I believe it is a bit harsh to call the younger, more naive artists “stupid.” No need for name calling unless you’re just bitter. Angry and bitter behavior does not help enlighten others to change their minds.

My question is then do unpaid “internships” also count as exploitation? To me, those internships are just as bad as the Mass Animation Project then. Because that’s just plain working for free as well in the name of gaining experience and a college credit here or there.

Great Article!

Anyway, I say refuse this type of spec work. Find an up and coming band instead and do a music video. Then you’d really be helping out someone who doesn’t have the money to pay and might actually reward you with more and possibly paying work if you do a good job.

You should watch Hearts of Darkness, then see how you feel about that statement.

Those “exploited” workers are very happy in their “sweatshops”. If not for Nike, they’d be on a farm, breaking their backs for 10% of what Nike pays them.

I don’t see anything wrong at all with what they are doing.
Personally, I think we have to stop seeing movie making as art and more as business cause thats what it is. Mainly.

This whole debate reminds me of this old documentary I saw about the tree logging business. Back in the day, a lot of loggers were very upset about the introduction of the chainsaw. Thats only natural, most of them would loose their jobs and there was no longer any need for “manual” logging.

This is similar to the Horse and carriage business wanting to stop the introduction of cars some 100 years ago. Or the book business a few hundred years ago trying to ban the first commercial printers (Page duplication)….

This is a normal progression.
Animation must to some extent become more automated as “science” and software move forward. Instead of crying about it, we should embrace it.

At that point the tables turn, believe me. Within a month of half-hearted looking I got three new clients and two new jobs. Is it sustainable? It’s probably as sustainable as any freelance gig and certainly more profitable. And if you like working within a team but feel you’re being treated unfairly by your employer then form a union and strike. It worked for the Hollywood Writers Guild.

I agree with leahzero. The laborers themselves enable the devaluation of their own labor. But I don’t think this will lead to the collapse of our industry. Case in point – during the writers strike, Joss Whedon coughed up about $200,000 of his own money to produce Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. He didn’t have to buy airtime on any network or any film distribution rights. He just put it up on YouTube, Vimeo and Hulu. And every penny of the millions of dollars that 45 minute story is bringing in from iTunes and DVD sales is going to the cast and crew who initially worked for free.

Even in our industry, simple, low budget but tasteful productions like The Crisis of Credit Visualized and The Story of Stuff can reach an audience of millions. And Ruairi Robinson’s Fifty Percent Grey – a one man production (except for the sound) on a super-small budget of €10,000 was nominated for an Academy Award. Who needs a big production company to produce great stuff? Any artist who grows his talent and finds an audience can be well compensated.

So, Mass Animation is exploiting animation artists – I agree. It’s right up there with Nike exploiting the Indonesian labor force and I’m sure Mass Market is going to get a lot of bad press for this poorly conceived folly. But this was an open competition. And only those who had no problem with the limited prize purse signed on. As dragonhorse said, “…as a means for a final product, well, it looks as disjointed as you would expect.”

Hey I see your point – BUT, a ship full of Captains goes nowhere fast. Unfortunately there are those who need direction. Trust me, I run a studio and just so I can get what I need to do done, I had to hire a manager ot deal with fragile egos and artist who INSIST that the way they want to do it is better than the guy who paying them to do it his way.

That said, until artist get like the Mafia and form a SERIOUS UNION that fights on behalf of its members, we will all suffer from what I call The CrackHead. Because there is always some crack head junkie on the earth willing to do creative work for nothing. And being that most of the ‘Civilized’ world got super fat off of slave labor for centuries, what makes you think that anything regarding that mentality and lust for cheap labor has changed?

Right now Hollywood is FORCED by unions to use union workers on ANY film and in every department – EXCEPT Art / CG. So my Dear Brothers and Sisters – if you want to get real about this – UNITE!

Otherwise, don’t be surprised.

It’s not an exact analogy, but I see a lot of parallels to this in the music industry. Content creators (musicians), naive and eager to become stars or just make a living off of what they love, prostituted themselves to producers, and were systematically exploited and marginalized to the point that signing with a label ultimately meant financial ruin for all but the lucky handful of mega-stars. Of course, those mega-stars were enough to seduce more young hopefuls into signing their lives away for a chance at uber-stardom.

We all know how it played out: prices for product and compensation for the actual content creators became so ludicrously out of balance that the entire system collapsed, and now we have the great entertainment of watching this corrupt leviathan that was the music industry flail around woefully in its death throes.

I hope that the animation/VFX industry as a whole doesn’t go the same route, and I think its inherently higher technical skill level barrier may offer some protection from so grisly a fate, but projects like this continually disabuse me of that hope.