I guess I can just call myself fortunate and leave it at that since I got in back in the early 90s when the whole thing was just taking off and artists were treated like rock stars who got large six figure salaries, attended lavish parties thrown by facilities paid for my vendors who sold the hardware and software that were the tools of the trade.  I recall my company at SIGGRAPH back in 96 rented the entire House of Blues in New Orleans to throw the biggest party of the whole week long event.  Awesome bands, open bar and free food.  We were all in our 20s, largely single, and having a blast and still awestruck they were actually paying us to do this stuff. Everyone wanted in, and our job was just to shmooze would be hires into coming to work for us over the competition.  At that party, and being a facility owned at the time by Jim Cameron and having worked on Arnold Shwarzengger movies, we handed condoms out at the door with a skull and crossbones on one side, our company logo, the words Come with Us if You Want to Live on the other.  That pretty much summed up the attitudes of the time. 

How times have changed. 

Today this industry feels like an episode from The Walking Dead. Days Gone By.  Artists stumble around the world from facility to facility, some in areas with lax labor laws, often times not getting paid for working insane hours for weeks/months at a time, especially in places like India and China. I just read that Pixomondo London was shut down and people weren't paid.  Rhythm and Hues just declared bankruptcy, laying off hundreds of artists who'd worked there for years, many owed back pay they'll be lucky to ever collect. 

This would have been unheard of 15 years ago.  There was just too much money flowing around and more work than anyone could handle.  The irony is that today there's even more work and the budgets in the aggraget are bigger than ever.  It's just that they're spread out piecemeal all over the globe chasing the latest rebates from foolish governments who think they're growing their own domestic industry luring Hollywood to their shores on the assumption that once established, they can cut back on the free money train flowing back to the studios and Hollywod will stay because they now have the talent and infrastructure to serve them.  To see the fallacy in that one only needs to look back at the birthplace of the industry to see the how that'll really pan out.  It only takes another government to offer a bigger rebate and off the work goes, leaving the former holding the bag of expensive infrastructure built to serve a need that's moved on to greener pastures.  This is what the whole Save BC Film is all about.  They're terrified Montreal will leave them holding the bag and steal their jobs with more aggressive rebates, jobs which they ironically stole from LA with their own rebates, and now the VES has come out in support of more aggressive California rebates to compete with Canada's to bring the work back, which has the BC  Canadians all up in arms.

It would be high comedy if it wasn't so tragic. 

It's just a total mess.  It seems no subsidies and some sort of trade association to protect the artists is what's needed to save this industry, but I suspect that at least on the subsidy front that's going to be a tough sell because while everyone seems to hate the other guy's subsidy, they all love their own and feel entitled to them for a variety of reasons, that namely being the protection of their own jobs.  Being someone who lives and works in one of the few non subsidized parts of the business, I guess I'll just consider myself lucky to still be working and just watch how it all shakes out, because something is going to give, and its going to give soon. There's just too much pent up frustration amongst the community and it looks lime it's starting to boil over. 

[TheBadger]

@gregtee
Great post!

You sound like you know what your talking about. I feel like I learned something. You also seem like you don't mind talking about this subject, so I want to dig into your experience a little deeper. NOT to argue with you or anyone else, but to learn and share.

Just a little view of things from where I live.

You said your out in LA, I am in the Mid West, I also live in a "right to work" state, but we do have unions here. I think that this alone changes things dramatically. I suspect that the hollywood career model is also completely different from the life as an artist in new media one sees here.
For example, it *appears* that (in my city/region) it is the norm for a worker to have more than one job title. So like I said before I was in a union that covered nearly everyone in this field.

As a promotions producer at a broadcast company here, you would be expected to write, produce, edit, design, as well as do graphics including animation (if you are able) all under the tile of "associate producer/producer". Your union would be the same as an editor/videographer or a graphic designer; If you worked at a union shop. I believe but don't remember for sure, that the "crew" also worked under the same union. The pay was a joke.

Now we also have video game companies here, and I don't know for sure, but I believe there are no unions for them (here). Yet I know there are more jobs available in that area, and stating pay is higher (at this time) then broadcast work is paying.

We also have commercial production companies, again no unions that I know of. But there are jobs in this area too including all areas of still and moving picture creation. Again with better starting and future pay than what you will find in the union shops.

Lastly there is the corporate art world and fine art world. Covering everything form industrial modeling and engineering to investment and sales production work, and gallery/installation and "beautification" work. Oh yeah, government/educational jobs too. Government and education have unions for "art" workers, but I don't think those unions are artist specific, and I don't think the pay grades are based on what you do on a daily basis.

I am sure that cost of living is lower here than in LA, NY, Chicago, Minneapolis, so a lower pay than what you describe in the hollywood/cinema model is not as bad as it sounds.

So while I understand the issues you bring up, I feel like the story is bigger than what happens in the film industry. Don't get me wrong! I understand the importance of the movie industry to the VFX world as a whole. I hope you guys can take control of the situation because it will be better for everyone if you can. I for one would do whatever I can to help.

Independence!

When I was taking about being more than a worker, and also bing a content producer, I was not simply talking about working from home and doing contract work. The simple fact is that the idea guys will always do better than the laborer. As an analogy, the architect does and should make more than the ditch digger. Take television for example.
In TV, a large amount of the programing you see is NOT produced by the networks that distribute the content. Those networks buy the programing, and related rights, from others. In many cases, from people just like those in this community.
Now I am not saying we can all go out and make our own "walking dead" or "Star Trek", or "Battle Star" TV series. But big budget, epic effects shows are not the only game in town!

I will give you an inspiring example I found.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSlon_3VBn4 "Маша и Медведь" (Masha and Bear) is a Russian animated production featuring "Masha", a little girl who does not seem to have parents. And Misha, A bear who is retired from the circus, he looks after and cares for Masha. The episode stories take place in central Russia (siberia)

My 2 year old sone LOVES this cartoon, and I have become rather fond of it my self. Its really a very good cartoon for kids
Look at the number of views on the youtube link. 34,449,486
Now watch the short episode and tell me if you see anything in it that would be impossible for you and a few talented friends, with a little bit of money and a lot of ambition, to create your selves.
With advertising, 1,000,000 views on youtube can earn more than 200,000 dollars for the content producer, again, they have 34,449,486 views. If they are profiting from youtube, this is in addition to what they earn from a limited broadcast run (seasonal) out of Moscow. Not to mention toys and swag.

This is just one example I am very inspired by. But I could give you many many more.

Now I am not saying the internet is going to replace broadcast television and cable distribution models. But its going to be a VERY big player, it already is. But you all know this already.

My point is that I feel like the solutions to the problems, you very artfully detailed in your post, are not going to be found so much in cooperation and organization. But rather through an even deeper level of competition. The problem now is that there is to little competition, that is why the little guys are getting crushed.

I enjoyed your post very much. I found it a good view into the industry. But I have to say that most of what you wrote left me feeling a little sad.
Because I do love movies and games, and would very much like for you guys who make them for me to prosper! Not just the big dogs, but especially the people who's names in the credits, no one stays around to read.

something is going to give, and its going to give soon. There's just too much pent up frustration amongst the community and it looks lime it's starting to boil over. 

This sounds like a hint of optimism. I think anger based in reason, and a "true" sense of fair play, along with a heathy respect for cultural norms and tradition, can lead to real and lasting improvements for everyone. So if people come at me like Obama health care union protesters, go F your self. But if the effort to organize and even unionize (or whatever people decide to do) is reason over passion, and "Real" then you have my support! Whatever I can do to help, I would.

[rcallicotte]

I'm surprised anyone here on Planetside would be against unionizing of VFx.  Sort of shocking, really.  What you're saying is it's okay for VFx artists and technicians to work for peanuts. This will continue up the chain or, at least, be detrimental to possible blockbusters in the future.  Too bad no one here can see that.

What Digital Domain did by "hiring" students and then sinking the entire business will be the future of this sort of work.  If it's that easy to learn and be skilled in, anyone can do it. Or not?

[rcallicotte]

Quote for VFx artist Peter Rubin -

"I'm puzzled by something you [another person on the VFx Solidarity Facebook page with over 64,000 members in less than a week] said - VFX is the "weakest, least protected" arm of the movie business?

That's fascinating. How? What makes those other arms more protected, exactly? Heavy sleeves? Cuff links?

Oh, yeah - THEY'RE UNIONIZED. Guilds, Locals, Associations. IA. DGA. WGA. Teamsters. People who, with their strength combined, can negotiate for a fair deal, and actually halt production, when necessary, until their standards are met. People who do with their "human capital" as our bosses do with their financial capital - combine it to increase its power in negotiations."

[gregtee]

Let me ask you calico, who would vfx artists be forming a union against?  The studios?  The facilities they work for?  Both? 

I suppose the IA is the only entity with the ability to seriously negotiate with the studios.  In order for a vfx union to work, you'd have to get Warner Bros, Sony, Universal, etc to agree to the terms being sought.  Since the studios already could care less who does thier vfx work for them and shop it out all over the world on fixed lowest, most government subsidized bid and the IA has done nothing to stop it, good luck with that. 

The other side of the coin is to unionize against the facilities the studios hire to do the work, such as Digital Domain.  That would pretty much instantly put them out of business since they already operate on razor thin margins and operate quite literally from paycheck to paycheck from the studios.  Money that goes in instantly goes right back out.  The only thing keeping them afloat during the lean times is investment capital from the outside or what meager profits they've been able to save.

With regards to hiring students, that wasn't Digital Doman Venice.  That was DD Florida run by John Textor. No one outside of that parent organization thought that was a good idea.  Students are ill equipped to do this type of work on a professional level with tight deadlines.  You want to play, you have to pay when the proverbial rubber hits the road.  I'm delivering a project right now (one with some TG in it btw) and I can tell you that students would have no place in our delivery pipeline.

I honestly find nothing wrong with a vfx union in principle.  The devil is in the details in that our industry isn't fixed to the geographical location of a studio backlot like the other trades.  We're all over the place and have to deal with a bunch of perpetual startup companies that pop up like weeds around the world, watered and fertilized by government handouts of cash back to Hollywood to send the work there, outside the jurisdictions of any union. 

This puts tremendous pressue on the established houses such as DD to keep costs lean and mean or they instantly go out of business. A union making demands in that kind of environment without the agreement of the studios to absorb those costs is suicide. The only reason unions work presently is because the studios have long ago signed contracts with them that renrew regularly, and those agreements exist largely within the domain of their established trades that operate physically on their lots.  VFX has no such contracts or leverage in the present economic environment of government subsidized labor that sends money straight back to Hollywood in the form of rebate checks that the workers and facilities who hire them never see. 

As I said ubove, the IA is the only entity with the ability to negotiate with the studios.  So far they haven't, and its largely because the local guilds in the IA don't want vfx artists in their ranks. They're scared to death of them because they fear they'll come in and take away their jobs. So they've locked us out.  The IA can't force these established guilds to take us.  We'd have to form out own guild which is fine, but then we'd still need to get the IA to sit down with the studios and hammer out an arrangement, something the studios have zero incentive to do since they've already got everything they want, which is cheap subsidized professional labor from Canada, The UK, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and less professional but still compentent mass cheap labor in India and China.  Why would they want to sign labor contracts with the IA if they're already getting all that milk for practically free in the form of cash rebates for work they send there? The only way to make that work would be if you could somehow globally organize every VFX artist. Theoretically possible, but not very likely.

There was a window back in the early mid 90s to unionize vfx.  The IA was gung ho to do it.  The main obstacle they faced however was how to categorize us. If you moved a light in a computer program, did that make you a grip?  If you moved the camera, did that make you a cinematographer?  If you painted textures did that make you part of the paint department or the matte department?  If you built a model but also designed the room it sat in, where you a set designer or a model maker, or both?  If you did some concept work, were you in the illustrators local?  All these questions needed answering, and it was at this time that the various guilds actually lobbied the IA to keep us out of their respective trade unions.  They just didn't want to deal with us.  The IA responded by creating a catch all subcategory called the CG Department and just put us all in there, essentially sweeping vfx under the rug and it just withered and died on the vine.  I was one of those early people in that mix.

Fast forward 18 years.  The guilds are now starting the freak out when they see the credits role on a big vfx movie.  Movies like Tron Legacy, a movie I worked on as the Lighting Supervisor at DD have a credit role that runs almost 15 minutes.  Of that time, 10 of it is non union vfx artists.  This hasn't gone unnoticed by the IA and the various guilds.  They see they are becoming dinosaurs.  Now the IA wants to organize us, but that ship has long since sailed.  Putting that genie back in the bottle at this point is extremely difficult for all the above me mentioned reasons. 

I'd love a solid vfx union like the other trades have.  I just don't see how we get there from here, and a lot of others in this industry see the same thing, including the IA.



Badger, I need more time to think about a response to your post.

[TheBadger]

^^ Cool.

Let me clarify one point first though.

When I was saying that there is not enough competition, I did not mean among workers. I meant with Hollywood, and the hollywood system.
There is obviously to many workers. What I am suggesting is that hollywood needs the VFX workers more than we need hollywood. Because while Hollywood can make movies without us, they can not make the movies 30 year olds and younger pay to go see.
The competition I am advocating is not between workers and the studios, but the artists and the hollywood system as a whole.

If the FX Houses merged to form studios, and or, Individual artists joined to form "cooperatives", and began producing content on their own, this would create a ton of pressure on the HWood production and distribution model.
No, I am not saying you would make the billion$ Hwood does, but you would not need to.

Now there is the issue of distribution of hypothetical content. But its easy to imagine some industrious people creating a service that functions like NetFlix, but has original content like Vimeo. if in addition to a web presence this hypothetical website could also get distribution on cable and satellite. That would just about do it.

Or imagine an entire system like cable TV, but entirely on line.

If there is as many pros as you suggest fed up with things as they are, you can see how a little investment capital could work wonders.

Theory? Yes. But the workforce is there, and so is the audience.  And of course when we talk about the web we are not talking about distribution in a region of one nation or even an entire nation. Now we have 6 billion potential viewers across the world.

34,449,486. The walking Dead, does not get these numbers! But a silly little cartoon made by people just like us, in russia, does. Think about it.

[rcallicotte]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=352455591529679&set=a.342640865844485.73938.342634472511791&type=1&theater

[rcallicotte]

A new URL at the end of this quick video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmVMuonFSHE