London Flame Jobs?

[Anonymous]

I been working on Flame for 7 years, and London seems dead for Flame jobs ….last year I couldnt stop working ….whats happening ? is it me or is this also for other freelancers ….. it seem some flamers are using shake/combustion sw for half their usual fee, is this true, have the £400 – £500/day days gone? …why is this happening here, is it all the film work thats here to blame? and not enough commercials … is it that companies are looking at low cost desktop apps and production co’s are buying there own,… do they feel that Flame is a ripp off? … or is it the economy? or is it just London …. After all those years of working hard to become an experience Flame Artist, I suddenly feel ripped off, yeah sure I can get work on Combustion and probably Shake ..long term too, for half or even less my usual rate ….it just means I have to work twice as hard …. but that really pisses me off!!, I could of come from a much simplier BG to get these kindof jobs, its like the tortoise and hare story. I think the rates in London for Shake/Combustion are too low ….

Am I under an illusion or is this all true ?

It feels like the freelance Flame ops in London are getting filtered out …cos soon they will all be shake ops, or Combustion rather… I will try and move into directing hopefully and get out of this frying pan and probably into another 🙂

Sorry if I’ve wasted your time.. just letting out some steam, …I suppose money isnt everything,…. but putting your heart into something you feel your losing herts.

Any oppinions or advice (BTW i’m staying in London) would be apprecciated, and thanks for listening. ❓

[John Montgomery]

This was just posted today on another mailing list:

Looking for London based Freelance Flame artists.

If you have 3 or more years experience then please send your CV and other
details to [email protected].

No agencies please!!

Chris

[PIL]

I,m a Flame artist and I live in London too. Of course, the situation is not very good, but all we know that , if the client is not in a hurry, you can reach similar results working with Shake or Combustion than working with Flame. The problem is that the client knows this (maybe he didn,t know sveral years ago) and, most of the time, he prefers a longer project in the time than an more expensive project. Nowadays, it,s not logic to spend the double or the triple in a work if you can make almost the same wasting only time.
In the commercials world I think is still logic to use Discreet high espeed systems in many cases, but in the feature films world is almost impossible to find a project using Inferno if you can work with Shake or Combustion.

Times are changing…

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your responses…..

But do guys really think that FFI are losing there touch, I dont think so they are far more superior than any other Desktop app out there, but the desktop apps are getting very close, .at the moment FFI freelance work in London is non existant, may be bit here and there but not enough for all, as said above flame hire rates have droped not cos FFI are crap its cos there not so affordable any more cos production budgets have dropped ..so that leaves the FFI’s not doing much, but keeps desktop apps busy, especially in Film.

Therefore you can either a)go abroad, or b)do some film work until it all picks up again or c) stick to film work

The problem with “b” is that you get so taken over in a long form film contracts, by the time it all picks up Flame 9 will be realeased and there will be so many new features that could speed up your workflow, so you end up being slow… so maybe you end up going with “c” in which to be honest Combustion 3 is so amazingly cool, but you will lose out on those expensive cool ads that you use to do on FFI, and also you lose out on the great food the runner orders for you for lunch.

Summary:
No Flame means no Curry or what ever you normally order from the runner, and less money or more working, less clients over your shoulder therefore you should be more of mentally balanced person, less sexy work, unless you get lucky enough to get a sexy film shot or a cool film title sequence, …thinking… oh yeah people that have always been on PC/mac platforms, and cant understand how you feel about going from SGI to pc/mac,…and people who want to move on to a FFI to advance in their careers, and can’t understand why you are here. Grrrreat!!

Its not too bad .. actually its quite good.

But what does Discreet plan for the future, it would be nice to know, then freelancers like myself can plan there future too, I know what ever happens I will still be eager to get on a flame, I dont know why, there just some thing about it. I can do just as good work on Combustion but still… its been my tool for so many years. Will Flame get better? will it ever get to be as advanced as it used to be 10 years ago compared to any thing else? cos right now its no way close.

If you compare Flame in ratio of price to a desktop ie Combustion its like 250:1, compare the capabilities/features its like 5:1, compare the speed/workflow its like nearly 1:1 and render speed(including renderfarms) it can be about 1:1.

So are those extra features worth the price in todays market ?, if price matters the answer would be “no” 3-4 years ago it would be different (even 1year ago).

Why would you pay so much for a flame today or even upgrade”
answer: the buzz created 10-3 years ago still exists, you’ve just gotta find the muggs that still believe in it, and those clients that like getting runners to deliver them curry from the local indian restaurant, and love coming to soho to sit in nice leather couch, wth minibar and all the extras and a have there arses licked. Its the same as would you wanna stay in the Holiday Inn or the Hilton.

Fair doos business is business, but what I’m getting at here is that its not really about the tools and skills any more, cos you can get cheaper tools now, and if you have the skill you wont need a flame. So therefore my next point is that why should a freelancers rate have to be cheaper cos the tool is cheaper, it shoud be the same but then other…….

Anyway I better stop cos I’m making myself dizzy.

Thanks again

bounce 😯

[Anonymous]

🙁 Hi guys, i can absolutely underline your messages.If the post scene in london, as a so called creative mecca is lacking, you could imagine how it
looks like in germany….Unbelievable..the big names like DAS WERK or Triple E are gone.I have had my own company here in cologne,it was a graphic design agency, running one flame,one edit system, several 3DSMAx
workstations on so on.If you said: 700 Pound jobs are gone.Here the clients want to have the same quality, that costs the half of the price in a much shorter time then it was used to be in the gold old days.So you could
imagine that i am really pissed off and that it makes no sense for me to run this studio any longer.The clients are more clever then ever and know
exactly what they can do on much cheaper desktop apps like combustion or shake.As mentioned in your messages these low cost platforms will come closer to the advanced systems,so i think it´s just a matter of time of beeing wiped away.

Forget about…keep on fighting,
Mark

[Author]

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