VFXSoldier and VFX Law have an interesting “thought experiment” going on where they ask the (Somewhat scary) question, “What Purpose to VFX Facilities Serve?” It goes something like this:
What if one day we woke up and all vfx facilities went out of business?
Well before you freak out, consider that the studios would still have a need for a huge capacity of vfx work. There still exists a talent pool that can do the work.
Doomsayers say all vfx work would just go overseas but the fallacy in this is that vfx isn’t very scalable. For example, many facilities in the UK are booked up 2 years in advance by subisidy-hungry studios.
If vfx facilities didn’t exist tomorrow, the production would probably have to hire the talent directly.
The end result being that if the studios hired talent directly, then the VFX people would (theoretically) get the same privileges as all the other “behind-the-scenes” staff in the product, and get future dividends to pay for benefits ongoing.
Now, I’m not in the VFX industry so take this with a grain of salt, but this discussion comes up often in my line of work as well (A Visualization Lab offered to researchers around the world). This argument comes up occasionally, and we fight for exactly the opposite: Keep the Visualization Lab (or VFX Facility). Visualization, like VFX, is a “bursty” business. When there’s data (a movie), you do a lot of work, but that work is for a finite time and then there’s either nothing or another project. Can one Researcher (or studio) generate enough data (projects) to keep a fully-staffed Visualization (VFX) department busy full-time? In Visualization, the answer is typically No, which is why there is a centralized group that is “rented” out to groups on an as-needed basis.
What do you think?
@randall Right now vfx artists are essentially working freelance for low margin middle men. The reason for this is the comparison of vfx with many other “below the line” work such as cinematographers, art directors, and editors. The all work freelance directly for the studios and have a labor organization that provides them benefits outside of the studios they work for. Much of those benefits are paid already by studio residuals.
I would love to stay employed at one facility but they just can’t afford it because of the way they bid for work the same way a contractor does when doing work at your house. What if you could hire the workers directly to do a job instead of going through the contracting company? That would be something.
Visualization also has a LOT less competitive bidding than VFX. Margins are better. But you didn’t hear it from me. 🙂
@ VFX Soldier Your ‘guess’ is correct, I remain employed. The hope is that even tho there are ‘slow’ times, there are never ‘completely dead’ times, by working for multiple customers.
I’ve heard some of the stories of VFX artists ‘done wrong’ with the various VFX houses, and I really hope things improve in 2011. I think you’re onto something with giving VFX artists some portion of dividends.
Hi Randall,
Thanks for giving my post a read. I’m not familiar with the visualization business but my guess is the companies your wor for do business with the federal government and make good profits. I assume that during those slow times when there is no data to work on, you are still employed.
Unfortunately for the VFX business, facilities generate low profit margins and save money by letting many of us go when there isn’t a project to work on. So you might work a few months to a year at a place and move on. The problem for the artists is they need portable benefits. There are some really bad stories of artists losing their health insurance in between gigs and getting dinged pretty badly with illness.
I’m not saying that working for the studios directly will add stability. We would still work project to project, but we’ll at least be able to work with the client directly, eliminate facility overheard, and unionization would be more feasible.