The oscar protest that you didnt know happened!?!

I can smell shit here.

Am hopping mad trying to stay calm.

Did any one get this one

thebigsocialpicture.blogspot.ca/2013/02/...t-know.html?spref=fb

I do not know the ins and outs of this but something has gone horribly wrong if the guys on the stage in the lime light get cut off in there speech by the Orchestra playing the music from Jaws! Not to mention the 400 protesters outside the front door!

Maybe I am trigger happy but I am changing my profile picture for a week. Just to raise awareness for the guys in the back room who do a lot of hard work and yet are at the end of the financial food chain! All 250 of them!!!

Am I completely off my rocker or is this not an issue for any one involved in the post production industry!?!

It is very much an issue, and is gaining a huge following on Facebook.

This makes me so hopping mad that I really need to go for a long walk to ground myself.

FB is a two edged sword and I for one am doing every thing I can to promote the green screen movement.

And to anyone who says it is a waste of time tackling stuff like this on FB....

I would like to quote Mr Bach

“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours.”

The more I inform myself about this the more it churns my stomach

:sick:

Welcome to Hollywood, man. This kind of thing has always been the way of business, a few fat cats at the top, squeezing as much as they can out of laborers for as little as possible. It's the way of the world. You wouldn't believe the things I've seen. How about a career stuntman almost killed, ruined for life, yet his name doesn't even appear in the credits. All while the cavalier stunt coordinator blithely skips along to the next project as if nothing happened. Or being on a set where your explosives expert is a cokehead with a history of incinerating people, yet he's still working cause an executive producer likes blowing him. How about entire multimillion dollar projects 2 years in production getting shelved permanently because of some ego squabble among brass while studio heads reshuffle their country club dates, never mind that it makes multiple families homeless. These sorts of things go on every day.

Absolutely the Life of Pi fiasco is outrageous & you have a right to righteous indignation, but once you step inside this machine, you quickly find out how many lives it chews up & spits out. It runs on blood.

paurray wrote: I can smell shit here.… !

I'm noticing TWO scandals:
• how artists get paid ... or not
• that the producers of The Oscars cut-off the speaker based upon "no politics here!"

in this case, this was - imho! - the right time and the right place to put some wisely choosen words. Where when not here?

■ karsten

(my protest is smaller 'cause I'm no pro )

TrixTrax9000 wrote: Welcome to Hollywood, man.

But rolling over and submitting to the immoral behaviors doesn't help change them. We're here talking about changing this behavior, not whether it exists or not.

I for one believe in standing up for change. Larger institutions have been brought down harder in the past.

Sure, go for it. I encourage people to fight for their rights, justice, etc. All I'm saying is there's a very cold front where idealistic naiveté collides with ruthless & often corrupt businessmen. Some folks are in too deep, they've got a mortgage, kids going to college, they know if they make a stink in their business, they'll never work again. That's the way the system works.

It's the same story throughout all history - the golden rule, he who has the gold, makes the rules. There have always been the barefoot flower children protesting, they're either dead, in jail or running the companies now.

The most exciting possibilities don't appear to be in the futile attempts to topple the system, it's too reinforced, but rather the new opportunities with crowdfunding & independent distribution to offer a fertile garden for those with creative seeds of inspiration. Instead of butting heads with a massive bull, we develop our own networks to compete, run alongside. Prosper & multiply. Unfortunately, the richer & more powerful your sideline business becomes, the inherent nature of man's greedy side begins to take over once again...

OK TrixTrax9000

I find your approach shockingly sober!

I was thinking about the maths and how much the people who run the show earn and how much effort they put in.

Versus how much the people who actually row the boot earn versus how much effort they put in.

And I realised it was not 80/20 or even 99/1 but more like 100/0 and that for me in my flowery/airy fairy world is S.I.C.K.

But I am very, very sorry to say that I embrace your point of view.

Somehow I can not help thinking of the Film the Fifth Element.

Kind of near the beginning when the guys on the Space ship are looking at a big ugly something which is fast approaching...

How does the quote go?

“Shooting will only make it stronger.”

My proposal.

Because I can not bring myself to take down my Green Avatar for another week...

I will leave it there if only as a symbol of solidarity for the 250 EFX people who are now unemployed!

And I would encourage every one else to do the same no more no less!

I will shut up now and drink one of these for the VFX guys.

beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/208/646

Cheers

paurray aka Professeur Burp

Nice quote with the 5th Element reference. Great movie too.

Look at it from their perspective, they're riding up to the show in guarded limousines, there are people protesting outside. Hollywood has always faced protests, they usually spin controversy into more publicity & profits, if there's a protest they don't like, they just ignore it, as if it wasn't there. As happened on Oscar night.

Every film production starts a fresh new company to complete the task, it's all a big shell game. So even the studio could claim they were unaware of what was going on, they're rarely culpable even when crew members get killed. Once the movie goes into distribution, that's handled by another company, the original production company has probably folded up shop & essentially evaporated. Everyone will claim they were just hired to do their job. When I read last week the FX house that made Life of Pi went bankrupt, I was surprised, but you've got to admit there must have been some kind of mismanagement somewhere.

It's common industry practice to outsource labor intensive work overseas. Your Simpsons cartoons are colored in Korea, only the voice talent, main drawings & writing is done in the West. Half the big budget action flicks are shot in Czechoslovakia & Hungary now, the crews are much cheaper & the dollar stronger, it's just business. Even Act of Valor shot mostly on DSLR chopped the budget from 40 million down closer to 10. It's always about the money.

You hire a team in India because the cost of living is much lower there. If everyone is making 5 bucks a day there, & you pay your guy 6 or 7, he's making off like a prince. But something else must have gone terribly wrong. There's no way the work was being done without the people being paid, I suspect there is some mismanagement issue with the higher ups in that company in India. Don't jump all over me, but I'm pretty sure they must have been paid, we're talking about many months of work, people can't go on doing that kind of labor without receiving cheques.

Hey, I'm a champion for people's rights as much as the next guy, but I'm practical too. What's the very best thing that could happen? The state department demands an inquiry? Don't hold your breath, the current government received millions in campaign donations from Hollywood. Why do you think Michelle Obama made an appearance? How about the poor people in India launch a lawsuit, what is the best outcome? We're talking about people in the midst of a thriving economy with considerable technical skills, in the middle of a movie making boom. India cranks out more movies than anyone, these guys are getting work quick. Many not with the same rate Pi was paying, but another one will be along soon. Or perhaps if you're an Indian FX house, maybe you're also greedy & don't pay your local workers any more than the going local rate, even when a huge Western production comes to town. In that scenario you as a fat cat Indian producer start to shift into Sultan mode, hey, screw the little guys, you can find more any time you want. So you withhold the last rounds of cheques, stall them a bit, then close up shop, pocketing a few extra hundred grand. Big money round those parts. You can just blame America, everyone else does. When things quiet down, you can start up elsewhere again. These kinds of people & transactions are going on everywhere all over the world.

I seriously doubt the fault of this fiasco will ever be fully disclosed, of course I hope it will & that the culprits are brought to justice, but we all know how often that happens.

Success is the best revenge in Hollywood. The only thing these people understand is money. I mean look at the hypocrisy of this example. Life of Pi is all "spiritual" with it's religious message of karma, caring & God talk, yet look how people working on that message got burned.

Utilize the new emerging methods & compete if you feel inspired to make a change. But don't be fooled by Western "protest campaigns" that do little or nothing for the real victims.

PS - the only reason I didn't change my pic to the green square is that I had such a time getting my pic up there in the first place, I just know I'm going to run into problems if I tamper with it now. Also, so I get my green square going... then what, we do it for a week, the first guy who takes his down is a jerk, then a few hold out longer, & we all feel like we did something for the guys in India. Did it get them even one penny? Do you really think the fat bloated Hollywood producer sitting behind his desk feels even a twinge of conscience? If you do... you've been watching too many movies.

Apathy...

Really? Me typing for an hour in this thread is apathy? Reliving many horrible life-ruining situations of dear friends in the industry, adding a momentary dose of reality to this discussion, all worthless to you? Just because I didn't wear a little green badge?

Please tell me how the little green badge is going to help the people who were ripped off. In a best case scenario, green badge here, defrauded workers in India over there.

Tell you what, since there will be no answer to that question, why not start up a campaign on IndiGogo?

But how would you even be able to pay out the money you raised from this grass roots public awareness program? How would you be able to validate & verify the names & addresses of the people in India claiming to be deserving?

How many hundreds of hours would that take, or would it even be possible?

Yeah... better stick to the little green badge & callously dismissing the guy that promotes you at every turn.

thanks

::::::::::::::: EDITED by the addition of extra information :::::::::::::::::::

For anyone who's interested in waving a little green flag & feeling self righteous about it while condemning others, it might be prudent to take a few minutes & do a little search for "why did Rhythm & Hues go bankrupt?"

Lots more information comes to light - turns out this is part of the free market increased competition, a failed corporate selloff & little or nothing to do with evil exploiters...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_and_Hues_Studios

blogs.wsj.com/bankruptcy/2013/02/25/rhyt...ts-oscars-shout-out/

www.thewrap.com/movies/article/rhythm-hu...ocus-collapses-77056

And here comes some money...

movies.yahoo.com/news/rhythm-hues-seekin...aring-173733429.html

Trying to keep this simple and clear

I live in a large city in Germany where we have an excellent public transport system.

There is this ongoing discusion that I have with several friends.

Is it possible to say with absolute certainty that one can get from point A to B on time as planed.

The answer is no.

Particularly when changing lines etc. i.e. when it gets more complicated.

It just takes one rat to chew through a cable to put out an escalator and my perfectly timed trip gets changed.

If someone has decided to throw themselves in front of a train I might even have to make a detour!

Any way there is no absolute truth be it with respect to a public Transport System or the bank account of an EFX company or the employers of said EFX company.

There is a thing called Ecstatic Truth!

www.bu.edu/arion/on-the-absolute-the-sub...-and-ecstatic-truth/

When an orchestra deliberately Sabotages an Oscar speech with the Music from Jaws no less, that is for me an Ecstatic Truth!

I confess that I am skeptical about FB campaigns but I am going to continue as I said for one week.

I do not want to argue for my limitations.

And I will do so if only out of respect for the people who lost their jobs.

From the article that I linked above

“For truly beautiful is the statement of the man who, in response to the question of what we have in common with the gods, answered: the ability to do good [Wohltun] and truth.”

From a guy called Longinus

I had to look him up on Wikipedia but he seems like he was a Rock and Roll kind of guy :-o

Thanks Pauray. To me, your taking the time to articulate your position & passion in a language that is not your own, shows much more effort than the green square which costs nothing.

Indeed Truth is an increasingly rare commodity these days. A cop once said to me there are 3 sides to every story. When I asked, what's the 3rd, he said, the truth.

Like I said, we may never know the full story on this FX house, but as that link shows, they just got a 5 million dollar bailout, they're seeking 17 mil.

Big business is... big business.

It's always about the money, not the people.

You'd think with all the untold more millions Life of Pi is still making, someone would set aside a few more millions for this company, even as a loan.

Or, as suggested, maybe there's some mismanagement at that company, those working with them, know better than we.

I gotta say though, Hollywood people are so crazy for "causes." How ironic is the term "cause célèbre?" Especially young performers. Each one is wearing their yellow bracelet to support cancer, or pink one to support this or that, & they'll often speak to you judgmentally if you don't have one. It's a kind of new self-righteous religion that particularly appeals to Americans, enabling them to point their fingers at others. Environmental ones are currently en vogue, a couple years back it was animals. I've seen people so horribly disrespectful to someone who is eating meat, yet they're wearing leather shoes (maybe from a cow that died of old age?). It's all so hypocritical but it sure sells a lot of bracelets, bumper stickers & T-shirts, etc. Yet when some huge scandal erupts showing the yellow bracelet was all a scam, promoted by a liar, people quietly take off their bracelet & pick up a green one, or whatever's next. They'll never admit, "Hey I was really sucked in by that racket." They continue on chastising you brutally for not wearing your little rainbow or whatever is the cause of the day.

Yet if you ask these modern day "samaritans" if they ever went to volunteer at a soup line or homeless shelter? The silence is deafening.

The bracelet fits more with their me lifestyle, hey, look at me, I'm sooo spiritual, you're not, I care, you don't, I'm good.... no, really, I am...

The thing is; if you look at that speech on youtube you can clearly hear the music coming up, slowly, louder and louder. By the time the guy accepting the award actually gets around to mentioning Rhythm & Hues the music is already well underway and at an increasing volume.

Why didn't he mention them straight off the bat; first things first? What, he mentions his wife & kids first (what did they actually do for the movie, I mean really)?

And then the organizers of the Oscars takes the blame because he only mentions the hot topic of the day, directly involved with his specialized field, and directly involved with the movie he was involved with, he only mentions this at the very end of his speech well after the music has already started?

Seems to me he dropped the ball. Big time.

here is one last link for our VFXs cousins!

fstoppers.com/a-recap-of-the-trouble-in-...utm_content=FaceBook

ps I am Irish from the land of saints and scholars so writing in English comes easy to me. Have been in Germany for going on 15 years!!!

Interesting article, thanks Paurray. Very insightful information about when governments & taxpayers get involved. Like I said earlier, a massive shell game. Cared less for the other guy's ranting, I know they're upset, but you attract more flies with honey. One thing we're learning from all this, there's no quick or easy fix.

Open letter to Ang Lee from Phillip Broste

After Rhythm and Hues: Hollywood's visual effects studios struggle for new business model

Saying "oh, it is a tough business, that's life" is not how change happens. Change happens by many small people making many small gestures. Refusing to do so and be involved is working towards awareness and a solution is apathy. Just saying...

Autodesk Support

Houdini 3D support

Well if you can't SEE that all the writing I've done here, sharing of links etc, is just as valid support as your wearing your little green badge, then you are incapable of change. Publicly vilifying a man that has repeatedly promoted you & your work to others in these forums, is worse than what you falsely classify as "apathy." It's self-righteous judgmentalism, condescension & hypocrisy. After I explained my position repeatedly, you had a chance to retract your slur, but you chose to repeat it.

So, where's the change?

There are thousands of visitors viewing this site each day, & hundreds of members, 99% of whom aren't wearing your sacred green banner, or writing anything of "support" here in this thread, why aren't you attacking them for doing less than me, or more importantly, you?

Why attack the one person who has supported you here over the past year?

Everybody, play nice please.
Going rather off topic on an off topic thread. Keep the talk in line with the thread heading

And most importantly respect other people's opinions

Peter

Personally I love the off topic topics

I think I must have been off topic in another life

Any way bear with me as this gets even more off topic before it gets back on topic.


I love beer.

I am completely obsessed and have to try every thing.

The last new one I tried was the day before yesterday!

beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/412/17797

It really impressed me as it spiralled down past my taste buds in a clockwise and anti clock wise direction simultaneously!

The flowery stuff anti-clock wise and the earthy stuff clockwise!

I want to pick up on two points and I will get back to the beer analogy!

The green badges = one direction.

The building a better future = another direction.

This for me is the way to go.


Ben in another forum you mentioned that the Oscars are an outdated intuition.

TrixTrax9000 you said at one point taking on these guys is pointless. Rather alternatives like Kickstart & Co is the way to go.


I believe that it is important to hold up a red flag or in this case little green badge.

And I believe that it is important to find new ways to co-operate, make films and consume films.


Cut to beer, straw gold with two fingers of fluffy white head

We have a thing in Germany called the “Rheinheits Gebot”

There probably is no other country on this planet that has something like this.

“Rheinheits Gebot” basically means “Purity Law”

People check that the beer is made with pure water etc.

This all sounds well and good but there are a number of problems.

1) The Wheat is not always pure wheat but often wheat extract.
2) You can genetically modify your wheat and still get past the purity law tests!

So the “Rheinheits Gebot” is B.S.

It passed its sell by date centuries ago!

In case you have not got it I am trying to draw a parallel between the Oscars and the German Beer Purity laws.

Both become irrelevant when I start reading the labels on the bottles or the crazy threads online.

I have to inform myself day in day out. It does not always work but I do try.


I actually wanted to go and see Pi.

But I am definitely not going to do so now.

I am not going to give them one bloody cent of my money.


I will continue with my green badge until the week is up.

And I will continue watching off the wall stuff and as little Hollywood stuff as posible.

The last film I watched was free on you tube



The film whilst far from perfect, raises some cool points.

And yes I will be watching “There Will Be Blood” again!

It is a question of the dosage that I administer.


Cut to the short version.

Green badges yes.

Paying for as little Hollywood stuff as possible whilst supporting independents yes.

As I said it spirals down in two directions simultaneously.


Cut back to beer, with a few rising bubbles...

Flowery and Earthy/Earthy and Flowery