A Piece of the Pi

Have you noticed a large number of green pictures on the Internet ? Especially after the Oscar results ? In the last few days a large number of green square images called ‘The Green Box’ appeared on the web after the Oscar results. This is why :

THE PROTEST: There was a VFX protest march at the Oscars yesterday afternoon – February 24th, 2013.

Scott Ross, who was a top manager of Industrial Light & Magic and a founder at Digital Domain, started the ball rolling with a tweet: “I had a dream, 500 VFX artists near the Dolby (Kodak) theater on Oscar day waving signs that say ‘I Want a Piece of the Pi Too.'” Since then, the plan spread online, with protest organizers launching a Facebook page, and some investing in a banner that will be flown by a plane over the theater during the red-carpet ceremonies, reading “box office + bankrupt = visual effects vfxunion.com.”

Director Pete Berg says, “The Business to be is ILM. (Industrial Light and Magic) That is who is making all the money.”

This is why the artists protested. To set the record straight here. More than 583$ million dollars for Life of Pi! And, the artists who worked on it were let go without pay… huh? What if I told Samuel L. Jackson he needs to take a serious pay cut to work on a movie? What if I said, “Sam, we need you to take a 30% pay cut with no benefits, no residuals, and you need to work 16 hour days, move yourself and your family to another country with a higher cost of living and produce double the work your normally do in that time?” What do you think ole Sam Jackson would say to that? Would he still work on the movie? Yet, the box office hits are the movies with more than 50% of the movie created entirely on a computer with animation and VFX. Getting the picture now?

Read the entire article here

Also don’t forget to support the VFX artists by following VFX Solidarity International

LET THERE BE GREEN