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Comment by bmarquez | Hacker News Reader

> experience of working on a film or television series that is underbid, understaffed, subject to unreasonable, inflexible deadlines, and endless directorial nitpicking: "pixel fucked"

This feels like working for a video game company. People overworked, underpaid, and doing it for the love of the creative arts and working on a name brand project. Similar things have happened at Electronic Arts.

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There's a lot in modern day life that seems to depend on an endless supply of naive young folk who don't yet realize they're being taken advantage of yet. They have that belief that their situation will be different.

It's one of those things you can't tell people either, they have to experience it unfortunately, so the cycle continues.

Not sure how you fix that beyond regulation / protection for those folks.

In the film industry everyone knows they're being taken advantage of, it's very explicitly discussed at the lowest ranks of production. It's just that it's the only entrance to the field if you aren't wealthy or heavily connected. You have to suffer until you build your network and credits enough to pull yourself up. There's little to no delusion, just embracing the suck.

You say that everyone knows, but also say "You have to suffer until you build your network and credits enough to pull yourself up."

That's the delusion right there, young naive folks thinking their suffering will pay off.

Because while you say everyone knows, the truth is that discussion is not equal to understanding / internal feeling.

It's only after being chewed up by the machine with no actual payoff do folks come to an understanding, unfortunately.

But until then it's lip service, and folks silently thinking their situation is special / different.

I'm not knocking these folks by the way, I think it's part of the human spirit / condition. That's why I advocate regulation / protections.

People will always be willing to suffer (maybe even enough to skirt paternalistic regulations that were enacted to protect them) when there is such an imbalance of supply vs demand. “Everybody” wants to be a movie director or actor or make AAA games but few such positions are available. It’s not a delusion if it’s a known gamble. I admire them for it, tbh.

> “As we’ve seen in other industries, in the early years, companies will burn through 20-year-olds like fuel to grow whatever business they’re in,” said Andrew. “But after a certain point, you’re going to either run out of people, or those who have been in the industry for a decade and now have kids just won’t stand to be treated that way any more.”

Union movements are on the rise because the status quo is a result of a power imbalance, not from necessity. If there are less movies with better VFX made by healthy staff, then so be it.

It's absolutely a gamble, and I hope that everyone entering the field is aware of that.

> I admire them for it, tbh.

Why? It's just rolling the dice. I don't see how it deserves admiration (nor does it deserve condemnation).

My admiration is just from knowing I'm too risk-averse to do it. I just admire the courage/determination.

And, of course, there is no way for everybody to pull themselves up. You have to hope that you are one of the lucky few, while the rest are ground up and spat out by the machine.

Harlan Ellison's old "pay the writer" rant applies to many industries. He was right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuLr9HG2ASs

I don't know much about VFX but that's certainly true in much of the scuba diving industry. They find young people who love to dive and want to make it a career, and sucker them into paying for training to become dive masters and instructors. Then those people get stuck working long hours for miniscule wages, always under constant pressure to cut corners on safety while trying to sell more equipment and training courses to customers. There are good dive shops and instructors who don't play that game but they are a minority.

In general be cautious about getting into any industry where people are there more for love than for money. That tends to create exploitive situations.

see also: investment banking, Big Law, Medicine (with bigger paychecks)

Or they have an understanding that they're being hazed (for lack of a better term) but if they make partner/finish residency they have a not necessarily cushy life but are, as you say, going to be well-paid and have a decent professional life if they like the work.

Academia! (with much smaller paychecks, but occasionally tenure)

Luckily, startup culture in Silicon Valley has none of these problems..

Sounds like working on a software project of literally any kind, minus one's ego necessarily driving the burnout truck (I know that's probably about 50/50)

Feels like working in advertising as well, granted it’s been a decade for me but I imagine the “creative” ego trip is still as alive as ever.

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