Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. It was once so rich that Concorde used to fly from Caracas to Paris. But in the last three years its economy has collapsed. Hunger has gripped the nation for years. Now, it’s killing people and animals that are dying of starvation. The Venezuelan government knows, but won’t admit it!!! Four in five Venezuelans live in poverty. People queue for hours to buy food. Much of the time they go without. People are also dying from a lack of medicines. Inflation is at 82,766% and there are warnings it could exceed one million per cent by the end of this year. Venezuelans are trying to get out. The UN says 2.3 million people have fled the country - 7% of the population.
Showing posts with label VFX. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VFX. Show all posts

Thursday, March 7, 2013

VES Calls for California to Expand Incentives...


Society also wants a vfx congress for artists worldwide

The Visual Effects Society, prodded to action by recent protests and anger among vfx pros worldwide, has issued a statement with two calls to action for the visual effects industry.

The first calls on the California legisltature and Gov. Jerry Brown to "immediately expand its tax incentive program for the entertainment industry and to include a focused approach concentrated on the visual effects and post-production sectors of the industry."

That aligns the VES with the California portion of the vfx industry, which has complained subisides in other states and countries put it at a fatal disadvantage. However taking such a stand risks alienating much of its membership, which works in those other states and countries. Many of the protesters at Sunday's pre-Oscars visual effects street demonstration complained about foreign subsidies.

"We know that there are some out there who are calling for the elimination of all subsidies and tax incentives everywhere around the world," said the VES statement. "We think that's a great idea and if there were a magic button that could be pressed to make that a reality, we would press it in a nanosecond. Why? Because California can compete with anyone, anywhere if there's a level playing field."

The second VES call to action is the announcement of a visual effects congress to allow "all artists from around the world" to share their concerns and find common ground.

Following Sunday's street prostest planning continues for more action to raise awareness of the problems facing the vfx industry and its artists. Protest organizers are calling for a "Pi day" walkout on March 14 (3.14), in which vfx artists worldwide would not report to work. Efforts by IATSE to organize vfx artists are also expected to pick up.

However the Sunday protest included several distinct factions. Pro-union, anti-subsidy, and general pro-fairness demonstrators walked side by side. VES chair Jeffrey Okun posted a statement following the protest saying that while change is needed and he supported the protesters, "We need a clearer sense of strategic thinking about what we should be asking for with the support of the entire VFX community. I felt that to organize a formal protest without well defined goals was not the best way to capitalize on the anger in our community (although I was heartened to hear that hundreds of artists from our community took part)."

Thank you Variety


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Is the VFX Biz in India Tricking Artists Into Working for Free?...


The VFX Soldier blog reposted a message from an Indian vfx artist that was originally posted on the VFXtalk.com blog. Here's the original post. (If you click through, note that the author is using "3D" to mean what is generally called "CG" in America, not stereoscopic 3D.)

This especially got our attention:

There is a disturbing trend in India for the past couple years in India (Especially since around November 2008, around when the recession hit) where VFX artists are forced to work for "experience" or "goodwill i.e we'll keep you in mind" in "apprentice" or "training" positions. These apprenticeships usually last for a period ranging between 3-9 months and are generally unpaid. Some companies at the end of the term of these apprenticeships cut loose the interns stating reasons of "insufficient quality" or the more popular "We just don't have any projects going on right now….We'll call you". OR They might consider extending your training to an extra three months or more, if you choose to remain unpaid for the duration. Whats more, is that you will have to repeat the whole process when you join another studio, because experience certificates and references are non-existent here (unless the studio exec is your close personal friend/relation). It appears that cheap labor isn't good enough, now the labor is required to be free. Thats not to say that people are not selected to full-time or continual work, its just that is very rare. The end result being that the companies, get an almost inexhaustible pool of FREE Labor, allowing them to turn essentially a profit without Cost of production overhead in terms of labor.

Consider this as the visual effects industry in California (and Canada, the U.K., France, Australia and New Zealand) fights for its life. What seems like sweatshop wages from a developed-world point of view can seem like a very good wage in the context of a developing-world economy and culture. But even those modest wages can be undercut by free labor of the kind described in the vfxtalk.com post. What subsidy or business model can compete with free?

Variety's Naman Ramachandran, who reports on India, wrote to us some time back with perspective on wages and vfx practices in India:

The legal requirement for a semi-skilled employee in the film production industry is Rs 224.69 ($4.05) per day and for a skilled worker it is Rs 243.92 ($4.40). Assuming a 26-day work month (India works on Saturdays, too) that would make a salary of Rs 5842 ($105) for a semi-skilled employee and Rs 6342 ($114). Companies like Prime Focus pay more than this.

The amazing thing is, thanks to living with your parents, etc., you can survive on this wage comfortably. The official international benchmark for people below the poverty line is those who have purchasing power of $1.25 or less per day. In India, the official government figure is Rs 28 per day. That's 50 cents at today's exchange rate. If you multiply that by 26 that makes it Rs 726 or $14 per month.
The same practices are in existence across all sectors, not just film. The rise can be gradual or dramatic. After, say, 10 years of experience, upwardly mobile people can expect to earn $150,000 per annum comfortably. And before the 10-year mark, a monthly salary of $1,500 – $1,800 is considered very good in India and you can live well because of lower costs compared to the West.
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Ramachandran also spoke to Rohan Desai, executive director, International Projects, at Prime Focus about reports of poor wages for Indian vfx artists, and of Prime Focus requiring employees put down a deposit, and told us this :

Salaries can be as low as Rs 6,000 at entry level and can go up to Rs 12,000, depending on experience. These are 18-19 year old kids fresh out of university or school and in some cases still in them. The industry has a high churn rate and the deposit is not only to keep them but also to encourage them to stay as they don't want to lose employees to competitors after having trained them. Desai also said that the employees get an excellent medical package and get subsidised food at work.

Once they gain some experience, they become in demand and routinely get poached by rivals (I spoke to some and they confirmed this and also their salary levels are similar), and companies like Prime Focus pay more and more. Desai says that the growth factor is very high and people rise through the ranks rapidly. Once they have a few years experience under their belts, they can pick and choose jobs. It's simple market economics.

Coming back to the seemingly low starting salaries, it's important to keep in mind the Indian cultural context. The vast majority of these kids live with their parents until their late 20s and in many cases even after, in joint families. Therefore, there are no rent or food expenses. A movie ticket costs between $4-5 and eating out is pretty cheap, unless you're splurging in Bombay's equivalent of the Chateau Marmont. Local public transport is also dirt cheap and heavily subsidised, with the local trains and buses costing just a few cents and for those wishing to take a tuk tuk, fares average $1.

If you have a first-hand account of visual effects or animation working conditions in the developing world, or about the companies who do business there, we'd love to hear it.

Thank you Variety


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Saturday, September 8, 2012

How to Shoot a Project in Canada...


THR's city-by-city guide to Hollywood's neighbor to the north, from Vancouver to Hamilton, Ontario.
Toronto 2012: Canada's Alliance Films Launches Online Portal for Festival Launch Titles
Toronto 2012: Where to Shop If You're in a Clothing Jam
Toronto 2012: The A-List With Films for Sale

Toronto 2012: FilmDistrict's Peter Schlessel on the Fest -- 'It's My Favorite Acquisitions Market'
As it doubles for New York, Moscow and elsewhere, Hollywood's neighbor to the north plays host to Twilight and scads of TV series.

VANCOUVER

Recent Shoots: The CW's Supernatural and its upcoming Arrow, the TNT sci-fi drama Falling Skies, Fox's Fringe and the ABC fantasy series Once Upon a Time.
PHOTOS: Toronto Film Fest's Top Ten Fashion Statements
British Columbia has, for well more than a generation, served as Hollywood's backlot for its varied locations, from arid deserts and cattle ranches to rural ghost towns and glittering skyscrapers. Multicultural Vancouver has doubled for Moscow, Los Angeles, Shanghai and London. While the city offers a range of diverse settings, popular shooting locations include Chinatown, the University of British Columbia and Stanley Park.

That, plus local tax incentives, saw The CW shoot five of its eight pilots for the 2012-13 season in Vancouver, including Arrow, Cult and First Cut.
Shooting in the city also offers proximity to the coastal beaches and rainforests of Vancouver Island. In recent years, the island has played host to shoots for The Big Year, with Owen Wilson and Jack Black, and The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

In addition to a developed film and TV production infrastructure, backed by about 30 soundstages, Vancouver has a growing digital animation and visual effects industry, complete with dedicated tax credits and a talent pool. That makes British Columbia a top production center for the major Hollywood studios, one that rivals Los Angeles and New York. Says Tim Iacofano, producer on the upcoming ABC drama Red Widow: "Vancouver is a short flight and in the same time zone as Los Angeles. If need be, you can have people on the first flight out of Los Angeles and have them working in the afternoon."

Toronto 2012: Canada's Alliance Films Launches Online Portal for Festival Launch Titles
MONTREAL

Recent Shoots: ABC Studios' Zero Hour pilot, Relativity Media's Mirror Mirror and the Bradley Cooper starrer The Words.
Source Code producer Hawk Koch recalls how shooting the psychological thriller in Montreal was made easier because much of the film takes place inside a relocated Chicago commuter train. That meant the Jake Gyllenhaal starrer could be produced on a soundstage at Mel's Cite du Cinema complex, with cost savings to boot. Before choosing the Canadian city, Koch and his team scouted Pennsylvania, New York and Atlanta. So why Montreal? In part because of Quebec's generous 25 percent all-spend tax credit. Says Koch, the new president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "We went there because the movie took place 90 percent in a train and we needed a stage and, from a monetary standpoint, it made the most sense."
Foreign location shooting helps fuel annual production volume of about $800 million in Montreal, most of it coming from French-language film and TV projects. So the local crews and acting talent are busy, experienced and speak fluent English. In addition to its greenscreen soundstages, Montreal has a historical old quarter, providing a wide range of settings for modern or period shoots on locations that can appear North American or European. The city also has more than 40 visual effects companies, making it the world's seventh-largest postproduction hub.
Toronto 2012: Where to Shop If You're in a Clothing Jam
TORONTO

Recent Shoots: Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, the RoboCop reboot, the Jake Gyllenhaal starrer An Enemy and the Stephen King novel adaptation Carrie.

Genre auteur Guillermo del Toro didn't just shoot his sci-fi epic Pacific Rim on a few of the stages at Pinewood Toronto Studios. The creature feature was shot on all seven stages of the megastudio, with one stage divided into two to create yet more space for del Toro to move his cameras. The shoot follows a busy year for Canada's largest production center as it continues to entice L.A. producers with a potential 54 percent of labor expenditure savings, thanks to traditional and digital tax credits and the federal government's 16 percent tax credit. Toronto also has a slew of studio facilities and a vast supply of technical and creative talent, and it routinely doubles for New York, Boston, Washington and Chicago while offering an array of services to help calm anxious filmmakers. Says Pacific Rim executive producer Callum Greene, "It's not just a tax break that steers a film of this size into port -- it's also the needed security of knowing we'll be taken care of at a higher level wherever we land."


HALIFAX

Recent Shoots: The William Shatner TV show Weird or What?, the Jason Buxton debut feature Blackbird and the third season of stand-up series The Candy Show.
Tom Selleck should qualify for a Canadian passport by now. The actor was recently in Nova Scotia to shoot Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt for CBS, ­the eighth in the series of TV movies shooting there since 2004 that has the Atlantic province double as Massachusetts. There's strong local government support for foreign location shooting, with Nova Scotia offering some of Canada's most generous tax incentives. The province also offers a regional and frequent filming bonus to entice returning shoots like Jesse Stone. Nova Scotia boasts varied locations, from urban streets in Halifax to historic villages and scenic coastal towns like Lunenburg.

Says producer Mark Montefiore, who shot Picnicface, a series for Canada's The Comedy Network, in Halifax, "It's one of the only places in Canada where you get invited over to dinner by the crew after you wrap."
Toronto 2012: The A-List With Films for Sale
HAMILTON
Recent Shoots: The Universal sci-fi series Rewind, Resident Evil: Retribution and Lifetime telefilm The Cold Spring.
When Anthony Zuiker, the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation creator, teamed with Yahoo to make the online thriller Cybergeddon, a 90-minute scripted drama, he didn't follow the herd and shoot in Toronto. Instead, he took his crew and talent an hour south to Hamilton, Ontario, to tap a 10 percent regional tax-credit bonus. Other advantages include skilled technical and creative talent, readily available soundstages and equipment, diverse locations and a local film commission to help at every turn.

Says Zuiker, "We're still stretching every dollar we can to make the best content possible, but that's all part of the fun."

BY THE NUMBERS
16% of tax credits that can be combined with the Quebec film and TV tax credit.
10% of the regional tax-credit bonus offered by Hamilton.
Toronto 2012: FilmDistrict's Peter Schlessel on the Fest -- 'It's My Favorite Acquisitions Market'
SHOOTING NORTH OF THE BORDER: 

Canada is so competitive that even the major urban centers vie with one another for location shoots. Here's what each specializes in.
Montreal: European Settings
Old Montreal has period buildings and cobblestone streets dating to the 17th century. The Words, starring Bradley Cooper and Olivia Wilde, saw the city pass for Paris and New York.
Halifax: New England
The city's marine setting on the Atlantic makes it ripe to double for New England, as on the Syfy drama Haven and in the Angela Bassett starrer Jumping the Broom, in which Halifax stood in for Martha's Vineyard.

Toronto: Visual Effects
As Canada's top visual effects hub, the city lures Hollywood to bring FX-heavy movies such as Still Seas and Total Recall to take advantage of tax credits that can chop off 60 percent of a project's budget.
Hamilton: Working-Class Grit
They don't call it "Steeltown" for nothing. The 2005 action film Four Brothers used the Stelco and Dofasco steel mills as a backdrop, and Ron Howard's Cinderella Man shot a dockside scene at Hamilton Harbour.

Vancouver: Big-Budget Shoots
With about 30 soundstages, the city routinely hosts tentpoles such as Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol, Man of Steel and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Thank you Hollywood Reporter


More info: www.hollywoodreporter.com
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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Visual Effects Artists Seeking to Unionize at Sony Imageworks...

IATSE Animation Guild reps will hold a lunch-hour meeting Friday in Culver City as the campaign to unionize VFX artists accelerates.

Call it a tale of three Sonys: the studio's live action crew members and its Sony Pictures Animation employees are unionized, but visual effects artists at sister facility Sony Pictures Imageworks are not – even though they work hand in glove on both live action product, such as next month's Men in Black III, and animated films like Smurfs 2, due out next year.

That's not sitting well with a group of SPI employees who feel that an entertainment job without overtime protections is a few pixels shy of a full deck and that the studio's health insurance and 401(k) are just sepia-toned substitutes for a full-color union pension and health plan.
Calling itself SpiUnion, the group described itself in an email to The Hollywood Reporter as "the first group of visual effects artists that is taking a stand and attempting to organize under a Collective Bargaining Agreement." That effort started at least a month ago, when they perplexed their estimated 400-500 coworkers by dropping union representation cards on workers' desks overnight throughout the company without explanation, walking the mostly empty halls in the wee hours as the cleaning crews filtered in.
Even late at night, a few of their colleagues were hard at work in their cubicles creating digital magic – so engrossed in their bitmaps that many didn't even look up when the union cards landed on their desks, according to an SpiUnion member who spoke with THR on condition of anonymity in order to avoid possible reprisals.
The member noted that these jobs for most "are more than work – they're a passion. There's nothing else we'd rather be doing."
But at the same time, the source added, "there's a lot of misery and apathy in the business," caused by the long hours, lack of sick days, frequently poor benefits and "the stress of not knowing if you'll have to move overseas for your next job."
SpiUnion started with about ten people, according to the source, and has since grown.
Friday, that campaign moves from blogging and nightwalking to something a bit less bleary-eyed as officials from the Animation Guild and its union parent, IATSE, hold a lunch-hour meeting Friday in Culver City to answer questions and attempt to persuade SPI employees and other VFX artists to sign the cards, which are a key step in unionizing the workforce.
According to the source, SpiUnion started organically from within and then contacted the union. The group called tomorrow's meeting "an important gauge to see where this movement is going."
A Sony spokesperson told THR "Sony Pictures respects employees' right to consider union representation and we have no further comment."
SPI employees, in contrast, had quite a bit of comment – both pro-union and against. In an interview on the Cartoon Brew website, the SpiUnion artists who were interviewed decried as "unbelievable" the amount of "`free,' `voluntary,' and off-the-books (overtime) worked (at SPI)."
That drew varying replies, including one that countered: "Imageworks pays you OT. It is one of the few companies that I know of that does so and according to state law. It is also one of the few companies that makes an effort to tell artists to not work for free. I hear this on a weekly basis, do not work OT unless approved, do not work beyond your approved hours."
In response, Animation Guild organizer Steve Kaplan posted an apparent acknowledgment that the situation may not be black and white: "Sure, Imageworks is treating you well. You get your decent wage and treatment," he said (a characterization that the SpiUnion source echoed).
"But," Kaplan added, "as history has shown, you can't count on that." A union contract, he argued, is an "enforceable vehicle that sets workplace standards and conditions."
History is complicated though: a failed 2003 attempt by the Animation Guild to organize SPI casts a shadow over the current effort. Kaplan acknowledged that in the prior effort, "the IA was (trying) to walk in and impose a contract on you," and said the approach would be different this time. "Organization has to stem from the artists within," he noted.
Kaplan, and IATSE representative Vanessa Holtgrewe, will be at the Friday meeting, which is open to all VFX workers, not just SPI employees.
The SpiUnion source who spoke to THR said that SPI, in the source's experience, complies with laws regarding overtime and holiday pay. But he/she said that this is not necessarily the case at other companies – and even at SPI, most employees don't have 401(k)'s and many don't have paid sick days, despite working 70 hour weeks.
The source expressed hope that union representation would bring pension and health benefits – and one day might possibly even enable negotiating a cap on working hours. Wages, in contrast, seem to be a much lesser concern at SPI, at least for experienced workers.
However – underscoring the difficulty of transnational labor organizing in a world where data and workers are mobile but laws are not – VFX wages are indeed a focus of campaign by IATSE Local 891 in Vancouver, while health insurance issues are less so, due to the existence of a national healthcare system in Canada.
The Local 891 effort would encompass, among other facilities, SPI's Vancouver operation, which SpiUnion says employs more than 100 VFX artists, a number the group says will soon rise to over 250. A small facility in Albuquerque is closing in July, while an SPI office in India focuses on more commodified work – match moving and rotoscoping – performed by lower paid workers.
The company's headquarters are in Culver City, as is the small unionized Sony Pictures Animation unit, which the Animation Guild says employs just 38 artists.
The VFX unionization effort is part of a somewhat broader phenomenon. Although it may seem like everyone in Hollywood has a union – and from dayplayers to directors, grips to gaffers, and screenwriters to sound designers, they do – there are nonetheless some occupations that don't.
In the case of VFX artists, organizing efforts over the years have been hindered by a laundry list of factors, including:
• the ease of subdividing and parceling out different VFX tasks to workgroups in different companies, cities, countries and continents, facilitated by high speed Internet connections;
• the diverse nature of the work, which crosses jurisdictional lines between groups such as the Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839), Art Directors Guild (Local 800) and Cinematographers Guild (Local 600);
• rival organizing attempts by both IATSE and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBEW);
• the fact that the profession developed long after the heyday of unionization;
• the white collar, deskbound nature of the work;
• the parallels between VFX work and jobs in the historically non-union Internet and software industries; and
• the fact that VFX workers are one of the few groups who work for separate companies rather than directly for the producer – which renders irrelevant the fact that most major film and scripted television producers are signatories to the IATSE collective bargaining agreement.
Ironically, even though SPI seems to be viewed as treating its workers better than some other VFX shops, it may turn out to be a more logical starting point for unionization than its competitors, because it's a part or affiliate of a unionized enterprise, Sony Pictures, and has a unionized sister entity, Sony Pictures Animation.
In another recent development in VFX labor, Digital Domain CEO John Textor drew fire last month for boasting that via a new operation in Florida that it called Digital Domain Institute, "30% of the workforce at our digital studio down in Florida is not only going to be free, with student labor, it's going to be labor that's actually paying us for the privilege of working on our films."
Actors, meanwhile, have their own VFX unionization issues, relating to whether performance capture work for movies like Avatar is categorized as principal or background work. Producers take the latter point of view, which would allow them to pay lower minimums and no residuals. The matter is expected to be an issue in negotiations for the 2014 SAG-AFTRA contracts, but those talks won't take place for 18 months or more.

Thank you Hollywood Reporter

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Saturday, October 29, 2011

VFX vet will discuss the impact of globalization and technology on the busines


VFX vet will discuss the impact of globalization and technology on the business, 2D-to-3D conversion and the role of technical standards.

Visual effects veteran Scott Ross will deliver the keynote address at the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers' Technical Conference & Exposition, Oct. 24-28 in Hollywood.

MPAA's Chris Dodd to Address Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Conference
He will discuss the current state of 2D-to-3D conversion, as well as address the combined impact of globalization and technology trends on visual effects and the role of standards in movie production.
STORY: Groundbreaking 3D Vision Eye Clinic Opens Thursday

Ross is a founder and former CEO of Digital Domain and served as the general manager of George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic and as senior vp of LucasArts. He currently works as a professional consultant and producer and serves on the boards of multiple technology and entertainment companies.
"Effects and world-class imagery will continue to be box-office drivers worldwide," Ross said. "So it's critical for the livelihood of everyone involved along the production chain to fully understand the impact of dynamic globalization and technology trends, particularly on effects. SMPTE understands that standards can help accelerate industry growth as well as ensure U.S. competitiveness amid these trends – and that the next generation of digital tools will require the fusion of motion science and the creative vision of great storytellers."

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Saturday, August 13, 2011

Lucasfilm's Industrial Light + Magic Exploring Opening New Facility in Vancouver

Favorable tax incentives are drawing leading animation and VFX companies to the Canadian city.
Lucasfilm's Industrial Light + Magic is exploring opening a project-based facility in Vancouver sometime next spring.

Lucasfilm, Sony Pictures Imageworks Launch VFX Development
Pixar's La Luna, Sony's Arthur Christmas Preview: Siggraph Animation Festival
ILM, based in San Francisco, declined to comment because details are not yet finalized, but word of the new ILM outpost was spreading this week at the CG confab Siggraph, taking place in Vancouver, where favorable tax incentives have turned the city into one of the hottest destinations for the visual effects and animation community.
Should ILM head to Vancouver, it will be the latest in a string of leading companies that in recent years have set up shop in the production hub -- including Digital Domain, Pixar Animation Studios, MPC and Sony Picture Imageworks.
In addition to its San Francisco headquarters, ILM also operates out of Lucasfilm Singapore, which opened in 2005 and is already running out of space.
Lucasfilm Singapore plans to move into a new building -- which is currently under construction -- by 2013.
ILM's recent work includes Rango, as well as VFX work on Super 8, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
Upcoming working includes the visual effects on Red Tails, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Battleship and The Avengers.
In related news this week at Siggraph, Lucasfilm and Imageworks released Alembic, an open source system aimed at helping VFX companies easily store and share complex animated scenes across facilities, regardless of what software is being used.

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