EOL Western VFX ?

[FXDude]

Now that we are well after all strikes, what are producers waiting for, before getting things moving again?

If you search for "Maya" on Indeed or Linked-in Jobs, almost 100% of them are for realtime "tech artist" positions.


If you search for "compositing", there remains still basically nothing after more than a year now.

Rodeo in montreal (also known as the "ILM of montreal"), as well as other studios in LA, London, and other places
have had general <<expression of interest>> job post for MONTHS, that you can apply to if it makes you feel better lol
while quite a few people have been "crossgrading" into games.

But even in "games", quite a few, if not most "bigger players" have been seriously downsizing lately ...
( sometimes laying-off 10-20% of their workforce, including very good people that have been there for years )


Some on linked-in have suggested that things might pick-up again around May (with fingers crossed), or perhaps only partly,
but if thing are too slow for too long, hope this isn't essentially the end of this industry in "non-developping countries",
because it seems fair to say that we seem to be essentially getting "killed" ...

... as well as in other "tech sectors" ...

The following (mainstream news) report seems to point to AI as a factor.


But as several comments suggested, AI isn't really there yet, or not enough to account for all the layoffs,
while bigger companies after buying many if not most of the smaller ones, have been downsizing in "the west",
while up-sizing their pre-existing facilities in places where the cost of living is but a fraction of any western country, and are therefore less affected by inflation.
( even mid-sized "tech" companies were already increasingly "all over the place" worldwide )

... and "despite a strong US economy"
... yeah ... based on the stock market almost entirely driven by big-ass public companies, which I'm sure are doing just fine lol
( not at-all representing how people in general are doing.. with basically NO "trickle-down" happenning lol )

But after manufacturing jobs, what is there left after "office jobs" in "the west" ?
we can't all become electricians or plumbers ?

And so there is a good chance that we might become to an extent, maybe not "retarded",
but perhaps "obsolete", or like not competitive at all ... with mostly "non-intellectual" , or "non technical" jobs left ...
while Asia and India have been increasingly on "high-octane" in terms of all sorts of high-tech (including VFX) production .

so yep ... good times !

[matevil]

I started to change my career and leave temporally to the VFX industry, maybe now it's a time of change-generation and maybe some of us were "very old for this sh**t"... last month I started like (part-time) night surveillance and looking around in the old filed (design and architectural)...

I think the time of the "golden age" in VFX is the end

Mat

[FXDude]

I started to change my career and leave temporally to the VFX industry, maybe now it's a time of change-generation and maybe some of us were "very old for this sh**t"... last month I started like (part-time) night surveillance and looking around in the old filed (design and architectural)...

I think the time of the "golden age" in VFX is the end

Mat

I also looked for "no experience jobs" while doing my new portefolio in other disciplines
I applied to a whole bunch of stuff, but I-dunno, with limited success, ... maybe cause I'm 50?
I resumed my entire VFX carreer to a single entry on my CV,
while mentioning other customer service stuff I did 27 years ago lol

Not sure if it's the best approach or if I'm doing something wrong,
but I didn't expect it to be this hard to find just "some job" which I'd be happy to do,
while being use to trying and trying without quitting, I was expecting at least AN interview after many-many applications.

But yep.. not always easy, I'm anxious to finish my web graphics portfolio, while dabbling in Unreal's Niagara Particles.


Otherwise, I'm pasting what I wrote in another thread, as it's more relevant to this topic here
___________________

If anyone is still doing this stuff professionally, that's really great for them !

But these days, if you look for many types of VFX positions on linked-in across Canada
( formally mostly in Vancouver or Montreal )
OR across the ENTIRETY of the U.S.
OR across the ENTIRETY of Europe,
OR across the Oceanic region ( Australia - New Zealand)
there is either basically 0 (zero), or MAYBE 1 or 2 openings in each of these regions.

For some reason, the U.K. has the most openings with about a dozen results
( which isn't alot relative to pre-strike levels )

This goes for looking for Houdini positions,

same for Maya
( still some Maya openings in games though )

and same goes for Nuke,
last month, here there was 1 (one) opening in comp at Framestore, and there was more than 100 applicants !
( on Linked-in, plus any number of applicants that applied directly on Framestore's website)

Nevertheless, we can safely say that at least for now, and for more than a year now,
has VFX basically been dead in "the west".

Still have hope that this remains a "phase" rather than a "transition", but I wouldn't count on it ...

I'm personally building-up a web-graphics portfolio AND looking into making FX in Unreal Engine
for my SECOND transition after Softimage died.
( without planning on quitting my favorite hobby anytime soon )

Cheers!