It appears that freelance visual effects artists have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after a VFX firm went bust.
You’ve probably heard that the VFX industry contributed £1BN to the UK economy, but it appears that freelance visual effects artists have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after a VFX firm went bust.
BECTU union, the team that represents VFX freelancers, is said to now be in the process of hande cases totaling more than £53,000 because the collapse of Halo VFX Limited, the one behind visual effects work on high-budget productions including Curfew, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Discovery of Witches.
BECTU is said to be pursuing the unpaid fees and demanding answers from company directors. They want to know how directors will compensate members for the failure to pay them.
BECTU Assistant National Secretary, Paul Evans, said: “I’ve never had a situation where individual BECTU members have been hit this badly and it is not something we can’t just shrug our shoulders and move on from.
“This is a hugely profitable industry and the productions that our members worked on were successful. It’s not acceptable for VFX artists who have contributed to the success of multi-million pound features to be the ones to carry risk and to go unpaid for their hard work and talent.”
“Our industry is unsustainable if directors can, effectively, establish an arm of one company, trade unsuccessfully and then leave workers to carry the can. If the industry can’t come up with a way of protecting workers from this kind of catastrophe, we will have to invest in some publicity to warn people against working for any VFX or Post Production company as a limited company, or in any status that doesn’t ensure that they have full employment rights,” Evans also pointed out.
“The incentives are all wrong in VFX. A lot of the risks end up on the shoulders of freelance workers who have to cushion the industry by accepting long periods of unpaid overtime work and working-hours that are very sub-optimal in terms of creativity and productivity. It’s an industry that drives talented people out. The gender ratio is particularly male-heavy because women often can’t stay in an industry that expects almost unlimited unpaid overtime as short notice.
You can get more details in the original story here.