Good news from Motion Theory. Tina Van Delden of Motion Theory tells us that they are transitioning away from using MBO as an Employer of Record and are moving to a traditionally structured payroll service, absorbing the cost of doing business. They should have everyone up and running on their new payroll system by September 7th 2010.

FXDAG applauds this move and hopes that other studios which employ freelancers follow suit.

Developing story. Looking for confirmation and details on this.

We recently heard that MBO, a predatory Employer of Record, is pulling out of payroll administration for FX and Animation related business. I’ll post more as I confirm the story and find out more information.

Other EOR stories on FXDAG include:

EOR Studios List

Fired from MBO – A True Story with a Happy Ending

Artists fights back against MBO and Yurkor Employers of Record

Organize Employers of Record?

There’s some really good information available on-line regarding salaries in the VFX and Animation industries if you know where to look. Artists often suffer from vast information asymmetry when entering negotiations. Your manager knows exactly how much artists at your facility make but chances are you have no idea. Your manager probably has a discretionary budget for raises and salaries for the year and quite possibly makes a bonus based on the amount of this budget remaining at the end of the year so they have a personal interest in keeping wages and raises as low as possible. The best way to level the playing field and eliminate the information asymmetry is to talk openly with your co-workers about their salaries. People are often reluctant to do this, so perhaps an anonymous poll at your workplace would feel more appropriate. In addition, there are several on-line resources for wage information.

There’s a wealth of wage information on-line if you know where to look. Hopefully the information below will help you in your next negotiation.

VFX Soldier’s Wage Information Spreadsheet

VFX Soldier has a good article about wages and salaries in the VFX and animation industries.

By law, wage information for non-U.S. citizens working under H1-B visas must be publicly disclosed. The data is usually a couple of years behind but still relevant. The most recent searchable data on-line is from 2008 but the 2009 data may be downloaded. The Animation Guild posts their annual wage surveys. Web sites such as vfxConnection post the results of their independent wage polls. Executive compensation is a matter of public record for public companies or companies filing for IPO.

Search the on-line H1-B database at the FLC Data Center

The Animation Guild (TAG) 2010 wage survey

The web site VFXwages is devoted to tracking wages in the VFX industry

vfxConnection has a user poll of rates. You need to register an account with them to access the information

Regarding executives, if the company is public or has tried to go public, the salaries of the company officers must be published by the SEC and can be found in the SEC EDGAR database.

• It can be a bit difficult to navigate for first time users so these tips should help with EDGAR:

1. Enter the company name and hit the “find companies” button.
2. If the company is already public, find their prospectus under form “8-K”. If the company has filed for and IPO but is not yet public, look for a filing under form “S-1a”
3. Look under the heading “Executive Compensation”.

• Here’s an example of Digital Domain’s S-1a filing from 2007 when they attempted to go public.

Summary Compensation Table

The following table presents certain summary information for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007 concerning compensation earned for services rendered in all capacities to us and our subsidiaries by the Named Executive Officers during such period.

Summary Compensation Table for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2007

Name and Principal Position		Year				Salary ($) (1)				Bonus ($) (2)				Stock Awards ($)				Option Awards ($) (3)				All Other Compensation ($)				Total ($)
Mark Miller (4) President and Chief Executive Officer			2007			$	548,097			$	51,600				—			$	149,553				—			$	749,250
Cliff Plumer Chief Technology Officer			2007				524,336				51,600				—				149,553				—				725,489
Ed Ulbrich Executive Vice President			2007				447,116				150,000				—				49,698				—				646,814
Yvette Macaluso (5) Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer			2007				261,231				100,000				—				86,284				—				447,515
Joseph Gabriel Vice President, Business Affairs and General Counsel			2007				282,693				—				—				33,753				—				316,446
Carl Stork (6) Vice Chairman and Former Chief Executive Officer			2007				300,000				—				—				—				—				300,000

The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839, is having a membership drive.

Contact them now if you work in visual effects and want to see your shop organized!

It’s time to ORGANIZE!

The Guild has embarked on a series of organizing initiatives to bring the benefits of the Guild to workers at non-union employers.

If you are presently working at Wildbrain, Renegade, Moonscoop, Digital Domain, Sony Imageworks, Nickelodeon CG, Rhythm and Hues, Zoic, or any other non-union facility, and if you would like to get benefits under our Motion Picture Pension and Health Plan, drop us an e-mail or give us a call.

We’re looking for information that can help us organize your employer, and we would like you to sign a STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL representation card.

Let us know how we can help you get the wages and benefits you deserve.

• Steve Hulett, Business Representative
• Steve Kaplan, Organizer

VFX Soldier posted a very informative analysis of union benefits and how organizing might actually be a more economical model for providing benefits to their employees.

Read more here: http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/could-unionization-save-vfx-facilities/

Here’s an excerpt:

So how much would organization actually cost? Well according to sources in the IATSE, the national labor organization that The Animation Guild is a part of, a guild employer would have to pay the following for each worker:

• about $4 per hour worked plus about a 6% contribution into the IAP (Individual Account Plan).

I estimate the IAP contribution to be about $6000 a year. If you want to see how that number is calculated go here but lets make an assumption and calculate the amount based on an artist’s salary.

• Assume an artist works 40 hours per week for a total of 2080 hours a year.
• Assume that artist makes $48 an hour for a nice even salary total of about $100,000 per year.

The total amount an employer would probably have to pay to the guild would calculate to be about $14,500 per year. (*Correction – this amount isn’t paid to the guild, it is paid into the health and pension benefits. The only money paid to the guild are the dues paid by workers.) That’s far less than the national average of 30% employers pay to administer benefits.

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:

Give Megan Fox’s Transformers Money To Artists Who Deserve It

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.