I strongly suggest you guys read this:
It might affect me more than others since I’m from montréal, and meteor studio was, altho relatively small compared to huge monster studio like ILM or Weta digital, one of the finest around here.
The point I want to pass is, even tho it won’t change much, I’ll definitly boycut this movie and encourage everyone around me to do so.
Outrageous!
The movie didn’t look that good anyway-- although I will miss Brendan Fraser… Sigh
Thats really upsetting. So much for that movie.
thats just sick =/
wow…
thats just messed up. And around a holiday too…
well time to spread the word
Added:
I vote sticky
Disgusting.
It looked like a crappy movie, and apparently the folks running it are dirtbags.
There’s a special place in hell…
A good reason not to pay these people then?
smart comments, guys…
Not happy news of course.
Ha, not what I meant, but thanks anyway 
The effects looked pretty smashing, but other than that?
They should’ve just payed the FX guys and ditched everybody else instead 
Well, there is a difference between a bad movie, and bad SFX.
and from what I saw, the sfx did look quite decent. The style is not really photorealistic, but I don’t think that was the goal since it’s a “fantasy tale”. It was one hell of a job for a 150-200 employees studio.
And in anyway…if the studio didn’t pull the quality the producer wanted, it was their role to call off the contract, and ship the work to another studio. If they decided to go through the whole post-production with Meteor Studio, then that mean they accepted the quality the studio was going for. And they had to pay.
Sometimes you buy stuff you don’t like in the end…but you still had to pay. Especially when you tell your artist there is a bank/money transfer problem, and that they’ll get their cash soon. And you make them work like dogs for more than a month in overtime 6 or 7 days a week…the least you can do is pay them.
I’m just pissed off.
Sad. It’s not like the company (Meteor) was a a small fly by night organisation, apparently they were part of the Discovery group of companies, yet, they seem to be hiding behind bankruptcy. They’ve also reformed as a new company and have been re-employing past employees with the promise of back pay, thereby making it harder for any lawsuit for lost wages to succeed.
Now, if there was a union… (ducks for cover)
couldn’t agree more…
It really sucks when a multi million $ company owes you money and doesn’t pay.
However, it does reitterate one basic principle I live by: if your employer/client does not pay you, stop working for him immediately. If these fx artists downed tools after missing the first month’s pay, I’m sure the makers of the movie would have found the money quickly.
Right now, everyone is rushing to get these jobs. Everyone. Full fledged money grubbing colleges are sprouting up everywhere to teach the skills necessary to get these jobs. EVERY male 18 to 20something I have ever befriended in person or otherwise has mentioned that he wants to get a job in either 3d games or 3d film.
Result: The demand for the job goes up, the abuse goes up, and the pay goes down. My suggestion: Stay out of the film industry. Maybe even the games industry. Do something else. Keep “3D” as a hobby.
This slightly scares me… That’s because I’d like to work in the films or games industry, I just wonder if this could happen to me. Not very likely in Finland, but… I don’t know, it could happen here, too. All I can do, I guess, is to get everything written down and read the contract before signing (people keep telling me that for some reason… Like I can’t take care of myself).
I might see this movie, if my boyfriend is interested in it, too, otherwise I won’t… But I won’t buy tickets or anything (I don’t go to the movies that often, haha), I’ll see it some other way. Probably. I’m not exactly boycotting, Rand himself said that they are proud of their work and would like people to buy tickets and see the movie.
Actually, now I’m interested to see what the SFX looks like.
Anyways, this kind of thing pisses me off. Not being paid for the work you’ve done, I mean…
… And I’ve always disliked Brendan Fraser :mad:
It’s nothing new is it really? I’ve seen two close friends loose their homes, when clients have failed to pay them for major building work they’ve done. It happens in every industry.
It’s like ebow says, although it’s not always that simple to just down tools, if you put yourself to that sort of financial risk then you haven’t a sound business head on your shoulders.
With any client you start small and test the water, minimise the risk, suss them out, failure to pay on smaller projects then you know not to trust them on bigger ones, break a project down and get paid for that before moving on to the next stage.
More and more companies don’t want to do something themselves, invest in technology or machinery to produce products, they want to build their name/brand and get contractors to do the work for them, they minimise their risk and put it all on the contractor, they go under and the main brand building company live on.
The film just seemed to me to be the typical regurgated story to sell to kids at summer holiday time, regardless of the ‘fantastic’ visual effects.
The unfortunate reality is that artists are not generally known for their good business skills. Big business knows this, and true to their nature, exploits this.
From my own experience as architectural visualizer, about 90% of my clients are architects, the rest are property developers (cold hard business people). Over the last ten years I have not once had a hassle getting paid by an architect. Almost every property developer gave some sort of hassle paying me. Often I had to fight and get real nasty to get my money from them, while at best they take months to pay small fees. Most of them are really nice pleasant people to work with, until you send the bill…
Frankly, given the chance, I will ripp-off any property developer without the slightest regret.
Did they have contracts?
-Laurifer
That’s just sick. There is no way I’m ever going to see that movie!!!
:-\ Unfortunately this is precisely why in addition to programming and art classes I’m going to start taking more business and accounting classes. I figure if the vfx/games industry doesn’t work out I can still fall back on the programming and business experience and work on something like financial software. It’s not my first choice, but not getting paid for my work isn’t any of my choices.
Instead of seeing the movie I almost want to send the money that would have gone toward a ticket to these guys. It’s not much but I think it would show that we as artists and their audience appreciate the work they do
I do not know the legal stuff in overseas but I’m pretty sure that there is a law that if you declare bankruptcy then all contracts are put on hold and all the people that are still owed money are lined up. All demands are prioritized and then payed up as long as there is money to pay up. Now here in Germany loans are prioritized pretty high but if the company officially doesn’t have any more money then loans are not paid.
It is a common thing among construction companies to declare bankruptcy to get out of paying for stuff. Then after the bankruptcy is cleared and everything legal is done a new company is opened and the game starts from the beginning. Looks like this is also common business in the FX departments.
If you can proof that the bankcrupcy was deliberate then it is fraud and can be dealt with by law if you can’t tough luck you don’t get paid.
Seeing this case I’m pretty sure they have all the loopholes covered and it is going to be hard for the artists to get any of that money. The only way they can get back at the company is by making this public and giving them a hard time finding people that are willing to do the job.
It’s sad and as some others have allready stated it is a reason for freelancers to not do a thing until they get paid. Now for employees it’s a totally different story. I just read that here in Germany you can’t just stop working if you do not get any money when the employer says that he is willing to pay as soon as the financial glitches are resolved. Not sure how that is handled in Canada. Thank god I haven’t been in this situation yet.