Over at Sinisthesia, the author has a detailed story about his departure from Disney Animation Studios into the VFX workforce at large, and how he found it less attractive than he expected.
By that time I had a Master’s degree in Computer Art, and I felt like there was no reason someone with my rare technical prowess shouldn’t own their own company in no time. So here I was, a recent Disney graduate, ready to take on the World. But the World was not ready. The greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression was now irrevocably underway (this was just after the housing collapse of late 2008/early 2009), but that wasn’t the main problem. After all, during times of recession, entertainment industries flourish, with so many newly unemployed customers suddenly having more leisure time for movies and games.
via Sinisthesia: The Tragic Plight of Hollywood VFX Sweatshops.
Wow…Thanks! This is truly a great post. I work for a VFX studio in Montreal Canada and we are feeling the same pressure here as in the United States. We have had many studio closings in the last year. Some major studios have been forced to close their doors because of the lack of profit and the inability to keep a sustainable production pipeline. I also write about this subject and am also asking what could a possible answer be? I like how much thought and depth you have put in to writing this article and actually addressing the fact that this most likely stems from a political problem of another administration.
The fact is we now live in a global world. Everyone is interconnected and many studios send work projects to each other online. The costs are very low to do business with third world countries and as you mention the fact that the quality of work has gone up in these places, make it harder for a producer who is worried about the bottom line to stay in America and get a similar product for more money here. I don’t think at this point unions are an answer but I do like the idea of a tax incentive. It would take some kind of stand on the part of the artists or a spokesperson who could garner the attention that this subject deserves. It would definitely not be an easy task to have government stand in and do something about this problem, and an even harder task to sell the general public (who are seeing movies like Avatar making millions of dollars) understand, and get behind the sad plight of the VFX artist.
Most people don’t understand how the movie business works and then don’t want to. They are happy to get their end product and don’t spend much time on the workers who created the project. At Boogie Studio, we specialize in advertising, it’s a little less time consuming and demanding then big budget feature films but we have some of the best talent in Montreal and we pride ourselves on that. We hope that our work will stand for itself and that will keep bringing our clients back to use our high-end services. Feel free to check out my blog and thanks again for the eye opening article.
http://www.boogiestudio.com