…because they’re getting screwed by Hollywood it seems, despite their work being almost omnipresent in any succcessful film you see today, critically acclaimed or otherwise. Tim Clapham (of Cinema 4D and FXPHD fame) Tweeted this morning about an open letter to James Cameron (creator of movies like Titanic and Avatar, which have had enormous box office success and which rely as heavily on CG and VFX as much as they do upon a good story being told).
To my amazement (I have no Hollywood connections so rarely hear about these issues), Visual Effects Artists and CG production people still do not get paid royalties for these amazing films! Executives, actors, writers, musicians… they all (rightly) receive royalties, but somehow the system is so screwed up that the people who create the very worlds and characters that make a movie like Avatar possible, do not get paid royalties. This is borderline criminal IMHO, and well past the boundaries of unethical.
Sometimes the big shots who make the rules in Hollywood need to have their bells rung a little and reminded that we -the people who pay their salaries by going to the theater, buying DVD and Blu-Ray discs and buying PPV movies from our TV providers – care about this issue. But the larger problem here is most people don’t know how badly VFX and CG artists are being shorted here, even creative professionals. That’s why I’m posting this on my blog; I encourage you to do the same or at least Tweet about it. It’s the least we can do, given all the amazing experiences these artists have given to us.
