Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
The quote about film editing vs non-linear editing reminded me about Spielberg and Khan, wish I could find a direct quote, but that pair resisted moving to digital editing for a very long time for those exact reasons; being forced to commit, carefully think about options, sit and think about the film while you're waiting for film to spool back and forth rather than act on impulse... as you say, all stuff that'd be nice to see in vfx. Still, they finally caved and moved to Avid when cutting War Horse and Tin Tin, so there's no turning back now. :/ -matt On 23 March 2014 11:26, Ivan Busquets ivanbusqu...@gmail.com wrote: In my first job in the industry I had the chance to work with a great editor. He taught me something I still remember almost on a daily basis. He had made the transition from physical film-cutting to non-linear editing systems, and had this opinion about the many benefits that non-linear editing brought to the table. It's obviously great and makes my job so much easier, and I wouldn't want to ever look back. However, it is now so easy to make a cut that a lot of editors/directors never commit to one. They'll cut on a certain frame, then try a couple of frames later, then a couple of frames earlier, then one more, then leave it there temporarily to revisit later. When you're physically cutting a reel of film, there's something permanent about it that urges you to THINK why you want to cut on that frame and not on any other, and then COMMIT to that decision. I firmly believe that the analogy applies to many technological advances in our industry. There is a growing belief that some changes in post are fast/cheap enough that the exercise of THINKING and COMMITTING just keeps getting delayed. The process then becomes reactive, with clients/supervisors spending more time reacting to what they're seeing than directing what they would like to see. And with it comes the frustration when, iteration after iteration, they're still not seeing something they like. We've all seen it: - I don't know what kind of look I'm going to want for this, so I'll just shoot it as neutral as possible and choose between different looks later. - I want to keep the edit open as you guys work on these shots, so I can make the decisions on what should be in or out LATER, because it's so much easier to do once I see how these shots are coming together. - I can't judge this animation until it has proper motion blur, lighting, and I can see it integrated in the plate. (This one is particularly infuriating, and makes me wonder how are these people able to judge storyboards before they shoot the whole thing) Studios have learnt to protect themselves a bit against this, managing client's expectations, planning staged deliveries, etc. But ultimately, our line of work is very subjective, so it always takes someone with a strong vision and the ability to convey that vision for things to go more or less smoothly. The most successful projects I've ever worked on have a few of things in common: - A clear vision from a very early stage. - A strong leadership - Very little or no micromanaging. Every once in a blue moon, those 3 line up and you are reminded of how much fun this job can be. On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.comwrote: Totally agree. Just because we are more flexible in post has created a culture of creative micro management that is equivalent to man handling actors on set rather than letting them act On 3/21/14, 12:25 PM, matt estela wrote: On 21 March 2014 10:09, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: In all kinds of productions there seems to be a heavy reliance on the director. That's the standard I guess. Should not we, the vfx-artists, be the authority of our own domain? I do wonder if non cg fx heavy films of the past were as reliant on director approval as they are today. Using raiders as the example again, was Spielberg really approving every rock, every mine cart that was created for the mine chase sequence, sending shots back 10, 50, 100 times for revisions? Or as I suspect, was there the simple reality of 'we need to make these things, that takes time, you really can't change much once we start shooting miniatures.'? The ability for digital to change anything and everything is both the best and worst thing that happened to post production. ___ Nuke-users mailing listnuke-us...@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- [image: ohufxLogo 50x50] http://www.ohufx.com *vfx compositing http://ohufx.com/index.php/vfx-compositing | workflow customisation and consulting http://ohufx.com/index.php/vfx-customising * ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk,
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
All of those are people problems, not tool problems. As long as people don’t respect each other’s work they can hurt one another equally bad be it an H264 file or a Moviola pedal. On 23 Mar 2014, at 13:30, matt estela m...@tokeru.com wrote: Still, they finally caved -- Julik Tarkhanov | HecticElectric | Keizersgracht 736 1017 EX Amsterdam | The Netherlands | tel. +31 20 330 8250 cel. +31 61 145 06 36 | http://hecticelectric.nl ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Just to pick up on what Randy wrote yesterday, the idea of the scrum system is to be wrong as quickly as possible. The first pass let's you see all the problems, both technical and creative, within the context of the whole thing. You get there really fast and then you know what you're up against. In other ways of working, you don't really know what the problematic stuff is until you get to that shot. The second pass is where you do the work. You get it is good as you can *in the time you have*. During the third pass you choose what needs the extra love. You get to spend your remaining time wisely, instead of wasting days pixel fucking something that no one is going to notice without knowing there's something more critical that will need the time later. R Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 5:21 PM, Julik Tarkhanov ju...@hecticelectric.nlwrote: All of those are people problems, not tool problems. As long as people don't respect each other's work they can hurt one another equally bad be it an H264 file or a Moviola pedal. On 23 Mar 2014, at 13:30, matt estela m...@tokeru.com wrote: Still, they finally caved -- Julik Tarkhanov | HecticElectric | Keizersgracht 736 1017 EX Amsterdam | The Netherlands | tel. +31 20 330 8250 cel. +31 61 145 06 36 | http://hecticelectric.nl ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Come to think of it, we sort of had a scrum approach in school. Get a working version first, then iterate once or twice before you reach the deadline. Although we never gave it much thought, it came naturally. 23 mar 2014 kl. 16:49 skrev Randy Little randyslit...@gmail.com: Oh no I get it its how I work usually. Some people though don't seem to get it. Usually Producers and other clients in the chain. They as has been said can be less educated about the process. Randy S. Little http://www.rslittle.com/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2325729/ On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Ron Ganbar ron...@gmail.com wrote: Just to pick up on what Randy wrote yesterday, the idea of the scrum system is to be wrong as quickly as possible. The first pass let's you see all the problems, both technical and creative, within the context of the whole thing. You get there really fast and then you know what you're up against. In other ways of working, you don't really know what the problematic stuff is until you get to that shot. The second pass is where you do the work. You get it is good as you can in the time you have. During the third pass you choose what needs the extra love. You get to spend your remaining time wisely, instead of wasting days pixel fucking something that no one is going to notice without knowing there's something more critical that will need the time later. R Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 5:21 PM, Julik Tarkhanov ju...@hecticelectric.nl wrote: All of those are people problems, not tool problems. As long as people don’t respect each other’s work they can hurt one another equally bad be it an H264 file or a Moviola pedal. On 23 Mar 2014, at 13:30, matt estela m...@tokeru.com wrote: Still, they finally caved -- Julik Tarkhanov | HecticElectric | Keizersgracht 736 1017 EX Amsterdam | The Netherlands | tel. +31 20 330 8250 cel. +31 61 145 06 36 | http://hecticelectric.nl ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
The projects I mentioned were also done in scrums. It helps lots. You get a preliminary version of the whole thing very quickly. Everybody is then aware of several things: the problematic shots; what the whole things looks like; what shots already kinda works; which shots will actually make the difference. Then the second scrum is all about getting the shots finished in the time provided. The third scrum is where the shots that need it get the extra love. Usually the overall time is split 30%-40% | 40%-50% | 10%. Every time I tried a production like this the feeling was always that we used the time in the best possible way. There were no surprises. No late nights in the end. The big problems were dealt with in the beginning. Works a treat. R Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 6:51 PM, Randy Little randyslit...@gmail.comwrote: I find a lot of places dont like or understand how to work like that. I tend to always stop at magor points to get feed back before making the next hard to go back step. I find that seems to meet a lot of resistance. Like why are you showing me this? Its not done. Well because the next 3 days of work depend on this being the correct direction. On Mar 21, 2014 12:39 PM, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: It seems like being transparent from the beginning rewards itself towards the end. In VFX, at least in the digital age, versions and increments just comes naturally. I'd love to be in a SCRUM team at least once to try it out. Cheers, Elias 21 mar 2014 kl. 16:44 skrev Howard Jones mrhowardjo...@yahoo.com: I like this SCRUMming idea. Something I've always insisted on (though not always had my way). Nice to know there's a name for it and doesn't involve shoving your head between other people's arses (google 'arse' if you're american ;) What a lot of this seems to come down to is good communication (As well as decent leads/supevisors that aren't taking shots the wrong way). Open not closed doors. That's overly simple but ... On 21 Mar 2014, at 13:19, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Ouch! ;) Steve... and artists of course.. But what I think the kids are getting at, is the barrier between physical and virtual. They live a large part of their sparetime in front of their screens being windows into virtual worlds with which they feel no connection. So when they are told that Ey boy.. this is all props, sets, stunts, rubber, opticals etc.. they get emotionally connected - Oh..its real stuff... Weird isn't it? One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed Yes indeed Frank! And: don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day These are some of the heavy points that were addressed in our setup making a HUGE impact on throughput. - Demanding the directors presence on a daily basis.. sometimes even sitting beside the leads setting looks. Things got approved and ticked off in SG by the VFXproduction coordinator. - The VFXproducer (me) answered directly to the production company and by that could say no to the director -no.. we cannot do it like that, it's too demanding on our resources.. but we can do this...and keep the storyvalue of the gag. The director also had an very experienced VFXcreative_director helping him with arriving at the right decisions. Two other tricks to make things more manageable were; - Approval of shots was always done in context of the edit, and in blocks - -no looping shots. The smallest approvable unit were slates ie, a conversation scene could be 35 cuts/shots but they were edited from perhaps 4-5 slates. That made it psychologically easier for the director to review 5 slates instead of 35 shots. Even the compers worked in slates as the smallest unit (we wrote some software to handle this). This might sound like a foolish numbers-game, but it made huge difference.. a lot of it was psychological .. like: -shit.. today I have to complete 35 shots vs oh.. today I have to complete 5 slates... BUT the whole pipeline was designed to lessen the sheer number of decision points .. I believe I calculated somewhere around 12000 instances of approval counting all assets, shots, moods, etc - that we got down to a couple of thousand decisions instead. - Compositing was done in SCRUMS (google it) to get rid of the shot-tracking-problem and artists shot-angst, so the first version of a film was comped in 10 days.. all 1100 shots. It
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Isnt there the risk that half-arsed things need to be redone from scratch? Especially paint and cleanup that it is difficult to improve on if not done proper from the beginning. On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 8:44 AM, Ron Ganbar ron...@gmail.com wrote: The projects I mentioned were also done in scrums. It helps lots. You get a preliminary version of the whole thing very quickly. Everybody is then aware of several things: the problematic shots; what the whole things looks like; what shots already kinda works; which shots will actually make the difference. Then the second scrum is all about getting the shots finished in the time provided. The third scrum is where the shots that need it get the extra love. Usually the overall time is split 30%-40% | 40%-50% | 10%. Every time I tried a production like this the feeling was always that we used the time in the best possible way. There were no surprises. No late nights in the end. The big problems were dealt with in the beginning. Works a treat. R Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 6:51 PM, Randy Little randyslit...@gmail.comwrote: I find a lot of places dont like or understand how to work like that. I tend to always stop at magor points to get feed back before making the next hard to go back step. I find that seems to meet a lot of resistance. Like why are you showing me this? Its not done. Well because the next 3 days of work depend on this being the correct direction. On Mar 21, 2014 12:39 PM, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: It seems like being transparent from the beginning rewards itself towards the end. In VFX, at least in the digital age, versions and increments just comes naturally. I'd love to be in a SCRUM team at least once to try it out. Cheers, Elias 21 mar 2014 kl. 16:44 skrev Howard Jones mrhowardjo...@yahoo.com: I like this SCRUMming idea. Something I've always insisted on (though not always had my way). Nice to know there's a name for it and doesn't involve shoving your head between other people's arses (google 'arse' if you're american ;) What a lot of this seems to come down to is good communication (As well as decent leads/supevisors that aren't taking shots the wrong way). Open not closed doors. That's overly simple but ... On 21 Mar 2014, at 13:19, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Ouch! ;) Steve... and artists of course.. But what I think the kids are getting at, is the barrier between physical and virtual. They live a large part of their sparetime in front of their screens being windows into virtual worlds with which they feel no connection. So when they are told that Ey boy.. this is all props, sets, stunts, rubber, opticals etc.. they get emotionally connected - Oh..its real stuff... Weird isn't it? One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed Yes indeed Frank! And: don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day These are some of the heavy points that were addressed in our setup making a HUGE impact on throughput. - Demanding the directors presence on a daily basis.. sometimes even sitting beside the leads setting looks. Things got approved and ticked off in SG by the VFXproduction coordinator. - The VFXproducer (me) answered directly to the production company and by that could say no to the director -no.. we cannot do it like that, it's too demanding on our resources.. but we can do this...and keep the storyvalue of the gag. The director also had an very experienced VFXcreative_director helping him with arriving at the right decisions. Two other tricks to make things more manageable were; - Approval of shots was always done in context of the edit, and in blocks - -no looping shots. The smallest approvable unit were slates ie, a conversation scene could be 35 cuts/shots but they were edited from perhaps 4-5 slates. That made it psychologically easier for the director to review 5 slates instead of 35 shots. Even the compers worked in slates as the smallest unit (we wrote some software to handle this). This might sound like a foolish numbers-game, but it made huge difference.. a lot of it was psychological .. like: -shit.. today I have to complete 35 shots vs oh.. today I have to complete 5 slates... BUT the whole pipeline was designed to lessen the sheer number of decision points .. I believe I calculated somewhere around 12000 instances of approval counting all assets,
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Not to talk for Frederik and Ron, but I think the idea is you work to a low quality first, quick as you can, to judge all the work in context, anything that _might_ need proper roto and paint work is identified and discussed, but ideally, you just stick in a placeholder, or nothing at all, and move on. Too many times I've seen things like a massive n-thousand frame roto job, or incredible 3d model with amazing surfacing, finally make it down the chain to DI for it to be graded black, or DOF-d out of existence. That's what the SCRUM system is meant to avoid, judge everything in relation to its final context. Hopefully. :) On 23 March 2014 08:00, Gustaf Nilsson gus...@laserpanda.com wrote: Isnt there the risk that half-arsed things need to be redone from scratch? Especially paint and cleanup that it is difficult to improve on if not done proper from the beginning. On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 8:44 AM, Ron Ganbar ron...@gmail.com wrote: The projects I mentioned were also done in scrums. It helps lots. You get a preliminary version of the whole thing very quickly. Everybody is then aware of several things: the problematic shots; what the whole things looks like; what shots already kinda works; which shots will actually make the difference. Then the second scrum is all about getting the shots finished in the time provided. The third scrum is where the shots that need it get the extra love. Usually the overall time is split 30%-40% | 40%-50% | 10%. Every time I tried a production like this the feeling was always that we used the time in the best possible way. There were no surprises. No late nights in the end. The big problems were dealt with in the beginning. Works a treat. R Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 6:51 PM, Randy Little randyslit...@gmail.comwrote: I find a lot of places dont like or understand how to work like that. I tend to always stop at magor points to get feed back before making the next hard to go back step. I find that seems to meet a lot of resistance. Like why are you showing me this? Its not done. Well because the next 3 days of work depend on this being the correct direction. On Mar 21, 2014 12:39 PM, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: It seems like being transparent from the beginning rewards itself towards the end. In VFX, at least in the digital age, versions and increments just comes naturally. I'd love to be in a SCRUM team at least once to try it out. Cheers, Elias 21 mar 2014 kl. 16:44 skrev Howard Jones mrhowardjo...@yahoo.com: I like this SCRUMming idea. Something I've always insisted on (though not always had my way). Nice to know there's a name for it and doesn't involve shoving your head between other people's arses (google 'arse' if you're american ;) What a lot of this seems to come down to is good communication (As well as decent leads/supevisors that aren't taking shots the wrong way). Open not closed doors. That's overly simple but ... On 21 Mar 2014, at 13:19, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Ouch! ;) Steve... and artists of course.. But what I think the kids are getting at, is the barrier between physical and virtual. They live a large part of their sparetime in front of their screens being windows into virtual worlds with which they feel no connection. So when they are told that Ey boy.. this is all props, sets, stunts, rubber, opticals etc.. they get emotionally connected - Oh..its real stuff... Weird isn't it? One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed Yes indeed Frank! And: don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day These are some of the heavy points that were addressed in our setup making a HUGE impact on throughput. - Demanding the directors presence on a daily basis.. sometimes even sitting beside the leads setting looks. Things got approved and ticked off in SG by the VFXproduction coordinator. - The VFXproducer (me) answered directly to the production company and by that could say no to the director -no.. we cannot do it like that, it's too demanding on our resources.. but we can do this...and keep the storyvalue of the gag. The director also had an very experienced VFXcreative_director helping him with arriving at the right decisions. Two other tricks to make things more manageable were; - Approval of shots was always done in context of the edit, and in blocks - -no looping shots.
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Or getting edited out completely at the very end. 2014-03-22 22:42 GMT+01:00 matt estela m...@tokeru.com: Not to talk for Frederik and Ron, but I think the idea is you work to a low quality first, quick as you can, to judge all the work in context, anything that _might_ need proper roto and paint work is identified and discussed, but ideally, you just stick in a placeholder, or nothing at all, and move on. Too many times I've seen things like a massive n-thousand frame roto job, or incredible 3d model with amazing surfacing, finally make it down the chain to DI for it to be graded black, or DOF-d out of existence. That's what the SCRUM system is meant to avoid, judge everything in relation to its final context. Hopefully. :) On 23 March 2014 08:00, Gustaf Nilsson gus...@laserpanda.com wrote: Isnt there the risk that half-arsed things need to be redone from scratch? Especially paint and cleanup that it is difficult to improve on if not done proper from the beginning. On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 8:44 AM, Ron Ganbar ron...@gmail.com wrote: The projects I mentioned were also done in scrums. It helps lots. You get a preliminary version of the whole thing very quickly. Everybody is then aware of several things: the problematic shots; what the whole things looks like; what shots already kinda works; which shots will actually make the difference. Then the second scrum is all about getting the shots finished in the time provided. The third scrum is where the shots that need it get the extra love. Usually the overall time is split 30%-40% | 40%-50% | 10%. Every time I tried a production like this the feeling was always that we used the time in the best possible way. There were no surprises. No late nights in the end. The big problems were dealt with in the beginning. Works a treat. R Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 6:51 PM, Randy Little randyslit...@gmail.comwrote: I find a lot of places dont like or understand how to work like that. I tend to always stop at magor points to get feed back before making the next hard to go back step. I find that seems to meet a lot of resistance. Like why are you showing me this? Its not done. Well because the next 3 days of work depend on this being the correct direction. On Mar 21, 2014 12:39 PM, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: It seems like being transparent from the beginning rewards itself towards the end. In VFX, at least in the digital age, versions and increments just comes naturally. I'd love to be in a SCRUM team at least once to try it out. Cheers, Elias 21 mar 2014 kl. 16:44 skrev Howard Jones mrhowardjo...@yahoo.com: I like this SCRUMming idea. Something I've always insisted on (though not always had my way). Nice to know there's a name for it and doesn't involve shoving your head between other people's arses (google 'arse' if you're american ;) What a lot of this seems to come down to is good communication (As well as decent leads/supevisors that aren't taking shots the wrong way). Open not closed doors. That's overly simple but ... On 21 Mar 2014, at 13:19, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Ouch! ;) Steve... and artists of course.. But what I think the kids are getting at, is the barrier between physical and virtual. They live a large part of their sparetime in front of their screens being windows into virtual worlds with which they feel no connection. So when they are told that Ey boy.. this is all props, sets, stunts, rubber, opticals etc.. they get emotionally connected - Oh..its real stuff... Weird isn't it? One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed Yes indeed Frank! And: don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day These are some of the heavy points that were addressed in our setup making a HUGE impact on throughput. - Demanding the directors presence on a daily basis.. sometimes even sitting beside the leads setting looks. Things got approved and ticked off in SG by the VFXproduction coordinator. - The VFXproducer (me) answered directly to the production company and by that could say no to the director -no.. we cannot do it like that, it's too demanding on our resources.. but we can do this...and keep the storyvalue of the gag. The director also had an very experienced VFXcreative_director helping him with arriving at the right decisions. Two other tricks to make
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
In my first job in the industry I had the chance to work with a great editor. He taught me something I still remember almost on a daily basis. He had made the transition from physical film-cutting to non-linear editing systems, and had this opinion about the many benefits that non-linear editing brought to the table. It's obviously great and makes my job so much easier, and I wouldn't want to ever look back. However, it is now so easy to make a cut that a lot of editors/directors never commit to one. They'll cut on a certain frame, then try a couple of frames later, then a couple of frames earlier, then one more, then leave it there temporarily to revisit later. When you're physically cutting a reel of film, there's something permanent about it that urges you to THINK why you want to cut on that frame and not on any other, and then COMMIT to that decision. I firmly believe that the analogy applies to many technological advances in our industry. There is a growing belief that some changes in post are fast/cheap enough that the exercise of THINKING and COMMITTING just keeps getting delayed. The process then becomes reactive, with clients/supervisors spending more time reacting to what they're seeing than directing what they would like to see. And with it comes the frustration when, iteration after iteration, they're still not seeing something they like. We've all seen it: - I don't know what kind of look I'm going to want for this, so I'll just shoot it as neutral as possible and choose between different looks later. - I want to keep the edit open as you guys work on these shots, so I can make the decisions on what should be in or out LATER, because it's so much easier to do once I see how these shots are coming together. - I can't judge this animation until it has proper motion blur, lighting, and I can see it integrated in the plate. (This one is particularly infuriating, and makes me wonder how are these people able to judge storyboards before they shoot the whole thing) Studios have learnt to protect themselves a bit against this, managing client's expectations, planning staged deliveries, etc. But ultimately, our line of work is very subjective, so it always takes someone with a strong vision and the ability to convey that vision for things to go more or less smoothly. The most successful projects I've ever worked on have a few of things in common: - A clear vision from a very early stage. - A strong leadership - Very little or no micromanaging. Every once in a blue moon, those 3 line up and you are reminded of how much fun this job can be. On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Totally agree. Just because we are more flexible in post has created a culture of creative micro management that is equivalent to man handling actors on set rather than letting them act On 3/21/14, 12:25 PM, matt estela wrote: On 21 March 2014 10:09, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: In all kinds of productions there seems to be a heavy reliance on the director. That's the standard I guess. Should not we, the vfx-artists, be the authority of our own domain? I do wonder if non cg fx heavy films of the past were as reliant on director approval as they are today. Using raiders as the example again, was Spielberg really approving every rock, every mine cart that was created for the mine chase sequence, sending shots back 10, 50, 100 times for revisions? Or as I suspect, was there the simple reality of 'we need to make these things, that takes time, you really can't change much once we start shooting miniatures.'? The ability for digital to change anything and everything is both the best and worst thing that happened to post production. ___ Nuke-users mailing listnuke-us...@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- [image: ohufxLogo 50x50] http://www.ohufx.com *vfx compositing http://ohufx.com/index.php/vfx-compositing | workflow customisation and consulting http://ohufx.com/index.php/vfx-customising * ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users inline: ohufxLogo_50x50.png___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
reacting to what they're seeing than directing what they would like to see Amen to that and everything else in your post. I could list a few names of "visionary" directors here :-D It is really good to see so many experiences people chime in here with pretty much the same experience/opinion. As most of you will know, all of this has been discusses a lot in the past year through the VES, VFX TownHall and other formal and informal groups. The more we can have those sort of discussions in public places, the more we will help raise awareness for all of the problems mentioned in this thread, and awareness is always the first step to finding solutions. Great thread, keep it coming! frank On 3/23/14, 1:26 PM, Ivan Busquets wrote: In my first job in the industry I had the chance to work with a great editor. He taught me something I still remember almost on a daily basis. He had made the transition from physical film-cutting to non-linear editing systems, and had this opinion about the many benefits that non-linear editing brought to the table. "It's obviously great and makes my job so much easier, and I wouldn't want to ever look back. However, it is now so easy to make a cut that a lot of editors/directors never commit to one. They'll cut on a certain frame, then try a couple of frames later, then a couple of frames earlier, then one more, then leave it there temporarily to revisit later. When you're physically cutting a reel of film, there's something permanent about it that urges you to THINK why you want to cut on that frame and not on any other, and then COMMIT to that decision." I firmly believe that the analogy applies to many technological advances in our industry. There is a growing belief that some changes in post are fast/cheap enough that the exercise of THINKING and COMMITTING just keeps getting delayed. The process then becomes reactive, with clients/supervisors spending more time reacting to what they're seeing than directing what they would like to see. And with it comes the frustration when, iteration after iteration, they're still not seeing something they "like". We've all seen it: - I don't know what kind of look I'm going to want for this, so I'll just shoot it as neutral as possible and choose between different looks later. - I want to keep the edit open as you guys work on these shots, so I can make the decisions on what should be in or out LATER, because it's so much easier to do once I see how these shots are coming together. - I can't judge this animation until it has proper motion blur, lighting, and I can see it integrated in the plate. (This one is particularly infuriating, and makes me wonder how are these people able to judge storyboards before they shoot the whole thing) Studios have learnt to protect themselves a bit against this, managing client's expectations, planning staged deliveries, etc. But ultimately, our line of work is very subjective, so it always takes someone with a strong vision and the ability to convey that vision for things to go more or less smoothly. The most successful projects I've ever worked on have a few of things in common: - A clear vision from a very early stage. - A strong leadership - Very little or no micromanaging. Every once in a blue moon, those 3 line up and you are reminded of how much fun this job can be. On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Totally agree. Just because we are more flexible in post has created a culture of creative micro management that is equivalent to man handling actors on set rather than letting them act On 3/21/14, 12:25 PM, matt estela wrote: On 21 March 2014 10:09, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote:
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Ouch! ;) Steve... and artists of course.. But what I think the kids are getting at, is the barrier between physical and virtual. They live a large part of their sparetime in front of their screens being windows into virtual worlds with which they feel no connection. So when they are told that Ey boy.. this is all props, sets, stunts, rubber, opticals etc.. they get emotionally connected - Oh..its real stuff... Weird isn't it? One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed Yes indeed Frank! And: don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day These are some of the heavy points that were addressed in our setup making a HUGE impact on throughput. - Demanding the directors presence on a daily basis.. sometimes even sitting beside the leads setting looks. Things got approved and ticked off in SG by the VFXproduction coordinator. - The VFXproducer (me) answered directly to the production company and by that could say no to the director -no.. we cannot do it like that, it's too demanding on our resources.. but we can do this...and keep the storyvalue of the gag. The director also had an very experienced VFXcreative_director helping him with arriving at the right decisions. Two other tricks to make things more manageable were; - Approval of shots was always done in context of the edit, and in blocks - -no looping shots. The smallest approvable unit were slates ie, a conversation scene could be 35 cuts/shots but they were edited from perhaps 4-5 slates. That made it psychologically easier for the director to review 5 slates instead of 35 shots. Even the compers worked in slates as the smallest unit (we wrote some software to handle this). This might sound like a foolish numbers-game, but it made huge difference.. a lot of it was psychological .. like: -shit.. today I have to complete 35 shots vs oh.. today I have to complete 5 slates... BUT the whole pipeline was designed to lessen the sheer number of decision points .. I believe I calculated somewhere around 12000 instances of approval counting all assets, shots, moods, etc - that we got down to a couple of thousand decisions instead. - Compositing was done in SCRUMS (google it) to get rid of the shot-tracking-problem and artists shot-angst, so the first version of a film was comped in 10 days.. all 1100 shots. It looked like crap but all the artists were familiar with their shots now. After SCRUM no 2 still no slates were approved (of course - still looked crap hehe) but now the director was getting e very good feeling on were he wanted to concentrate on moods and story elements. After SCRUM 3 a large number of shots, mainly CU and mid shots were tech-approved for mattes and roto.. and we have just used 30 work days so far..etc etc This way of working was first regarded as utter nonsens at first.. but when the dirctor and producer could sit down and watch a film in its entirety and in a somewhat ok viewable state, after only a little more than a month they got the idea of it. Also the artist felt very awkward about ScRuMming in the beginning, but quickly adjusted to it and began to enjoy it. :) //fredd On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:29 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Totally agree. Just because we are more flexible in post has created a culture of creative micro management that is equivalent to man handling actors on set rather than letting them act On 3/21/14, 12:25 PM, matt estela wrote: On 21 March 2014 10:09, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: In all kinds of productions there seems to be a heavy reliance on the director. That's the standard I guess. Should not we, the vfx-artists, be the authority of our own domain? I do wonder if non cg fx heavy films of the past were as reliant on director approval as they are today. Using raiders as the example again, was Spielberg really approving every rock, every mine cart that was created for the mine chase sequence, sending shots back 10, 50, 100 times for revisions? Or as I suspect, was there the simple reality of 'we need to make these things, that takes time, you really can't change much once we start shooting miniatures.'? The ability for digital to change anything and everything is both the best and worst thing that happened to post production. ___ Nuke-users mailing listnuke-us...@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- [image: ohufxLogo 50x50]
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
I like this SCRUMming idea. Something I've always insisted on (though not always had my way). Nice to know there's a name for it and doesn't involve shoving your head between other people's arses (google 'arse' if you're american ;) What a lot of this seems to come down to is good communication (As well as decent leads/supevisors that aren't taking shots the wrong way). Open not closed doors. That's overly simple but ... On 21 Mar 2014, at 13:19, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Ouch! ;) Steve... and artists of course.. But what I think the kids are getting at, is the barrier between physical and virtual. They live a large part of their sparetime in front of their screens being windows into virtual worlds with which they feel no connection. So when they are told that Ey boy.. this is all props, sets, stunts, rubber, opticals etc.. they get emotionally connected - Oh..its real stuff... Weird isn't it? One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed Yes indeed Frank! And: don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day These are some of the heavy points that were addressed in our setup making a HUGE impact on throughput. - Demanding the directors presence on a daily basis.. sometimes even sitting beside the leads setting looks. Things got approved and ticked off in SG by the VFXproduction coordinator. - The VFXproducer (me) answered directly to the production company and by that could say no to the director -no.. we cannot do it like that, it's too demanding on our resources.. but we can do this...and keep the storyvalue of the gag. The director also had an very experienced VFXcreative_director helping him with arriving at the right decisions. Two other tricks to make things more manageable were; - Approval of shots was always done in context of the edit, and in blocks - -no looping shots. The smallest approvable unit were slates ie, a conversation scene could be 35 cuts/shots but they were edited from perhaps 4-5 slates. That made it psychologically easier for the director to review 5 slates instead of 35 shots. Even the compers worked in slates as the smallest unit (we wrote some software to handle this). This might sound like a foolish numbers-game, but it made huge difference.. a lot of it was psychological .. like: -shit.. today I have to complete 35 shots vs oh.. today I have to complete 5 slates... BUT the whole pipeline was designed to lessen the sheer number of decision points .. I believe I calculated somewhere around 12000 instances of approval counting all assets, shots, moods, etc - that we got down to a couple of thousand decisions instead. - Compositing was done in SCRUMS (google it) to get rid of the shot-tracking-problem and artists shot-angst, so the first version of a film was comped in 10 days.. all 1100 shots. It looked like crap but all the artists were familiar with their shots now. After SCRUM no 2 still no slates were approved (of course - still looked crap hehe) but now the director was getting e very good feeling on were he wanted to concentrate on moods and story elements. After SCRUM 3 a large number of shots, mainly CU and mid shots were tech-approved for mattes and roto.. and we have just used 30 work days so far..etc etc This way of working was first regarded as utter nonsens at first.. but when the dirctor and producer could sit down and watch a film in its entirety and in a somewhat ok viewable state, after only a little more than a month they got the idea of it. Also the artist felt very awkward about ScRuMming in the beginning, but quickly adjusted to it and began to enjoy it. :) //fredd On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:29 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Totally agree. Just because we are more flexible in post has created a culture of creative micro management that is equivalent to man handling actors on set rather than letting them act On 3/21/14, 12:25 PM, matt estela wrote: On 21 March 2014 10:09, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: In all kinds of productions there seems to be a heavy reliance on the director. That's the standard I guess. Should not we, the vfx-artists, be the authority of our own domain? I do wonder if non cg fx heavy films of the past were as reliant on director approval as they are today. Using raiders as the example again, was Spielberg really approving every rock, every mine cart that was created for the mine chase sequence, sending
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
It seems like being transparent from the beginning rewards itself towards the end. In VFX, at least in the digital age, versions and increments just comes naturally. I'd love to be in a SCRUM team at least once to try it out. Cheers, Elias 21 mar 2014 kl. 16:44 skrev Howard Jones mrhowardjo...@yahoo.com: I like this SCRUMming idea. Something I've always insisted on (though not always had my way). Nice to know there's a name for it and doesn't involve shoving your head between other people's arses (google 'arse' if you're american ;) What a lot of this seems to come down to is good communication (As well as decent leads/supevisors that aren't taking shots the wrong way). Open not closed doors. That's overly simple but ... On 21 Mar 2014, at 13:19, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Ouch! ;) Steve... and artists of course.. But what I think the kids are getting at, is the barrier between physical and virtual. They live a large part of their sparetime in front of their screens being windows into virtual worlds with which they feel no connection. So when they are told that Ey boy.. this is all props, sets, stunts, rubber, opticals etc.. they get emotionally connected - Oh..its real stuff... Weird isn't it? One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed Yes indeed Frank! And: don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day These are some of the heavy points that were addressed in our setup making a HUGE impact on throughput. - Demanding the directors presence on a daily basis.. sometimes even sitting beside the leads setting looks. Things got approved and ticked off in SG by the VFXproduction coordinator. - The VFXproducer (me) answered directly to the production company and by that could say no to the director -no.. we cannot do it like that, it's too demanding on our resources.. but we can do this...and keep the storyvalue of the gag. The director also had an very experienced VFXcreative_director helping him with arriving at the right decisions. Two other tricks to make things more manageable were; - Approval of shots was always done in context of the edit, and in blocks - -no looping shots. The smallest approvable unit were slates ie, a conversation scene could be 35 cuts/shots but they were edited from perhaps 4-5 slates. That made it psychologically easier for the director to review 5 slates instead of 35 shots. Even the compers worked in slates as the smallest unit (we wrote some software to handle this). This might sound like a foolish numbers-game, but it made huge difference.. a lot of it was psychological .. like: -shit.. today I have to complete 35 shots vs oh.. today I have to complete 5 slates... BUT the whole pipeline was designed to lessen the sheer number of decision points .. I believe I calculated somewhere around 12000 instances of approval counting all assets, shots, moods, etc - that we got down to a couple of thousand decisions instead. - Compositing was done in SCRUMS (google it) to get rid of the shot-tracking-problem and artists shot-angst, so the first version of a film was comped in 10 days.. all 1100 shots. It looked like crap but all the artists were familiar with their shots now. After SCRUM no 2 still no slates were approved (of course - still looked crap hehe) but now the director was getting e very good feeling on were he wanted to concentrate on moods and story elements. After SCRUM 3 a large number of shots, mainly CU and mid shots were tech-approved for mattes and roto.. and we have just used 30 work days so far..etc etc This way of working was first regarded as utter nonsens at first.. but when the dirctor and producer could sit down and watch a film in its entirety and in a somewhat ok viewable state, after only a little more than a month they got the idea of it. Also the artist felt very awkward about ScRuMming in the beginning, but quickly adjusted to it and began to enjoy it. :) //fredd On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:29 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Totally agree. Just because we are more flexible in post has created a culture of creative micro management that is equivalent to man handling actors on set rather than letting them act On 3/21/14, 12:25 PM, matt estela wrote: On 21 March 2014 10:09, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: In all kinds of productions there seems to be a heavy reliance on the director. That's the standard I guess. Should not
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
I find a lot of places dont like or understand how to work like that. I tend to always stop at magor points to get feed back before making the next hard to go back step. I find that seems to meet a lot of resistance. Like why are you showing me this? Its not done. Well because the next 3 days of work depend on this being the correct direction. On Mar 21, 2014 12:39 PM, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: It seems like being transparent from the beginning rewards itself towards the end. In VFX, at least in the digital age, versions and increments just comes naturally. I'd love to be in a SCRUM team at least once to try it out. Cheers, Elias 21 mar 2014 kl. 16:44 skrev Howard Jones mrhowardjo...@yahoo.com: I like this SCRUMming idea. Something I've always insisted on (though not always had my way). Nice to know there's a name for it and doesn't involve shoving your head between other people's arses (google 'arse' if you're american ;) What a lot of this seems to come down to is good communication (As well as decent leads/supevisors that aren't taking shots the wrong way). Open not closed doors. That's overly simple but ... On 21 Mar 2014, at 13:19, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Ouch! ;) Steve... and artists of course.. But what I think the kids are getting at, is the barrier between physical and virtual. They live a large part of their sparetime in front of their screens being windows into virtual worlds with which they feel no connection. So when they are told that Ey boy.. this is all props, sets, stunts, rubber, opticals etc.. they get emotionally connected - Oh..its real stuff... Weird isn't it? One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed Yes indeed Frank! And: don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day These are some of the heavy points that were addressed in our setup making a HUGE impact on throughput. - Demanding the directors presence on a daily basis.. sometimes even sitting beside the leads setting looks. Things got approved and ticked off in SG by the VFXproduction coordinator. - The VFXproducer (me) answered directly to the production company and by that could say no to the director -no.. we cannot do it like that, it's too demanding on our resources.. but we can do this...and keep the storyvalue of the gag. The director also had an very experienced VFXcreative_director helping him with arriving at the right decisions. Two other tricks to make things more manageable were; - Approval of shots was always done in context of the edit, and in blocks - -no looping shots. The smallest approvable unit were slates ie, a conversation scene could be 35 cuts/shots but they were edited from perhaps 4-5 slates. That made it psychologically easier for the director to review 5 slates instead of 35 shots. Even the compers worked in slates as the smallest unit (we wrote some software to handle this). This might sound like a foolish numbers-game, but it made huge difference.. a lot of it was psychological .. like: -shit.. today I have to complete 35 shots vs oh.. today I have to complete 5 slates... BUT the whole pipeline was designed to lessen the sheer number of decision points .. I believe I calculated somewhere around 12000 instances of approval counting all assets, shots, moods, etc - that we got down to a couple of thousand decisions instead. - Compositing was done in SCRUMS (google it) to get rid of the shot-tracking-problem and artists shot-angst, so the first version of a film was comped in 10 days.. all 1100 shots. It looked like crap but all the artists were familiar with their shots now. After SCRUM no 2 still no slates were approved (of course - still looked crap hehe) but now the director was getting e very good feeling on were he wanted to concentrate on moods and story elements. After SCRUM 3 a large number of shots, mainly CU and mid shots were tech-approved for mattes and roto.. and we have just used 30 work days so far..etc etc This way of working was first regarded as utter nonsens at first.. but when the dirctor and producer could sit down and watch a film in its entirety and in a somewhat ok viewable state, after only a little more than a month they got the idea of it. Also the artist felt very awkward about ScRuMming in the beginning, but quickly adjusted to it and began to enjoy it. :) //fredd On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:29 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.comwrote: Totally agree. Just because we are more flexible in post has
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type people that don't understand or want to understand the actual work the company is doing. I couldn't agree more. Only one or two vfx companies worldwide seem to get it. -Ean On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 1:02 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: In short, being senior is not just about being great, it's about achieving the quality on time and in budget. If you can do that then you may be worth your expectations. I couldn't agree more. It's years of experience that enables people to delivery within the context of a show and problem solve with the right priorities in mind, not just the skill to make something look amazing (regardless of the time and resources it may require). This sort of experience should enable you to keep your value as an artist up. while you may be way more expensive than a junior, you will need way less time to deliver what's required, so the bottom line for the employer is not an increases payroll, but a more efficient delivery schedule. I have had juniors on my team who, despite not being able to do the tricky comps, turned out to be more effective in the grand scheme than some of the seniors. The right combo of experienced seniors/leads and juniors can be quite amazing in terms of efficiency *and* quality. Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type people that don't understand or want to understand the actual work the company is doing. On 16/03/14 13:20, Howard Jones wrote: Taking this from a different angle. Not every show is uber VFX. Some shows cannot afford that level or even require that level. They still need VFX. Does that mean they can't afford senior compositors? No, if anything it means they cant afford not to hire seniors. Why? Because if budgets are tight, you need to hit the ground running. So hypothetically thinking... I need to hire a senior, not because the work is uber-hard or requires uberVFX. It doesn't (always). It's hard enough, requires consummate keying skills/ problem solving but it's not cutting edge. Too hard for a genuine mid range artist, requires a senior. Now here's the problem. Finding a senior who can tailor their VFX to suit the budget. I dont want cheap crap, I don't need uberVFX, I need good enough and fast. Often I find a lot of time is wasted getting the seniors to work down to the show's expectations and budget. In short too much pixel fucking. However at the end of the day I would still want a senior and pay what is affordable. Just a good senior on a simpler show should be faster, less demanding, than a junior/mid. (If only) I guess there are a range of shops you can go to to fill up your trolley, but if you pay a bit more you expect a better quality. Whether quality translates to good enough and fast or perfect and considered, depends on show budget. However good enough and slow at a premium rate is just a waste. In short, being senior is not just about being great, it's about achieving the quality on time and in budget. If you can do that then you may be worth your expectations. Howard On 15 Mar 2014, at 02:53, Neil Scholes n...@uvfilms.co.uk wrote: Absofrigin-lutley! Very interesting thread, and considering the shear skill set needed and uber high level of expertise required for great vfx creation, the right price can always be negotiated confidently and reasonably. Neil Scholes Sent from my iPad On 14 Mar 2014, at 23:37, adam jones adam@mac.com wrote: well said frank. you have put into word in an elegant way what I try and explain to people all of the time, its a slow road but the more artists that think this way the easier it will become. cheers -adam On 15/03/2014, at 10:20 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Either way, most qualified people I know tend to be under paid, and based on my experience, companies will always try to take the piss as the people that negotiate with you often don't have a clue where your skill set fits into their copmany, and what you actually bring to the table - and most don't want to know either. To quote somebody from a local python mailing list: The criteria used for hiring often don't match the culture in the workplace. This can easily be transferred to rates and quality of work, i.e. the rates offered to the artists often don't match the expected performance I have had requests from some of the big facilities basically asking me if I know a junior that could do what I do. Of course they used different words and tried to make
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Feeling the urge to comment :) Been comping for 20something years - and do my daily chores as VFX producer nowadays. I find our business pretty mis-managed on so many levels - so no wonder all the growing pains we've started to go through recently (we're not even close to done with that yet). There is so much to be done in this area, how to manage projects, artists, tech and clients, and pretty radical measures need to be taken - and I now know it makes all the difference in the world. I was asked to take over a project that had more or less completely crashed. The project involved some 3600 shots in three features, and at the time it crashed one flick was nearly done but one company was bankrupt and all money was used up. And the remaining two films w their 2200 shots was not even close to start being worked on. I was most hesitant to the task - because the extra money asked to complete the project was - not very much - even by eastern standards (still remember the reply of a Bombay manager with his typical indian accent - Dat iz not wery much money... are you joking?...). But I asked the production company to get complete freedom in how to manage the project - and in the dire straits the were in - I got a *GO* to be unorthodox. This is actually a very long tale that should be told in detail, some day.. - it almost became an involuntary pilot test project of how things can be done, in resonance with what Scott Ross et alumni have been talking about... But in short - by extreme managing use of resources, artists and a specially tailored pipeline.. trying new schemes and ways of having a good mix of leads and juniors, we got it done on time, on budget.. in a *good enough* quality - without sending it abroad - without underpaying people - without unpaid overtime (in fact no overtime) - without giving artists stomach ache. And by ridding the word post out of postproductionVFXs... we got the client extremely involved so that every cent spent ended up as a pixel and nothing else. It has been a really exciting thing to be able to do it on such a meager budget and NOT having people suffer. //fredd On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 9:35 AM, Ean Carr m...@eancarr.com wrote: Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type people that don't understand or want to understand the actual work the company is doing. I couldn't agree more. Only one or two vfx companies worldwide seem to get it. -Ean On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 1:02 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.comwrote: In short, being senior is not just about being great, it's about achieving the quality on time and in budget. If you can do that then you may be worth your expectations. I couldn't agree more. It's years of experience that enables people to delivery within the context of a show and problem solve with the right priorities in mind, not just the skill to make something look amazing (regardless of the time and resources it may require). This sort of experience should enable you to keep your value as an artist up. while you may be way more expensive than a junior, you will need way less time to deliver what's required, so the bottom line for the employer is not an increases payroll, but a more efficient delivery schedule. I have had juniors on my team who, despite not being able to do the tricky comps, turned out to be more effective in the grand scheme than some of the seniors. The right combo of experienced seniors/leads and juniors can be quite amazing in terms of efficiency *and* quality. Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type people that don't understand or want to understand the actual work the company is doing. On 16/03/14 13:20, Howard Jones wrote: Taking this from a different angle. Not every show is uber VFX. Some shows cannot afford that level or even require that level. They still need VFX. Does that mean they can't afford senior compositors? No, if anything it means they cant afford not to hire seniors. Why? Because if budgets are tight, you need to hit the ground running. So hypothetically thinking... I need to hire a senior, not because the work is uber-hard or requires uberVFX. It doesn't (always). It's hard enough, requires consummate keying skills/ problem solving but it's not cutting edge. Too hard for a genuine mid range artist, requires a senior. Now here's the problem. Finding a senior who can tailor their VFX to suit the budget. I dont want cheap crap, I don't need uberVFX, I need good enough and fast. Often I find a lot of time is wasted getting the seniors to work down to the show's
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
I had a similar experience on three separate occasions. The teams were always smaller (up to 60 people including producers and everyone else), and the director was ALWAYS IN THE ROOM with us. I must say it was so rewarding and everyone felt we got the best value for the money spent, and that every cent of the meager budgets we worked on ended up on the screen. However, whenever the director was not an integral part of the post production process, working this efficiently has always proven very difficult. You spend a lot of time second guessing what the director will want, what he meant. The turnaround becomes slow. Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Feeling the urge to comment :) Been comping for 20something years - and do my daily chores as VFX producer nowadays. I find our business pretty mis-managed on so many levels - so no wonder all the growing pains we've started to go through recently (we're not even close to done with that yet). There is so much to be done in this area, how to manage projects, artists, tech and clients, and pretty radical measures need to be taken - and I now know it makes all the difference in the world. I was asked to take over a project that had more or less completely crashed. The project involved some 3600 shots in three features, and at the time it crashed one flick was nearly done but one company was bankrupt and all money was used up. And the remaining two films w their 2200 shots was not even close to start being worked on. I was most hesitant to the task - because the extra money asked to complete the project was - not very much - even by eastern standards (still remember the reply of a Bombay manager with his typical indian accent - Dat iz not wery much money... are you joking?...). But I asked the production company to get complete freedom in how to manage the project - and in the dire straits the were in - I got a *GO*to be unorthodox. This is actually a very long tale that should be told in detail, some day.. - it almost became an involuntary pilot test project of how things can be done, in resonance with what Scott Ross et alumni have been talking about... But in short - by extreme managing use of resources, artists and a specially tailored pipeline.. trying new schemes and ways of having a good mix of leads and juniors, we got it done on time, on budget.. in a *good enough* quality - without sending it abroad - without underpaying people - without unpaid overtime (in fact no overtime) - without giving artists stomach ache. And by ridding the word post out of postproductionVFXs... we got the client extremely involved so that every cent spent ended up as a pixel and nothing else. It has been a really exciting thing to be able to do it on such a meager budget and NOT having people suffer. //fredd On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 9:35 AM, Ean Carr m...@eancarr.com wrote: Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type people that don't understand or want to understand the actual work the company is doing. I couldn't agree more. Only one or two vfx companies worldwide seem to get it. -Ean On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 1:02 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.comwrote: In short, being senior is not just about being great, it's about achieving the quality on time and in budget. If you can do that then you may be worth your expectations. I couldn't agree more. It's years of experience that enables people to delivery within the context of a show and problem solve with the right priorities in mind, not just the skill to make something look amazing (regardless of the time and resources it may require). This sort of experience should enable you to keep your value as an artist up. while you may be way more expensive than a junior, you will need way less time to deliver what's required, so the bottom line for the employer is not an increases payroll, but a more efficient delivery schedule. I have had juniors on my team who, despite not being able to do the tricky comps, turned out to be more effective in the grand scheme than some of the seniors. The right combo of experienced seniors/leads and juniors can be quite amazing in terms of efficiency *and* quality. Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type people that don't understand or want to understand the actual work the company is doing. On 16/03/14 13:20, Howard Jones wrote: Taking this from a
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Yeah Ron but how do you manage that when there are 10 VFX houses working on your movie? Big companies like Technicolor/MPC and Deluxe/Method/(all of former Ascent Media) are huge corporations that aren't in the creative business for any other reason then to make money. So if the management of those power players can get it cheap and don't care about burn out and turn over because schools will replenish the supply yearly. They Keep there top staff happy and everything and everyone else is disposable as long as it keeps the bottom line in the black.That then forces most others into that game to compete. I don't know if it affects ILM, Weta, and Pixar but i'm sure it does at some level. I have a friend that is a mid that was just hired at $18/h (canadian) and they wouldn't budge. He either took it or didn't get the job. This is one of the largest VFX houses in the world doing this.I wish it could be like smaller movies with 200-400 shots all done at one place. I just don't see how that works on a movie with 2400 shots spread across multiple companies.There must be a way to do it with cinesync and dailies and such but maybe its just to much when its not planned out well at the very get go. Look what happened with Red Tails. Whole sections of animation just totally redone after delivery. OUCH. That then put a hurt on some companies Money and time wise. So now they can't afford to higher seniors and by measure can not afford to not hire seniors. What a mess. Randy S. Little http://www.rslittle.com/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2325729/ On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Ron Ganbar ron...@gmail.com wrote: I had a similar experience on three separate occasions. The teams were always smaller (up to 60 people including producers and everyone else), and the director was ALWAYS IN THE ROOM with us. I must say it was so rewarding and everyone felt we got the best value for the money spent, and that every cent of the meager budgets we worked on ended up on the screen. However, whenever the director was not an integral part of the post production process, working this efficiently has always proven very difficult. You spend a lot of time second guessing what the director will want, what he meant. The turnaround becomes slow. Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Feeling the urge to comment :) Been comping for 20something years - and do my daily chores as VFX producer nowadays. I find our business pretty mis-managed on so many levels - so no wonder all the growing pains we've started to go through recently (we're not even close to done with that yet). There is so much to be done in this area, how to manage projects, artists, tech and clients, and pretty radical measures need to be taken - and I now know it makes all the difference in the world. I was asked to take over a project that had more or less completely crashed. The project involved some 3600 shots in three features, and at the time it crashed one flick was nearly done but one company was bankrupt and all money was used up. And the remaining two films w their 2200 shots was not even close to start being worked on. I was most hesitant to the task - because the extra money asked to complete the project was - not very much - even by eastern standards (still remember the reply of a Bombay manager with his typical indian accent - Dat iz not wery much money... are you joking?...). But I asked the production company to get complete freedom in how to manage the project - and in the dire straits the were in - I got a *GO*to be unorthodox. This is actually a very long tale that should be told in detail, some day.. - it almost became an involuntary pilot test project of how things can be done, in resonance with what Scott Ross et alumni have been talking about... But in short - by extreme managing use of resources, artists and a specially tailored pipeline.. trying new schemes and ways of having a good mix of leads and juniors, we got it done on time, on budget.. in a *good enough* quality - without sending it abroad - without underpaying people - without unpaid overtime (in fact no overtime) - without giving artists stomach ache. And by ridding the word post out of postproductionVFXs... we got the client extremely involved so that every cent spent ended up as a pixel and nothing else. It has been a really exciting thing to be able to do it on such a meager budget and NOT having people suffer. //fredd On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 9:35 AM, Ean Carr m...@eancarr.com wrote: Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Well, I didn't say I have all the answers. Some a few good, rewarding experiences. It doesn't seem like anyone has the answers. Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 5:27 PM, Randy Little randyslit...@gmail.comwrote: Yeah Ron but how do you manage that when there are 10 VFX houses working on your movie? Big companies like Technicolor/MPC and Deluxe/Method/(all of former Ascent Media) are huge corporations that aren't in the creative business for any other reason then to make money. So if the management of those power players can get it cheap and don't care about burn out and turn over because schools will replenish the supply yearly. They Keep there top staff happy and everything and everyone else is disposable as long as it keeps the bottom line in the black.That then forces most others into that game to compete. I don't know if it affects ILM, Weta, and Pixar but i'm sure it does at some level. I have a friend that is a mid that was just hired at $18/h (canadian) and they wouldn't budge. He either took it or didn't get the job. This is one of the largest VFX houses in the world doing this.I wish it could be like smaller movies with 200-400 shots all done at one place. I just don't see how that works on a movie with 2400 shots spread across multiple companies.There must be a way to do it with cinesync and dailies and such but maybe its just to much when its not planned out well at the very get go. Look what happened with Red Tails. Whole sections of animation just totally redone after delivery. OUCH. That then put a hurt on some companies Money and time wise. So now they can't afford to higher seniors and by measure can not afford to not hire seniors. What a mess. Randy S. Little http://www.rslittle.com/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2325729/ On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Ron Ganbar ron...@gmail.com wrote: I had a similar experience on three separate occasions. The teams were always smaller (up to 60 people including producers and everyone else), and the director was ALWAYS IN THE ROOM with us. I must say it was so rewarding and everyone felt we got the best value for the money spent, and that every cent of the meager budgets we worked on ended up on the screen. However, whenever the director was not an integral part of the post production process, working this efficiently has always proven very difficult. You spend a lot of time second guessing what the director will want, what he meant. The turnaround becomes slow. Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Fredrik Pihl fre...@gmail.com wrote: Feeling the urge to comment :) Been comping for 20something years - and do my daily chores as VFX producer nowadays. I find our business pretty mis-managed on so many levels - so no wonder all the growing pains we've started to go through recently (we're not even close to done with that yet). There is so much to be done in this area, how to manage projects, artists, tech and clients, and pretty radical measures need to be taken - and I now know it makes all the difference in the world. I was asked to take over a project that had more or less completely crashed. The project involved some 3600 shots in three features, and at the time it crashed one flick was nearly done but one company was bankrupt and all money was used up. And the remaining two films w their 2200 shots was not even close to start being worked on. I was most hesitant to the task - because the extra money asked to complete the project was - not very much - even by eastern standards (still remember the reply of a Bombay manager with his typical indian accent - Dat iz not wery much money... are you joking?...). But I asked the production company to get complete freedom in how to manage the project - and in the dire straits the were in - I got a *GO*to be unorthodox. This is actually a very long tale that should be told in detail, some day.. - it almost became an involuntary pilot test project of how things can be done, in resonance with what Scott Ross et alumni have been talking about... But in short - by extreme managing use of resources, artists and a specially tailored pipeline.. trying new schemes and ways of having a good mix of leads and juniors, we got it done on time, on budget.. in a *good enough* quality - without sending it abroad - without underpaying people - without unpaid overtime (in fact no overtime) - without giving artists stomach ache. And by ridding the word post out of postproductionVFXs... we got the client extremely involved so that every cent spent ended up as a pixel and nothing else. It has been a really exciting thing to be able to do it on
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
On 20/03/14 17:07, Fredrik Pihl wrote: computers generated the images Ouch! ;) ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
In all kinds of productions there seems to be a heavy reliance on the director. That's the standard I guess. Should not we, the vfx-artists, be the authority of our own domain? We know the pains of each new change and the cost penalty associated with it. Because we feel the direct effects when doing the extra work. It has been said in a few different ways in this thread; great leading artists can nip those pains in the bud. Working exhaustingly to find that this wasn't what the client wanted is surely a great waste of talent, money and passion. But we all get why things get delayed before it leaves the house. Questions like these appear; is this up to par with the quality the client expects? And; if we show this, will the director suddenly change the direction and narrative? I do not claim to have any solutions, yet. I simply state that the director cannot possibly be expected to know the repercussions each decision could have. But at this point, it seems like VFX vendors carry the risk while the directors/producers gets away with it. Why? Because we want the movie to be made. Bad decicions should be costly, VFX-houses who did everything right shouldn't be paying the price. /Elias 20 mar 2014 kl. 23:24 skrev Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com: I think all we can all do is collect scenarios that worked well and figure out why they worked well. I was part of a small team (6 or so artists) delivering some pretty complex commercials that involved cg creatures, ray tracing deforming surfaces, fluid simulation, deep compositing yaddayadda. The director was one of the team and had his desk next to us. We delivered all spots in about 6 weeks and in all that time I worked a few hours overtime twice (half of that because I couldn't be bothered to sit in my hotel room and stare at the wall). The job was welled paid, the team was awesome, the client loved everything, and I can't remember when I was able to witness such efficiency, most of which stemmed from, as pointed out by others, the ability to have the director to make decisions fast. Of course the team's competence played a huge role as well, as every single one could manage themselves and communicate, take criticism from each other and not let ego get in a way of a good suggestion, even if it came from the cleaning woman. Comparing that to high end feature film work almost makes me cry. One of the biggest time and money wasters, in my opinion, is the fact that directors aren't accessible to the people whos work needs to be directed. Too many supes of all sorts get (or are put) in the way who all have a different opinion and different priorities. In one instance I counted 5 supes between the final comp and the actual director (not counting producers with opinions), and sometimes weeks went by with potential finals sitting on the shelf, waiting for the director to look at them - only to get notes for huge changes that needed more time than what was left. Also, and more importantly, many producers tend to shift down a few gears once the shoot wraps and often don't bother putting a competent (!) post production manager in place. If post production was managed like a shoot (where everything costs money every minute you are on set), things would be radically different; director feedback would be weighted against the financial repercussions, and concessions would be made to achieve good enough every single day. Work and time would be valued and not treated like a throw away commodity. But often there is no controlling the director in post, and he/she can make any calls they like. As long as the vfx vendor doesn't put up a fight, the producers tend to not get involved anymore and just make sure there are no change orders coming there way. Imagine the same approach on set - shoots would take forever, crew would get burnt and costs would explode uncontrollably... sounds familiar, doesn't it. On 3/21/14, 4:45 AM, Ron Ganbar wrote: Well, I didn't say I have all the answers. Some a few good, rewarding experiences. It doesn't seem like anyone has the answers. Ron Ganbar email: ron...@gmail.com tel: +44 (0)7968 007 309 [UK] +972 (0)54 255 9765 [Israel] url: http://ronganbar.wordpress.com/ On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 5:27 PM, Randy Little randyslit...@gmail.com wrote: Yeah Ron but how do you manage that when there are 10 VFX houses working on your movie? Big companies like Technicolor/MPC and Deluxe/Method/(all of former Ascent Media) are huge corporations that aren't in the creative business for any other reason then to make money. So if the management of those power players can get it cheap and don't care about burn out and turn over because schools will replenish the supply yearly. They Keep there top staff happy and everything and everyone else is disposable as long as it keeps the bottom line in the black.That then
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
On 21 March 2014 10:09, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: In all kinds of productions there seems to be a heavy reliance on the director. That's the standard I guess. Should not we, the vfx-artists, be the authority of our own domain? I do wonder if non cg fx heavy films of the past were as reliant on director approval as they are today. Using raiders as the example again, was Spielberg really approving every rock, every mine cart that was created for the mine chase sequence, sending shots back 10, 50, 100 times for revisions? Or as I suspect, was there the simple reality of 'we need to make these things, that takes time, you really can't change much once we start shooting miniatures.'? The ability for digital to change anything and everything is both the best and worst thing that happened to post production. ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Totally agree. Just because we are more flexible in post has created a culture of creative micro management that is equivalent to man handling actors on set rather than letting them act On 3/21/14, 12:25 PM, matt estela wrote: On 21 March 2014 10:09, Elias Ericsson Rydberg elias.ericsson.rydb...@gmail.com wrote: In all kinds of productions there seems to be a heavy reliance on the director. That's the standard I guess. Should not we, the vfx-artists, be the authority of our own domain? I do wonder if non cg fx heavy films of the past were as reliant on director approval as they are today. Using raiders as the example again, was Spielberg really approving every rock, every mine cart that was created for the mine chase sequence, sending shots back 10, 50, 100 times for revisions? Or as I suspect, was there the simple reality of 'we need to make these things, that takes time, you really can't change much once we start shooting miniatures.'? The ability for digital to change anything and everything is both the best and worst thing that happened to post production. ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- vfx compositing | workflow customisation and consulting ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
In short, being senior is not just about being great, it's about achieving the quality on time and in budget. If you can do that then you may be worth your expectations. I couldn't agree more. It's years of experience that enables people to delivery within the context of a show and problem solve with the right priorities in mind, not just the skill to make something look amazing (regardless of the time and resources it may require). This sort of experience should enable you to keep your value as an artist up. while you may be way more expensive than a junior, you will need way less time to deliver what's required, so the bottom line for the employer is not an increases payroll, but a more efficient delivery schedule. I have had juniors on my team who, despite not being able to do the tricky comps, turned out to be more effective in the grand scheme than some of the seniors. The right combo of experienced seniors/leads and juniors can be quite amazing in terms of efficiency and quality. Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type people that don't understand or want to understand the actual work the company is doing. On 16/03/14 13:20, Howard Jones wrote: Taking this from a different angle. Not every show is uber VFX. Some shows cannot afford that level or even require that level. They still need VFX. Does that mean they can't afford senior compositors? No, if anything it means they cant afford not to hire seniors. Why? Because if budgets are tight, you need to hit the ground running. So hypothetically thinking... I need to hire a senior, not because the work is uber-hard or requires uberVFX. It doesn't (always). It's hard enough, requires consummate keying skills/ problem solving but it's not cutting edge. Too hard for a genuine mid range artist, requires a senior. Now here's the problem. Finding a senior who can tailor their VFX to suit the budget. I dont want cheap crap, I don't need uberVFX, I need good enough and fast. Often I find a lot of time is wasted getting the seniors to work down to the show's expectations and budget. In short too much pixel fucking. However at the end of the day I would still want a senior and pay what is affordable. Just a good senior on a simpler show should be faster, less demanding, than a junior/mid. (If only) I guess there are a range of shops you can go to to fill up your trolley, but if you pay a bit more you expect a better quality. Whether quality translates to good enough and fast or perfect and considered, depends on show budget. However good enough and slow at a premium rate is just a waste. In short, being senior is not just about being great, it's about achieving the quality on time and in budget. If you can do that then you may be worth your expectations. Howard On 15 Mar 2014, at 02:53, Neil Scholes n...@uvfilms.co.uk wrote: Absofrigin-lutley! Very interesting thread, and considering the shear skill set needed and uber high level of expertise required for great vfx creation, the right price can always be negotiated confidently and reasonably. Neil Scholes Sent from my iPad On 14 Mar 2014, at 23:37, adam jones adam@mac.com wrote: well said frank. you have put into word in an elegant way what I try and explain to people all of the time, its a slow road but the more artists that think this way the easier it will become. cheers -adam On 15/03/2014, at 10:20 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Either way, most qualified people I know tend to be under paid, and based on my experience, companies will always try to
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Yes, I agree it's not always über vfx, but as you both point out extremely well, experience can be invaluable. I can only speak as someone who has been steadily learning Nuke and Houdini for the past 4 years; and what is obvious to me is that the knowledge to solve problems, and thus be truly effective, is vast and complex. I can clearly see how experience on even a modest budget, is priceless. Neil Sent from my iPad On 16 Mar 2014, at 01:02, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: In short, being senior is not just about being great, it's about achieving the quality on time and in budget. If you can do that then you may be worth your expectations. I couldn't agree more. It's years of experience that enables people to delivery within the context of a show and problem solve with the right priorities in mind, not just the skill to make something look amazing (regardless of the time and resources it may require). This sort of experience should enable you to keep your value as an artist up. while you may be way more expensive than a junior, you will need way less time to deliver what's required, so the bottom line for the employer is not an increases payroll, but a more efficient delivery schedule. I have had juniors on my team who, despite not being able to do the tricky comps, turned out to be more effective in the grand scheme than some of the seniors. The right combo of experienced seniors/leads and juniors can be quite amazing in terms of efficiency and quality. Unfortunately, companies often do not value experience because it seems expensive on paper, when all they do is compare the hourly/daily rate for juniors and seniors; particularly when those companies are managed by accountant type people that don't understand or want to understand the actual work the company is doing. On 16/03/14 13:20, Howard Jones wrote: Taking this from a different angle. Not every show is uber VFX. Some shows cannot afford that level or even require that level. They still need VFX. Does that mean they can't afford senior compositors? No, if anything it means they cant afford not to hire seniors. Why? Because if budgets are tight, you need to hit the ground running. So hypothetically thinking... I need to hire a senior, not because the work is uber-hard or requires uberVFX. It doesn't (always). It's hard enough, requires consummate keying skills/ problem solving but it's not cutting edge. Too hard for a genuine mid range artist, requires a senior. Now here's the problem. Finding a senior who can tailor their VFX to suit the budget. I dont want cheap crap, I don't need uberVFX, I need good enough and fast. Often I find a lot of time is wasted getting the seniors to work down to the show's expectations and budget. In short too much pixel fucking. However at the end of the day I would still want a senior and pay what is affordable. Just a good senior on a simpler show should be faster, less demanding, than a junior/mid. (If only) I guess there are a range of shops you can go to to fill up your trolley, but if you pay a bit more you expect a better quality. Whether quality translates to good enough and fast or perfect and considered, depends on show budget. However good enough and slow at a premium rate is just a waste. In short, being senior is not just about being great, it's about achieving the quality on time and in budget. If you can do that then you may be worth your expectations. Howard On 15 Mar 2014, at 02:53, Neil Scholes n...@uvfilms.co.uk wrote: Absofrigin-lutley! Very interesting thread, and considering the shear skill set needed and uber high level of expertise required for great vfx creation, the right price can always be negotiated confidently and reasonably. Neil Scholes Sent from my iPad On 14 Mar 2014, at 23:37, adam jones adam@mac.com wrote: well said frank. you have put into word in an elegant way what I try and explain to people all of the time, its a slow road but the more artists that think this way the easier it will become. cheers -adam On 15/03/2014, at 10:20 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Either way, most qualified people I know tend to be under paid, and based on my experience, companies will always try to take the piss as the people that negotiate with you often don't have a clue where your skill set fits into their copmany, and what you actually bring to the table - and most don't want to know either. To quote somebody from a local python mailing list: The criteria used for hiring often don't match the culture in the workplace. This can easily be transferred to rates and quality of work, i.e. the rates offered to the artists often don't match the expected performance I have had requests from some of the big facilities basically asking me if I know a junior that could
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Hey steve Thank you for the info, I find it interesting that the day rate in England sits at around 170 - 220 pounds a day it is around 450$ - 550$ AUD per day here in oz. senior I guess I cover both side been doing it for a long time and also can do the hard stuff, haven't heard it explained that way before. cheers mate -adam On 14/03/2014, at 8:43 PM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Hi Adam, I guess its all down to supply and demand. There are a lot of guys wanting to work in London/UK and the companies receive hundreds of applications with many people applying from Eastern Europe or the Far East where expectations for salaries are generally lower compared to people coming from the States or I guess Oz/New Zealand. This seems to have the affect of driving the salaries down, and only recently we've seen big FX houses decide to let go of experienced (expensive) artists and try and replace them with cheaper (less experienced) artists. We'll see the effects of this in coming months when some big shows deliver. I find the whole junior/mid/senior labelling a bit misleading. Once company's senior could come in to another facility and struggle. There seems to be quite common that people define their status by how long they have been working rather than the level of work they produce. Most artists with more than 5 years experience seem to be called seniors, but there will be people doing it half that time who can produce better work, so structuring a person's pay purely based on how long they've been working seems unfair. Sounds like things are good in Oz if you guys can make the equivalent of £78000 a year. There won't be too many seniors here on that kind of money I'm sur, but come over, negotiate hard and see what you can get :) Steve ps. all this is just my personal opinion and in no way a view based on any company or inside knowledge :) On 14/03/14 10:39, adam jones wrote: Hey steve Thank you for the info, I find it interesting that the day rate in England sits at around 170 - 220 pounds a day it is around 450$ - 550$ AUD per day here in oz. senior I guess I cover both side been doing it for a long time and also can do the hard stuff, haven't heard it explained that way before. cheers mate -adam On 14/03/2014, at 8:43 PM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
If you are a senior on 170 a day then you must either be the worst negotiator on the planet or have stayed at the same company for too long. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
That's kind of my point. You'll find plenty of 'seniors' on less than 45K in small facilities in London, and yup you hit the nail on the head, people who stay in one company for a long time, get their 1-2% pay rise every year (when not in the perpetual pay freeze) and have zero concept oh how they stack up with other artists at other facilities. It's not like it used to be. It's a double edged sword where its very hard to progress unless you stick around for a bit, so you either move around, follow the money and do the shots, or stay put and try and work your way up. But anyway... Nuke eh? ;) On 14/03/14 11:45, Gustaf Nilsson wrote: If you are a senior on 170 a day then you must either be the worst negotiator on the planet or have stayed at the same company for too long. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com mailto:s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk mailto:Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk mailto:Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Funny, the London plumbing scene can take on a wave of millions of eastern european workers and still charge 40 quid an hour, maybe we can learn something from them? Its all about connecting pipes, innit? ;) On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 11:20 AM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: Hi Adam, I guess its all down to supply and demand. There are a lot of guys wanting to work in London/UK and the companies receive hundreds of applications with many people applying from Eastern Europe or the Far East where expectations for salaries are generally lower compared to people coming from the States or I guess Oz/New Zealand. This seems to have the affect of driving the salaries down, and only recently we've seen big FX houses decide to let go of experienced (expensive) artists and try and replace them with cheaper (less experienced) artists. We'll see the effects of this in coming months when some big shows deliver. I find the whole junior/mid/senior labelling a bit misleading. Once company's senior could come in to another facility and struggle. There seems to be quite common that people define their status by how long they have been working rather than the level of work they produce. Most artists with more than 5 years experience seem to be called seniors, but there will be people doing it half that time who can produce better work, so structuring a person's pay purely based on how long they've been working seems unfair. Sounds like things are good in Oz if you guys can make the equivalent of £78000 a year. There won't be too many seniors here on that kind of money I'm sur, but come over, negotiate hard and see what you can get :) Steve ps. all this is just my personal opinion and in no way a view based on any company or inside knowledge :) On 14/03/14 10:39, adam jones wrote: Hey steve Thank you for the info, I find it interesting that the day rate in England sits at around 170 - 220 pounds a day it is around 450$ - 550$ AUD per day here in oz. senior I guess I cover both side been doing it for a long time and also can do the hard stuff, haven't heard it explained that way before. cheers mate -adam On 14/03/2014, at 8:43 PM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Just out of curiosity, A bit off topic, What do you consider to be the hard stuff? Sent from my iPad On Mar 14, 2014, at 3:43 AM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Either way, most qualified people I know tend to be under paid, and based on my experience, companies will always try to take the piss as the people that negotiate with you often don't have a clue where your skill set fits into their copmany, and what you actually bring to the table - and most don't want to know either. To quote somebody from a local python mailing list: "The criteria used for hiring often don't match the culture in the workplace. " This can easily be transferred to rates and quality of work, i.e. "the rates offered to the artists often don't match the expected performance" I have had requests from some of the big facilities basically asking me if I know a junior that could do what I do. Of course they used different words and tried to make me feel honoured that they would ask me for my opinion. My reply was "you get what you pay for" - never heard anything again from them. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that we all need to be a bit more accountable as to the rate we aim for. Aim too low, and you may get the job today, but you will become part of the problem, and the ongoing commoditisation of top vfx experience, and your work will not be valued. One argument I have learned to never accept from the big facilities when they try to hire you for another million dollar blockbuster is "it's not in our budget". that is the lamest excuse. It's like going to the shops, filling up your trolly and telling the check out girl that the total price is not in your budget - and expect a friendly "oh, well , that's fine then - have a good day". One of the most challenging parts of my career has been to figure out for myself what I really think my work is worth, rather than what I think I can get away with. It's been 18 years and am still struggling with that :-D frank On 3/15/14, 12:55 AM, Steve Newbold wrote: That's kind of my point. You'll find plenty of 'seniors' on less than 45K in small facilities in London, and yup you hit the nail on the head, people who stay in one company for a long time, get their 1-2% pay rise every year (when not in the perpetual pay freeze) and have zero concept oh how they stack up with other artists at other facilities. It's not like it used to be. It's a double edged sword where its very hard to progress unless you stick around for a bit, so you either move around, follow the money and do the shots, or stay put and try and work your way up. But anyway... Nuke eh? ;) On 14/03/14 11:45, Gustaf Nilsson wrote: If you are a senior on 170 a day then you must either be the worst negotiator on the planet or have stayed at the same company for too long. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between 170-220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk,
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
well said frank. you have put into word in an elegant way what I try and explain to people all of the time, its a slow road but the more artists that think this way the easier it will become. cheers -adam On 15/03/2014, at 10:20 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Either way, most qualified people I know tend to be under paid, and based on my experience, companies will always try to take the piss as the people that negotiate with you often don't have a clue where your skill set fits into their copmany, and what you actually bring to the table - and most don't want to know either. To quote somebody from a local python mailing list: The criteria used for hiring often don't match the culture in the workplace. This can easily be transferred to rates and quality of work, i.e. the rates offered to the artists often don't match the expected performance I have had requests from some of the big facilities basically asking me if I know a junior that could do what I do. Of course they used different words and tried to make me feel honoured that they would ask me for my opinion. My reply was you get what you pay for - never heard anything again from them. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that we all need to be a bit more accountable as to the rate we aim for. Aim too low, and you may get the job today, but you will become part of the problem, and the ongoing commoditisation of top vfx experience, and your work will not be valued. One argument I have learned to never accept from the big facilities when they try to hire you for another million dollar blockbuster is it's not in our budget. that is the lamest excuse. It's like going to the shops, filling up your trolly and telling the check out girl that the total price is not in your budget - and expect a friendly oh, well , that's fine then - have a good day. One of the most challenging parts of my career has been to figure out for myself what I really think my work is worth, rather than what I think I can get away with. It's been 18 years and am still struggling with that :-D frank On 3/15/14, 12:55 AM, Steve Newbold wrote: That's kind of my point. You'll find plenty of 'seniors' on less than 45K in small facilities in London, and yup you hit the nail on the head, people who stay in one company for a long time, get their 1-2% pay rise every year (when not in the perpetual pay freeze) and have zero concept oh how they stack up with other artists at other facilities. It's not like it used to be. It's a double edged sword where its very hard to progress unless you stick around for a bit, so you either move around, follow the money and do the shots, or stay put and try and work your way up. But anyway... Nuke eh? ;) On 14/03/14 11:45, Gustaf Nilsson wrote: If you are a senior on 170 a day then you must either be the worst negotiator on the planet or have stayed at the same company for too long. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk,
Re: [Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Absofrigin-lutley! Very interesting thread, and considering the shear skill set needed and uber high level of expertise required for great vfx creation, the right price can always be negotiated confidently and reasonably. Neil Scholes Sent from my iPad On 14 Mar 2014, at 23:37, adam jones adam@mac.com wrote: well said frank. you have put into word in an elegant way what I try and explain to people all of the time, its a slow road but the more artists that think this way the easier it will become. cheers -adam On 15/03/2014, at 10:20 AM, Frank Rueter|OHUfx fr...@ohufx.com wrote: Either way, most qualified people I know tend to be under paid, and based on my experience, companies will always try to take the piss as the people that negotiate with you often don't have a clue where your skill set fits into their copmany, and what you actually bring to the table - and most don't want to know either. To quote somebody from a local python mailing list: The criteria used for hiring often don't match the culture in the workplace. This can easily be transferred to rates and quality of work, i.e. the rates offered to the artists often don't match the expected performance I have had requests from some of the big facilities basically asking me if I know a junior that could do what I do. Of course they used different words and tried to make me feel honoured that they would ask me for my opinion. My reply was you get what you pay for - never heard anything again from them. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that we all need to be a bit more accountable as to the rate we aim for. Aim too low, and you may get the job today, but you will become part of the problem, and the ongoing commoditisation of top vfx experience, and your work will not be valued. One argument I have learned to never accept from the big facilities when they try to hire you for another million dollar blockbuster is it's not in our budget. that is the lamest excuse. It's like going to the shops, filling up your trolly and telling the check out girl that the total price is not in your budget - and expect a friendly oh, well , that's fine then - have a good day. One of the most challenging parts of my career has been to figure out for myself what I really think my work is worth, rather than what I think I can get away with. It's been 18 years and am still struggling with that :-D frank On 3/15/14, 12:55 AM, Steve Newbold wrote: That's kind of my point. You'll find plenty of 'seniors' on less than 45K in small facilities in London, and yup you hit the nail on the head, people who stay in one company for a long time, get their 1-2% pay rise every year (when not in the perpetual pay freeze) and have zero concept oh how they stack up with other artists at other facilities. It's not like it used to be. It's a double edged sword where its very hard to progress unless you stick around for a bit, so you either move around, follow the money and do the shots, or stay put and try and work your way up. But anyway... Nuke eh? ;) On 14/03/14 11:45, Gustaf Nilsson wrote: If you are a senior on 170 a day then you must either be the worst negotiator on the planet or have stayed at the same company for too long. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Steve Newbold s...@dneg.com wrote: UK companies seem to be very good at making sure that there is no such thing as average or 'typical' day rate and its more down to how desperate they are and how good you are at talking and whether you mean senior as in 'been doing it for a while', or senior as in 'can do the hard stuff' - the two can be different things depending on the company you are applying to. I would say between £170-£220 per day is typical for seniors in London depending on the facility, more for leads and more again for sups. At this moment there is high demand for compositors but very short contracts so you might be able to get a good deal if you are willing to move companies every three months. There is also very little difference between pay for film or commercials in the UK, so don't let anyone try that move on you...! Steve On 13/03/14 21:42, adam jones wrote: Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users -- ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
[Nuke-users] day rates in the UK
Hey all I was wondering if some one could inform me of an average day rate for a senior nuke comper in the UK. london or bristol off list replies are fine if you like. cheers all -adam ___ Nuke-users mailing list Nuke-users@support.thefoundry.co.uk, http://forums.thefoundry.co.uk/ http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
