Scott Ross for President

Everyone should listen to this interview...

Interview with Scott Ross

This is the most articulate, solution oriented conversation I have heard yet on this subject.  If the VFX shops are awarded the money, respect, education, and deserved appreciation Ross proposes a trade organization would provide... I am confident there would be trickle down to the employees.  Ten years ago, these needs (401k, benefits, fair hiring practices) were being met.  Some shops back in the day even had car washing, dry cleaning services, meals provided, studio sponsored parties, etc.  VFX shops managed to provide these things to artists even on a "next to nothing" profit margin.  Then, times changed.  The movie studios told shops you have half the budget , twice the work, and half the time... even though profits on VFX driven films are higher than ever.  Studios told the shops, if you don't like it, the shop down the street beet your bid by 150k!  So, the VFX shops began to hire cheap labor just to make ends meet.

The VFX companies are not the enemy in this situation and the situation is not personal.  What have we got to lose?  If the shops don't organize and fix the situation now, they are out of business anyways.  Then, no one has a job. If the VFX shops paid dues to a trade organization like artists do to the VES, we might get somewhere.  As long as the new trade organization does the job presented to them and isn't fluff and just talk, like some organizations we know.  I think this is what Scott means by he would be willing to help organize as long as people made a commitment to the mission.  If shops all agreed to pay dues to get the organization started, they might have a fighting chance in this as Ross put it "race to the bottom."

I also agree completely with Ross on a Union.  The biz model for VFX shops is not one that could work with a Union. at this time  The issues that artists have with the shops  (401k, benefits, fair hiring practices) are only symptoms of the bigger problem.  VFX was never working off of fat, it was lean muscle ten years ago... now we are cutting ligaments and bone as far as budgets and any profits.  There is no room for negotiating.  A union could help after we recover from the current circumstances... possibly, but I do not see how a Union would fix the profit margin issue between the Movie Studios and FX shops.  How would a union deal with Runaway Production.  I am curious how are they handling it now?  I am pretty sure 2D ran away to Korea... no?

The one thing that did bother me in their talk was when they said the whole issue since the town hall "died because people are working."  I know more people out of work than ever.  Artists have no power, no money, no leaders, no experience in this stuff and mouths to feed.  We feel helpless.  That is why it died.  If the VFX studios have no cash, you think out of work artists do?  So, artists go overseas to help the lack of local talent for 1/3rd of their salary on even smaller budgeted movies and leave their wife and kids behind to keep a roof over their heads.  It's the unskilled talent pool overseas that needs our artists to make the incentive program work.  Again, worst biz model ever.  And I digress..  Anyways, it's the first real discussion I have seen anywhere so far.

Media industry fears new rules will kill jobs

This is the first article I have seen regarding runaway production in Animation and VFX that makes any sense to me.  If you are trying to build an industry in a region and expect incentives from the government, it shouldn't be easy to import temporary workers to do the work.  You should have to hire the local talent.  Of course, the real talent doesn't live there, so you look for loopholes to import people from the states to do the work.  Looks like those days of easy imported talent might be numbered for Canada.

Media industry fears new rules will kill jobs

"Without the IT category, Pixar, Digital Domain, Ubisoft and the like will, starting in October, have to apply for temporary work visas the way every other company in any industry does. This means first seeking a so-called Labour Market Opinion (LMO) from Ottawa's Service Canada department. It requires demonstrating that a position meets wage guidelines, brings new skills and knowledge, and does not adversely affect the employment of a Canadian worker."

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Media+industry+fears+rules+will+kill+jobs/3236518/story.html#ixzz0t2xnX700

Effects Corner POV

I keep hearing "All of a sudden. the folks making VFX have grown up.  Now they are concerned about their families and want stability.  This is why the issues about pay and hours are now important to the workforce."  Poppycock. Yeah, I said poppy cock.  I worked with men who were in their 30's and up when I started in Animation and VFX in the early 90's.  They were happy.  They had resonable schedules, decent pay, comfortable hours (with the occasional push) and most owned houses even in LA's real estate market because of their stability.

Today, facilities are telling the supervisors they have one day to get a shot done that would have been bid at 5 day just a few years ago.  On top of that, budgets force the producers to assign cheap labor instead of seasoned professionals to these shots.

Scott Squires has been around the block.  His career dates back to creating the clouds for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  He has a blog that everyone should be reading.  I placed some favorite excepts below concerning the recent events regarding labor issues and the future of the VFX Industry, but I also encourage you to go through his blog archive posts.  His blog should be required reading for every artist and TD working in Animation and VFX.

Effects Corner Blog
You can also follow him on Twitter

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Excerpt from this posting: Response

"The VFX industry is like a tire that has gotten out of alignment and is getting more out of balance all the time. Toward the end of the optical era and the beginning of the digital age most projects ran reasonably smoothly, at least at ILM. There was still the sprint at the very end but it wasn’t super crazy. ILM was powerful enough to let the studios know how much time was involved.

With film you had to make sure you finished your shot in time to make the lab run. Once you made the lab run at 7pm or 8pm that was it. That was the end of the day for most vfx artists. Working after that cut off time was only worth it if there was a late lab run, which was only arranged in the final sprint. The next morning you’d see the dailies and would reshoot. Even if it was a small change you’d still have to wait until the next morning unless you sent the film as a daylight run (more expense). When digital came in, the render took the place of the lab run. Sometimes it took longer time to render than to process the film. You’d get your render prepped for 7pm or so and the CG supe would allocate procs in the render farm. And you still have dailies in the mornings. However now it was possible to actually see composites and other things during the day so turn around time for some tasks was much less. As computers became faster the internal deadlines became more flexible.

Certainly in the early days of digital the studios would at least discuss how much time would be required to do the vfx for a large film. The studios would use that information to determine the release date. As more projects were being done digitally the studios realized how much flexibility was available. Both studios and directors started pushing the limits not just creatively but technically and time wise. And we, the eager and hard working vfx artists, jumped to meet those goals. While we were wiping our brows afterwards, amazed at what we had accomplished, the studios and directors now used this as the new standard. Directors on their next show would say, 'You guys say you need clean plates and markers. But remember that last film where we had one shot that we didn’t do any of that and you still made it work? Well that’s what we’ll do for all these shots. That was much faster and easier to shoot'. The studios were now saying 'You did the last project in 6 months and we made changes two weeks before the release and you still did it. This time you’ll have 4 months and we’ll be making changes 1 week from release.' Some of them like to brag about this type of thing."

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Excerpt from this posting: VFX Service - The Big Picture

"When I think of a service I think of a dentist, a car shop where they work on your car or a plumber that comes to your house. In these cases they do work but don’t tend to produce anything. The costs are based on time and materials.
Custom manufacturing?
Should vfx be considered as custom manufacturing? We actually create something when we finish our work, whether it’s from scratch or a montage of material provided. That’s what the studios want, not the actual service part.

Here is where things get crazier. Each shot is unique like a snowflake. It’s own little world of issues, handwork and tweaks. You try like anything to make shots as consistent as possible and to be able to run them through the exact same process but it’s never full automated. For all the talk about computers in our business it’s still a very labor-intensive process. The number of people and the time required to do a shot from start to finish would astound most outsiders.
If you go to most manufactures and request custom work you will be required to make specific requirements in writing. (I.e. you want cabinet style 32 but in this specific color of blue. You want a custom cake that says Happy Birthday. It will be yellow cake with vanilla ice cream and chocolate frosting.) And that is what you will get. They seldom show you the work in progress or have your input at every single stage. The other thing is a custom manufacture will tell you when it will be done. They dictate the schedule. In the film business it’s the opposite of all of this. The studio specifies when the delivery will be. It’s almost always less than the time that would have been arrived at by a normal scheduling process for the facility."

More interesting highlight posts by Scott Squires:

Unions

Budgeting VFX

VFX Service - The Big Picture

VFX Town Hall Brought to you by ARTISTS

Give a listen to a town hall created by working ARTISTS

No need for art posters or self promotion here.

Just a clean and simple website with artists speaking 

on the topics and questions that artists have.

The informality of the first 20 minutes has a charm to it

until...

Listen for yourself

Art by John Van Vliet

At least 40 minutes into it, they bring an actual facilities owner  

to answer the questions and discuss solutions.  
(just scrub ahead if you can to the good stuff)

He is informative and very honest.

He explains the difference between a trade org and a guild.

One of the best points the facilities rep makes 

is that a guild would create more security 

for people who are freelancing and bouncing from job to job

through a "monster benefits package" of residuals, 

pension, welfare and health insurance.

Important thing to fight for, in such a transient industry.

The funny thing is:  He says that his clients say

"You get paid when I get paid."

Well, that chatter has found itself all the way down the tree.

I have heard that more times than I haven't as an artist, since 2007.

Art by John Van Vliet

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  Here is my Dream Panel (5 people):

VFX Biz Rep

Marty Schindler

Consultant on business in VFX with clients like 

20th Century Fox, Cinesite, ILM, etc.

(I have been on panels with Marty and he is great)

One Big 8 facilitites Rep Possibilities

Examples: 

Tim Sarnoff (Sony), 

Scott Ross (DD), 

Lynwen Brennan (ILM)

One Union Rep 

 Kevin Koch

Steve Huwlett

Tom Sito

James Parris

 

One Guild Rep

SAG President - Ken Howard

One Seasoned Artist

(who has experienced the issues going on right now)

Anyone working right now

I appreciate these guys dealing with the issues 

and not have a separate agenda.

They dealt with issues that artists are concerned with
and specifically spoke about solutions instead of blame.

Lots of talk of how and why to start a trade union.

However, It was frustrating listening to two guys ponder issues 

they, themselves have never experienced.

I cannot wait until an artist who has experienced the issues below...

participates in a panel.

• not being paid at all
• or being paid 3 months after finishing a gig
• being required to be 1099 or accept a 30-day net pay schedule
  
• working for no OT
  
• working a 50 hour week for a flat day rate
  
• the need to place a trashcan next to you on the desk when it rains
• cannot find work anymore because it has all gone overseas
• has been told "you get paid, when I am paid." (up to 60-90 days)

P.S.  I want to make one thing very clear...THIS IS NOT just an issue at big studios.  In fact, my experience the small studios are the biggest offenders.

P.S.S.  I agree Digital Artist Guild (D.A.G.) would be a better name, since it covers all artists who work digitally.

The 5 Miserable VFX Jobs That Make Movies Possible

 It's funny... because it's true.

Thanks, Paul.

 

Better Pipelines with Pros

Building Better Pipelines with Pros

This is a great article by Isa Alsup.  

Seasoned artists should definitely read this.  

Below, is just a taste from the blog post.

Age discrimination is packaged subtly in the U.S. market as well. When an ad suggests "3-5 years experience", you need to understand that 5 years is considered a maximum. Showing more experience will most likely result in your resume being tossed. Employers in this way are limiting the job pool to workers more or less fresh out of college and those with less than five years experience: effectively cutting out most workers over 30.

VFX Labor and the Animation Guild's POV

Steve Hulett and Tom Sito

Everyone working or wanting to work in VFX,
CG and animation should listen to this podcast.
Steve Hulett of The Animation Guild
discusses visual effects and labor issues.

FX Podcast with Steve Hulett

FX Podcast also just interviewed Lee Stranahan
who wrote the letter to James Cameron for the Huffington Post

FX Podcast with Lee Stranahan

Working in China?

Check out VFX Wages


january 11 2010 at 11:58 a.m.
category:

A guest post from one of our users, with editorial corrections and comments. Reprinted by permission.
--
Many complain that outsourcing companies in Asia cut jobs in the West and many fear that low wages in the East endanger jobs in the West. No doubt there is a trend towards outsourcing since economic downturns force many producers to look for cheaper options abroad. (correction ed.)

I just want to shed some light on the environment domestic artists are forced to work and live in and how they think about us.

Here are some facts:

• A junior to mid-level artist earns between 3000 to 4000 RMB (~440 to 730 USD) per month. Senior to supervising level reach 8000 to 10000 RMB (~1172 to 1465 USD). Roto/Paint Artists and Modeler sometimes even work for 1000 RMB (~146 USD) per job/model/per month
• There are no benefits (health, social, unemployment, retirement, pension) whatsoever. Bonuses are rare, many times promised but rarely paid.
• There are no regulations on working hours or overtime payment (Many work 7 days/week) meaning there are no unions nor any regulations nor guilds thus zero protection nor any law enforcement which protects them.
• They can fired without notice nor can get paid if the boss is not satisfied with their performance or work. There are official holidays but unpaid of course, the same is true if someone has to take sick leave.
• They are asked to do everything from matchmoving, rotoscoping/clean-ups, modeling, texturing, animating, compositing, etc.
• A job interview seldom includes a showreel or a professional presentation of any kind. Most guys who run these sweat shops are either rich kids but mostly real estate guys who think that CG/VFX/Animation is an easy business to make fast bucks. Telling the boss that they know AE, Fusion, Shake, PFTrack, Boujou, Matchmover, Nuke, Flame, Realflow, 3DPaint, Mudbox, ZBrush, Dee Paint, Photoshop, Maya, 3Dmax, XSI, Houdini etc. usually gets them a job.
• This means that all these kids have these application on their laptops, for free of course meaning you can download them from many Chinese servers including all plug-ins you possibly can imagine. Sure the government tries to implement copyright protection in China, but when I can buy cracked DVDs I wonder why there are so many police officers and government officials that can buy DVDs and copies of the latest Windows application as well. (edited ed.)
• PC's are dirt cheap and for every IT nerd the paradise in China is Zhongguancun (Chinese Silicon Valley), which is probably the biggest PC and consumer market of electronic products in the world with billions of revenue every year. Taiwan is in close proximity therefore electronic appliances vast and very cheap.
• To open a company costs basically nothing, 5000 RMB (~732 USD), for a license including a tax registration. BUT there is a huge subculture of homegrown businesses basically operating from rented apartments in a residential area. Many of them work on very successful ad campaigns with cracked Flames/Smokes and a fully blown post facility, with a stacked up server in the air-conditioned toilet.
• Talent pool is huge however there is no quality awareness nor any existing standards. The ones who can speak English try to go abroad without knowing how a company is managed nor how a real pipeline works. (edited ed.) Traditional art skills (concept art, oil/ink painting, mattepainting) is really good and has a long history in China. On the animation and compositing side of things, the lack of experience and the shabby education are the biggest obstacles to becoming a professional in a western sense.
• The companies who are doing outsourcing jobs are mostly run by Chinese who had the money to study or work abroad and have gotten used to the western style. So when coming back, there is so much money and additional resources, many of us can only dream about. Just to give an example, CCTV's (China Central Television) revenue is nation-wide and one can easily assume that money is not a problem for the people who have the right connections (meaning having the right 'guanxi'). So to start an animation business..The revenue available is, 270,000,000,000 (270 billion) RMB (~39,543,057,598 USD). In general can we say that the richest government in the world is owned by the communist part with access to several trillion USD in foreign currency reserves. (edited ed.)

Now to my reality:

Currently i work as a VFX Supervisor on 50 episodes of a TV adaptation of one of the 4 most famous novels in Chinese history. Maybe you have heard about (Monkey King, Chinese: Xi You Ji). The budget is 100m RMB (~14.6m USD) with an overall VFX budget of 15m RMB (~2.2m USD). YES!! I am not joking, the average vfx cost per episode is 300,000 RMB (~44,000 USD) including everything VFX can do from complex wire and rig removal to clean-up work to CG creatures, mattepainting and compositing. Average shot count is 200 per episode. The timeframe until completion of all 50 episodes is 8 months! This is with roughly 300 artists. The plans for the future from some really crazy real-estate guys is to build animation/vfx factories (factories, not studios or companies, comment ed.) with 7000 employees.

I work now non-stop for 4 to 5 months without a single day of rest and 15 hours on-set, of course it is winter and no heating system nor air-suction system exists. We shot for one month above 3000m (close to Tibet) in snow, drizzle, rain, ice with two HDCams and a crew of 15 production guys and 30 stunt/wire members. Lunch is outside, wake up call was 5:30. Stunt and wire crew (all Kungfu kids from famous Hunan martial art schools close to the Shaolin temple, some even grew up there as Kungfu monks because their parents couldn't afford their education or simple had not enough money to raise them) are without doubt the best of the best and the toughest guys I have ever met but at the same time warm hearted and extremely polite. No matter how long you drag them, they work their ass off to please their master ('sufu') or climb up (of course unsecured) on the roof supporting beams of the studio ceiling to fix their wires. One of our directors is a ex-stunt guy and he commnds them with a voice like a drill sergeant of a marine corp. No arguing or complaining, they obey like they have learned to as a Kungfu student.

The studio I am working barely fullfills any safety standard. Like I mentioned no air suction system, especially critial when they paint spray a newly built set besides our huge bluescreen cyc (cyc:large fabric wall, pronounced sike ed.) or when they burn diesel instead of vegetable oil for their set torches. Besides that the whole floor is covered by fine powdered sand to act a set flooring. It has already killed my on-set keying previz machine once and my assistance spit blood after 3 months of being constantly on-set. BUT the efficency is high, no bullshit, no coffee break, no safety harnesses, no union regulations, sets are built around the clock, laborers are plenty and cost basically nothing, a carpenter earns 40 RMB (~5.85 USD) per hour, some work for half or a third or that. Quality of construction is good, even though breathing in such a set is not recommended at all as the paint highly poisonous. I wear during my supervisor time a half gas mask from 3M which makes the communication with the director a little bit difficult but also lets me feel a little bit like Darth Vader :-)

So in conclusion, my explanation of why producers are pulling out their secret outsourcing weapon and are looking into Asia (China); it is cheap and fast and many things can be accomplished or even tried out which would be impossible in the West for obvious reasons like insane TNT explosions, quantity over quality, and cheap labor.

Click here for original post and comments...

XRay Blogs Across South East Asia

My buddy Xray has been blogging
about his travels through South East Asia.
If you wanted a true hands on look at the
experience and what is going on overseas...here it is!

Check out
XRay Blogs Across Asia

HOLY COW!
Big news for Australia. Big tax credits (40% rebate on production costs).

Filmmakers win almost all that they asked for...

John Garnaut

May 9, 2007

THE Arts Minister, George Brandis, gave the film industry almost everything it wanted last night, with a $280 million funding injection over four years.

As foreshadowed last month in the Herald, local filmmakers will receive a 40 per cent tax rebate on production costs.

The scheme is expected to be more effective - and far more costly - than the infamous 10BA tax deductions and subsidies it will replace from July 1.

The Australian Film Commission will be merged with the Film Finance Corporation and Film Finance Australia to form a new super agency, the Australian Screen Authority.

The changes are considered the most important for the industry in more than a decade.

Some in government believe they will mark a ceasefire in the cultural wars played out between the arts community and the Howard Government.

The tax rebates should ensure taxpayer money goes straight to film productions, rather than the financiers and promoters of tax avoidance schemes.

Productions of television series and documentaries will also be eligible for a 20 per cent tax rebate.

Foreign film producers will have their "location rebates" raised from 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent, following one of the leanest foreign production years in modern history.

Eligibility for the foreign scheme will be relaxed to include post-production and digital production.

Full Article... Hmm, I wonder if the following article had anything to do with it? or vice versa.

WB AND ANIMAL LOGIC EXTEND PARTNERSHIP FOR ANIMATION


Warner Bros. Pictures and Animal Logic have taken the logical step after the financial and Oscar-winning success of HAPPY FEET to extend their partnership. The two companies will jointly develop and co-produce a slate of animated features, with three projects, to be announced in the coming months, already earmarked for development. Warner Bros. Pictures will have worldwide distribution rights for all films produced through the deal. It's uncertain whether a HAPPY FEET sequel would be part of this package, since director George Miller is first eying a few other projects.

The deal marks a significant expansion into animation for the Sydney, Australia-based vfx house after its initial outing with HAPPY FEET. "HAPPY FEET was such an incredible achievement that expanding our development and production partnership with Animal Logic felt like a natural next step," said Jeff Robinov, president, production, Warner Bros. Pictures. "We're thrilled to be in business with such a respected and innovative animation and digital production studio and look forward to many more successful joint projects."

Throughout production on HAPPY FEET, which was the first 3D-animated feature ever produced in Australia, Animal Logic grew from a primarily visual effects company to a fully operational animation studio, at the same time growing its core crew of approximately 150 to more than 500 at the peak of production. Not surprisingly, this talent and production pipeline created for HAPPY FEET (which was XSI-based) will be used for future projects with Warner Bros. Pictures.

Meanwhile, Animal Logic has named Jackie O'Sullivan as head of development/exec producer to oversee development of all Animal Logic projects into production. O'Sullivan has worked in the film and television industry in England and Australia as a film exec/producer in development and production for the last 15 years, including head of business affairs for the UK Film Council and gm/exec producer for Columbia Tristar Prods., starting off as a film lawyer in London in 1992. Her film credits include THE PROPOSITION and THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING. Her television credits include NEVER TELL ME NEVER, WITCH HUNT and SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR'S BABIES.

"While we have long relied on Animal Logic for their fantastic visual effects work on many of our films, we were their partners as they took their company to a new level with HAPPY FEET," said Chris deFaria, evp, digital production, Warner Bros. Pictures. "Animal Logic is a creative and innovative animation house, and we couldn't be happier to continue collaborating with them on these projects."

"We're thrilled to continue and expand our relationship with Warner Bros. Pictures," added Animal Logic ceo Zareh Nalbandian. "The wide slate of project opportunities assures Animal Logic's ability to continue to produce engaging and innovative digital features. It supports our technical and creative point of difference."

Previous Warner Bros. Pictures films on which Animal Logic provided visual
effects include 300, HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, THE MATRIX and THE MATRIX RELOADED.

With offices in Australia and Los Angeles, Animal Logic is represented in
the U.S. by CAA.

Sony Pictures may relocate 100 visual effects workers to New Mexico

California may lose yet more film-industry positions if financial incentives are extended.
By Richard Verrier, Times Staff Writer
March 9, 2007

Sony Pictures Imageworks, one of Hollywood's leading visual effects companies, plans to move more than 100 jobs from Culver City to New Mexico if state lawmakers give their expected blessing next week to film industry financial sweeteners.

Although Imageworks would remain in Culver City, along with a majority of its employees, the decision to shift a major chunk of its operation elsewhere marks a symbolic blow to Southern California as it struggles to keep its signature business from being poached by other states and countries.

Most of the battles to date have involved trying to keep specific films or TV shows from shooting elsewhere. In this case, the move involves the kind of nuts-and-bolts operation that makes up the film and TV industry's backbone.

"It's an indication that the bricks-and-mortar infrastructure that we have long enjoyed is not completely rooted here," said Kathleen Milnes, president of the Entertainment Economy Institute, a nonprofit research group based in Pacific Palisades. "That should serve as a wake-up call."

Imageworks executives and city and state film officials in New Mexico declined to comment.

The proposed facility would eventually employ about 300 visual effects technicians and computer animators — about a third of Imageworks' current workforce — within the Albuquerque Studios, a newly opened film and TV production studio near the city's airport, according to three people familiar with the plans.

The project, however, hinges on approval of a state bill that would make permanent an existing program providing a combined 25% rebate on taxable production expenses. Sony had been seeking reassurances from state officials that the company would fully qualify for the rebate.

Los Angeles has lost thousands of jobs because of runaway production in the last decade, as producers flocked to lower-cost areas offering incentives. Increasingly, other states are trying to establish permanent film economies by building soundstages and luring post-production firms such as Imageworks.

Full Article

New Mexico Film Industry

NO BIT PLAYER: A film crew works on a production in a suburb
of Albuquerque. The state has “the best film incentive
program in the country,” a Hollywood director said.

Video Fly Over of Studios

ALBUQUERQUE — The sign inside the airport terminal here proclaims a dusty mesa a few miles away to be "Hollywood's Newest Home," a reference to a plot of land where four vanilla-colored soundstages recently sprouted.

There, in the shadow of the snow-capped Sandia Mountains, the aircraft-hangar-like buildings at Albuquerque Studios house part of a budding film industry that one local newspaper dubbed Tamalewood. This year, four more soundstages will be added to anchor a bustling movie production center equal in size to 10 large supermarkets.

"This facility is second to none in the U.S.," said Chief Operating Officer Nick Smerigan, speaking over drilling done by a worker installing a vent. "Eventually, we'll be a first call for people who are leaving L.A."

DESERT CINEMA: The Sandia Mountains provide a distant backdrop for
the Albuquerque Studios in Albuquerque, New Mexico on
Thursday, March 1, 2007. The modern facility,
still under construction, caters to the needs of filmmakers.

Thanks to generous financial sweeteners, a fairly mild climate and an aggressive state film office, New Mexico can back up that kind of swagger.

Unlike scores of states seeking film shoots that pack up and leave when they are finished, New Mexico is zeroing in on the nuts and bolts of Hollywood. By luring the support companies that form the bedrock of the Los Angeles entertainment economy, New Mexico aims to lay the foundation for a top-tier movie and TV production business. Sony Pictures Imageworks plans to move a major chunk of its visual effects business — and more than 100 jobs — from Culver City to Albuquerque Studios.

Full Article...

Globalisation of Animation and 301

There is a very real threat to animation today.

Globalisation.

I know, I know, to animators - this isn't a real "sexy" read...BUT! This is a not a joke and could affect your ability to get a job in the future. I encourage you to read on. I tried to make the political aspects as interesting as possible.

Jamie and I experienced the truth of free-trade approaching animation when we went to Siggraph in Boston last summer, to promote our book. Turkey, India, Singapore, China, Norway, Australia and many more countries were represented at the show, stating they can make visual effects at the same quality as American artists - for less.

Many people don't want to talk about this change in our industry. They want to ignore it, make excuses, hope that the pendulum will swing back eventually, or just stick their head in the sand and pretend it's not a reality.

But think about this, There are 3 predominant industries in California:

Agriculture
Aerospace
Entertainment

Aerospace is half the industry it was in the state of California (in the 80's and 90's) due to same type of unfair trade practices and subsidies provided in Canada, Britain, Japan, Brazil, and others. If we look at the losses in the Californian Aerospace industry over the past ten years as an example of what could happen to the Entertainment industry??? We will half our industry by 2014. Runaway productions will not go away, but there is a way to level the playing field called petition 301a.

Without petition 301a, we will continue to watch our jobs go overseas. Petition 301a is not about eliminating all globalisation. It's just about making the playing field a little more fair by taxing corporations and studios for going overseas and hiring artists outside of the US. Petition 301a stops governments from giving money to countries to produce films and visual effects overseas and NOT hire Americans. It's against the law and the NAFTA agreement for countries to be doing this.

Here is a link to a video interview explaining more about Petition 301a:
8 most asked questions about the section 301 (a) petition

To really understand how this all impacts us as artists in the visual effects industry...we need to establish a little bit of history.

It was back in 1993 that the federal government signed off on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In layman's terms, this agreement encouraged American manufacturer's to seek out corporations overseas who could make products for half what American laborers would cost. In the 90's my father worked in the Apparel Industry. He loved this new law and forged ahead with his third company that sourced companies in the Caribbean Basin and Mexico that could make jeans and shirts for half the price of American owned companies. My father had to pay a tax on the products once they left these countries for their improved value to make it more fair that he was taking jobs from Americans to these other countries. I was a teenager at the time and didn't really understand that this trade agreement could be abused in the future and actually have a huge impact on my ability to stay employed. I mean this new law would never affect me? It's still fair with the taxes applied to taking the work overseas right?

Wrong.

Because these studios are not being held accountable and are breaking the law. Again, this petition is not about eliminating free trade - it's just about making it more fair.

Click here to see how many millions of dollars Americans
are loosing due to Runaway Production.
Remember, this is not just artists in visual effects, this is everyone from the boom operator to the local dry cleaner and caterer that provides kraft service!

Government subsidies have changed the face of animation, visual effects, and even live action productions for film and television. Billions of U.S. dollars are being spent each year on Motion Picture and Television production in the 19 foreign countries that offer WTO inconsistent subsidy programs. These 19-different nations are offering subsidies around the world, everything from tax rebates, waiving sales tax and permitting fees, and in one Canadian province you can even recover up to 55% of your labor costs if you are a film production company.

This is Outsourcing on a massive level and has become known to the film industry as “Runaway Production.” Outsourcing or Runaway Production means that work previously done in this country is now being done by other countries who offer generous bribes to the 6 major American studios. The impact of this on the U.S. economy is far-reaching.

Billions of dollars...drained out of the U.S. economy.

The section 301a petition seeks to neutralize the effect of these unfair trade practices and would encourage film and television Studios and producers to return jobs and money back to the U.S. economy. In addition, the 301a petition relies on the trade remedy known as the Section 301. This is the same trade remedy that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has endorsed and is currently using to fight the battle over piracy. Implementing this trade remedy will terminate the 19 subsidy programs, and finally put an end to a trend that threatens the job security of film workers and small businesses throughout the world.

So, how long before any of this come to pass? The attorneys fighting this fight say up to a year. Why is this? First, we have to convince the government there actually is an infraction against NAFTA. AND GUESS WHAT? NAFTA’s final version ran to approximately 1,700 pages. When the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created, its founding document ran to 23,000 pages! Both have since grown by thousands of pages. What is in all this fine print? Regulations. Thousands of them. NAFTA created dozens of new regulatory bodies—international bureaucracies, in other words, leading to the creation of the WTO. I don’t see how one can peruse the official documents of NAFTA and the WTO without realizing that the former was not really a free trade agreement and the latter is not really about free trade. Both are about trade micromanaged and controlled by contingents of bureaucrats, politicians, and politically well-connected corporations and business groups. In other words, what NAFTA created was the opposite of free trade. It, along with myriad other workaday activities of our government, set up a state of affairs that made it harder for those without the right political connections to do business profitably in America, while making it easier to outsource jobs to save labor costs.

FTAC is supported and endorsed by these unions:

IATSE Locals 695 Production Sound Technicians, Television Engineers and Video Assist Technicians - Hollywood, California (1,500 members) www.695.com/

871 Script Supervisors/Continuity & Allied Production Specialists Guild - Hollywood, California (1,500 members) www.ialocal871.org/

44 Affiliated Property Craftspersons - Hollywood, California (5,800 members) www.local44.org/

728 Studio Electrical Lighting Technicians - Hollywood, California (3,000 members) www.iatse728.org/

720 IATSE Studio Mechanics Local, Las Vegas, Nevada (3,500 members) www.iatselocal720.com

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG)

Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), Studio Utility Employees Local 724 (1,400 members) Laborers International Union www.liuna.org

International Brotherhood of Teamsters International
and Local’s 399 International Brotherhood of Teamsters (4,111 members) www.hollywoodteamsters.org

355, 391 International Brotherhood of Teamsters (125 members) www.teamsterslocal391.org

509 International Brotherhood of Teamsters (1,662 members)

592 International Brotherhood of Teamsters (1,400 members) www.teamster.org/

IBEW Local 40 IBEW International Botherhood of Electrical Workers
www.ibewlocal40.com/

Local 755 Plasterers, Modelers, Sculptors (300 members) www.local755.com

UA Plumbers Local 78, AFL-CIO www.uaplumber78.com/

West Hollywood City Council, West Hollywood California

Glendale City Council, Glendale California

Burbank City Council, Burbank California

Santa Monica City Council Santa Monica California

Pittsburgh City Council, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

Jersey City, City Council, Jersey City, New Jersey

Clifton City Council, Clifton, New Jersey

Maryland Production Alliance ww.mdproductionalliance.org

Film NY US - A group of below the line film workers based in New York City, New York

Florida Motion Picture and Television Association www.fmpta.org/

Screen Actors Guild (over 100,000 members) www.sag.org

Local 391, Hollywood Center Studios www.hollywoodcenter.com

Raleigh Studios

Michaelsons Catering

Fantasy II Film Effects

International Studio Services

History For Hire

Jackson Shrub Supply.

So what can you do?

I would encourage you to join the FTAC. Send email to the VES if you are a member asking them to be more proactive on this issue and finally talking to your local Animation Guild about supporting this issue.

For more about how to support FTAC click here.

Welcome to Bollywood!

India's growing role behind Hollywood scenes

By Anand Giridharadas
International Herald Tribune
MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2006

MUMBAI, India

After thanking the Academy and their mothers, Oscar winners of the future may well thank India, too.
Legions of Indians already do the West's busy work, whether filling out tax forms or transcribing doctors' dictations. But now India is quietly entering a preserve of high- end creativity previously out of its reach: Hollywood. While Los Angeles sleeps, Indian visual effects artists are making Superman fly, converting horses into centaurs for "Narnia" and planting an animated Garfield the cat in the hands of live actors.

The trend is confined to a handful of Indian studios, but it traversed a milestone this year when "The Chronicles of Narnia" became the first Hollywood movie with a substantial Indian contribution to be nominated for an Academy Award for visual effects. Fifty Indians worked on the movie in Mumbai, and their hearts sank last week when it lost the Oscar to "King Kong."

This is not to suggest that Indians will soon be writing most Hollywood plots or that auditions will have to be conducted from Mumbai. But the overseas assignment of visual effects work illustrates the way Indian workers are chipping away at an imagined barrier between drudge work and the creative process.

"I don't think creativity is going to be limited to the West," said Prashant Babu Buyyala, managing director of Rhythm & Hues India, the Mumbai arm of the Hollywood visual effects studio that was the lead effects maker on "Narnia."

"The idea of saying they'll never take out our innovation, they'll just do things cheaper - that's just a protective statement," Richard Hollander, the president of Rhythm's film division, said by telephone from Los Angeles.

Rhythm's India office might at first seem like yet another Indian back office undercutting the West. The entry- level salary for an artist in the India office is $2,700 a year, or $1.35 an hour, a pittance next to the $40,000 a year, or $20 an hour, commanded by new recruits in the company's Los Angeles headquarters.

And the labor-intensive work may foster an impression of the kind of repetitive drudgery that Westerners are happy to send to foreign lands. Hunched over his computer one day last week, an artist at the studio was toiling frame by frame to adjust the lighting in a scene from the coming film "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties." The four-second shot will occupy three artists for two weeks. Doing such detailed work on a whole movie would take one artist 148 years.

But Rhythm India is no sweatshop. It is treated by its Los Angeles headquarters as a second office, not a back office, largely because visual effects are unlike most of the work shipped to India from the West. Unlike accounting or call-center work, visual effects blend technical and creative elements inextricably; every worker has to be logical and imaginative at once to make, for example, an animated lion's muscles look real.

"Visual effects is part of the creativity," said Edward Jay Epstein, author of "The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood," a recent industry exposé. "There is not one movie made in Hollywood - there are at least two. The first is the actor's unit. That provides one layer. The second is the visual and sound effects, done in post-production, often with material created in computers or shot in separate stunt units."

In movies like "The Lord of The Rings," "Harry Potter" and "Pirates of the Caribbean," he added, "the second layer is even more important than the first."

The result is that workers here are coddled as artists. They work in a stylish East Asian-style maze of huts with bamboo roofs. Despite India's six-day workweeks, here they work five, and they get three meals a day, free insurance and on-site yoga. Rhythm also reimburses employees for after-work courses ranging from cooking to dancing to painting.
"It's all about throwing money on employees," said Saraswathi Balgam, director of operations at Rhythm, who gets irked when the word "outsourcing" is used. "This facility," she insisted, "is not set up to cut costs."

Rhythm's India facility does cut costs. But the company is adamant in avoiding what Buyyala called the "widget mentality" of the Indian animation industry, which in 2005 recorded $285 million in revenue. Much of that total reflects the "factory mind- set," Buyyala said, not "the creative mind-set, where you do something that's never been done before."
Hollander said, "We don't understand why, with appropriate training, we can't do the same thing in India" as in Los Angeles. "We are pushing it as fast as it can go," he said.

Five years ago, when the India office was opened, it did do the grunt work of visual effects. One common assignment was to airbrush wires from characters, like Superman, who dangled from the ceiling but were supposed to be shown flying.

The work matured film by film, and before long Indians were engaged in the art of "compositing," in which layers of images are merged - as in "Garfield," in which an animated cat is superimposed onto a real-life shot.

The Indians' greatest challenge so far was "Narnia," a movie that, at its peak, involved the coordination of 450,000 mostly animated characters. The movie was co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media.

To make centaurs for "Narnia," Indian animators had to take shots of men riding horses, then digitally slide the riders forward, erase their legs and the horse's head and merge the rider's torso with the horse's neck. This was to be done, not once, but on each individual frame, with 24 frames every second. A two-hour movie has 7,200 frames.

Today, "Garfield" is the challenge, and the office here is already doing work that was not entrusted to it on "Narnia." In one cubicle, an artist was running a simulation of the cat galloping to test whether its knee looked realistic when bent.

It will take three years before Rhythm's India facility can do a film like "Garfield" on its own, Balgam said. It will take longer to make a "Narnia," much of whose animation concepts originated in Los Angeles and were sent to India for fleshing out.

Companies like Rhythm show how the impact on the West of sending work offshore is inevitably mixed, less black-and-white than politicians often say it is. Plainly, $40,000 jobs are being done here for $2,700, and over time Rhythm & Hues will send more of its routine work to India. Without India, some work would have been performed by new hires in the United States.

But Rhythm's experience illustrates that moving work overseas can help companies even as it slows their domestic recruitment. Before its India office came up to speed, the company bid for a Harry Potter movie but lost to a lower-cost British business. But when "Narnia" came along, with its 50 Indian workers reducing costs, Rhythm clinched the $40 million deal.

And the facility, Balgam said, capitalizes not only on India's lower wages but also on what might be called enthusiasm arbitrage.
"If you speak to this kid," she said, motioning to one of her artists, "he's working on a Hollywood film, and he's 24. What we have is that we're passionate, and we haven't seen much, and so we're still excited about everything."