Exploitative labour conditions are rife in the Australian screen industry, according to a survey of local visual effects (VFX) artists, with one describing the sector as a “meat grinder” despite its glamourous Hollywood image.
Excessive working hours linked to unrealistic deadlines and widespread casualisation are hallmarks of the industry, alongside very low rates of unionisation, according to the survey of dozens of local VFX artists conducted by The Citizen in late 2023. Insiders say the precarious position of the highly skilled artists was demonstrated by a wave of local redundancies in the wake of last year’s Hollywood strikes.
The VFX industry is one of the most profitable sectors of the Australian screen industry, contributing over $246m in foreign investment according to reports published by government marketing firm Ausfilm.
Australian VFX production houses have received international recognition for their contributions to critically acclaimed productions such as Framestore, who won an Emmy Award for their work on the Game of Thrones episode, “Battle of the Bastards” and who were instrumental in the visual development for Barbieland in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.
Current and former employees of a global VFX production house in Adelaide say vendors’ attempts to undercut competition by under-resourcing successful bids led to unrealistic artists workloads, forcing staff to work up to 20-hour days.
Jane, who did not want her real name used due to fears for her job, says the company she works for regularly engages in “unsustainable” work practices, overselling their staff’s capacity to meet clients’ expectations, and failing to meet deadlines as a result.
“Instead of going oh, well, we can actually only do 150 shots they’d go oh, we can take on 600 [shots].”
John N. Mayer, a Sydney-Based visual effects artist, says practices like these are common across the industry.
“People call it the meat grinder,” he says. “You go in, and then you burn out, and then you get spat out and the next person comes in and does the same thing.”
Dave, a former colleague of Jane’s, says he was recently laid off by the same VFX house amid companywide redundancies. Dave says “sketchy overtime policies” meant staff regularly worked unpaid overtime.
Staff contracts viewed by The Citizen included clauses that specify employees are required to complete over 10 hours unpaid overtime per week before becoming eligible for paid overtime.
In November, a report by left-wing think tank the Australia Institute estimated the average Australian worker doing only 5.4 hours unpaid a week was losing out on $11,055 a year in unpaid overtime.
The current and former staff members say poor working conditions impact the quality of the work they produce as well as their health and wellbeing. One described the post-production of a big-budget Hollywood studio film as a “disaster”, with five experienced supervisors resigning due to feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and burned out, according to the source.
According to a 2022 survey by the union that covers VFX artists in the United States and Canada (the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) poor labor conditions in the sector are correlated with low union representation, due to workers’ limited ability to bargain with or demand standards of fair work from employers.
Only one in five working VFX artists are a member of a trade union, according to The Citizen’s survey, conducted via social media in October 2023.
Source: survey of industry members conducted by The Citizen on LinkedIn in October 2023 with 38 participants.
Simon Rosenthal, managing director at Framestore in Melbourne, said the local offices of the UK-based VFX production house has “absolutely zero,” involvement with the Media Arts and Entertainment Alliance.
“We’re not a member of the union in the true sense of union membership because we don’t have a declared award… [I]n 20, 25 years, I’ve never heard from them,” said Rosenthal, who is also the Melbourne head of VFX.“I’ve had no reason to contact them, and they’ve had no reason to contact us.”
MEAA declined to comment on its activities organising workers in VFX production houses.
In Australia, VFX workers can face very different labor protections depending on whether they work on movies during or post-production.
VFX artists who work on-set – that is, on location with actors, voice and stunt artists and other creatives – are covered by agreements negotiated to cover all those on the shoot by MEAA.
However, according to local VFX supervisors Octavia Mansfield and Aden Beaver, it is significantly more complex to draft agreements to cover VFX artists who are employed by external production houses specifically to work on sequences once filming has wrapped. This is because external production houses are not covered by the Motion Picture Production Collective Agreement (MPPCA), a collective bargaining agreement produced by Screen Producers Australia (SPA) and the MEAA (Media Arts and Entertainment Alliance).
Because the supply chain for post-production work is so spread out, a single project may require studios to work on different sequences of the film across different continents. This will often be difficult to track, which in turn means that enforcing industry standards will often be difficult.
US strike action led to agreements to improve actors and writers working conditions but did not extend to VFX artists. Photo: Shutterstock
It is no different in the US, despite the resolution of the 146-day Hollywood strike in September last year, according to IATSE organiser Ben Speight.
While The Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists reached agreements with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers, there was little involvement from VFX creatives in the US strikes or new agreed protections.
Speight says he fears a continuation of the notoriously poor working conditions within the VFX industry with vendors around the world engaged in a dangerous “race to the bottom.”
“Employers need to step back and say, maybe it’s not about having the lowest bid, maybe it’s about retaining the best talent,” he says.
IATSE is forming the first VFX union collective bargaining agreement at Disney and Marvel, one of the first-ever global actions initiated by a unified body of VFX professionals.
Speight says there are early signs of pent-up demand among VFX artists to join a union.
“We’re getting more organizing leads than we ever have before,” he says.
“Now that [unionised writers and actors] have shown that it’s possible to win, it will serve as a catalyst.”
READ MORE Slaughterhouse strive: dire reality for VFX artists behind glamorous facade
