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The elephant in the room here is that VFX, unlike many other film professions, isn’t properly unionised. Half of the practices that make VFX a hell-scape to wor
by moomin 4y ago
The elephant in the room here is that VFX, unlike many other film professions, isn’t properly unionised. Half of the practices that make VFX a hell-scape to work in and produce so many poor results are due to the simple fact that the workers are not treated the same as other parts of the crew. As long as it’s cheaper to fix it in post than retake the shot you can look forward to much more of this.
- agileAlligator 4y agoThing is, unions usually proliferate in industries where you are more or less replaceable. That isn't the case in industries that can't be easily automated.
- 0xRusty 4y agoOr creative industries where 20% of the people do 80% of the heavy lifiting work. As a vfx and cg supervisor at a large vfx company myself I work extremely long hours, picking up the slack for the 80%'ers who can barely simulate a piece of cloth or match a plate's key light direction. Why on earth would I choose to unionize and equalize my pay and benefits to those that are objectively poor at their job in an industry where successful results to tasks are so subjectively measured.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago> so subjectively measured There's your answer. Equalize pay and benefits because there's no telling whether those in charge of assigning pay have any good sense at all for quality. It's the argument of salary vs. hourly vs. per-item all over again.
- agileAlligator 4y ago> because there's no telling whether those in charge of assigning pay have any good sense at all for quality They'll pay what they think you are worth, and you are free to leave if you think they aren't paying you enough. It's not like there are only two software companies in the entire world and you gotta work for one of them.
- rperez333 4y agoYou are likely deluding yourself about your skill level; I’ve had the habit of tracking my peer's productivity (on Shotgrid) to stay above their metrics, and even if I could say objectively to be the faster in my dept., that is irrelevant. VFX needs different kinds of people, and I can’t count how many times “less” productive artists came up with very beautiful and ingenious solutions that I haven’t thought about it. Also, we don’t stay long hours because we failed to put a light on the correct place. as the article points out, the issue is the director/production has no financial penalties for their lack of planning and indecisiveness. This is just the Parkinson's law of triviality [0] that happens in most businesses, but since VFX studios don’t put a hard cap on the number of revisions, artists end up absorbing that. One of my recent crunches was due to production going through 43 versions of a magic wand effect. IMO, by version 15, we already had multiple and more interesting looks than what was approved for final. [0] https://bwiggs.com/notebook/queens-duck/ https://bwiggs.com/notebook/queens-duck/
- bsenftner 4y agoHow to unionize when the studios create VFX divisions in 3rd world countries and then tell you if you want to continue your career you'll follow the jobs overseas? I was at Rhythm & Hues Studios thru two Oscars, transitioning thru programmer, digital artist and then financial analyst. I was a lead game developer before doing VFX, and I thought the games industry was bad. Well, at least in film the people are vastly more diverse, but the work is still 6-7 days a week, 10-12+ hour days.
- j-bos 4y agoI'm curious, if you've been a programmer, one of the most in demand proffesions out there, Why would you tolerate 10-12 hour days 6 days a week? What motivates you to not get a more time balanced job?
- bsenftner 4y agoEverywhere I go, the issues to be solved are critical and the deadlines are present so I do the work that needs to be done, and (as I mention above) non-entertainment tech jobs think I'm either too expensive, or something... basically, it's a nepotistic world, and I developed my network in abusive industries, so to the non-abusive places I apply, I look like an alien. I get replies like "wow! we've love to have you, but you're clearly too expensive and would not be happy doing the non-shiny things we do." And I never even mentioned salary.
- boppo1 4y agoHave you ever said "try me, throw out a number"? I was under the impression graphics programming is low-paid relative to similarly difficult programming (or even less difficult like framework CRUD).
- datavirtue 4y agoThat sounds desperate.
- narrator 4y agoI think the reason programmers don't unionize is some are 10x better than others, so they don't want to get the same wages as 1x programmers. Conversely, something like airline piloting or being a factory worker or nurse can be done much more equally by everyone in the field, so they are more likely to unionize. Are there wild variations in talent of VFX professionals?
- 0xRusty 4y agoAbsolutely 100% agree. I work in a senior role in a vfx company. The adage that 20% of the workers do 80% of the work is more true in vfx than you'd likely believe.
- moomin 4y agoHonestly I think the real reason programmers don’t unionise is that we’re not smart enough to realize we’re Labour.
- booleandilemma 4y agoThis is the answer. A lot of programmers I've met are either narcissists or autists bereft of self-awareness. If you're a normal person you go into product management. A coworker once told me that we are "society's elite". That's the level of delusion we're talking about here.
- ma2rten 4y agoThis doesn’t make sense to me. Why wouldn’t just the 1x programmers unionize? I’m sure they would be in the majority as 10x programmers are rare. I also do not really believe in this concept in general. Programming skills are not one dimensional, people have different strengths and weaknesses.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThe 1x programmers - which is virtually all of us - all think they’re 10x programmers.