Instability of CG Job

#1

Hi. Me again. Asking yet another CG career question. From what I hear, CG is not a stable career to get into. Moving from job to job, project to project. How then, are you supposed to settle down with a family if your career moves you from place to place?

#2

Its not for everyone… but if your lucky, you can find someone willing to move with you where ever your job takes you. It can be extremely exciting to some, or crazy to others

I’ve only worked in the industry for over a year now, and my average gig has lasted prob 10 weeks… but I have worked on 5 films and a video game, and one of my gigs landed me in Canada for 9 weeks.

when I started out, I was scared as hell, but like everyone says… the hardest job is your first one, then, if your work ethic and personality (extremely importantant) are good, it gets easier.

as for the family part… our baby boy is due in sept, I’ll let you know how that goes! hehehehehe

#3

Maybe it just depends on the type of person you are and the type of company you work for. I work for a gaming company and from what it seems it’s a pretty stable job. From what I’ve heard, layoffs havn’t happened in a couple of years, and everyone I work with have been there for at least a year. Actually, when I was hired there, the HR person told me that we have a large rate of people staying in the company, compared to others.

On the other hand, if I really wanted to, with the experience I gain there I can leave on my own for a position elsewhere. So I guess it all depends. Who knows, what if pixar makes you an offer? Aren’t you going to move no matter where you live?

#4

Make sure you locate yourself in an area where there’s enough work to move around between companies without leaving town. If you are in SoCal, the Bay Area, or London, then moving between jobs doesn’t mean travel. If you went to some one-company town, then of course you’d have to move to find other work.

Don’t get into this field if you’re looking for easy job security. Only get into it if you love it. There are relatively stable jobs at some places, but nobody is guaranteed that they’ll be able to land one.

-jeremy

#5

Well I have a slightly unstable job in the CG field.
Can anyone propose a patch to fix it?

Seriously now: Do you want to work in this field or not? Anything you chose might ask you to give up on a few things…

#6

But in all case, a CG career is an artistic career. Which mean it has a very low (while not null) propability of offering you a stable situation for 50 years. Your skills and motivations , as well as the companies and the busy places will change over time, and so will you career.

If you see it as totally negative, I suggest considering a job at the post office. On the opposite, if you see some excitement in this prospect of continual changes, then you’re ready for it.

just my point of view, of course…

#7

I have one friend who is on location for six months at a time and always moving a round with the same company. For him he takes the good and the bad with his situation. He gets to travel and live in different places, but it does get old sometimes just not having roots anywhere. For him that’s the price he pays.

Another friend just got picked up at blue Sky as a animator for 6 months. For him it’s a dream job. Right now he’s thinkng of the next step after the project if it doesn’t switch to full time, but with that experience it will be a lot easier to get into somewhere else. Moving around is a part of the game.

Jeremy Birn made a good point of living somewhere where there is plenty of work. Another route that might be a little more stable is looking for work in marketing departments of bigger companies, not necessarily film or TV. Many Manufacturing and corporate companies have Graphic support departments. Research Facilties, Medical fields, Educational, advertising agencies, Etc. It’s no gaurantee to a “long term” position, but I think usually they hire with more emphasis on a permanent position. This is of course if that is the direction that you want to take, again, it’s not film or game work.

Truth be told, I don’t think there are any truly “stable” professional jobs, things can always and will always change.

#8

I agree with the consensus here. I’ve had a hard time with this industry and each and every job that I’ve taken has caused me to move. Even in the Bay Area when I got laid off, there weren’t any job openings for my field. So I still had to move to SoCal. That’s the other thing that people have to consider. This can cause extreme difficulties.

All in all, the moving has hurt my family. But it’s something we have to live with since I wouldn’t make equal or more money doing something else.

I also agree with Jeremy. You absolutely have to find a place that has most of the jobs around so that you can move around in tne same area. It gets really difficult to move after your child has started school in the local area.

-M

#9

My video game career has felt pretty stable. (Well, except for getting laid off from M$ when they cancelled the game once. Its the only game I’ve worked on that didn’t ship.) I’ve spent at least 2-5 years at each company. I’ve only moved once, from Raleigh to Seattle, both good areas for game companies. I have to agree with the the JeremyBirn, live where the work is.

Anyway, its my understanding (and I’m curious what other people think here) that the movie industry generally ramps up for a project, hires a bunch of artists, produces the work, then lays everyone off. I’ve never worked in the movie industry, so Im just working from my perception here.

Whereas video game studios generally hire people long term. They have new technology that builds on old technology, so they try to keep experienced people around that are familiar with it.

What do you think?

#10

I think the difference is really based on whether companies are working on shorter-term projects or longer-term projects. If a studio is working on longer-term projects (it doesn’t matter whether they are games or CG features) and if they have several overlapping projects with new ones always in development, then people can transition from one project to another, and that creates stability.

If companies do visual effects or commercials, with no real control over when there will be a dry spell or an intense rush job, then they end up doing more project-hires, more short term freelance work, and layoffs are likely when things get too slow. Of course, a larger, growing business can still keep a core staff with fairly stable jobs.

Experienced employees are a great asset that companies working on any kind of project can appreciate, but companies could go out of business if they tried to carry too many employees on the payroll when there was no work for them to do. This is why VFX studios are so eager to win the big “tent pole” projects like the Narnia films, which let them keep a lot of people employed continuously instead of having to do hiring and firing cycles.

-jeremy

#11

My experience is that working for a gaming company, in-house, was pretty stable. That was a few years back now, for Bethesda Softworks.

One of the most recent copies of Cinefex had some very interesting interviews regarding the way a studio can view its talent.
Now…

After going freelance, THAT's when it got unstable! :o)

Mark (unstable) Jones
[www.mjonesgraphics.com](http://www.mjonesgraphics.com)
#12

I generally agree with this for the most part with the exception of competition or “clicks”. Not EVERYONE gets to move from project to project. Most newbies have to compete with their peers or be viewed as “tremendous assets” to the entire supervisory staff in order to “win” a slot for the next feature film. This is the part that I hate because everyone is trying to be better than the next guy. It creates a competitive work environment instead of a healthy one.

-M

#13

Shaderhacker raised an important point.

Another way things vary from company to company (and even from department to department within some companies) is in how competetive or how cooperative the environment is between co-workers. There are some companies where even though the whole crew is working together, really there’s an “every man for himself” mentality. Bad management can encourage that, and good management combined with careful hiring can reduce it.

I was at one company where everything between the lighting department was pretty cooperative and cool, but the modeling department was always trying to stab eachother in the back, not giving a new guy a chance to look good, saying bad things about whomever the boss seemed to like too much, working unpaid overtime just to be the most productive person on the crew, etc. There’s no greater incentive to making employees compete with eachother than the threat that only the most productive will keep their jobs.

I think the word was “clique” for the idea that you need to form an aliance if you want to avoid getting voted off the island. I haven’t worked in a department where it was that bad, but I have heard about things like that happening.

Still, this whole idea of co-workers competing with one another is something that comes or goes with how well managed a company is. Companies that want to keep employees working productively without burnout for many years try to foster a less stressful, more cooperative environment.

-jeremy

#14

This Industry is one you have to love indeed! I wouldnt want to be doing anything else!

Yes it would be great if the stability was there. I have worked in the Games and Tv sector, and find games to have more stability, as tv work is based on short term contracts. No pension, benefits or any of that. Moving from city to city and country to country can cause a strain on settling down and family life. A partner that can travel around with you and still have there career aswell as having kids is heaven sent. All we can do is be dam good at wat we do and continue to make high quality Cg/Animation. More quality brings more opportunitys, more money and more chances of stability.

#15

It’s already been said, but I had to reiterate. This kind of thing is incorporated with any job you may come across in any field, if you really want to work in this field then its not a problem. But don’t take it from me, Im just a college student after all.

#16

Not all jobs are contract based though. Most studios do hire some people fulltime.

#17

you may be hired full -time but if theres no contract, the minute it get’s slow you’ll be laid off. Full time, contract if theres no legal binding papers it dosen’t mean anything. it’s all about the bottom line, if it costs them $ to keep you’ll be gone.

#18

How many contract employes are there at your studio VS full time employees?

Just out of curiosity. I have seen a ton of 6 month contract jobs.

#19

I will add to this a bit.

Most studios, when they bring someone on full time, typically lock them in with a contract as well, usually something like a 2 or 3 year contract.

also, most regular contracts and project hire positions ahve clauses that state that the company can cut you if production slows anyways.

Studios that have staff, will in most cases cut project hires and contractors before cutting their fulltimers…this is not always teh case though.

-todd

#20

I think there are about 30 of us permanent staff artists here. Then, depending on the size of the feature we’re working on, they’ll bring in a bunch of freelancers. When we’re knee deep in production, there are generally more freelancers than staff.