Conversation Series: Blackmagic CEO Grant Petty Talks Pricing and 4K →

Grant Petty:​

“You want creative options; I hope someone keeps manufacturing film,” he said, adding that should Kodak [which maintains that it will continue to make film though it is currently working to emerge from chapter 11] at some point cease to make film, there might be a business there for a small company that “buys the licenses from Kodak and runs a few hundred feet of film a day. It could still be several thousand feet, there’s still a lot of film being consumed.”

 

Black Magic has always been a great company doing great work. Good to see. Love his take on film.

davidstripinis.com - In Which I Try and Fix the Entire Film Industry →

David Stripinis:​

Most every country in the world taxes the value of goods coming into their country from overseas, the US included. There are massive books which detail exactly how much each item should be taxed ( called a duty or tariff when applied to imported goods ). The detail is hilarious and stunning.

 

It has taken 7 months. Good to see David writing again.

Doing Better

While doing nothing does nothing, doing the wrong thing doesn't help either. This isn't rocket science. My question, and I can't find anything on this.

How long did it take the directors, writers, actors, set lighting, grips to form a union?

Weeks? Months? Years?

Are we slow, are we that disconnected with what is wrong? I don't think we are.

Lets be clear. If you want overtime and health care we are going to have to unionize. This is especially true if you work in a small shop. I do not see smaller shops offering health care and pension plans, even huge places won't. The way it's setup doesn't work. This is true in the USA. If you happen to work in a location that offers government provided health care this not a concern but retirement should be.

Here's the problem if you have been a freelancer the whole time in visual effects you should know to save money. You should know you are going to pay "X" amount of money for health care. Not having a retirement plan at 40 isn't anyone's fault but yours.

So file your rep card. Talk with the artist next to you. Lets see if we can do better.

I love visual effects. I love the problem solving and the people. Lets make it better so we can continue to do what we love.

Stop frame animation made with atoms - yes at the atomic level! | fxguide →

Mike Seymour:​

The work is only visible if you use a microscope that enlarges the ‘canvas’ by 100 million times. Using their techniques developed over years of researching atomic level data storage, IBM created 250 frame stop-motion animation of a boy playing with an atom.

 

This would have been better posted on 4-1-2013. Amazing stuff.

Questions

When you push images as far as we do you find out we're all the demons live. You know the secrets.

You also see a lot of mistakes being made. Now I'd like to be clear. Most of what I do is fixing mistakes to help tell a story. In the world we work in you very rarely get perfection. Let's not create problems for ourselves.

DOP's if you have a questions ask. We have on set supervisors who would love to answer your questions. Problem solving as two is always better than one. Crew members we are not in competition with you.

There is a flip side to that coin. As visual effects professionals we have to be approachable. Their not dumb because they need to ask. Be there when needed and answer their questions as accurately as you can.

LED light quality: a free fxphd Background lecture | fxguide →

Mike Seymour:​

 Mike Seymour discusses the quality and variation seen in LED lighting

 

I have said this before, If you know everything don't bother. If you want to learn more about light have a look. I can't tell how much I learned from being a Set Lighting Tech before my compositing career really got going. One of the best moves I made.

Tired

I haven't written anything in a long time. I have been kinda down on visual effects.

I'm tired of being worried about my job. I'm tired of being worried how I will be screwed over next. I'm tired of hearing about how the visual effects business is hard and the only way is to pass that along to the people lower down. I'm tired of really good artists not being paid. I'm tired of hearing that this business can't turn a profit.

It's been 5 months since the world almost found out about all the dirty laundry that the visual effects industry has kept in the closet. From where I stand nothing has changed.

If your a business owner you should have thought of that before you jumped in. It's not my fault you didn't know. I don't care that there is language that maybe states that you don't have to pay overtime. You know how I know because California says so. I cannot agree to different terms. The only way I know of of giving up your California labor rights is to sign some paper work. I have never signed anything that says you don't have to pay me overtime.

It's not our(artists) problem. If your business is suffering its not because of the artists. You not turning a profit is your problem as the owner of the company. Soon there will be change all we have to do is follow the rules and do the right thing. This will work. We don't need a binding agreement to do the right thing. The world has shown that doing the right thing spreads fast. It's the smaller shops that will go first. Then the larger ones will follow. It just takes longer to turn a bigger ship.

Fight for your business. Don't let them push you around. They called you because you can do something they can't.