Is VFX Succe Founded on Exploitation and Gender Divide?

Last month s Oscars were groundbreaking in recognition of the first win for a VFX Supervisor who happened to be female and for underlining London s status as the world capital of visual and practical effects.

However, alarm bells should ring when Sara Bennett s well deserved win for Ex-Machina makes headlines and when controversy over the business model of studio VFX work still rages.

Bennett was only the third woman nominated in the category, following Suzanne Benson s win in 1986 for Alien' and Pamela Easley, who received a nomination for Cliffhanger' in 1993. The Oscar rules limiting eligibility to craftspeople (rather than producers) was not endorsed by the Visual Effects Steering Committee until 1998 making Bennett the first women with a Visual Effects Supervisor credit to be nominated and to win.

The co-founder of facility Milk collected the Award along with a team of VFX leads from Double Negative.

While I am extremely proud of her, it is tragic that she is only the second female to win and tragic that she is the first VFX Supervisor to win, commented Milk CEO and Co-Founder Will Cohen. Many parts of the film industry have been male dominated. I can certainly see the balance being addressed in VFX with more women coming in at entry level, but there is a lot more work to be done.

He also points out that more women tend to work in film production rather than creative roles. There is a stereotypical view that women are great at mutitasking but I d like to see more men take on production and pre-production roles.

Milk and DNeg s win for Ex-Machina' was the fifth in the past nine years for which UK facilities have won the best VFX Oscar. What s more, four of the 2015 nominated movies in the category featured work led by UK shops.

MPC and Framestore were nominated for' The Martian', Cinesite teams in London and Montreal completed 138 shots for The Revenant'; and Star Wars': The Force Awakens', was supervised by British artists stationed at ILM London. The latter also featured the practical effects wizardry of British special effects supervisor Chris Corbould.

It has taken London nearly three decades to become the world hub for feature film and TV VFX. At this moment only Vancouver and Wellington, New Zealand home of Weta compete, and arguably no location trumps the UK s combination of production tax rebates, talent pool and geography in which a multitude of craft companies and expertise are often a short walk away.

One of the benefits of the UK is that we are collectively very integrated, said William Sargent, Framestore Co-founder and CEO. Foreign directors rely on British crews, from carpenters to VFX artists, because UK craft teams exhibit lateral thinking and collaborate as a very cohesive unit. Quite simply, studio executives, directors and DPs like working here.

At the same, though, UK union BECTU ((Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union) says membership of its VFX division has skyrocketed amid concerns about conditions. BECTU claims that on average UK VFX workers do 1.5 hours of unpaid overtime per day.

Although BECTU is not recognised by most UK facilities, membership is said by the union to be rising at houses including Framestore, Double Negative and MPC. It may take MPC to the UK government s Central Arbitration Committee to force recognition. If it wins, BECTU would be able to collectively bargain for better pay and conditions on behalf of members.

Paul Evans, BECTU national officer, said, Our members don't believe that their management are managing them well. They are essentially working an extra day per week, without pay."

Its fight echoes the call for wider international union recognition of the VFX community which occurred following the collapse of LA post house Rhythm & Hues, despite an Oscar win for Life of Pi', in 2013. Protests were staged at the 2013 and 2014 Academy Awards to raise awareness of the issue, but not resulting in an industry change.

The sheer scale of Hollywood s tentpole releases which regularly top 2000 VFX shots and are rising all the time, the tight deadlines and last minute changes imposed on suppliers, and rising competition from vendors in Singapore, China and India with less expensive labour costs, are all putting pressure on facility management which, in turn, knocks-on to staff.

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