From the linked article…
In a day and age when literally everyone connected to a film production gets a credit, from craft services to on-set teachers of child actors to random “production babies” who didn’t even work on a film, it is utterly incomprehensible that vfx artists, whose work makes possible the final images that appear onscreen, are routinely omitted from screen credits.
I can attest to this, having worked in the field. Most of the work in TV and cinema goes uncredited, with team leaders or just the post houses at most being recognized with an end credit placement (by contract, of course). I understand totally that it is always a team effort and hardly any of the viewing public sits through the entire end credits roll. I totally get it. But when it happens that you are included, that small token of recognition does remind you why you’re doing 12-hour days erasing power lines, making day look like night, adding/removing people and/or signage from shots they weren’t supposed to be in and pushing greenscreened people in front of moving cars.
Well that’s just not true. If it was, they’d all be paid the same for their time. It’s nice to think in egalitarian terms, but it’s not true. Some people are more vital than others.
in that case crafty is probably more vital to a movie happening than the DP.
Ive spent months working on the VFX for a show only to not appear in the credits, yet the dude who brought lunches to the crew on set who gets paid significantly less than me gets a credit.
I get that if 100,000 people work on a film they don’t want to fit all of them in the credits. But also, why not? Sure there would need to be some sort of threshold, you can’t just Uber someone to work and get a movie credit. But someone who actually did work should get credited. If the credits last 10 more minutes, who cares? Physical discs have plenty of space now, granted, streaming is now king. But that only proves my point more.
The only argument I can think of is that movie theaters need time for one movie to end before the next one starts because of post-credits or something. But that’s so niche and can easily be worked around with mid-credits scenes, or faster scrolling credits on the theater version.
I worked as a stand-in for one of the main actors in Tulsa King for 8 months and didn’t get a credit. I was even in some of the scenes as the character when he couldn’t be there and wasn’t in focus. It kind of pissed me off to be honest. I even put in more hours than my actor rehearsing the scenes over and over.
Your frustration is completely justified.
Yeah, that I don’t agree with. You have far more right to a credit, but that’s part of the current lack of respect for VFX crews in the industry.
And as far as the credits lasting too long on films, well it gives the cleaners some music to work to. More seriously, it’s probably the likes of Marvel putting scenes at the end of credits that causes the problem. It stops the cleaners getting access.
Personally I think they should keep the credits to a certain level and above, but across-the-board. No lunch boy credit for sure.