A new Visual Effects and Animation School: A new approach to training.

Lor

Lor

CG Master
Ever get the feeling that no matter how many video tutorials you buy and how many colleges you attend its near impossible to get in to the industry? There are plenty of jobs out there. More than ever, in fact. The problem isn't the industry the training. Today it's not enough to simply know how to use the software. Today, professionals need much, much more. The industry has changed massively over the past few years and schools need to change to meet today's needs. If you are wondering how to get into the feature film visual effects and animation industries, read THIS



lor
 
My feelings exactly-

"There are a lot of things wrong with the industry,” he says, “things that make visual effects too expensive, things that burn people out and destroy health, families, marriages and careers; things that can be fixed if people approached problems a little more analytically and with a little less drama."

"The world needs to know that animation and visual effects can be made in 8-hour days and 5-day workweeks just like products in most other industries. The sick culture of crisis that permeates commercial entertainment needs to evolve to a point where companies can be profitable and team members can live normal lives. All of that is possible today if the will exists to make it so. The barrier is the cultural expectations that have developed around the glamour and money of film making and the fact that it is very difficult to maintain a business model in an industry with ever-changing technology."

"New digital artists and technicians are currently being indoctrinated into the culture of crisis by instructors, mentors, lead artists and supervisors who are teaching them to work overnight and sleep at their desks. This is bad for everybody; absolutely everybody, and has to stop."
 
Lor said:
My pleasure. We intend to fix the industry. :)
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Just out of curiosity, how do you or others plan to do this? This is America and as Mr. Rid mentioned we live in a culture of crisis. So how do we show others that we do not need to live that way? Well proper management would be one way to do it. I think also another way is to better establish workflows and working conditions so people do not need to fall asleep at their desks. But then again what about off shore? We Americans cannot compete with someone in china doing the same job for $50 weekly or less? Hec we cannot even get the VFX industry unionized even after the Ang Lee fiasco! Not to mention the speech cutoff from the head of R&H!

Well this makes for a very interesting topic, and one I am inclined to agree with and help in anyway that I can.
 
Well, first of all Mr. Rid was quoting the article mentioned at the beginning of this thread.
Fixing the industry will take time, certainly, and begins with education. We need to send into the industry hundreds and thousands of new artists who are well versed in good project management, time and task management, team workflow etc. We need to recognized that many middle management positions in VFX are curretnly held by people who may be great artists and TDs but who have no management training ad we need to fix it. This is a terrible problem. Great artists do not necessarily make great managers. Without management training they can, and usually do, make matters worse. And we need to get senior level managers to recognize the top reason behind VFX business failure is overtime. Overtime makes VFX unsustainably expensive and it's not even necessary, provided your management team knows how to properly manage a project.

Here's another article that talks about The Trouble With Overtime: http://academy.cg-masters.com/nicks-rants-and-raves/the-trouble-with-overtime/
 
tonyrizo2003 said:
@Lor, I have to say, cg-masters is setting a great example of VFX training philosophy!
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Ah thank you sir. :thumbsup: It's not easy changing preconceptions about training and VFX operations, but it is totally, 100% worth it.

lor
 
Well, it sounded interesting but the blog post is gone, as far as I can tell...

- - - Updated - - -

.... aaaaaaaaaand I just realised how old this thread is...
 
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