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Friday, September 15, 2023
Marvel Workers Unionize With IATSE, Special Effects Workers Join Union
Variety: In a historic move, Marvel Studios’ visual effects workers unanimously voted in favor of unionizing with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) in an election held by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the company announced Wednesday.
5 comments:
Reigh Wilson
said...
Marvel in the last decade, or more than that even, has relied so incredibly much on their VFX workers and artists to tell their stories. I have heard many horror stories from VFX workers online that work for companies like Disney, or more specifically Marvel, and how unappreciated, underpaid, and overworked they are. I am incredibly happy that they have decided to unionize under IATSE. Although unions are not perfect, they provide a level of security within an artist field and make sure that people will have your back in corporate meetings. VFX workers are becoming extremely high in demand and almost every movie now uses them in some capacity, Marvel though in a much higher one, and so many projects have been criticized for their “bad” CGI, but what the audience is not seeing is the insane timeline VFX artists are given to basically create a whole movie. I think it is a step in the right direction to try and create that security for VFX workers so they are not in the same toxic situation you are in now.
I've always been surprised that visual effects artists are frequently not a part of unions, and as movies continue to grow in vfx budgets it feels needed to have securities for workers. It is a great thing that the vfx artists working for Marvel have joined into a union and now can have at least some form of protection from the companies that would otherwise try to work them into the ground. Basically every movie nowadays needs some form of visual effects, and more and more movies are becoming completely reliant on it. Because of this, vfx artists and others producing those effects are continually increasing in hours and workload, without getting proportionate increases in pay. By joining into any union, and especially IATSE, they now have a large union community that will come to their aid and will provide backup to ensure working conditions and pay are livable.
Congratulations to the visual effects (VFX) workers at Marvel Studios for joining IATSE. Marvel has always seemed to have very tight deadlines with it feeling like there is at least one Marvel movie coming out every year. Of course this work gets magnified infinitely with movies like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Of course that kind of precedent is not sustainable. It is very telling how many sectors of the film and entertainment industry are unionizing and are demanding better compensation for their work. Something I hadn’t considered with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes is how many people from all different professions are impacted. While these VFX workers haven’t seemed to have been impacted yet, that is a possibility for the near and far future. With all the strikes going on, I wonder how IATSE has been handling so many of its members out of work. Will IATSE also go on strike?
The fact that the vote was unanimous tells a lot about what the VFX workers are feeling right now. With the strike, people are tuning into/thinking about workers rights in the film and entertainment industry a lot more than before. This I think is definitely allowing a lot of positive changes for jobs in the industry, though the tensions between unions and the studios right now is palpable. MARVEL, as a part of Disney, is definitely going to be feeling the affects of the strike now. And especially as their VFX team has now joined IATSE, there is more chance for change of how they’re treated. Though I should read up on the working conditions for VFX, as I admit I am ignorant about the details of their situation. It makes sense that the VFX teams are under pressure, as since MARVEL relies on them to build their fantastical worlds, especially now with their more space and quantumainia-centered locations. I hope that this new agreement with IATSE works out well for both MARVEL and the VFX workers, for as both a MARVEL fan and future fellow artist in the industry, I’m hoping to look towards a more positive future for both.
5 comments:
Marvel in the last decade, or more than that even, has relied so incredibly much on their VFX workers and artists to tell their stories. I have heard many horror stories from VFX workers online that work for companies like Disney, or more specifically Marvel, and how unappreciated, underpaid, and overworked they are. I am incredibly happy that they have decided to unionize under IATSE. Although unions are not perfect, they provide a level of security within an artist field and make sure that people will have your back in corporate meetings. VFX workers are becoming extremely high in demand and almost every movie now uses them in some capacity, Marvel though in a much higher one, and so many projects have been criticized for their “bad” CGI, but what the audience is not seeing is the insane timeline VFX artists are given to basically create a whole movie. I think it is a step in the right direction to try and create that security for VFX workers so they are not in the same toxic situation you are in now.
I've always been surprised that visual effects artists are frequently not a part of unions, and as movies continue to grow in vfx budgets it feels needed to have securities for workers. It is a great thing that the vfx artists working for Marvel have joined into a union and now can have at least some form of protection from the companies that would otherwise try to work them into the ground. Basically every movie nowadays needs some form of visual effects, and more and more movies are becoming completely reliant on it. Because of this, vfx artists and others producing those effects are continually increasing in hours and workload, without getting proportionate increases in pay. By joining into any union, and especially IATSE, they now have a large union community that will come to their aid and will provide backup to ensure working conditions and pay are livable.
Congratulations to the visual effects (VFX) workers at Marvel Studios for joining IATSE. Marvel has always seemed to have very tight deadlines with it feeling like there is at least one Marvel movie coming out every year. Of course this work gets magnified infinitely with movies like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Of course that kind of precedent is not sustainable. It is very telling how many sectors of the film and entertainment industry are unionizing and are demanding better compensation for their work.
Something I hadn’t considered with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes is how many people from all different professions are impacted. While these VFX workers haven’t seemed to have been impacted yet, that is a possibility for the near and far future. With all the strikes going on, I wonder how IATSE has been handling so many of its members out of work. Will IATSE also go on strike?
The fact that the vote was unanimous tells a lot about what the VFX workers are feeling right now. With the strike, people are tuning into/thinking about workers rights in the film and entertainment industry a lot more than before. This I think is definitely allowing a lot of positive changes for jobs in the industry, though the tensions between unions and the studios right now is palpable. MARVEL, as a part of Disney, is definitely going to be feeling the affects of the strike now. And especially as their VFX team has now joined IATSE, there is more chance for change of how they’re treated. Though I should read up on the working conditions for VFX, as I admit I am ignorant about the details of their situation. It makes sense that the VFX teams are under pressure, as since MARVEL relies on them to build their fantastical worlds, especially now with their more space and quantumainia-centered locations. I hope that this new agreement with IATSE works out well for both MARVEL and the VFX workers, for as both a MARVEL fan and future fellow artist in the industry, I’m hoping to look towards a more positive future for both.
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