The major hurdle with the unionization of visual effects artists is that we would need to gain support within the walls of the studios. Unfortunately the studios have long since written off our welfare.

Several years ago an article in the Los Angeles Times an unnamed producer was quoted as saying “If I don’t put a visual effects house out of business, I haven’t done my job.” Visual effects folks all over the business found themselves searching for the name of this offender and a rope. The honesty of the statement combined with the fact that we could not register our offense at this statement face-to-face with our assailant only oiled the injustice. Of course he was only saying publicly what producers have been saying amongst themselves for years. The visual effect group finds itself weaker every day. The lack of a union combined with the low cost of entry into the visual effects arena has conspired to pith our business locally....

I recently witnessed a conversation where a young fine artist told a Flame artist to his face that he did not consider him an “artist.” Obviously things heated up.  As films employ hundreds of creative contributors, who among them do we really consider an “Artist?”

The first imperative for a producing company is that a film be profitable, preferably obscenely profitable, but for a viewer and lover of films the most important criteria of a movie is to transport us to other worlds and into the lives of other people in an entertaining fashion. An American film director once said: “a film is an immensely likable group of people doing an impossible task”. The producers of TRON: Legacy failed to embrace any element of this quote.

CafeFX going on hiatus is just another example of how the state of California sits by and watches a great and green business fade into the sunset.

The calls for the creation of a visual effects union are coming from all quarters, but how do we really go about this and for what purpose? The idea of a union brings to mind a period of time when the American economy was based on industry and the worker realized the importance of his place in the great machine. He then flexed his muscles to assure that he was given an equitable piece of the pie. How have we lost that power? How has that other part of the machinery, “business,” so gotten the upper hand that we are bidding on jobs that we know will cost us more to complete than we make? Add to that the human cost of stunningly difficult hours and circumstances that leave us reeling after delivery and wondering what hit us. Together they combine into a perfect storm of insult and injury. It’s more akin to an addiction than a career.

Many great adventures start with a journey of some sort. Not much happens when one stays in his rutted path and hopes the phone to ring. The visual effects business has been quiet for me these past two years and frankly I must consider that after thirty-two years in the saddle this horse is no longer prepared to carry me. This is something that many are currently facing worldwide. I’m not alone in this nor are you. One must also consider if the battle to remain within is ultimately worth the struggle required as wages spiral downward and competition becomes more extreme in its willingness to make any sacrifice to compete.

Film and television particularly are the paramount mediums of abandonment.  Despite our best efforts sometimes our work is connected to a film or show that sinks like a bag of kittens.  It’s all part of the whole picture. Blessed is he who goes unscathed. You have to just learn to let it go…

A discussion of some of the ways various visual effects artists fill their time and their wallets while waiting for the current shortage of entertainment jobs to be over.

True Grit fits into the Coen Brother’s expanding body of work. Their scripts are not scripts of painful labor, deadlines, script-writing programs or marketing demands but of self-amusement. At the end of their day, they can be satisfied not only with the product but the process undergone. Within this body there is a consistency of world-view. To sit and watch one of their films is to lean forward with a combination of bemusement and apprehension. True Grit does not disappoint. It’s a lot of fun.