Seems like only fourteen months ago, but you might remember this charming story:
According to David Rand, special effects artists who worked for Meteor Studios, a company established by Discovery Communications of Virginia (owners of the Discovery Channel) and Evergreen Films of Pacific Palisades. During October, November and December of 2007, artists worked without pay; some put in 100-hour weeks and stayed loyal to the project with the promise of pay as soon as the accounting glitch was fixed. Most of the artists who applied their talents to the creation of the film have families, and half are American freelance artists like Rand, whose hope for a bright Christmas was extinguished when all artists were laid off without pay in December upon delivery of the film ...
Now it appears that all the effects artists who worked on Journey to the Center of the Earth might actually get some money. Because a couple of days we got this from Mr. Rand:
... Discovery's latest offer of 70% of the pay (approximately $1 million ) owed over 100 employees from Discovery's Meteor Studios for their work on Journey to the Center of the Earth two years ago. Because of the coverage this received in the press, Canada had pushed it to a top priority with the Les Normes (Labor Dept) ...
Apparently c.g. artists in Canada (at least some of them) are looking for some union representation. Not hard to see why ...
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3 comments:
Oh god how we would love some protection, and some paid overtime, but I'm afraid that it might kill our industry. We get a lot of our work not because of our talent (although a huge portion of animators in L.A. come from Canada) but because we are viewed as a cheaper alternative to getting stuff done in L.A. If we were unionized I would bet that companies would steer clear of getting stuff done in Canada, and just send it overseas instead.
Canada must have a sensational pro-business environment when they give you tax credits for setting up there and then you don't even have to pay the workers.
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Create a quality work environment and you will attract and keep the best talent. The ever expanding need for content worldwide is still far outpacing the limited gene pool of truly talented artists. Have some faith. No real large scale project wants some flimsy 3rd world approach to its investment. Big budgets are NOT going to a place with labor problems.
All the top grossing films of the past 15 years have one common thread..stunning digital imagery. This kind of poor treatment will not go unnoticed and great artist will congregate with great companies. It's already happening.
History is repeating itself, the rest of the talent got tired of this type of treatment decades ago.
Dave Rand
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