Thursday, August 19, 2010

Working for Free. Again.

David Cohen -- behind a subscription wall at variety.com -- tells of another visual effects house that doesn't pay its employees.

The latest bad news from the vfx biz comes from Montreal's Fake Studio, part of the Camera e-Motion Group. A handful of artists who worked for Fake on the 3D vfx for Dimension's "Piranha 3D" have yet to receive payments due in April. Their plight has inspired a great deal of anger in vfx circles, where hearing "unpaid artists" and "Montreal" opens the old wound of Meteor Studios and the problems artists had getting paid for New Line's "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

One of the unpaid artists, Manny Wong, told Variety that with the Meteor incident in mind, he negotiated a payment-in-advance deal, but upon arrival in Montreal, he liked the atmosphere at Fake enough to forego advance payment. He says the producer was "very upfront" with him about the pic's financial difficulties through two crises that threatened to shut down the picture. Then Fake management said it hadn't been paid by the client and couldn't pay the 3D team anymore from its own pockets. Months later, payment is still due.

Last week Dave Rand, a veteran of Meteor who has become something of a watchdog for abuse of vfx artists, posted about the Fake and its unpaid artists on his Facebook page. Marc Cote, an owner of Fake, responded with a note admitting the company is in arrears and saying it is "making arrangements with all of the creditors … to reimburse them as quickly as operations permit." He continued: "Short of shutting down the company we cannot reimburse everybody's debt in one shot. … We are 100% committed to reimbursing this debt." ...

I've encountered tales like this for decades, and I always say the same thing: Professionals should deal with employers professionally. If there are no wages, there should be no work.

It's a simple concept, but often a hard one to execute in real life. Management exerts pressure to be "a team player," fellow workers fall in line, and pretty soon most or all of the non-paid staff find itself "pitching in" to save the project. The difficulty is, people need cash flows to survive, and if the non-payment routine goes on for long, individuals find themselves gnawing shoe leather.

Once again I will point to TAG member Glenn Vilppu. You might remember Mr. Vilppu from a previous post or three. He's the Warner Bros. layout artist who refused to work for free.

On top of being a talented studio artist, Glenn is also a gifted art teacher, and a few years back found himself getting stiffed by an art school for which he worked. The owner, a lad with a silver tongue, had talked most of the artistic staff into working for free, giving them one sob story after another about why he "just couldn't pay them that week."

Most everybody went along, but not Glenn. He told the owner of the school that he was sorry about the problems the guy was having, but if he, Glenn Vilppu wasn't paid by cashiers check the moment he walked into his classroom, he wasn't coming back to teach.

The owner moaned, begged, pleaded. Glenn didn't budge. And since Mr. Vilppu was the star teacher in the school's glossy brochure, he got a check placed in his hand each time he entered the premises.

The other teachers? They went on getting no money. Sometimes it pays to be a hard-nosed professional.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is interesting.

"One of the unpaid artists, Manny Wong, told Variety that with the Meteor incident in mind, he negotiated a payment-in-advance deal, but upon arrival in Montreal, he liked the atmosphere at Fake enough to forego advance payment. He says the producer was "very upfront" with him about the pic's financial difficulties through two crises that threatened to shut down the picture."

I like working at fun places, too, but if there's no money, I don't care if it's friggin Disneyland and I'm sitting in Minnie's lap, I'm walking.

Steven Kaplan said...

Kudos Anon 7:49am. If more artists worked like that, situations of this nature wouldn't be such common behavior.

However, the desire to be working and to believe that the employer has your best interest at heart can lead even the most self-interested artist to believe all is right with the world. I don't blame Manny Wong for being production-minded and wanting to get the work done. Its hard to blame the artist for being .. an artist. Whats a shame is when artists have to act like business people too.

Anonymous said...

Im treating it like all other trades would treat it. e.g you cant tell a "plumber", to unclogged the toilet in a mansion and hang out in the jacuzzi but not get paid. He'll tell you to go to hell. Everyone's gotta eat

Floyd Norman said...

Plus, I'm damn sure these executives don't tell their plumber to take a test before they start to unclog their toilet.

Learn to stand up, people.

Anonymous said...

whats amazing here is not so much that ppl are willing to work for free, but the fact they are willing to work for free on Piranha 3d and Journey to Center of the Earth!

Anonymous said...

I dont know Floyd. When I had work done at my house, I had three different electricians come over and give me a free estimate. If they couldnt clearly identify the (obvious, even to me) problem, I didnt hire them. The one who was the most courteous and professional and knowledgeable got the job.

Isnt that the same thing?

Anonymous said...

No...it's not.

Did you ask them to try to do a test, that took them 2 to 5 days, to see if they could do it?

Anonymous said...

TAG, please stay out of the Visual Effects profession. How dare you pass judgement when you can't support your own.

Steven Kaplan said...

Anon 2:56 -

Please explain "can't support your own". Are you referring to the article that was posted here? Are you aware of TAG's jurisdiction? Are you just an internet troll meaning to spit venom and misinformation?

Floyd Norman said...

That's all I'm saying.

These guys have their own bills to pay. They're not going to work even two hours for free in hopes they might get the job.

Anonymous said...

"TAG, please stay out of the Visual Effects profession. How dare you pass judgement when you can't support your own. "

And you can?

Steven Kaplan said...

Scott Squires makes some good points on this subject and offers a list of common sense business behaviors at his blog:

http://effectscorner.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

"TAG, please stay out of the Visual Effects profession. How dare you pass judgement when you can't support your own.

And you can?"

We have to because you can't, even after that outrageous initiation fee with no help to stay employed. Your fake job listings and your joke of member support when trying to get info, especially when calling. How many times have you changed or retracted info you sent out via the web to your members.

Steve Kaplan said...

Anon 9:40am -

We can't support our members, yet you're not giving examples. Typical troll venom.

Initiation fees were described in another comment thread. Initiation fees are equal to two weeks of the wage minimum for a specific job classification. Typically, this ends up being somewhere in-between $1700 and $3300 USD. We ask for $635 down and the remainder to be paid over 6-9 months. Outrageous?! Hardly ..

You say we offer no help to members to "stay employed" and in your next sentence, belittle our job posting emails. Nice contradiction! Any changes in communications to members of job postings were due to the companies who gave us the information.

Since you know the number to the office, why don't you call and talk to me about your telephone dealings with the Guild. I'd love to correct any wrong doings you experienced. Or, you can always shoot me an email at this address skaplan@animationguild.org

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