Coming Up
The summertime is slowly approaching, and with it, the summer blockbusters, and the summer lull. Most of the work that the industry does is from the late fall through the early spring.. It allows us to finish a blockbuster film just in time for summer. This year, there are a couple that I've had my hand in, from Star Trek, to GI JOE to Transformers 2. While we are finishing a show right now, the future looks not as bright for some folks, as they start looking for work on the next big project.
Several of my coworkers are searching, and as we chat, the topic of demo reels comes up. "When was your last reel?" "Who hired you?" "Where are you going?" "What contacts do you have at so and so company?". The networking among freelancers is quite prevalent, and is even more so this time around, given the number of studios which have dumped artists into the market, and the ongoing recession. That means there is just as many, if not more, artists looking for work THIS summer. Some may just take a couple months off to reflect and wait for the fall. So FYI for all you guys and girls out there.. If you're freelancing and looking for another gig, it might be time to start learning another piece of the puzzle. If you're a lighter, start to comp. If you comp, start to light. If you can do a number of different tasks well, then you're one step ahead of the game, and your worth to a company is that much more. This is one thing to keep in mind as there is more and more outsourcing. For me, personally, I manage multiple tasks and people very well. I'm a decent compositor on top of that too. We'll see how that affects me in the future.
Last Saturday I was at OTIS, and met with my student, the one I will be mentoring for the next several months. This time around it's a student focused on compositing, much like Alana, my first year student who is doing pretty well these days. I also actually got a chance to sit down and talk to other mentors and students. It was a pretty good gathering, and hopefully promising. I look forward to the next couple of months to see how she does.
VFXWages is off to a decent start, and I'll show you why, after the break.
Here are the overall wages for the west coast of the US (consisting of CA, OR, and WA), given to us over the past two weeks. This does not breakdown any occupations, but as you can see, there is a definite increase over time. Is this accurate? I would say so! This is an aggregate from over 400+ inputted wages just for the west coast! I can't recall a previous website that has tallied information from such a small sample that is very consistent!
One thing to remember is that the low value is completely wrong (and of course, some of the high values). This is par for the course. In any content that user generated, you will encounter bad data entry points for the people that just want to see the graph or get access to the content We are working on an improved way of categorizing and removing these outliers, which will make the rest of the graphs much more effective. What this does say to me is that there is a consistent increase in wages over time for the majority of occupations out there, and that the work we are doing at Industry Wages Inc. is very relevant to the future.
I am very interested in improving this data, and that will take time. There are many graphs that have one or two data points only, which doesn't make for a very accurate graph. Over time, I am hoping, through my mouth and yours, that more of your peers might get a chance to put in their wages at their current company and previous ones, and our accuracy will rise.
On the non-VFX front, I've been reading and doing all sorts of things. I'm still consistently hitting the gym, and I'm currently training to do one of these. I recently picked up a gripper, not one from the local sporting goods store, but one of those all metal, made in the USA, heavy duty ones. The ones I have are the Trainer and Number 1 from Ironmind. I was recommended these from a Twitter follower. In doing negative comedowns from a pull-up, I found the biggest thing that was lacking was my grip (aside from the fact that I can't do a one armed pull-up yet). These will surely help in that training, as well as others. I also picked up a jump rope (finally). It's weighted.
On the literature front, I'm reading Fairtax and Lone Survivor. Both good books, that I highly recommend.
As a current student of visual effects, I am curious as to more information about the mentoring program which you have mentioned. I feel as if a mentor currently working in the industry would be tremendously beneficial for both parties. If you have any more info, could you please let me know?
Christian Castaneda
April 10, 2009 7:25 PM
Hi Christian.. Here's a small excerpt from one of the organizers.
'There are specific requirements that each student must meet to be selected for the Training and Mentoring program. This year, six schools and universities participated, including Gnomon, SMC, USC, Otis, CalArts and CSUN. Professors in the schools of Film and Television, visual effects and animation selected 10 students from their departments. Each student filled out an application and wrote an essay describing what they were focusing on and what type of mentor they were looking for.'
Feel free to email info@visualeffectssociety.com for more details.
Aruna
April 11, 2009 9:42 AM
Thank you so much Aruna, really appreciate it. Whom do you think would be best to talk to in order to include the Academy of Art University in the near future? I wouldn't mind going to my school's department director and recommending a website or two to check out. I'll start asking around for more info, especially since I know that most of my teachers are VES members, so they might have some more insight to give. Thanks again!
Christian Castaneda
April 11, 2009 2:10 PM
Just want to start off by saying thanks for starting VFXwages.com! I recently graduated from the Academy of Art University (I think this is the AAU sponsored comment posting) and your site is a very valuable tool to someone lookin for a job and has no real reference for pay...When it comes to reels, I've noticed you have worked on stereo shows, and I am working on one right now, what do you think is the best practice for showing stereo work? My position right now is pretty much making the entire right eye image and working with the original 2d comp to make it work, so would you recommend putting the anaglyph version of the shot on a reel? or maybe just the right eye image that I created? ...always giving credit to the original 2d comper of course...Just wondering if you had any advice in this as it will be time to get the reel ready for another job hunt at the end of the show...thanks again!
erik g
April 14, 2009 5:51 PM