If you have the means, the skills, the connections, and the chutzpah to demand the rates for your work, then awesome. Continue living the dream. I just sympathize with those that for whatever reasons have had their options marginalized. I think once you secured your finances and the bills are paid, then you have more options to pick and choose the projects AND the terms you like.
Let's be honest, CG can be a very good financial career depending on where you are in the food chain. I can prove it by how many people drive cars in the 30k+ range, own homes, Canon MkII/MKIII owners, those fancy quadracopters with cameras on them that you fly with an iPad, the iPad itself, new smart phones, etc. Some of us hardly have an excuse to cry poor. But some artists who do amazing work aren't being paid properly for their skills. Those are the ones we need to watch out for because they're equal partners in defining our industry as well as the future of our industry. I've had friends that have chased tentpole after tentpole, made good money working loads of OT during the length of the job, and then cough up all that money during dry times and medical bills. It's punishment for being huge fans of dragons and big-breasted katana wielding chicks with zombie ass arsenals and want to contribute to that body of work. That's just not right. -Lu On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Raffaele Fragapane < raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote: > I hear that reasoning a lot. > On one end, it's agreeable. Sure, if your passion is CG, go ahead, find > new venues. > Some of us, however, do this because we're into creature work of a certain > profile, or film in general, or both. For that demographic, looking at > venues such as mobile app graphics, or slot machine graphics, or med-viz, > or what else have you, is simply not an option. > The next gen of consoles might open up one more venue, but insofar the > gaming industry hasn't exactly turned out to be a safe haven either. > > I'm not dismissing the argument, it's a sensible one to make and some > should consider it, but it's narrowly applied short sight in a way to think > everybody is in it to push buttons in Maya or Soft, and is willing to > transfer their skills, if they even were in first place. > > Personally I'm in it to blow shit up and make stuff like dragons, hot > chicks dual wielding katanas, zombies with arse-mounted machine guns and > the such. Applying my software development skills to a successful 100000 > downloads 0.99$ calendar app, even if I tick all the boxes required to make > one, isn't my idea of a job I'd like :) > > > On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Meng-Yang Lu <ntmon...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> You have to look at it a different way. There's actually a ton of >> applications we can use CG for. It's just that we like to kiss Hollywood's >> glittery ass that gets us in trouble. There's a lot of avenues we can all >> pursue. Just like iPhone and iPads opened up new doors for us to leverage >> our talents, so will things like 3D printing in the future. The reality is >> that we have a lot of options if we are willing to set aside our egos and >> pursue other meaningful work that provides value. It may not be >> as glamorous as film, but film work is no longer glamorous either with >> layoffs, bankruptcy, and abuse. Consider we clearly don't get any >> recognition as artists, why do we still beg for a seat at a table that >> unwelcomes us, but gladly fleece us of our talents? >> >> We have to start asking what we value as a workforce, starting with >> ourselves. A new model needs to be built out of the ashes that is the >> current VFX industry. Kids on youtube doing vlogs make more money than >> some fulltime vfx artists. Don't watch the Oscars if it makes your blood >> boil. You pop an artery and that's a lot of problems you have to deal >> with. And no, RDJ will not rescue you in his Iron Man suit because without >> us, he doesn't even exist. >> >> -Lu >> >>
