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Unionization and the creation of a trade association topped the priorities at a visual effects biz town hall meeting Thursday in Los Angeles where hundreds of VFX professionals gathered to discuss the state of their troubled industry. Despite calls for solidarity within the global community and a general sense of accord, a tense volley of boos erupted halfway through the panel when Visual Effects Society rep Mike Chambers took the mic and mentioned the organization’s call for larger California subsidies made in an open letter last month. In the letter the VES had announced plans to hold a VFX Congress, which has yet to materialize. “What are you going to do?” shouted one audience member to Chambers, who had no answer for his group.
Related: VFX Oscar Protesters Grow To 400 As Pros Plead Their Case
The exchange highlighted the most crippling challenge currently facing VFX workers: With no organized body other than the strictly honorary VES, artists have no leverage as the current system continues to squeeze their employers for slim profit margins. Among the industry wide issues identified by keynote speaker Scott Squires: A flawed studio-VFX house business model, too much competition, and job-migrating subsidies. Panelists and audience members also decried the strains on health and home life endured by individual VFX artists at the bottom of the VFX food chain. Unpaid overtime, long work weeks and a lack of healthcare benefits are common for visual artists, who comprise one of the last remaining sectors in Hollywood that is not yet unionized.
Riding the momentum created Oscar Sunday when 400 people protested during the Academy Awards, the town hall meeting was organized in less than a week by a loose collection of VFX pros, including panelist and protest co-organizer Dave Rand and anonymous industry blogger VFX Soldier. (Buttons handed out to attendees bore the Spartacus-like declaration “I Am VFX Soldier”; afterward, slices of greenscreen-hued key lime pie were passed around with the promise that there was enough for everyone.) An estimated 300 pros packed the standing room only panel held at Gnomon VFX Academy in Hollywood and dozens of attendees in Austin, San Rafael, Vancouver, and Wellington, New Zealand joined in live via Google+ as a panel of VFX leaders broke down the trade crisis that has snowballed in recent months with the bankruptcies of Digital Domain and Life Of Pi VFX house Rhythm & Hues.
Former ILM and Digital Domain head Scott Ross lit a fire in the assembled crowd as he referred to the rapidly emerging VFX grassroots movement as “The Digital Spring”. Ross, who made an unsuccessful attempt at establishing a trade association two decades ago, is trying to create one again among VFX shops and told Deadline he’s gotten facility heads to entertain the idea, although none has fully committed to participating. Still, “it’s the first time they’ve been willing to discuss a trade association”, he said, although he noted that the studios are staying mum as the VFX movement brews.
Related: Visual Effects Society Calls For Inaugural VFX Congress, Larger Tax Incentives
It was Ross who lent the most firepower to the evening. The VFX veteran who sold his shares in Digital Domain before its eventual collapse earned a standing ovation by speaking in terms of “revolution” and quoting Network‘s famous “I’m mad as hell” line. His five-point agenda called for a new studio business model that allows VFX facilities to profit; the creation of new bidding templates across the competitive VFX market; standardized contracts and cancellation policies that would prevent VFX houses from taking the hit on stalled production schedules; industry education outreach including a VFX lobby in Washington to fight subsidy legislation; and a public relations push to teach the public about the industry. That last point was reiterated by an audience member to the panel during the Q&A session: “What will you do to make people know who we are as individuals — and that it’s not Ang Lee who made [Life Of Pi]“?
With reps from SAG-AFTRA in attendance, panelists Steve Kaplan, organizer for the local animation guild/IATSE 839, and Dusty Kelly, a rep for Vancouver’s IATSE 891 branch, pushed the merits of unionization. Union cards were made available on site, although Kaplan warned that between 60% and 70% commitment from VFX professionals would be required to unionize. Tougher still is the global nature of VFX. With union shops in place here, studios will still be able to tap overseas VFX competitors. Some, like Ross, prioritize establishing a trade association before or instead of creating a union, but leverage and timing were the keywords of the night.
Related: Rhythm & Hues Confirms Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing
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About fucking time.
Are you kidding me, “Among the industry wide issues identified by keynote speaker Scott Squires: A flawed studio-VFX house business model, too much competition, and job-migrating subsidies.”
Seriously folks, it’s time to wake-up to the real world. “too much competition” – oh boo hoo. Isn’t that capitalism? The answer isn’t a union – it’s a better way to work and create the images studios are seeking – ways that the overseas competition can’t duplicate. Sony invented the walkman – Apple reinvented it (and the phone, and the music store and the video store, etc.).
VFX Houses should be on the forefront of technology, creating patents on processes and new ways VFX are visualized – ways that can’t be copied. They should license out the technology and take a percentage of every VFX job that is using the technology (vs. selling software). Time to evolve the business model – not cry about the fact that there are other people willing to do the same job for less money.
You are overlooking one important factor – more than 75% of what is being created in VFX is not unique or creative any more. For every LIFE OF PI there are 10 other films that have the same explosions, the same digital doubles and the same big CG Something fighting another big CG Something (just look at the 9 other films in the VFX Bake-Off if you need examples – or even the Oscar winners from previous years).
Hollywood Studios choose from the “Fast-Cheap-Good” triangle – and the first two win out EVERY TIME.
R&H was the last of the exceptions. R&H is the best in the industry at doing animals – they have held that niche ever since BABE. Every studio knows that if you want great looking animals, you have to go to them. It was the only exception to the triangle, because R&H was never cheap (and sometimes not so fast). But they have no way of licensing that talent or putting a patent on their experience. So now IF they go away, the studios will just move on. We’ll see a CG Tiger in the next year or so done by someone else that won’t look as good, but who will care? The profit on that movie will not change the fact that someone else could do it better once upon a time. The bar will just move lower.
Looking at the VFX townhall meeting on Youtube, I had to wince every time I heard the same “too much competition” line.
Unionizing (trade and labor) in the U.S. will not decrease the international competition.
In fact, the major London VFX facilities, for example, don’t want to have anything to do with trade union or any other anti-competitive moves, because they are very competitive on their own.
I very easily see all this U.S. unionizing activity driving the entire VFX business overseas, very, very quickly.
U.S. trade deficit is already around $40 billion a month, so VFX outsourcing will only join the queue of goods and services already manufactured elsewhere.
The London studios are only competitive “on their own” because they’re being subsidized by the UK government and don’t pay overtime.
… and let’s not forget, of course, that all of the London studios have facilities in Canada (more tax breaks) and Singapore (more tax breaks) and are forcing their staff to move overseas to chase their own jobs.
You also don’t seem aware of how crazy the bidding process is for the VFX companies. Unlike a construction company that is buiding off of highly controlled costs and a blueprint– these bids are being made without full knowledge of the work itself. It’s a flawed system that should change, regardless of who or what country is doing the work.
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This has been a long time coming. When we started in the VFX business most of the people involved were union members from various divisions like Camera and Set Design. As the work transitioned from traditional film based compositing to digital compositing the VFX companies were happy to let the union members drift away and failed to secure any rights for the new digital artists who were just emerging from a few schools teaching computer graphics. Equipment costs were astronomical and setting up a digital facility was very expensive. Paying artists lower wages and no overtime allowed many shops to equip them selves and get into the business. 20 years later we are reaping the benefits of these actions. Many of my compatriots have seen a rapid erosion of job opportunities and work going “off-shore” as it has in many other industries. I believe we have a very narrow chance to stand up to the Studios and demand to be treated with the same respect as other artists and technicians in the film industry currently do. We need to show them that exploiting the weakest part of the film industry, VFX, for massive financial gains should no longer be tolerated. Farming out our work to sweat shops in other countries is wrong and illegal. Only by banding together can we prevent this slow slide to the bottom. Subsidies and paltry wages are not the answer to this problem. A decent working wage and quality of life are needed to fix this issue. Standing up to the Studios is the first action we must take.
Glad they are organizing. Kudos to them for starting the process to make things better. Trade Association is the number one priority and VFX workers worldwide in solidarity regardless of what kind of “union” they become is a necessity. Threat of Global walkout/shutdown would get the studios to listen.
They will have to unionize eventually, and they will need the DGA and WGA to work with them to make it happen. Force the studios to use VFX union member studios for their productions, just like they have to use WGA writers, etc… That will prevent the work from going to studios that pay dirt to their employees, make them work tons of overtime for no extra money, and then fold when they need to while the CEO’s make off with boatloads of cash and the employees who made them rich have to go out looking for new jobs all across the world.
Every other aspect of the film industry is unionized, from the grips and transportation, right up to the actors and producers, it’s time for the VFX part of the industry to do the same.
Actually not everyone else is. The composers are not unionized. And they were not allowed to in the early 80′s by the Dept. of Labor even though they followed the WGA model. Recent attempts to try again and do so under the Teamsters also failed.
And the AFM musicians union is so weak in its power to maintain the work…it actually has very similar “global” challenges the VFX folks have in that more and more scores are being recorded overseas now in London (with their union that has a buy-out option) and Eastern Europe where there is no union.
Agree completely with VFX Industry Worker.
As a producer – it seems like these people don’t realize that a union means one thing – the death of anyone using a vfx studio in the US. These US studios don’t have a monopoly on talent. There are tremendous vfx houses all over the globe – with the gap narrowing each and every year.
They can boo subsidies/tax incentives all they want – but that is the only thing that will keep vfx work here in the states.
You won’t have one anyway regardless. Pay is dicey and often less than the work calls for. Hours are ILLEGALLY long on many projects. People will get out of VFX altogether if the current trend continues. Producers like you do not get it. Like ang Lee you think it is too expensive. In truth, Ang Lee was wrong, he paid too cheaply.
+1
+1
Jessespano, for a “producer” you’re pretty ignorant of facts on the business. Disney and Dreamworks are the two largest employers of VFX artists, both still primarily operate in California with no subsidies, both are Union shops and both still manage to turn a profit from their digital divisions too. ILM and DD while not Union both still have primary facilities in CA and are still the top destinations for VFX work in the world. It wasn’t unions that brought down R&H or DD it was the costs of building extra facilities to chase subsidies around the US and world.
Funny how Unionizing hasn’t driven Editors, Actors or any other part of film out of the USA. I mean surely the US doesn’t have a monopoly on people who can edit or act either? And overseas actors and editors can surely be found in unregulated labor markets too? – yet those jobs haven’t fled like you claim VFX will – and why haven’t they? Oh right, they have a union to protect them.
Gamgee, a union will only drive studios away (eventually if not immediately). If you think differently … well enjoy life in Hobbiton.
Sure, there’s a group trying to unionize labor. I suspect that won’t get very far. Most of the artists who are smart enough to be VFX artists in the first place are smart enough to know that a union is a job killer.
But, producers should consider yourself on notice. The more serious issue is about organizing the VFX shops, including the international ones, in an international trade group centered on a platform that no longer accepts the abuses you’ve been throwing our way.
For example, if your director decides at the last minute that he wants a major change to the set, costumes, or camera package, you understand there are costs associated with that. Material, labor, etc. But for some reason, when a director decides he wants the CG stadium in the background to look like Wrigley Field instead of Yankee Stadium after it was already built, producers expect us to do hundreds of hours of work to make that change for free.
Well, the truth is that there are a lot of places overseas where you can take simple wire removal, cleanup, and set extensions. But there are only a few facilities that can be the lead house on films like ‘The Avengers’, ‘The Hobbit’, and ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’. And if those companies banded together and said “enough” to flat bids, you wouldn’t really have many options if you want to maintain quality. You can’t get ‘Transformers’ from Joe’s Discount VFX Sweatshop in Mumbai. And just standing up to producers and saying ‘sorry, that costs extra’ would be a HUGE improvement over the way things work today. And by the way, pay your bills on time and don’t pretend that you never got the invoice. Then maybe our shops wouldn’t have payroll problems and wouldn’t have to file chapter 11 while they wait for your past due for 90 days check.
Ingorant! You are completely ignorant. As a 15 year vfx pro scratching out a living in Hollywood, I can you that you are totally oblivious to the struggle we face trying to survive under the death grip of the studio monopoly. Educate yourself.
Why do you say a trade association is “anti-competitive”? As Scott Ross said: Coke and Pepsi have a trade association. Ford and GM have one. Doesn’t seem to be hurting them in the slightest. What you’re saying literally makes no sense. The point of a trade association is to standardize contracts and establish sane business practices, not fix costs (fixing costs, which would be anti-competitive, is also illegal.)
The VFX companies in the UK are doing well right now because of subsidies. What happens when a new government decides to end the subsidies? What happens when another country starts offering bigger subsidies? Just look to Vancouver, if you want to see what future London will be like.
A union is needed–because the studios and their management are ever changing. Even the founding leads of the quaint–if slightly behind the curve–vesthink this would be best.
It’s not a surprise that “producers” and/or other studio flacks are
spewing out the same old corporate anti-union fearmongering. Anyone in the business knows that studios and vfx houses are moving to subsidized locations and places with cheap labor as fast as they can,
union or no union. The only limit to how fast they can outsource the
jobs is their ability to set up shop in those locations and find enough
qualified people. In other words, unionizing is to going to speed up
the process that is already moving as fast as it can.
The only hope we have to change the industry is to unionize, thus
forcing the vfx shops to form a trade association. It’s no coincidence
that Scott Ross is finally getting some traction with the vfx houses now
that vfx artists are getting organized. If the unionization effort fails,
the trade association will wither on the vine, and things will just continue to get worse for the artists.
No, a union will not solve subsidies, and it won’t prevent the effort
to find cheaper labor. But, it’s the only way to change the business
model. And, it’s the only way to get some leverage. And that is
what the studios are afraid of.
There , you nailed it! I’ve been in this industry 15 years expecting an improvement. It hasn’t materialised, therefore.. NOTHING TO LOSE!!
VFX is an industry where the production model has yet to evolve (at large scale anyway) into one of serious technical specialization.
For example, a global car manufacturer doesn’t make windshields or tires – it buys them in from *specialists*, who are really good at making windshields and tires extremely efficiency, amortizing their R&D costs over many different cars. You could call this ‘outsourcing’ if you like, but its not outsourcing for cheap labor, it’s outsourcing for special expertise. It’s more efficient for everybody, and the specialists get to charge a fair price for the their expertise because their specialization has led to them having some uniqueness in their products.
In contrast, many of the big VFX houses are researching pretty much the same problems, and are all technically capable of bidding on a particular project, thus it becomes a price war. Even if one house takes a slight technical lead in some area, it’s unlikely to be a slam-dunk bid-winner, nor will it be long before the rivals catch up.
Smaller VFX houses, with much more specialization, will lead to a more efficient industry.
As a VFX artist, I want the right to be able to feed myself and my family and also have the right to a fair wage and to be treated with respect. It’s not so much about the recognition for a job, because as we all know, no matter what job we do it’s always a team effort.
Why should we risk our health so that Hollywood makes all the money and we struggle to make ends meat and our companies end up in bankruptcy?
Whether a union is the answer to protect us or not still remains to be seen, but something has to be done to give everyone that works so hard the rights and respect that the rest of the industry gets.
I must agree with Gareth Edwards ‘Smaller VFX houses, with much more specialization, will lead to a more efficient industry.’ Now this is where a union would benefit freelance VFX artists.
All I would say to all of you whining about having a union is a bad thing, well where would you like to be? Protected knowing you can support yourself/families, or would you like to carry on being at the bottom of the food chain of Hollywood? I know where I’d rather be.