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.

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:

http://www.la3d.net

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.

Continue reading ‘VFX Town Hall Twitter Chat Hashtag’ »

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.

This will be a web cast. You can tune in from anywhere in the world.

http://vfxtownhall.eventbrite.com

an open disccusion of a visual effects industry in transition

Effects driven films like Avatar are breaking box office records while visual effects facilities are forced to shut their doors and  most VFX workers face long hours, no benefits and little credit.

It’s time to start talking about the state of the visual effects industry — where we are, how we got here and what can be done to move the industry forward in a way that’s fair and thriving for artists, facilities and the studios.

We’ve assembled a world class panel with different perspectives and now we’d like to invite you to be part of the conversation. The discussion is open to everyone with an interest in the visual effects industry.

Panelists include

Chris deFaria – Vice President, Warner Bros. Pictures

Jefferey A. Okun — Visual Effects Society Chair and visual effects supoervisor

Scott Ross – Co-Founder of Digital Domain & former CEO of Industrial, Light and Magic

The panel will be moderated by Lee Stranahan, a former visual effects artist and writer for The Huffington Post whose Open Letter To James Cameron: Fairness For VIsual Effects Artists started discussions all around the world.

http://vfxtownhall.eventbrite.com

This came into the blog as a comment on the EOR thread, but I thought that the content was strong enough to warrant placing this important information on the front page.

Hey Guys,

Wanted to pass along this email I just sent out to a lot of my freelance friends. Some Very useful information for those of you looking to take action against MBO/YUCOR. Please read through carefully!!

Hey Guys,

So I’m sure everyone’s been dealing with or at least heard about the whole MBO/Yucor fiasco. While the best ways around their policies at the moment are either to go through the process of incorporating and all that it entails, jack your rate up by an amount that somewhat compensates your loss, or just avoid dealing with those companies all together, my buddy has been digging up some more info on the companies that I wanted to pass along. He’s been speaking with his accountant and attorney about the procedures MBO/Yucor use and it’s pretty interesting stuff for those of you looking to take some action. I’m attaching all the emails he sent me. I’d recommend reading through them! Please forward to anyone that could use the info!

I just got back, from my accountants, figuring out my taxes and then i showed him the yurcor stuff thats been happening – how we filled out a w-4, which makes us an employee of yurcor, but then they took out employer taxes still and our that money didnt show up in our gross pay pay stubs. Anyway, he said what they’re doing is illegal and can’t believe they’re getting away with it. Then he laughed when i told him they were telling us to scan our writeoffs for their approval!

He said he actually has a client, in New Jersey, currently going through the same situation, not with yurcor in particular, but still how they were taking away funds as an employer when they shouldn’t have and the New Jersey Dept of Labor got them their money back. So he said contact the NY City (or state?) Dept of Labor telling them of the situation. It gets a bit sticky since Yurcor is supposedly based in Florida (according to their tax forms we got) and the DK i worked for is based in chicago so the NY Dept of Labor may think it doesn’t have anything to do with them since those are out-of-state companies. HOWEVER, yurcor/dk paid NY state wages and withheld NY state taxes which makes it a NY Dept of Labor problem. By taking away employer taxes (which are rightfully ours), they are taking away money from NY state since that should ALL be our money that NY state taxes and we receive. Our loss of income is actually the states loss of income – make sense? Look at your pay stub and you’ll see the only income listed is just the employee section and nothing is reported of the employer income – ILLEGAL. The employer tax they are withholding is actually helping to pay DK’s taxes. It gets even funnier because Yurcor uses the pay service ADP to cut us our checks. WTF? ADP does the SAME kind of service Yurcor does just NOT shady. How so? We called them up and i was doing some research on the ADP website. They provide the same sort of service as yurcor, but when we explained to them what Yurcor was doing they were completely baffled since we are classified as yurcor employees. Put 2 and 2 together and you see that ADP has been handling the ‘employee’ part of the pay that yurcor has been reporting to them, which sounds legit. This employer part is the scam that yurcor is helping front for DK and these other studios to help pay for their taxes (which other freelancers have started to figure out correctly).

Anyway, 2 accountants at the firm we were at said to contact the NY City Dept of Labor and see if they have a ‘wage and hours’ division. Thats what New jersey has that helped get their jersey clients their money back. If for some reason this doesnt work, he said DEFINITELY contact the IRS. Also, besides the IRS contact the National Labor Relations Board (http://www.nlrb.gov/) to get on Yurcor’s ass (and mbo for that matter). Either way, they all agreed what Yurcor is doing IS completely illegal and all that employer money being held is rightfully ours. Their clients have won the case in Jersey so we should win ours. If we can spread the word around, a bigger force in numbers always helps. If this sounds confusing feel free to contact me and i can better explain what went down at my accountants office today. I feel a lot better about this all, but i’ll feel much better once i get my money back!

spread the word! i’m contacting the dept of labor this Monday. I’ve already saved all of Yurcor’s payroll information they provide on the sites that show all the employer taxes they withheld. Great to have since our paystubs don’t mention any of this.

—————————————–

Here’s links to all the places they recommended contacting. Might as well contact them all so they all hit yurcor and mbo at once!

http://www.labor.ny.gov/agencyinfo/aicontactus.shtm

http://www.tax.state.ny.us/

http://www.nlrb.gov/about_us/locating_our_offices/index.aspx

http://www.irs.gov/localcontacts/article/0,,id=98318,00.html

seriously, lets get this ball rolling.

—————————————–

So the accountant said the first people to contact is NY Dept of Labor to see if they will do anything about this since it IS their problem. The lady at first tried to tell me we aren’t covered under NY State law since we got paid daily wages and that there was nothing I could do except hire an attorney and take them to court. Before she hung up on me I told quickly told her i signed a w4 form with the company making me an employee and i got an end of year w2 tax form showing employee taxes they withheld, but it didn’t show the employer taxes they withheld, which they shouldn’t have since i am an employee and since it was NY taxes being withheld this is a Dept of Labor problem. So she then directed me to this PDF complaint form and where to send it to. She said when you fill it out and mail to them, you must have ALL your proof. The IRS tax forms (i guess thats the w2), but i’m also including scans of my pay stubs and their online payroll tax withholding breakdowns. I suggest you do the same and pass the word around. The next step would be to contact the NY State Dept of Taxation and Finance because their site will really pursue if “your situation represents a systemic flaw that may adversely impact other taxpayers” & “You believe that the unique facts and circumstances of your case warrant assistance by the Taxpayer Rights Advocate” which it does.

DIRECT PDF FORM:
http://www.labor.state.ny.us/formsdocs/wp/LS223.pdf#page=1

information:
http://www.labor.ny.gov/search/search.asp?query=ls223&submit=GO

mail to:
New York Dept of Labor
Bldg 12, RM 185C
Albany, NY 12240

The Thinking Animation Blog posted a good article entitled “Protecting Yourself as a Freelancer”. It’s a good basic primer for how Employers of Record work and covers some of the same material as  the fxdag.org web site. Thinkinganimation.com is always worth a read for the insight, information and research.

Check out a direct link to the specific article here

OK, so I’ve never actually heard of AICE, The International Trade Association for the Independent Creative Editorial and Post Production Industry, before reading this article so I’m not totally sure what this really means in the context of organized labor, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that this is a good thing:

http://www.shootonline.com/go/index.php?name=Release&op=view&id=rs-web2-3581358-1267643333-2

AICE web site link

This is a true story of a studio attempting to do wrong to an artist, and how that artist protected himself from it. According to the blog,  the facts are all true only the names have been changed or left out.

http://epilogue8.blogspot.com/