The recent disturbances in the force
involving visual effects and computer animation people protesting
their lot in life is a good thing I think. I may feel that some of
it is misdirected, and some of the goals and beliefs are incorrect or
unachievable, but I have no doubt that the workers must organize in
order to look after their interests. Even if they do not achieve
their goals, they are guaranteed to not achieve them if they do not
organize.
Many of us, myself included, have
strong mixed feelings about unions. There are several reasons for
this in my case, including coming from a white collar, intellectual
family where unions were seen as good things, but for the blue collar
worker. I am not sure that that association (union with blue collar)
is either fair or correct, however, but it is something for me to
overcome.
The second reason I never appreciated
the need for a workers union or force is because I was treated so
damned well early on in my career. The University of California at
first and the RAND Corporation second, were very fair and good to me.
Thus I had false expectations for the future.
I want to describe two events from the
Robert Abel period, because I think they are relevant to this whole
discussion.
Although I was only involved in
computer graphics R&D, I deliberately chose working at Abel's in
order to pick up what I could of other special effects filmmaking
technique. So, I would hang around the camera department, and talk
to Tom Barron over at Image G and so forth. From time to time,
Abel's would have a big shoot on a stage and one day they were
shooting a 7UP job with Bob Abel directing and Randy Roberts the art
director. It was a big front projection shoot, Bob was on a crane
and I was watching. I remember hearing an assistant whisper into
Bob's ear "Meal penalties, Bob! Meal penalties!"
I later figured out that this meant
something along the lines of "if you don't stop and let people
have a lunch break by 4PM in the afternoon, then the production will
have to pay everyone extra". In other words, Bob, the
obsessive perfectionist, would not have stopped for lunch unless
someone put a gun to his head, or his wallet.
The second thing that I saw, as we
moved raster graphics into production at Robert Abel &
Associates was how producers would move elements that could have been
produced any number of ways into the 3D department. Why? Because if
people worked 12 or 16 hour days in 3D, it did not cost them any
more. 3D was on a fixed hourly rate, a certain number of hours a
week. But if they did it in a department that was involved with a
union (even if there were special deals with the union as there
were), then people had to get paid more.
Oh, I thought as I watched. That's
interesting. You
mean you are willing to burn people out and damage their lives to
save a few bucks? And the answer to that question, was "Yes,
absolutely, we have no ethics whatsoever". Oh. Ok. Thanks.
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