Times are sour in the visual effects business. Companies are folding,
artists are getting stiffed, and workers are split over unionization.
Many complain especially about instability, long hours and being
forced to choose between a decent quality of life and their career.
Yet Santa Monica-based Luma Pictures is thriving, both creatively and
economically, taking a radically different approach. Luma eschews
freelancers as much as possible, hand-picking artists who have broad
experience plus one or two areas of excellence, then putting them on
staff and aiming to keep them on long-term. It's instituted a
profit-sharing plan and some of its top artists are getting shares in
the company. The company also discourages overtime. Its standard work
week is 45 hours. Co-founder and CEO Payam Shohadai says that every
time they ask someone to stay late, "we're failing slightly." "I try
to instill this sense of giving reliable normalcy to our employees,"
said Shohadai. "In our model, everybody works their best and hardest
in order to not have that overtime." In contrast to much of the
industry, which is frustrated at months of six and seven day weeks, he
says Luma employees have never worked a Sunday, and the company avoids
working Saturdays. They regularly take time off for company-wide
recreation, like beach days or trips to Magic Mountain. When a crush
early this year forced them to ask for more overtime, with one
employee reaching 80 hours in a week and six working 60 hours for six
weeks, they rewarded the entire staff with a five-day paid vacation in
Maui with their families. How good is their work? James McQuaide,
senior VP of production for Lakeshore, who has hired Luma on numerous
titles including all of the "Underworld" franchise, said "They do some
of the best creature work in the world --- as good as Weta, and they
are the gold standard these days."Diana Giorgutti, Marvel's vfx
producer on "Thor," for which Luma did the "Destroyer" sequence, said
"I've not come across anything yet we can't go to them for." The issue
with Luma isn't quality, but quantity. They prefer to stay small. Luma
has about 63 artists right now, and has never been much above 80, even
with when it's had to take on freelancers for a crush. By contrast,
big vfx studios regularly reach 600-1000 seats.Shohadai and Luma
management regularly choose quality of life over quantity of output.
McQuaide said he recently had a friendly argument with Shohadai,
urging Luma to take on all of "Underworld 4." "I said 'Shouldn't you
consider taking on all the creatures in this show? Because then you
can tell everybody you did 250 creature shots.'" But after thinking it
over, Luma declined. "My sense is they only take what they can excel
at," said McQuaide. "Greed does not factor into their
decision-making," he said. "Most companies, when they have capacity,
they'll take it on. (At Luma) it's like they decide as a group what
work they want to do." Because Luma has a small, stable workforce,
clients get to know department heads well enough to call them directly
with notes. At the same time, clients say Luma is competitive on price
with overseas companies that offer a tax rebate."To keep (the work)
close to me, and to work with people I know, is kind of a no-brainer,"
McQuaide says. Shohadai says his underlying philosophy is to put
service to employees and clients first, and the bottom line will take
care of itself. "More people want to work for you, more people want to
work with you. Therefore you have more choices about what to work on."
He said the company has done better every year. "We don't have debts.
We own our equipment, our software, our building. We have cash
reserves," he says. Shohadai has thought about opening a branch in an
area that offers tax incentives but he's hesitant. "If you're a
service-based company, the company is the people," he says. "Even if I
open a branch in Canada or some other country, say Luma Pictures
India, that doesn't make it the same company."He estimates from the
time they start up, low-labor-cost companies will have about 15 years
until their labor costs rise to levels similar to the U.S. He thinks
that we're about 10 years into that, so he believes that cost pressure
will start to abate in about five more years. Counter-intuitive as
Luma's people-first approach may be, Giorgutti said it's similar to
the philosophy that drives Marvel."Keep everyone happy and their work
is really good. And when you need everyone to come to the party at the
11th hour, they will do so," she says.Bits Bytes: Special effects
fans can compete to win a 20-minute telephone conversation with Weta
Workshop creative director Sir Richard Taylor and senior concept
designer Greg Broadmore. Entry forms are on wotwots.com. Competish
ends Aug. 11, at midday New Zealand time. ... Director Matthew Egan
has joined Chicago-based Filmworkers as part of its new production
division. Egan was most recently at Foundation, the Chicago production
studio. ... Element Technica has delivered its 200th 3D rig, this one
to Evergreen Films, which bought the first ET rig some two years ago.
... The stereo 3D title sequence for Warner's "Green Lantern" was
designed and executed by design/vfx studio yU+co. ... Createasphere
will hold its Digital Asset Management Conference and Exposition Sept.
22-23 in New York.The Foundry has shipped Nuke 6.3, the latest version
of its popular compositing software package. The new version adds
features to expand Nuke's market to commercials and CG for
small-to-medium sized companies. ... e-on Software has updated Lumen
RT, its real-time plugin for Sketchup. Lumen RT version 1.2 allows
users to compute lighting for very large scenes. .. Maxon Computer
GmbH is sponsoring the animago 2011 "Jury's Prize" category... IMDb
has launched its Android tablet app and a new version of its Android
phone app... Red Giant has released Magic Bullet Movie Looks HD. The
app provides looks tools for videos up to five minutes long through
iOS devices. Contact David S. Cohen at
david.cohen@variety.com
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