Studio Gossip: Hollywood's Dirty Little VFX Secrets
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Aeon Flux: Coming Soon from the "worst VFX company to work for"
Every now and then, Hollywood lifts its opaque, sound-deadening veil long enough for us commoners to see that it's just another brawling, disfunctional American industry, full of passionate, bitter grumps.
L.A.'s visual effects industry sends up cheers and roars of indignation today in votes and comments at Survey Hell on these two topics:
The VFX denizens posting there hint at rampant cocaine use at Asylum in Santa Monica, vague intimations of "debaucheries" at Digital Domain and snarky jibes for Industrial Light + Magic up in Marin. And that's on the "Best VFX Company" board ...
Top of the (likely stuffed) polling pile sits the brilliant Pixar (home of Toy Story and The Incredibles, among others) with 16% of the votes, closely followed by the famously artist-friendly Rhythm+Hues Studios in Marina del Rey with 15% and
the now-closed ESC with 13%.
One paean to that coder's paradise lost goes like this:
ESC was fucking great!
Where else could you get hammered on absinthe and keep going on shots? Keep several bottles of alcohol on your desk? Go to the producer's office when you ran out of olives? Yeah, you were in Alameda, but we had plenty of space to buzz our R/C airplanes over the soccer kids games (even more fun when drunk.) Zion theater was the best screening room I've ever been in. The tools were damn good, the only drawback was that it was on windows. Motorized desks. Ask Leech. Free dinner (yum for the Thai and E&J's) THE JAMBA JUICE MAN Scooters in the hallways. ESC-Ape. Gaeta. Free beer. More CPUs than you can shake a stick at. Big monitors. Artists' artwork in the hallways. Pedicures. Roshi. Jerky.
Warner Bros really made a mistake closing that place down.
On the "Worst VFX Company" poll, LA/SF-based The Orphanage was most-hated with 14% of the vote, with Digital Domain nipping at its heels.
One of the (almost entirely) anonymous posters this morning challenges the slam on DD:
Hummm... I know one reason why DD got this many votes. It from the wankers who got their entrance in the industry job at DD when nobody else would hire them. Then, when they got enough experience to work somewhere else (yes, for better pay) they spit as they leave the parking lot.
The industry is littered (evidentially, litter = trash) with people who got their first job at DD. I'd say that the industry would be smaller if DD didn't have the policy they had.
I'm sure these same people would have left their "worst" rating for Starbucks, Borders Cafe, Ralph's or whatever job they would have gotten instead of getting a break at DD.
Come on, people, grow up. They all suck because the industry sucks. It's the nature of this industry to not be stable. It's project oriented.
Go find a different career.
What's really entertaining - and perhaps a little frightening, is how many posters actually name names at the VFX studios.
But go check out the boards. They're a good cross-section of some of the VFX industry's all-too human id - and a smack-talkin', occasionally offensive hoot to read:
you stoopid american type peoples
we in china will take you job soon. no more talky. soon we ficky-fick actor models - you move box and other box. me i am yuang and i want meet alice bardwin. we crush you, especially bay area pussy type.
Posted by: Mack_Reed on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 10:37 AM
