A Blog to Discuss the formation of a VFX Digital Artists Guild
FXGuide recently interviewed Scott Ross for their podcast. There’s been enough reaction on the internet that a round up of opinionated posts is warranted.
At the TAG Blog, Steve Kaplan says that Scott seems to contradict himself on the topic of organizing labor.
VFX Soldier thinks that Scott needs to have a debate with himself.
Stix and Jones at ThinkingAnimation thinks that Scott Ross should run for President.
Read and enjoy!
The Novato based Northern California office of Sony Imageworks is scheduled to shut down around the end of 2010 or first few months of 2011
In a recent e-mail to it’s members, The Animation Guild announces it will get proactive in organizing non-union animation shops. This still requires work on the part of employees but it’s good to see that TAG is stepping up to help.
Here’s that mail from Steve Hulett, with contact e-mails at the bottom:
The Animation Guild is getting more proactive working with non-signator animation studios in Southern California. To that end, we’ve recently hired Steve Kaplan, a veteran visual effects artist, as our new Organizer.
There are a number of medium-sized shops doing work for the entertainment conglomerates, and it is our plan and goal to bring as many as possible into the Guild’s family of studios.
We encourage our members to take whatever work they can to stay employed and in the industry, and we fully understand that many of us work at non-signator studios from time to time. Unfortunately, not all studios are aware of the benefits to them of becoming part of our family.
So, we’d like your assistance. If you are currently working non-union, contact Steve Kaplan or Steve Hulett and let us know where you are working and what project you are working on.
The Guild has never nor will ever have a problem with its members remaining employed. Our aim is to provide a seamless cloak of portable health and pension benefits for everyone in animation.
Respond to these e-mail addresses and help us help you to get the contractual benefits you deserve.
info@animationguild.org
shulett@animationguild.org
skaplan@animationguild.org
Lee Stranahan in full on rant mode over on Huffington Post:
So Megan Fox was fired from Transformers 3. Or she quit, depending on the gossip and spin you choose to believe. In either case, she’s gone and frankly…it doesn’t matter because she wasn’t the reason for the success of that film franchise.
I’m going to make a radical suggestion; with Megan Fox out, Hollywood has a chance to do the right thing. Take whatever ridiculous sum you were going to pay Megan Fox and put it into a benefits & retirement fund for the visual effects artists who are the REAL stars of a film like Transformers 3.
Critics may complain about ‘thrill ride’ movies but it’s impossible to argue two points. First, visual effects driven films and not actors like Megan Fox are responsible for the studio’s bottom line. Second, that the visual effects artists who create those effects are second class citizens in Hollywood who don’t receive comparable credit or benefits to other crafts.
As Rebecca Keegan points out in the latest issue of TIME magazine, visual effects were a vital part in nine out of ten of last year’s top grossing films but meanwhile the visual effects industry and the artists who work in it are struggling. Effects facilities are closing down and artists are being forced to move to find work and make ends meet.
It’s time for the studios to take care of the people who are making them money. It’s time to stop underpaying the hard working talent that drives profits and overpay¬¬ing the spoiled and irrelevant.
Do actors matter? Of course they do — in some projects. But – sorry, Shia – the actors in films like Transformers 3 or G.I. Joe : The Rise of Cobra could be swapped for any number of equally attractive stand-ins or stunt people and it wouldn’t hurt those movie’s grosses by a penny. In the upside down world of film, the actors get top billing and top pay and the anonymous artists putting the butts in seats are listed at the end of the credits and most don’t have a retirement fund.
Maybe VFX artists need to learn from actors, who at least know how to get press and get paid.
Do visual effects supervisors like John Knoll or Stephen Rosenbaum need to spend more time at cocaine fueled all night dance parties in order to make headlines? Does Dennis Muren need to refuse to come out of his trailer? Should Scott Squires start punching paparazzi on Melrose? Who does Jeffrey Okun need to throw a phone at? Should Industrial Light & Magic release a sex tape?
Unless you’re a VFX geek or a studio executive, most of you probably didn’t recognize a single name in the last paragraph. (Google ‘em.) But you know who Megan Fox is, right?
And that’s exactly the problem…
When I heard about the VFX Soldier blog I thought I’d post it for FX DAG readers. Lots of similar sentiment to much of the discussions that have been recently sweeping the industry. Worth a read.Check it out here: http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/about/
I don’t know where it will go in the future but it might be worth watching to see if the VFX Soldier gains any traction in his or her mission.
An interesting web site recently came on-line that purports to review the working conditions at various computer graphics production companies. It seems useful as long as it doesn’t degenerate into a flame war. Check it out here:
During the online VFX Town Hall meeting last week there was a back channel tweetfest going on. A wide range of opinions were discussed. You can read the log from this link:
You can do a search for the #vfxtownhall hash tag on twitter or read the transcript after the jump.
Have you seen the Open Letter to James Cameron? Did you listen to the VFX Town Hall? Are you just concerned about the state of the industry and wondering what can be done? Want a union? Hate the idea? Make yourself heard!
While it’s great that the conversation has started, it’s up to the artists to continue it and give the issue a face, and the solution its momentum. There’s a talk and live chat about it on Talkshoe. There’s a free live chatroom, your words will be seen and heard. Let’s start figuring this out.
For a two-year-old discussion along these lines with Ryan and Teague on the subject of getting into the industry, general questions answered and do’s-and-don’ts discussed, enjoy this.
Michael “Dorkman” Scott (@DorkmanScott) is a filmmaker and freelance visual effects artist in Los Angeles.
Ryan Wieber (@RyanWieber) is a senior VFX compositor in his sixth year at Stargate Studios, where he has worked on hundreds of shots spanning dozens of episodic television shows… including, perhaps most notably, as a lead artist on NBC’s “Heroes”. He is a two-time Emmy winner for Visual Effects, with a third nomination.
Teague Chrystie (@TeagueChrystie)is a visual effects generalist and career freelancer, who’s compositing, motion graphics and 3D work has appeared in dozens of television shows, music videos, commercials and feature films. Acting as moderator on the panel, he’ll conduct the conversation in the room and relay questions from the chat room to the panel.
A shared public Google document to help the visual effect community hash out their ideas about what a visual effects guild would do and how it would work. There’s a permanent link to an embedded reference of this Google document on the top menu of the fxdag.org web page. You can also get to it here:
Eric Rosenthal writes:
All Right! I’ve just been fired by MBO!
Here’s my personal MBO story. It has a happy ending. Kind of.
December: I book a job with Motion Theory for January. After accepting I learn that I have to go through MBO for payroll which will require a 2.25% fee off the top of my paycheck. I tell MBO to f— off and decide to incorporate.
January: My accountant tells me forming a C-Corp or an S-Corp is not worth the extra time and money. I reluctantly go with MBO. All is well until…
February: The people at Motion Theory start getting their paychecks (about a month after starting work) and see that their take-home pay with the fee and taxes is about 50-60% of what it usually is. Most of us have student loans and all of us live paycheck to paycheck. I get really mad and post a derogatory comment on one of MBO’s youtube videos. They call me immediately asking for feedback (?).
I start the anti-MBO group on linkedin, but few people from Motion Theory want to join, most of them are too scared of being blacklisted or just apathetic. However I do get some people from other companies to join.
Mid February: My job ends. I get my first good night’s sleep in weeks.
Late February: I get my first paycheck from MBO. It appears to have no money taken out. I try to log in to MBO’s web site and find out my account has been deleted.
Early March (Today) I talked to Motion Theory about my check and find out that MBO fired me without telling me!! I guess I was a liability 
Motion Theory will pay me directly for my latest job without any money taken out of my check, which is always nice.
Mid March: Motion Theory wants me for some work. However my only choice is to C-Corp or S-Corp (they won’t allow LLCs), and for now it’s a complication I’d rather not get into.
I call MBO because I need a record of my invoices. The lady I talked to is polite and wants to learn about our industry. I learn that MBO was started by freelancers and isn’t used to being the bad guy. They are currently weighing on weather or not to continue to work in our industry.
Final Thoughts: MBO is not evil or out to get us. However they are not here to help us either; they want to expand their business and make money like any company. They’re more like a symptom of some of the problems happening in our industry rather than the root cause.