Hello everyone!
I'm not a cinematographer OR a producer, however I thought I'd wade in with the perspective of a stopmotion animator. After all, some of my best friends are cinematographers and producers....
I work in a kind of miniature version of a liveaction shoot, the difference being that our average productions last many times longer than the live-action counterpart. Animation crew are often expected to work of projects for free or for deferred payment. It's bad enough when the freebie job is 3 or 4 days out of your life but some of these animation roles run to 6 months or longer. Who on Earth can work for free for half a year? It's ridiculous.
I started in the industry shooting on film in the mid-90s as an 18 year old. I'm not lying when I say I now earn a SIXTH of what I earned as an 18 year old in the 90s. After almost 20 years of shooting high-end ads and TV series all over Europe. That is absolutely not a joke. And it's the same story for many of my industry friends.
They say the budgets aren't high enough to pay properly. But who devises a budget? Producers should take a large amount of the blame here. They are presenting budgets to clients that rely on the crew working as free labour. Clients don't care how a quote was devised, they generally take the cheapest. So the downward spiral continues as each producer tries to stay competitive.
If there was a mimimum wage, it would at least provide a bottom line to prevent producers from using free labour as a way to undercut the rival production companies. Money should be saved by using igenious short cuts and by actually empoying people who know what they're doing and can get it right first go (aka SKILLED PEOPLE). Not by bringing in a tribe of free newbies who flounder around out of their depth creating endless problems. I've had to shore up so many laughable shoots, it's just too depressing for words.
Awaiting my death by firing squad.
