VES
Ok, this picture has nothing to do with the Visual Effect Society. I just happen to be hiking up in the Santa Monica mountains, and I turned back and looked over West LA. This is the panorama from the top of the Temescal Ridge Trail. I'm standing near Skull Rock, a rock that.. uhm, looks like a skull from afar. This picture covers from a little west of downtown LA, Santa Monica, the Pacific Palisades, and Malibu on the far right. It was taken about 7:30 in the morning. While this was a shorter hike (only ~4 miles roundtrip at two hours), it is in preparation for a bigger stint in July. I'll be hiking up Mt. Whitney with some friends. That hike is supposed to be around 22 miles roundtrip with an elevation change of about 6000 feet. Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m).
If you've subscribed to my Twitter feed or are a VFXTalk VIP member, you may have read about my lack of renewal for the next year of VES membership. There are couple reasons for me to do so. While the Visual Effects Society provides a number of outstanding benefits for their members, I have not been able to utilize the majority of them. In addition, my contributions in general overwhelm what I am really getting in return for being a member. Many of you know that I have mentored students in the past as part of the VES. I've mentored students for three years. I've also been an active member of VFXTalk, at one brief moment a co-owner, one of the bigger VFX discussion groups around, and also have VFXWages (subsidiary of Industry Wages Inc.), which is gaining in popularity and usefulness. Doing a search for vfx in google will return VFXTalk as the number two choice, right after the wiki entry, and doing a search for vfx wages, wages in vfx, vfx payrate, all give VFXWages a number one hit. With 8500+ users, an upcoming iPhone app and a new site design with unique tools, we're going to continue to increase our usefulness. After the VFX Townhall that Lee put on a while back, there was a lot of discussion that artists in our fields have to take the initiative and push for their own benefits (be it financial or not). One thing I've learned is that we as artists work long hours, seem to get a decent amount of financial payback, and are generally a happy lot. So in order to upend the status quo takes a fair bit of work. With many companies going under, or outsourcing their work, the California vfx artist may be a dying breed, so it's up to us to keep ourselves relevant. We are not replaceable (well, some of us are).
The past couple of weeks I've been researching the US Labor Code, the California Labor Code, and am writing up a piece for VFXWages that covers our entertainment industry. A lot of people that I've met don't really have an idea of what to expect when going into an interview and what to ask for. IMs and SMSs from colleagues asking for rate information, legality of work hours, enhance the fact that we don't really know what to expect! From the VFX Townhall, the idea is that each artist should be pro-active and strive for their own lifestyle and benefits. One of the key lifestyle benefits is to not be taken advantage of. The article I'm writing will hopefully help professional and starting artists realize that there are laws on the employees side, especially relevant for vfx, that many of us don't know!
Look forward to your article,
I'm not a vfxtalk VIP member so i might have missed this but...
Is there anything the VES could have done that would have made it a little more worthwhile for you ?
I'd rather this news gets to them so they can better understand why they are loosing such a valuable member instead of them thinking that your membership has lapsed due to other reasons.
I'll try to get the word across to them myself if possible.
b
boomji
August 25, 2010 3:29 AM