Many VFX workers come to work and they are not happy

Along with a team of 12 members, in a room no larger than 500 square feet, a Los Angeles-based visual effects artist worked side by side in secret. No one else was allowed in, and the people inside couldn’t discuss the movie project with anyone outside. We were locked out, he said.

Just two weeks ago, when reports of the highly infectious new coronavirus started to make the headlines, when Italy was quarantined, Tom Hanks revealed that he had contracted COVID-19 and the NBA has announced that it is canceling the season.

But the artist, whose work as a digital composer involves post-production sleight-of-hand tricks such as extracting actors from green screenshots or adding scribbles of blood to zombies , had to work on site with his cohorts.

I was nervous, said the person, who refused to be appointed for fear of losing his job. People were coughing. It was very trying for me. Fortunately, we were all good.

At a time when Hollywood stopped producing to slow the spread of the virus and most of the United States headed for home security, an army of digital effects workers stayed in their studio booths, plugging in on computers up close. .

Like it or not, many have had to work on site, mainly due to rigorous nondisclosure agreements they must sign.

The agreements were intended to protect intellectual property and prevent copyright leakage and theft. However, they also made remote work difficult since workers are generally not allowed to take materials off site. because of the security conformities they signed.

The system has launched a storm of criticism.

The concept that workers must go to work and possibly put their health and lives at risk is outrageous, said Scott Ross, who led Industrial Light & Magic in the 1980s and was one of the founders of Digital Domain. Over the past 10 to 15 years, there have been many remote collaborations between facilities working on projects; why not among the teams working in the same company?

Mario Rokicki, color supervisor at Double Negative in Vancouver, Canada, thought the same thing and decided to ask the question of those who hold the levers of power: the film studios. Saturday he launched a petition on change.org in the form of an open letter to the Motion Picture Association, imploring the industry to allow VFX artists to work remotely.

Many high-tech companies have sent their staff home and offer remote work capabilities, the petition says. Unfortunately, VFX studios around the world working on projects for Hollywood studios and streaming companies cannot provide remote work solutions to their staff. NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) imposed on VFX studios do not allow artists, production, technology and support staff to work from home. With often overcrowded facilities and artists standing shoulder to shoulder pushing long hours with overtime, not only me, but also my loved ones are at risk of catching the virus.

More than 7,000 people signed the petition on Thursday representing a large band of visual effects workers in Los Angeles, Vancouver and other cities. They have worked on productions such as Avatar, The Avengers and Star Wars, for a number of effect stores, including Cinesite, Foundry and Double Negative.

Rokicki, who pointed out that he was acting as an individual and not as a representative of Double Negative, explained that I wanted to help special effects installations by lobbying film studios to help with NDAS. We have all this cutting edge technology to work on the special effects, but we were locked up in studios.

Representatives from MPA, which represents all studios, and Double Negative did not respond to requests for comment.

Ferociously protective of their intellectual property, studios generally require that the special effects stores with which they contract and the workers they hire as part of a project sign very strict confidentiality agreements (NDA).

A studio manager who was not authorized to comment publicly noted that these contracts were drawn up without anticipating such a crisis that would cause widespread social distancing.

Fears of leaks and hacking increased following the cyber attack that hit Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014. A group of hackers calling themselves Guardians of Peace stole and accumulated sensitive data, demanding that Sony cancel its planned release of The Interview, a comedy about two Americans who assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

For several weeks, the group then fled Treasure troves of information on the Internet, including embarrassing emails between executives and thousands of social security numbers belonging to people related to the business. In addition, several new and unreleased films have been leaked online as a result of piracy.

His clients [the studios] who insist on these drastic NDAs, said Los Angeles-based artist VFX, who described his team’s lockdown. VFX studios must comply or the client will say that they will hire someone else who will follow their security procedures.

The Times spoke with 10 visual effects workers and almost all feared retaliation for speaking. Given the current health crisis, they question the persistent insistence on being asked to work on site to address security concerns.

However, the situation is neither static nor uniform. Some small stores and even some of the majors began to arrange for remote deployment, as soon as the state and federal government implemented guidelines for social distancing and, in some cases, shelter on square. Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered all Californians to stay at home.

However, VFX workers say these initiatives need to go further. They complain that many of their cohorts have had the opportunity to use their sick leave or vacation if they wish to stay at home. Others fear being fired without a return date.

Artists who create visual effects for film and television have long complained about long hours and difficult working conditions without health insurance or pensions, sometimes compared to electronic sweatshops. Several years ago, efforts to organize and improve working conditions never materialized.

The rampant outsourcing of jobs in recent years, spurred by generous tax incentives in places like Vancouver, Canada and Mumbai, India, has also disrupted the industry and created the need for a physical office.

The film grants don’t care where you are, said industry veteran Scott Squires. There are no special resources. You are still in a cabin; you’re just in a different city or country, but to be eligible, you must have people in that specific area.

As a result, when this health crisis hit, much of the visual effects sector was taken flat, without the kind of infrastructure that would allow many to work remotely.

Various studios are now jostling to respond to this new technological and legal reality.

In the past three weeks, Industrial Light & Magic, the large San Francisco-based digital effects studio owned by Walt Disney Co., has decided to set up its artists to work from home, according to a person familiar with the company who was not allowed to comment. The studio has completed its remote deployment to San Francisco and Vancouver and is working to set up its three other global studios in order to follow safety and security guidelines and to alleviate concerns about on-site work .

Another big player, Sony Pictures Entertainments Imageworks, has been trying to get employees to work remotely in the past few days, offering systems that allow people to work from home. Since Monday, the company has been able to move a hundred employees a day to work from home, said a spokesman for the studio on Thursday.

Imageworks, which has approximately 800 employees, mainly based in Vancouver and Los Angeles, was able to move at least 400 people to work at home status by Friday.

For those who stay in the office, the company has implemented security measures to prevent people from working closely. The workspaces that were crowded a week ago are now much more open, allowing people to keep their distance from each other, said the spokesperson.

Another large studio that works with several effects stores last week announced the system requirements for suppliers as these companies prepared to do most of the work outside the office, said an executive who was not allowed to comment publicly.

This person stated that the challenges for the sellers were more related to the magnitude of the situation than to any contractual obligation towards the studios.

Many believe that the coronavirus will force the industry to make similar changes, not only to keep workers safe, but also for jobs.

Daniel Lay, blogger known as VFX Soldier, says that if VFX studios and stores could relax some of the NDA requirements or make exceptions that customers would not seek financial or legal ramifications, it would go a long way .

It highlights the medical profession, which has made significant adjustments by allowing doctors to see and counsel patients online and over the phone, without violating HIPPA standards.

If the AMP and the studios could do the same, it would help workers to work from home and many productions could continue.

John Griffith, former 20-year preview director^e Century Fox agrees. Five years ago, he moved from Los Angeles to Memphis, Tennessee, and created his own digital company CNCPTS, designed specifically with telework capabilities for himself and the artists he employs.

It made sense logistically, he said, and Internet speeds and communication technology are so fast and immediate that they allow it.

Griffith notes that there is more demand for VFX artists than ever, and a remote option has many advantages when it comes to reducing costs and environmental impacts.

That’s why I designed my business as a remote control from the start, he said.

With this viral impact, it seems that everyone is talking about it. It is a path that people should follow. Its all data at the end of the day.

Times author Ryan Faughnder contributed to this report.