I’ve created a spreadsheet containing wage information collected from 2002-2009 at various vfx, animation, and games companies in the United States. You can access the spreadsheet here.
The Animation Guild conducts a voluntary wage survey every year. There is also a website called VFX Wages that also encourages artists to voluntarily submit their wage information. My information comes directly from the facilities. It does not include bonuses, stock options, or weekly guarantees.
I feel this information is useful to get a better understanding of what artists and technical directors can expect to be paid when they are negotiating their next deal at facilities such as DreamWorks, or ILM, etc.
The more information you have about salaries, the more leverage you have during negotiations. Producers have access to this information and so should you. If you feel that there should be a company to add on the list email me and I’ll add it if I can get the information.
Why do we need to join a guild?
Many artists and technical directors in the vfx and animation industry are making well over $100,000. Which begs the question: Why do they need to join a guild?
The reason why is that while professionals in the industry are paid well, many of them work project-to-project and go from facility-to-facility with little or no health and retirement benefits that are made further futile through long vesting periods.
Having each facility sign a collective bargaining agreement would bring portability to their benefits and cover their families when they are out of work. They would also receive residuals from film, dvd, and television that fund these benefits that many in the film industry already get.
If I could also mention, even the super rich need to join organizations. For example, the studios are a part of a trade organization. The MPAA advances the business interests of the studios around the world.They even have the AMPTP which represents them during negotiations.
There is even a producer’s guild that provides health and pension benefits to some of the very producers who might be against the same idea for artists.
However, this is not just unique to the film industry. Some of the richest people in the world are professional athletes such as Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez, and Drew Brees. These are people who are uniquely talented and paid an abundant amount of money.
Yet they are part of a players union which provides pension and licensing agreements for the players they represent. Some things have to be negotiated on a collective level and an organization is needed to facilitate that process. Its not some Bolshevik revolution as some individuals wildly accuse.
Pixar’s Low Pay
I always thought Pixar would pay the highest since they create some great stuff but apparently not. Their wages generally are a good 20-30% lower than most facilities. I assume this has to do with the prestige of working for the place. I guess managers expect that an artist be willing to “pay” to work for Pixar by accepting lower pay.
It’s interesting that this guideline doesn’t apply upstream where Disney CEO Robert Iger is one of the highest paid CEOs in the nation. He took a little tumble this year after falling from #2 to #9 in the nation. However, with the closing of ImageMovers, slowdown at Disney, and exceptional performance of Toy Story 3, he’ll hopefully climb back to the top in 2011!
PDI And DreamWorks Glendale: Non-union And Union
I deliberately separated PDI and DreamWorks Glendale so it’s a little easier to compare wages. DreamWorks has two facilities, one in Glendale, and PDI in Redwood City. The Glendale facility is under a contract with The Animation Guild while PDI is not. The wages are generally higher in Glendale which begs the question:
If unionization is so costly, why doesn’t DreamWorks send more of it’s work to PDI? It’s only a few hundred miles up north.
You always hear the argument that if a place goes union they’ll just send the work elsewhere but the irony here is that the Glendale facility is massively expanding and has been doing about 2 out of the 3 films DreamWorks produces each year.
Conducting Your Own Departmental Wage Survey
I once had a friend in the industry who worked for a vfx facility for 5 years. He was a great worker: Finished shots on time, good reviews, technically competent, got along well with others, and incredibly loyal to the company. He was content with his wages and loved the projects he worked on so he didn’t fuss when his manager refused to give him a good raise after glowing reviews each year. All that changed one day when the artists in his department decided to conduct an anonymous wage survey.
Each of them wrote their hourly rate on a piece of paper and put it in a jar. After that, a list was posted with all the wages for everyone to see.
It turns out he was the lowest paid artist in the department and it wasn’t even close. The next wage above him was a good $10 an hour more!
He had an epiphany: For all the years and loyalty he gave to the company, they gave him verbal and written praise, but they paid newer artists from other companies substantially more money even though his work was on par if not better than them. He left the company for a better offer and while he was uncomfortable for doing it at the time, he is very happy for it now.
The Bizzaro World Of The VFX Industry
The vfx industry is sort of the bizzaro world of business. You would think they reward the workers with the longest tenure, best work, or technical prowess. However at the end of the day, it’s not about what you did, it’s about how much leverage you have. Usually that means leaving to go to another company.
A penny-pinching manager knows a cheap loyal worker wouldn’t like to leave, so they rarely bother negotiating knowing that. Usually the reason why newer artists get paid more is because they had a tight schedule and needed to lure artists to leave another employer. Unless you’re a legitimate show-stopper, meaning the show you are on will probably shut down if you leave, you’ll probably have to leave the company to get the raise you want.
Now there are probably going to be the naysayers or cgtalk trolls who feel a 6-figure income is way too much for an artist to be making and they would gladly do it for half the price (or free). In fact I worked with one such individual. He knew the director of a film that we were working on and was able to get on the show. He worked hard and even offered to come in on weekends. He was a huge fanboy of the film but was offered very little in compensation and no benefits. He was okay with that.
After a few months that eagerness turned into disgruntled behavior after the company thoroughly disrespected him with nothing to offer during renegotiation. It’s a shitty situation when you are working harder than everyone else on something you love and the people around you are being rewarded more than you. That’s when you stop being an artist, and start being a business person.
Soldier On.
Hi, I am a vfx artist who working at LA. This article is very interesting. so I translated to Japanese at my blog for japanese people. thank you for shearing the information.
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[...] another good article on wages in the FX and animation industries over at VFXsoldier as [...]
those that think 100k is a lot should try living in the bay area or la, or even vancouver/london/wellington for that matter. That salary is just a bit over the median for the region. Anything significantly less and you’d be living hand to mouth.
You hit the nail on the head! excellent article.
[...] VFX Soldier has a good article about wages and salaries in the VFX and animation industries. [...]
[...] want an offline version to review, I’ve uploaded a PDF version (27Meg) you can look at.via Wages In The VFX, Animation, And Games Industry « VFX Soldier. About the Author: Randall Hand Randall Hand is a visualization scientist working for a federal [...]
“If unionization is so costly, why doesn’t DreamWorks send more of it’s work to PDI? ”
For some large companies, the union benefits are significantly cheaper for the employer than the non-union benefits. Why? I can think of two reasons: Either the union is better at negotiating deals on benefits so you get more for less money, or the benefits offerred by the union aren’t as good. I think it’s unlikely you’re going to get better for cheaper.
This is easy to verify yourself if you have a chance to turn your shop from non-union to union. Carefully compare the benefits for yourself and see which is better for you.
Of course, you’ll need the weigh the quality/cost of the benefits against the advantage of portability of the union benefits. Even if they aren’t as good, if you have them between shows or you don’t have to change doctors every new company, it might be better for you.
Hi Jim,
You are correct. I wrote an article last week showing that the employer costs would be less if not the same for going union. The main reason is because 55-60% of the funding is from studio residuals:
http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/could-unionization-save-vfx-facilities/
The union benefits at Dreamworks in Glendale are flat-out better than the nonunion benefits at PDI in Redwood City, and the wages are higher in Glendale as well. I suspect a big reason that more work is happening in Glendale is that it’s much easier to hire experienced artists in the L.A. area, and the size of both studios are limited by the availability of suitable talent.
I would not be surprised if vfxsoldier’s explanation about residuals were accurate, though I have no personal knowledge of how that works out.
[...] Wages In The VFX, Animation, And Games Industry I’ve created a spreadsheet containing wage information collected from 2002-2009 at various vfx, animation, and [...] [...]
[...] [...]
Is there a way to sort specific columns? I’d like to see wages ordered from lowest to highest.
These numbers are coming from the H1B visa applications. Companies have to disclose salaries when applying for foreign workers to be hired.
They don’t necessarily represent the average wages, but rather the average salary for new hires without US work authorizations.
It would be great if you could add some London studios to the list – Double Negative, Framestore, MPC etc.
Thanks for the great info.
{ Sarcasm }
Thinker? Are you here? Thinker?! This post was dedicated to you. Any thoughts?
*scans the room*
Damn .. its so nice to be appreciated. I figured he/she would at least take a bow.
{ /Sarcasm }
For the person who mentioned needing $100,000k a year to live in Vancouver.
There is no animator living today, in or around Vancouver, that makes anywhere near that amount of money.
Not one.
Animators working at major studios like Bardel, Studio B, Mercury Filmworks or Rainmaker are lucky to clear $50,000 a year in gross pay ($38-41,000 after Provincial and Federal taxes, and not including deductions for Employment Insurance, Health Benefits, etc).
Animators in Canada routinely work on quota pay only, at a rate between $19-30 per second of finished animation – which even at 50 seconds a week, and full employment all year, is well shy of $100,000.
@James Stewart
Quota pay? What is this 1996?
Lol.
Oh right 2d.
I think we’re talking about feature animation or high end game animation here, not tiny little canadian studios that pump out low budget tv programing where the average salary is pretty low. After all TV Animation is a race to a bottom, you don’t need a Houdini FX artist or a Renderman shader writer and the corresponding high wage that goes along with that.
I know that rainmaker, EA Vancouver and a few commercial shops pay 100K +, especially for td’s and digital artists who are canadian but with high profile US production experience.
The arrival of US studios to vancouver should make the pay issue more interesting in vancouver in the near future. The 2D guys guys at the smaller studios don’t have anything to worry about. ILM, Sony or DD Canada won’t be hiring animators with flash experience in animating pre-school shows for the CBC.
I won’t get into the gross and net pay arguments, every adult should understand that argument and whatever tax shelters they can or cannot take advantage of.
@Everyone
Now back to planet earth and to the article and “survey”.
Most of this information is from sites like H1Bwage and other visa related websites.
There’s a few issues here with the list. Some of the studios no longer exist. Some of the data isn’t dated and the studio addresses in other cases is years out of date.
Now when a US studio wants to hire a foreign worker they have to file paperwork and post a public notice stating that the company intends to hire a worker for x date, for y position at a certain salary range.
It’s legal boilerplate and most of these postings usually have a salary range of $40,000-$110,000 or so. It’s a catch all so the studio doesn’t have to resubmit paperwork over and over when they need to staff up people at different salary ranges.
Given the additional legal overhead of hiring foreign workers [for visas, green cards and document preparation] you can argue the artists and TD’s who are foreign workers are making a bit less than their US counterpart in some cases due to this overhead.
Other than that, this list is really only relevant for foreign workers, for southern California studios, it only specifies a rough salary range which many people would not qualify for.
Not only that, you have to factor in benefits and overtime. You can have people at a few studios in a supervisor role who will not qualify over overtime, they may be compensated with a higher salary, where a shot td will be at a lower base salary but would assume to make 20-50% more than their salary on crunch-time overtime.
The time and dates is important due to the overtime factor. One year you can clear well over 100k on overtime but the following year you may only have 40 hour weeks for the whole year.
With that in mind this list of salary data has to be taken in context, especially when most if not all of it is sourced from work visa data.
@john stewart “There is no animator living today, in or around Vancouver, that makes anywhere near that amount of money.”
Eh, yes there are. Experienced senior animators at all the established feature studios in Vancouver, staff or long-term contract, are definitely earning on, near or over the $100k mark. The figure you quote of $50k would be somebody starting out, maybe with a couple of years already under their belt, somebody I would constitute as junior.
good article
[...] VFX Soldier collected wage information at various VFX, animation and games companies in the USA and organised the data in a very informative spreadsheet. [...]
“If unionization is so costly, why doesn’t DreamWorks send more of it’s work to PDI? It’s only a few hundred miles up north.”
Since Dreamworks LA is unionized, they also are not responsible for providing health/dental/vision insurance or retirement benefits. Those would be handled by the union. PDI/Dreamworks on the other hand would. This would be my best guess.
PDI/Dreamworks I do believe have some who have chosen to be in the union. In general, Dreamworks appears to be working for the Workers. Though, every company has its issues. No one is better than the other.
Those who are knocking at the PIXAR door with bloody knuckles will regret taking low pay jobs in the long run. You wont be able to pay off those massive student loans till you’re 75 years old.
I suggest anyone at PIXAR who is under 100K a year and reading this website start getting angry, or even better petition to unionize. People in union shops get paid a minimum salary for a reason. So companies are forced to pay people for the work they do.
More recently, many companies are saying we can’t afford to make these films unless they are a boxoffice hit. Well, stop paying your leadership 200k+ a year. Seriously, anyone making 250k or more and is not a CTO or CEO is ridiculously overpaid and probably does less work than the 65K a year new hire fresh out of school. I know for a fact that some of those numbers on the spreadsheet are true. And close friends of mine have told me they made 250k on a film after getting paid overtime pay (animators, lighters, and efx artists).
With a saturated media market the Film industry is going up against. Something will have to give. Many of these companies can only survive as long as the employees are happy.
Hey, if an artist is making 250k a year, good for them. What’s wrong with that?
I guess I got my thoughts cross wired. I was talking more about management getting over paid. Making 250K a year for an artist is common if you base pay is 100K. This is primarily because of overtime pay. If you work 72 hours or more, you are more than likely to hit these numbers. I do understand that people need to get paid.
My point I was trying to make is that some people who are getting paid 250K+ are people who really don’t deserve that high pay at the management level (this is before overtime pay). I’ve worked both at the management level and the artist level. In both cases I respected the companies wishes and negotiated for a reasonable salary for my expected amount of time devoted to the company.
In reality, we artist (and manages) get paid to do something most people have only dreamed of. I am FOR having unionized in all parts of the industry only because I hate filling out health insurance paper work ><.
However, the industry changing ever so dramatically since you can download a movie weeks after the film has been release in the theater. The industry is struggling with something the music industry had to deal with over 10 years ago. Maybe the film companies should band together and go walk across the street and talk to the music industry? Ehh, off-topic…
[...] Wages In The VFX, Animation, And Games Industry [...]
You can look up the salaries of most people on a h1b visa (any company) here! Pretty useful.
http://www.flcdatacenter.com/CaseH1B.aspx
I really appreciate those who have this talent
YOU ROCK!
Thank you so much for posting this and keeping it up to date. It really is so incredibly valuable. A thousand thank yous!
[...] one of my previous posts I wrote about the wages of vfx artists employed at various facilities in the US and found it [...]
What would be way more useful is publishing a ball park on how much VFX facilities charge. Then we could get a real value on what we are worth to the studio and how much we could make if we approach them directly
Interesting stuff. I have been accepted to an animation program and I have been really thinking if going into animation – with a focus on vfx for film – would be worth it. I love art and I already have a degree in fine art but I don’t think I want to deal with all the hassle of all the bs I read about regarding studios trying to rip you off, crazy hours, and job security. I’m not in my 20′s anymore and those things really matter to me now. I’m really confused now. That being said, it’s nice to see a site that tells it like it really is in the animation industry.
@VV I’m in the same boat. I’m almost going on 30 and will take animation next fall (2013) Would you shortly comment on the age factor for VFX artists and could you also tell me what you’ve decided to do as for schooling. I’m debating whether to go into Graphic Design or Animation with a focus on VFX. I’m in the Toronto area
@VFXsoldier thank you so much for posting this. I’m a bit confused whether I should invest well over $45k in student loans just to find out after graduation that the pay for VFXs artists or Animators is not that great.
Does anyone have any idea on what’s the average wage for VFX/Junior Animator straight out of school.
Thanks once again, this is an awesome and very useful website. keep up the good work.
Hey, ndre. I was accepted to Emily Carr University’s animation program and was intent on going but unfortunately a family illness and financial hassles kept me from going. In the mean time I’m working in a welding shop saving up to go back to school for fall of 2013. All I know is I can’t wait. The money is good in the trades but it is NOT what I want to be doing. Fortunately, I have the luxury of not having a wife and kids to think about so I WILL be going back to school. I’m 36 now but I really couldn’t care how old I am regarding school. It’s funny to read some of the comments from people about how hard they have to work and the long hours involved in animation. They obviously are young and have never had any other job because all I know is If I can be drawing stuff or using a computer to animate 120 hours every 2 weeks instead of 120 hours in -20 to -30 in Edmonton winters helping out welders and pipefitters I would perform sexual favors for the opportunity. I guess in some ways I’m glad I had to go back to crap work for the kick in the backside to remind me why I went to art school in the first place – to become an animator.
Like you, I was 30 when I went back to school for fine art and I absolutely loved every minute of it. Easily one of the smartest things I ever did. My age was never an issue as there were people older than I was. This time around I will be applying to more schools instead of just Emily Carr. Capilano University and Sheridan are two schools I’m going to take a crack at getting into and maybe VFS.
I’m chasing my teen/20′s dream of getting into VFX and have been studying a course for the best prt of a year with the aim of getting my first showreel together this year. I’ve never done or had any experience in the VFX industry and I’m getting really worried about my prospects of even being able to get hired. I want a VFX job badly and I’m no spring chicken either. I’m in my mid thirties and security and a decent salary matter to me as I have responsibilities now. What salary can I expect if I managed to get hire as a junior VFX artist. I’ve invested a huge amount of time and money in study and equipment/software to do this and MUST succeed..
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[...] seen VFXers make the common mistake of thinking their loyalty to the company will be rewarded. I wrote in a post where a wage survey was done and the artist who had the most years at the company found he was the lowest paid person [...]
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[...]Wages In The VFX, Animation, And Games Industry « VFX Soldier[...]…
hi,
Its pretty sad that $100K is considered rockstar wages in vfx. Have a look at advertised wages for many trades and professions, talk to people around, someone hitting a decent level in accountancy, engineering, plumbing, contruction, maitre-chef, programming (non-vfx, shaders) etc, can pull double that for a very regular working week. It means a lot more if you have a comfortable life, can afford a decent home, family life, holidays, etc., than any ‘prestige’ of working in movies. Infact, if you say ‘vfx’ to an average guy in a bar, you are pretty much likely to get a response like “gee, you guys work some crazy hours, dont’cha?” Most folk outside seem to know its hard work, not that well paid and definitely not glamarous. So no, I don’t think ‘prestige’ exists as once it did.
One big factor I’ve noticed in last ten years is also the emergence of more and more cut-throat small companies and wanabee young psyco producers who almost see it as a sadistic hobby to treat people like crap and avoid paying/paying late, etc.,
Maybe its just a case of too many people chasing too few jobs, maybe a next wave of new technology is needed to bring back a better feel to the industry, or a major shakeup of the crappier studios, or a change in the way movies and television are made.
Being someone who just did several hellish months as a Runner, it would be nice if the industry didn’t treat juniors like they have to eat and enjoy their shit sandwich for an indefinite amount of dehumanizing and demoralizing time to get the most basic artist jobs. A union should include us little guys, too. A Runners salary of £13,000 in London is unthinkable (below London minimum wage), especially when huge post facilities can afford better and Runners are treated so poorly, with such crappy tasks ( no, it is not all making the tea, getting the lunches and running drives to other studios…). Union protection should focus heavily on the folks at the bottom and also perpetuating the work for juniors as well as senior artists. There needs to be some basic code of practice about what is considered the acceptable way people are spoken to, addressed, the type of tasks they are made to do, the number of hours they are made to work, etc. You get my meaning.
Just because your contract is full of ambiguity and unreasonable working conditions that can be abused, it doesn’t make it legal. Firing without warning after a probationary period is past with no disciplinary process much less due process, lack of an employee improvement programme and sporadic, understructured company training, which is not as advertised when the job is accepted, for instance; needs to be addressed.
Unionization in an American company should include consistent measures for their foreign employees in Singapore/Bangalore/U.K., etc. as well as their other U.S. facilities. What you effectively have is a post industry where largely people are begging for jobs, get little everyday respect as would be expected elsewhere and can’t guarantee work for the rest of the year. People are undervalued and work is outsourced without regard to the local economy. Take me, for instance, I can’t even afford to have the opinion that my old job was hellish.
It’s just a shame that junior and mid-level artists can’t hold larger post facilities to expectation out of fear. VFX unions would need consistency and to model their structure after the U.S. Constitution. It often saddens me that the good tenets of the U.S. Consititution are so rarely used in corporate practice.
A day without Runners & jr. artists might be enough to paint a picture for post facilities as to just how important the guys at the bottom are. I’m frequently tempted to make a comical short film in the vein of Falling Down, but instead it would be about what would happen if it Runners & jr. artists who decided they’d had enough used their resources/access, etc. for revenge on a particularly bad employer, in caricature of real life. Think ‘Nine to Five’. Bottom line, out with the slave labor and in with the respect. This business model leaves much to be desired.
hi m new to this universe…
pretty much love films for their vfx and annimation, i like sketching and video editing n i’ve almost completed my bsc degree, i would like to have a job in this field so what do u think i should do as a starter…
should i join a university school, studio or some private institute for learning and to get certified for vfx?
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