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Comment by fidotron | Hacker News Reader

I worked in games for years, but the people I have known that did VFX is like a whole other level. At one point my local breakfast place was run by someone that had done the opening sequence for a major film, and never saw a cent from the work. The few times I've contracted peripherally in that industry getting paid is like getting blood from a stone.

We're rapidly reaching a point where people in developed countries cannot afford the option of creative employment.

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Hollywood accounting... I was once approached to do some work for a (Dutch) movie and they first came with that having your name on the credits was the door opener to a career that would surely make the missed income look like peanuts. When that fell on deaf ears they suggested I do this one for free, but get paid for the next. Guess how that went.

Create content, I’ll pay you with visibility and then if it works, I’ll pay you with money.

Seems like standard YouTube/TikTok/Twitter too :D

> by someone that had done the opening sequence for a major film

I used to work in VFX (tools programming) and this makes no sense. Major films have VFX crews that number in the hundreds; nobody does anything on their own. Even if they were only doing a credit sequence, that's dozens of people's work over weeks or months.

And "never saw a cent"?? Sure, VFX studios don't get residuals or a percentage of gross, but they do get paid.

Count yourself lucky it looks like parent wasn't so lucky.

If your studio goes under you do not get paid. Did your studio go under while working there?

My main confusion was with the claim that one person did an entire "opening sequence" of a major film. That's simply not possible. It's like claiming a skyscraper was built by one guy.

Not every film is a Marvel movie. Many films use VFX even if it doesn't look like it. The opening sequence could have been for a romcom or something that only needed a bit of light work to touch up some frames or remove a wire or something.

Because plenty will do creative stuff for free/near nothing. If something is enjoyable enough and the barrier to entry is low, it rapidly becomes a hobby.

It is like writing. Writing hardly pays anymore as plenty (admittedly including myself) are willing to provide magazines with content for nothing or near nothing.

And if you can't afford the creatives, content becomes the product of the elite. We can't let that happen. Let the VFX and Gaming industries unionize.

> and never saw a cent from the work.

It could just be that im out of touch with reality, but WHY are they agreeing to this? arent they the very problem? just demand money for a service.

Im sure all my clients would love to pay me a big fat nothing. Do you know who wouldnt love that? ME

my god, say no to this shit?

> my god, say no to this shit?

Fuck you, pay me is a wonderful talk that should be required watching for any creative looking to start a career. Doubly so if striking out on their own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

> It could just be that im out of touch with reality, but WHY are they agreeing to this? arent they the very problem? just demand money for a service.

My guess is desperation.

There are a lot of people that want to be artists. Some of these people find any other type of work to be unbearable. So they're either deciding to roll over and take it, since the alternative of working any other non-art-related job is too painful, or they're incorrectly thinking that if they do a good enough job on one project, they'll earn a name for themselves and get paid handsomely on the next.

> the alternative of working any other non-art-related job is too painful

"I don't feel like it" doesn't sound like desperation to me. It sounds more like entitlement.

> "I don't feel like it" doesn't sound like desperation to me. It sounds more like entitlement.

What a condescending attitude towards someone trying to break into a difficult industry, who has probably been aiming for this for some time, and likely went to college for that express purpose.

Long-standing entitlement is still entitlement. Expensive entitlement is still entitlement.

Cause people want to feed their kids

Not everyone has the luxury of waiting around for a nice gig to pop up after being fired or having a contract end

But working for literally nothing doesn’t feed the kids.

I think there's a combo of "I like doing this work", maybe not fully grokking a residual structure, and ultimately feeling like all of the work is contractor base.

It's kind of like how everyone in games was so underpaid, but since everyone was like that you just kind of accept that as the status quo (especially if you're just out of college and don't even really grok that you can't live on a ramen budget forever)

> WHY are they agreeing to this?

Because they don't know that they won't actually get any money at the time they agree.

The "creativity industry" scamming people is a tale as old as the industry.

In the cases where theres scamming involved, thats scamming. If the industry generally has a high scamming %, then demand upfront pay. This might result in some lost work, I have had a couple of clients I demanded upfront pay from, and I have also lost some due to it, but I will not be scammed

> but WHY are they agreeing to this?

Probably did not.

As someone else pointed out if your are contracted to a studio, and the studio goes out of business, you will not get paid.

It does not have to be like that...

demand upfront pay. I have done that myself. I have also lost business to it, but such is life.

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