On-set VFX workers petition to unionize at Marvel Studios
If this works out, it will be the first push in trying to unionize more and more overworked VFX artists
Aux News marvel studios
Back in December, stories began to spread about the horrible working conditions for VFX artists on Marvel Studios movies, with the company getting dragged for outrageous demands and the immense amount of pressure it puts on VFX studios. At the time, IATSE—the organization that represents behind-the-scenes crew on movies and television—had begun investigating pay rates and working conditions for VFX artists ahead of a push to unionize that industry (since VFX workers are some of the only people in Hollywood not represented by a union).
Now, with SAG-AFTRA and the WGA on strike, that push is getting even stronger: According to Vulture, 50 members of Marvel Studios’ 52-person on-set VFX crew have filed a petition to unionize under IATSE, with Mark Patch (the union’s VFX organizer) saying in a statement that “workers in the visual-effects industry have been denied the same protections and benefits their coworkers and crewmates have relied upon since the beginning of the Hollywood film industry,” and that this is “a historic first step for VFX workers coming together with a collective voice demanding respect for what we do.”
To be clear, the group petitioning for union recognition are, as Vulture explains it, the “data wranglers, production managers, witness camera operators, and assistants” who work on Marvel productions—not the much larger group of post-production people who, say, give Emilia Clarke’s a Drax arm or replace the fake She-Hulk head above Tatiana Maslany with the real digital She-Hulk model. But Vulture says getting union recognition for this “relatively small yet high-profile group” at Marvel is specifically the first step in unionizing everyone in that VFX pipeline.
The idea is that if this works, it will prove that unionization like this is viable for VFX workers, which will lead to more VFX workers unionizing, which will lead to better conditions as a whole for some of the most important and least appreciated people behind the biggest movies in the entire world. Bob Iger may be getting millions of dollars to run Disney, but without writers, actors, or visual effects artists, Marvel Studios can’t make anything.
22 Comments
Union strong! Down with corporate greed! 👍
The arc of the moral universe is long but it always bends towards rich people.Isn’t that how that goes?
Keep it fucking coming. Every worker, every industry. It’s the only way to fight the assholes riding yachts while we choose what groceries we can afford that week.
Since I couldn’t comment on the article on NC 17 movies released since 2000, I’ll do it here. Lazy AV Club Bot! You’re just copying descriptions from IMDB now? But congratulations on publishing two articles today!
Came here to talk about this, seeing as the article cites ‘Secret Invasion’, the show that had to be raked over the coals for its evil use of AI.I had a quick glance at that “piece” about NC17 moves. First of all, it’s just a list scraped from IMDb, but it adds no extra information, so how is it adding any value that going to IMDb and searching NC17 films doesn’t already provide? And secondly, it still had to be looked over by a human – presumably because the last time a bot cobbled together one of these things it was full of errors – so what job did the AI do better than a human copying and pasting data from another website?
Search engine optimization isn’t about adding value, it’s about appearing high in results pages when people, for example, Google “NC17 movies” (probably as research for their own article). Even before AI gets involved in the conversation, it’s pretty fucking dumb. It’s why ScreenRant posts like 1000 things a day, often with headlines in the form of questions, that drag simple yes or no answers out to several short paragraphs. Those things are irritating to read; I can imagine they’re tedious to write.And to be clear, I’m not defending using AI to write an article they could’ve paid a human to write. But if they’d paid a human to write it, and the human passed the job off to ChatGPT, I wouldn’t even be mad. These articles are pretty pointless.
I remember when we used to complain about listicles. Now we just get a list with no icle.
Even if it was a stupid article, can we just be glad it wasn’t a slideshow or yet another video that doesn’t play?
Idk I’ve been arguing that Barsanti is better than AI. Purely on the stance that we’re about to fuck ourselves as a species.
Does it not occur to you that AI is worse than the atomic bomb?
After this software phase that has now become available to any nerd in their basement… what do you think is next? Ill tell you. A tonne of people doing money scams… so like why support this at all when it will break society? You’re a fool.
I also did this on the vampire article.
Like I totally get you right now I was literally in this exact mood yesterday when I realized they turned off the comments on the AI article.
It would be an absolute dream if the AMPTP capitulated to both WGA and SAG-AFTRAs demands and immediately thereafter a huge chunk of VFX workers decide to strike.
I look forward to She-Hulk mocking them in Season 2.
‘”I look forward to She-Hulk mocking them in Season 2.”’ While at the same time being completely oblivious to the fact that they use it too. Shouldn’t the IATSE be going after the people at ILM? It’s no SECRET that they’ve been leaning primarily on them for their special effects. It’s at least in part how Disney’s managed to keep Lucas Film employed outside of Star Wars at least.
Unionizing the on set workers kind of makes sense. But if the post production workers were to unionize wouldn’t the risk be that you would end up with a ton of that work being done overseas? I mean back when hand drawn animation was still a thing, isn’t that why a ton of it (including things like 100’s of episodes of The Simpsons) done in South Korea?
A ton of that work, including modern cartoon animation, still IS done overseas. Not just for the cheaper labor, but for the tax breaks.
It already has been outsourced as much as possible. The thing is they’ve already booked up all the available VFX houses around the world cause of how labour intensive it is when about every minute of a movie takes 8 people. Ex: Avatar 2 – 192 min – over 1700 VFX artists
Here’s hoping that if they successfully get better working conditions, that they actually start making better VFX for Marvel media. I’m getting sick of shaky cam action scenes and obvious green screen moments. Although DC movies are all over the place, and I dislike most of them besides Dark Knight, their action sequences have been pretty on point.
Fuck. Yes.
We’re so collectively stupid for accepting A.I., we are fuuuucked.