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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you from How Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works nott com something. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline

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Speaker 1: and I'm Kristen, and we're talking about sort of behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes type of magic in Hollywood this week and

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Speaker 1: today we're talking about visual effects, you know, known by

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Speaker 1: the cool kids splash, like everybody is as VFX. And

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Speaker 1: I had thought I was under the impression, the very

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Speaker 1: distinct impression that we had gotten like a specific request

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Speaker 1: to tackle this topic of women in visual effects in Hollywood.

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Speaker 1: Uh and you know all around the world where people

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Speaker 1: are working on visual effects. It turns out we just

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Speaker 1: got a letter talking about another episode from a woman

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Speaker 1: who works in VFX, and it's just like, oh, by

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Speaker 1: the way, I love your women in Hollywood episodes because

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Speaker 1: I work in VFX. So, dear listener, I think her

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Speaker 1: name was Christina. Even though you didn't request it, this

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Speaker 1: one's going out to you and for people who have

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Speaker 1: been fans of our STEMS series Women in Science, Technology,

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Speaker 1: Engineering and Math. This is a STEM job in Hollywood,

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Speaker 1: something that I would not have considered STEM at all,

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Speaker 1: but it very much requires a lot of those skills,

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Speaker 1: so it really ties in with a lot of things

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Speaker 1: that we've talked about on the podcast before in terms

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Speaker 1: of gender gaps, glass ceiling stem jobs, representation on screen,

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Speaker 1: how the images that we see and influence our self

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Speaker 1: perceptions are manipulated behind the scenes. So let's talk about VFX, which, honestly, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: I knew next to nothing about going into this. So well,

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Speaker 1: so there's visual effects and special effects, and for the

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Speaker 1: most part they kind of go hand in hand. Their

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Speaker 1: like siblings, you know, they're very similar, but not the same.

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Speaker 1: Maybe they have the same nose or something, but they're

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Speaker 1: not quite the same person. So visual effects are what

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Speaker 1: happened after the movie has been shot, after you've got

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Speaker 1: the film, so to speak, or after you've got the

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Speaker 1: digital product completed. Visual effects is when you go back

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Speaker 1: in and you add or manipulate things. You do things

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Speaker 1: like animation or a visual clean up, things that cannot

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Speaker 1: be caught on camera. Whereas yes, these count is like

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Speaker 1: special effects, but special effects can also be the things

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Speaker 1: that happened during shooting. So maybe it's like crazy monster

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Speaker 1: makeup or something to that effect that well, it's not

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Speaker 1: a natural thing that would happen just on its own.

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Speaker 1: It is an effect that can be captured during filming,

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Speaker 1: so so way, way, way more intensive like Instagram process. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: super super filter. So we are when we are gramming

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Speaker 1: our photos kind of doing a little tiny tiny yeah.

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Speaker 1: So yeah. If I'm taking an Instagram selfie and I

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Speaker 1: put on lots of makeup, that's the special effects. But

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Speaker 1: when I go in after and I add a bunch

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Speaker 1: of filters and take out my pimples and take out

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Speaker 1: my under circles, that is intense and extreme visual effects.

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Speaker 1: And it's all of this is part of the post

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Speaker 1: production process in film, which also involves things like editing footage,

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Speaker 1: adding voiceovers and sound effects, going in and creating the score,

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Speaker 1: all of that. And so like, I just I read

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Speaker 1: the words creating the score, and I just imagined John Williams,

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Speaker 1: and now I have the Indiana Jones soundtrack in my

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Speaker 1: head and I'm just loving it. Everything's great. But the

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Speaker 1: visual effects artists obviously are not John Williams. They're not

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Speaker 1: creating the score. What they're doing, very simplistically, are things

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Speaker 1: like drawing concept sketches, three D modeling, recreating those sketches

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Speaker 1: and three D models on computerurs and then that imagery

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Speaker 1: would be used obviously in the footage. Yeah, and so

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Speaker 1: that means that they can insert things like a lion

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Speaker 1: running through fields and forests. This is a very happy lion. Um.

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Speaker 1: That's the only thing they can do. Only lions, only forests. Listen,

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Speaker 1: if you want a monkey in a jungle, sorry, go

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Speaker 1: somewhere else you're out of luck, or you know, it

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Speaker 1: can be things like a mountain. Um. Some things that

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Speaker 1: jump to mind are our movies, Like I mean, obviously

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Speaker 1: something like The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings where

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Speaker 1: you've got all sorts of visual effects added, you've got

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Speaker 1: entire armies of orcs like crazy things like that. Um.

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Speaker 1: But it's not just those very obvious visual effects that

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Speaker 1: you see on screen. You're like, of course that there's

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Speaker 1: not literally an army of orcs like coming over this

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Speaker 1: giant meadow. It's it's smaller and more subtle things too,

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Speaker 1: things that I literally did not know existed. And one

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Speaker 1: of those things is called beauty work. And this is

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Speaker 1: so interesting because it's essentially like the photoshop being an

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Speaker 1: air brushing that we talk about frankly complain about and

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Speaker 1: protest in magazines and advertisements and stuff like that, but

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Speaker 1: it's going on in your movies. Too. Yeah, this article

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Speaker 1: and mash double that we were reading about apparently took

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Speaker 1: years to put together because the people in the industry

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Speaker 1: doing this beauty work at these very specialized VFX houses

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Speaker 1: that do it, we're so resistant to talk to anyone

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Speaker 1: on record about it. And continually throughout the interview process

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Speaker 1: reiterated how the journalist was not to name any of

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Speaker 1: the names that they were mentioning because I mean, it

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Speaker 1: would essentially be outing these actors who aren't just older actors,

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Speaker 1: we're talking young ingnews as well, who are getting this

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Speaker 1: kind of on camera work in quotes done so that

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Speaker 1: might be slimming, d aging, enhancing faces and bodies. Essentially

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Speaker 1: we're moving any kinds of blemishes and lying to all

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Speaker 1: of us who were in the movie theater. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's what's so interesting that um one of the

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Speaker 1: people quoted, an anonymous VFX artist quoted, was saying, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: nobody in a movie looks that way in real life,

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Speaker 1: Like even even the beautiful young Angeneus, even if they're

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Speaker 1: doing nothing but eating kale and drinking water, that's still

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Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. They're still going to go in a

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Speaker 1: lot of the time and do nips and tucks. They

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Speaker 1: even cited a crow's feet transplant. Apparently there was some

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Speaker 1: actor in some big action movie who didn't like it

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Speaker 1: when there was a close up of him squinting into

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Speaker 1: the sunlight. But to totally remove his crow's feet would

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Speaker 1: have been unnatural, right, You squint, you get lines next

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Speaker 1: to your eyes. So they literally went in and took

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Speaker 1: these squint lines from a younger actor and put them

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Speaker 1: on his face. And in this article they talked about

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Speaker 1: how and I kept reading this article thinking this isn't real, like,

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Speaker 1: this can't be real. This is gonna be like a

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Speaker 1: weird myth right now, it's it's it's so true. And

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Speaker 1: they talk about how even in some cases, actors or

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Speaker 1: actresses will go into the VFX studio and sit shoulder

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Speaker 1: to shoulder with the artist being like, okay, take out

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Speaker 1: that dimple, take out that blemish, do this, do that,

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Speaker 1: working with them to craft this imaginary person that we

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Speaker 1: then see on screen. Yeah, And and the one A

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Speaker 1: list name that was dropped is Brad Pitt because where

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Speaker 1: you can see this beauty work most on display, or

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Speaker 1: most obviously on display, i should say, is in the

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Speaker 1: curious case of Benjamin Button and This was what was

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Speaker 1: used to have the young super hot like river runs

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Speaker 1: through it, Brad Pitt prancing around on screen where you're

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Speaker 1: like he's back, and then of course like baby baby

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Speaker 1: Brad Pitt, an old man Brad Pitt. That, my friends,

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Speaker 1: is the beauty work we're talking about. No, I did,

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Speaker 1: because I had always wondered, like watching Menjtionment Button. Obviously

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Speaker 1: there's VFCS work going on there in addition to special effects,

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Speaker 1: because obviously you have Brad Pitt going from a very

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Speaker 1: old man down to a baby, so there's got to

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Speaker 1: be some movie magic obviously. Um. But there is that

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Speaker 1: scene when like Thelma and Louise era hunky Brad Pitt

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Speaker 1: walks through the doors of the dance studio and he's

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Speaker 1: enveloped in this like soft golden light, and I'm like,

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Speaker 1: what witchcraft made this happen? What like black magic? Wh

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Speaker 1: what do we have to cook in a cauldron? And

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Speaker 1: and how can we repeat this? This is wonderful. He's

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Speaker 1: just a really good method actor. Caroline. Yeah, so method um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, so, uh, no no idea that that was

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Speaker 1: going on. But that is also an example of VFX.

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Speaker 1: It's anything from going in and slimming and trimming and

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Speaker 1: d aging and crow's feet transplanting, all the way up

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Speaker 1: to inserting a giant orc army on your screen. But

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Speaker 1: before we had people doing a lot of this on

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Speaker 1: like Giant Max with super fancy computer programs, we had

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Speaker 1: what we're called optical effects, which were the same kinds

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Speaker 1: of effects created through science. Here comes the stembar of

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Speaker 1: the show friends. That's right, the science of light. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this is coming from a very interesting article in

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Speaker 1: The Mary Sue by Jennifer Lee. She looked at a

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Speaker 1: couple of lady pioneers in the optical effects early v

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Speaker 1: effects days, and Lee points out that not surprisingly, most

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Speaker 1: of the people doing this work in the early days

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Speaker 1: until about the nineteen seventies were dudes. But we get

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Speaker 1: some women, some lady VFX pioneers. At Lucasfilm's Industrial Light

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Speaker 1: and Magic, they had the most well known optical effects department,

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Speaker 1: and you might know them from things like Star Wars,

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Speaker 1: that small independent series. And these departments would be split

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Speaker 1: into two in areas. You would have camera, which were

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Speaker 1: generally handled by the dudes, and then line up, which

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Speaker 1: was where the like three women were, and they used

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Speaker 1: what we're called optical printers, which were essentially cameras attached

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Speaker 1: to projectors. So what did these lady lineuppers do. They

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Speaker 1: would create math intensive instructions for the optical printer cameraman

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Speaker 1: to shoot a collection of elements like a live action

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Speaker 1: background model, spaceship's explosions, etcetera, into one final shot. So again,

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Speaker 1: here comes so much stem in here. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: Mary Stue article gets into some nitty gritty detail of

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Speaker 1: how these women would have to do perform all of

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Speaker 1: these special equations to figure out exactly how to make

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Speaker 1: the light hit this set and the camera lens in

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Speaker 1: the exact kind of way to make these incredible effects

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Speaker 1: that obviously we would probably be doing on computers now.

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Speaker 1: So the job required that stem knowledge within optical effects,

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Speaker 1: and he had to know that machine inside and out.

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Speaker 1: Not to mention the job was a pressure cooker. They

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Speaker 1: talked to one woman who said that over the course

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Speaker 1: of working like a million hours on this one project,

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Speaker 1: she screwed up twice and she got a very stern

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Speaker 1: talking to I mean, there was just no room for

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Speaker 1: error basically, and uh Lee cites a couple of pioneers,

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Speaker 1: and it's funny because I'm so used to with Sminty episodes, Kristen,

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Speaker 1: when we talk about Pioneers, if we're not going back

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Speaker 1: to the Greeks, were at least going back to the

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Speaker 1: Victorian era. But of course there was no such thing

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Speaker 1: as a movie with special effects in the Victorian era.

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Speaker 1: So we go back to really about this era that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about about, the nineteen seventies. And Lee talked

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Speaker 1: to peg Hunter and Mary E. Walter. So peg Hunter

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Speaker 1: was hired by feminist Leave specifically points out feminist producer

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Speaker 1: Rose dween In to do lineup on Return of the Jedi.

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Speaker 1: She was the second him In hired, so she wasn't

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Speaker 1: the first, but Hunter was the first to actually stick

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Speaker 1: it out. Apparently when she came in, people were still

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Speaker 1: bad mouthing the woman who had been there before her,

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Speaker 1: and so she was like, oh, I better make a

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Speaker 1: good impression. And that's new significance for one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite childhood films. I know that purists are like, oh,

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Speaker 1: Empire Strikes Back is totally the best, but listen when

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Speaker 1: Christmas rolled around and TBS would show the Star Wars

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Speaker 1: trilogy all day long, back to back, I was always

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Speaker 1: pumped about returning the Jetty. I know it's because of

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Speaker 1: the e Walks and their teddy bears, and people think

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Speaker 1: that that's gimmicky, but listen, I was a kid. I

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Speaker 1: used to have a boss that looked like an e walk.

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Speaker 1: One of my previous was that was that VFX or

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Speaker 1: just just genetics. I don't know, maybe it was really

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Speaker 1: advanced beauty work. Maybe he was wearing a suit of

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Speaker 1: VFX suit. But you know, being that this is sort

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Speaker 1: of a stem or steam if you include art into it,

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Speaker 1: a stem or steam environment, it should become as no

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Speaker 1: surprise that there's the whole issue of like a broy

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Speaker 1: macho dude culture, steamy steam culture that just sounds like

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Speaker 1: a locker room or something that needs to be four

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Speaker 1: or nine or Clorox or whatever. But but Hunter told

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Speaker 1: Lee that yes, there was indeed a macho environment. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is it wasn't just like anti woman, we

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Speaker 1: hate you, Get out of this room, lady and gonna

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Speaker 1: make us a sandwich. It was so MUCHO that it

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Speaker 1: was intimidating to both men and women, like there were

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Speaker 1: there was apparently a very heavy air of macheesmo going

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Speaker 1: on in these rooms. But helping a thin out that

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Speaker 1: Air One woman Mary E. Walter quickly followed Hunter in

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Speaker 1: her job at Industrialite and Magic, but she'd previously worked

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Speaker 1: in a number of different types of jobs, sort of

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Speaker 1: working her way up the ranks at the Westeimer Company

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood around a bunch of old crotchety World War

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Speaker 1: two Eric Camerman, who were she said, openly hostile to

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Speaker 1: the idea of women taking their jobs. Apparently there was

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Speaker 1: no concept of like we hire openly and we consider

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Speaker 1: the best man or woman human person for the job.

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Speaker 1: It was just like, no, it's you're taking men's jobs actively.

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Speaker 1: And Walter actually got her start in optical effects, specifically

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Speaker 1: by being trained by another lineup woman, Benita Nelson. So

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Speaker 1: even though uh, there were lots of dudes doing the

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Speaker 1: work who could have helped her out, it was it

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Speaker 1: took another woman training her in this work for her

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Speaker 1: to get her start. And even today for VFX artists

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Speaker 1: that kind of apprenticeship is important for getting in the

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Speaker 1: door as well. So training before you even get into

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Speaker 1: say a dream lucasfilm type of job, you usually get

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Speaker 1: a bachelor's in computer graphics or art with some experience

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Speaker 1: in computer programming, and even if you're not a math whiz.

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Speaker 1: It just really helps to have a grasp of trigonometry,

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Speaker 1: applied mechanics and basic algebra. I mean, you know what say,

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Speaker 1: same same seased for being a professional lady podcaster, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: but it also helps to know how the eye works,

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Speaker 1: so knowing that what you put on the screen has

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Speaker 1: to look natural, knowing understanding movement, understanding how bodies and

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Speaker 1: objects move, but also understanding how the landscape behind a

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Speaker 1: body or object will move as you turn the camera. Um.

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Speaker 1: But most importantly, obviously you have to have that eye

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Speaker 1: for artistic detail, which ties into of course, understanding how

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Speaker 1: things move and how they look when they move. So

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Speaker 1: you might assume that you need some kind of fancy

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Speaker 1: art degree in order to get that train that i

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Speaker 1: for artistic movement. But keep in mind, if you get

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Speaker 1: an expensive one of those, you're likely going to be

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Speaker 1: starting your job hunt off in the whole at least.

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Speaker 1: According to filmmaker Mary Lewis Thompson, who was talking to

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Speaker 1: Indie Wire about how her career path was really defined

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Speaker 1: by just like finding any job, it wasn't going straight

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Speaker 1: for the dream job. It might have been a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a meandering course and sometimes as she mentioned,

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Speaker 1: putting up with sexual harassment to get the job that

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Speaker 1: I mean, just get something under her belt. Yeah, And so,

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Speaker 1: rather than pursuing exactly the career path that she wanted,

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Speaker 1: she found that she was not really off ramping, but

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Speaker 1: sort of just taking different types of jobs than going

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Speaker 1: into post production specifically or filmmaking specifically. Um. But meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: she was talking about a German filmmaker friend who came

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Speaker 1: to Los Angeles and was able to intern for a

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Speaker 1: year and have all of her expenses covered by her government,

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Speaker 1: which is an investment that let her progress more easily.

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Speaker 1: And I mean this is hardly specific to VFX or

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Speaker 1: post production in the film industry. I mean it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like any applied arts job. If you shell out

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Speaker 1: boku bucks for an expensive degree, I mean, you've got

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Speaker 1: to pay that back, You've got to worry about finances

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Speaker 1: and money. And so that means that you're not as

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Speaker 1: freed up to pursue the exact artistic or in this case,

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Speaker 1: fusion of artistic and stem job that you really really want.

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Speaker 1: It's like you almost have your passion for it has

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Speaker 1: to be overwhelming, it has to be louder than the

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Speaker 1: voice saying, hey, you've got to pay your bills. And

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Speaker 1: even if you get the internships and apprentice ships and

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Speaker 1: put together a strong reel to get you in the

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Speaker 1: door at stay a company, is studio, or even just

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Speaker 1: starting off as a freelancer, the money that you get

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Speaker 1: is gonna just depend on where you are and what

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Speaker 1: you're working on. For instance, junior VFX supervisors earn an

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Speaker 1: average of a week, which doesn't sound half bad, but

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Speaker 1: top supervisors can make tens of thousands of dollars every

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Speaker 1: single week. But this all depends on whether you're working

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Speaker 1: for a comp any, studio or as a freelancer, and

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Speaker 1: it also depends on studio budgets the cycle of making movies,

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Speaker 1: and this industry is like many jobs like this, moving

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Speaker 1: farther and farther to the freelance side, which means you're

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Speaker 1: probably gonna miss out on certain benefits on regular pay,

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Speaker 1: on job protection, because as a freelancer you can get

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Speaker 1: benefits through the industry group visual the Visual Effects Society,

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Speaker 1: And if you're working for a post production company and

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Speaker 1: you're lucky, you might get some regular office worker benefits.

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Speaker 1: If you're even luckier, you might even get maternity leaf

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Speaker 1: but this is another one of those jobs where you

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Speaker 1: are expected to work at least ten hours a day

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Speaker 1: under high pressure deadlines, with lots of travel, and if

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Speaker 1: we're being realistic, a lot of people that because I

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Speaker 1: this is a situation where, like I read the comments

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Speaker 1: on the articles, I usually don't I try not to,

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Speaker 1: but it was fascinating to read people's takes on this.

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Speaker 1: That's like no realistic lee, especially if you're like in

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Speaker 1: the thick of a project, you're gonna probably end up

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Speaker 1: working days that veer more towards sixteen hours at a time,

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Speaker 1: just to get the work done, just to prove that

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Speaker 1: you're a team player, and honestly to try to secure

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Speaker 1: your job. And it's a job that isn't necessarily secure

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Speaker 1: because industry wide, even though so many films and big

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Speaker 1: films rely on VFX, the situation isn't super great for

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Speaker 1: the artists making that movie magic happen. Um Speaking to

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Speaker 1: Animation World Network in March, Steve Parish said, it's a cutthroat,

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Speaker 1: globalized business. At the beck and call of the six

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Speaker 1: big movie studios, they demand profit and lots of it,

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Speaker 1: and and this was a really interesting part of the

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Speaker 1: industry that I just had thought about before in terms

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Speaker 1: of how, like a lot of other creative services, if

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Speaker 1: you were working for a firm, you it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a bit process essentially, and you have to outbid the

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Speaker 1: other firms. And outbidding those other firms often means meeting

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Speaker 1: studio demands to make the product for as little as possible,

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Speaker 1: because they can simply say, well, well outsources or well

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Speaker 1: we'll go somewhere where it's cheaper, because they can always

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Speaker 1: find it cheaper. Yeah, and this is something that, uh,

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Speaker 1: this is something that when Jurassic World came out, I

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Speaker 1: did a little bit of reading on because I was like, Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is great. Actually hated that movie. But she was

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Speaker 1: running in heels the whole time. That got to me

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Speaker 1: so much. The credits hadn't even rolled and I was

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Speaker 1: already tweeting like the most unrealistic part of this was

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Speaker 1: not the giant whale that eats the shark. It was

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Speaker 1: the woman running in heels for two hours. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: so like speaking of that giant whale that eats the shark,

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Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, this is great and it's awesome

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Speaker 1: and fun and whatever, but it just looks like it

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Speaker 1: just looks like it's on the computer. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: doesn't to me look as realistic as the Jurassic Park,

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Speaker 1: which of course they did use special effects. They used

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Speaker 1: visual effects, but they also use special effects. The giant

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Speaker 1: Stegosaurus on the ground next to the giant pile of

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Speaker 1: poop that Laura Dern puts her arm into, all of

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Speaker 1: that good stuff. I'm like, why do things these days

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Speaker 1: look just so different? So obvious. No, it's not the

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Speaker 1: claimation Godzilla of the nineteen sixties, but like, it just

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Speaker 1: doesn't look maybe as good as VFX did a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago. And I'm saying this as an ignorant podcaster,

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Speaker 1: like someone who does not sit behind a computer and

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Speaker 1: create visual effects. But anyway, but dinosaur poop, this isn't

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Speaker 1: the same, Caroline, Is that what you're saying, That's what

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Speaker 1: I'm saying. Well, so I started reading about how really

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Speaker 1: the post production industry in general, but specifically VFX is

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Speaker 1: in such upheaval because of those reasons you were talking

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Speaker 1: about about having to outbid your competitors, having to promise

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Speaker 1: to keep costs slow, and if you can't, it's essentially

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Speaker 1: coming out of your pocket because you've signed on the

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Speaker 1: dotted line that you're going to provide services for this

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Speaker 1: much money. But then you've got people like ang Lee

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Speaker 1: who directed the Life of Pie, who they went all

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Speaker 1: sorts of awards for their film, but they're still saying

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Speaker 1: things like, yeah, but I wish it was better, faster, cheaper, um.

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Speaker 1: And so you end up, especially once things start getting

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Speaker 1: outsourced to other countries, you end up having a lot

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Speaker 1: of VFX houses closing their doors. And so this ties

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Speaker 1: back into my initial like after Jurassic World, why does

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Speaker 1: this look the way it does question, because if you're

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Speaker 1: having to provide things, uh, you know, faster, cheaper, all

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Speaker 1: of that stuff, it's possible, and listeners send me letters,

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Speaker 1: tell me what the real deal is. I want to

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Speaker 1: hear it. But like, it's possible that there's not the

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Speaker 1: same level of attention to the work going on because

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Speaker 1: you just don't have the time, not because you're not

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Speaker 1: a good artist, not because you're not a great VFX house,

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Speaker 1: but because somebody is standing over you going faster faster

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Speaker 1: if you're cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. So we actually spoke with

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Speaker 1: Kylie wallpaina who's been super vocal both online and in

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Speaker 1: some pretty cool lady lead forums on the Internet about

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Speaker 1: gender issues in the post production industry. So to give

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Speaker 1: you a little background about who Kylie is. After years

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Speaker 1: as an editor, she now works as a workflow supervisor

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Speaker 1: at a company that manages workflow and dailies for TV

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Speaker 1: and film. So basically, a TV show or a movie

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Speaker 1: will hire her company and her and her workers to

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Speaker 1: manage everything that happens from the camera through the editing,

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Speaker 1: and then through to the finishing, including VFX. So uh,

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Speaker 1: Kylie gave us a little perspective on the industry and

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Speaker 1: she helped to illustrate why it's not so rosy, uh

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Speaker 1: kind of. In general, there's also a culture of not

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Speaker 1: wanting to go against the grain because they're going to

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Speaker 1: hire someone else. If you put up a fight and

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Speaker 1: demand an eight hour day, they probably won't hire you

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Speaker 1: for a job because there are a dozen other people

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Speaker 1: that will fill that role. Or if you're working a

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Speaker 1: gig and you want to leave at a certain time,

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Speaker 1: many people look at you like you're not being a

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Speaker 1: team player, even if you're getting your work done and

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Speaker 1: you're doing it better. And a lot of people might

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Speaker 1: have heard the phrase will fix it in post, but

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Speaker 1: that's actually not a joke. A lot of the stuff

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Speaker 1: runs downhill, and people on post end up having to

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Speaker 1: fix stuff at the last minute, which can really mess

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Speaker 1: up your day or week or weekend or whatever. It's

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Speaker 1: expected that you'll do whatever it takes to make the goodline,

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Speaker 1: and some wonder whether that environment might be what deters

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Speaker 1: or outright prevents more women from being in rising within

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Speaker 1: this industry because it's not ideal for a family life.

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Speaker 1: And we're gonna talk more about that when we come

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Speaker 1: right back from a quick break. So what we were

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Speaker 1: getting at before the break was essentially that the VFX

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Speaker 1: life is not easy UMX life seriously, And I mean,

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Speaker 1: I know we're we're basically talking about a very small

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Speaker 1: segment of the population. This is a very specialized job,

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Speaker 1: a very small, tight knit group of people. UM but

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Speaker 1: I still think it's worth discussing because the problems that

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Speaker 1: these people face. It's just another example that Kristen and

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Speaker 1: I feel like you and I talk about a lot

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Speaker 1: in various aspects of STEM. Jobs are really any career

429
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:46,640
Speaker 1: where the worker isn't provided for, isn't taken care of,

430
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: and people tend to say like, well, then you're just

431
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: not cut out for this job, and it's like, well, wait,

432
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: but why don't we make the industry better for everyone, everyone,

433
00:25:55,359 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: men and women, families and unfamilied people alike. One point

434
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: of relevance, too, for people who might feel so far

435
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: removed from any kind of work environment, even marginally, you know,

436
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: relatable to that, is that we still enjoyed the fruits

437
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 1: of their labor and of going through like this very

438
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: intense industry. I mean, I don't think that there is

439
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:28,240
Speaker 1: anyone listening who has not benefited entertainment wise from their work,

440
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 1: especially the orcs. Especially the orcs need work, yes, yes

441
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 1: they do, and they also need gender equality as well,

442
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 1: feminist works. I wonder what a lady ORC looks like.

443
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: Probably a lot like a like a dud to work,

444
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: except she's just running in high heels. She's got eyelashes. Yes. Well,

445
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: one thing that's often cited in terms of people men

446
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: or women who have families working in VFX and it

447
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: being sort of hostile to that whole situation is the

448
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 1: travel thing. Because we were talking about how a lot

449
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:09,360
Speaker 1: of jobs get outsourced to other countries, and so it's

450
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: almost like, well, whether you're a worker in America or

451
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: whether you're a worker in India, the VFX industry or

452
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 1: the Hollywood industry in the machine is not necessarily taking

453
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,119
Speaker 1: good care of you. And so basically the VFX work

454
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: follows the film subsidies wherever those are, in whatever city

455
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: or country they are, and the artists have to follow

456
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: that work. Visual FX artist Philip Brosst wrote an open

457
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: letter to Life of Pie director Angle after Angley said

458
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 1: he wished the work had been cheaper, and he said, look,

459
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: those same subsidies raise overhead, destroyed the market and cause

460
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 1: wage stagnation in what are already trying economic times. And

461
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 1: so if you're a VFX artist man or a woman,

462
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 1: chances are you're going to be traveling the world for

463
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 1: months at a time, chasing locations. And this is really

464
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: hard for anyone, especially if you don't have the job security,

465
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: if you're freelancer, maybe if you're relying on this job

466
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 1: for any type of benefits, um of course you're going

467
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: to feel like your job securities at risk at some point.

468
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: And not surprisingly, Kylie also had some fascinating perspective on

469
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: how family life and the crazy industry expectations intersect and

470
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: being a parent or not also can change how people

471
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 1: think of you in post production. Knowing the culture of

472
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 1: late nights and long days, the people who hire staff

473
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: may avoid people with children. This is particularly true of women.

474
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: Men with children are thought of this. They're not thought

475
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: of as a flight risk because assume they have women

476
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 1: around to take care of the kids. But I've talked

477
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: to really high level female editors who have cut some

478
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: of the biggest films in the last ten years, and

479
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: they've told me they've been asked in interviews if they

480
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: have children, and that's so illegal, but it happens a lot,

481
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: and we have to go with it sometimes to get ahead.

482
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: At the same time, I know some female editors that

483
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: work with good companies and requests certain hours in order

484
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 1: to be home with children, and those companies comploy because

485
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 1: they know the good the value of good, happy editors.

486
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: I think people outside the entertainment industries see the same

487
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: patterns reflected here that happen in all jobs, where women

488
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: are judged harsher for having children, and large companies are

489
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: requiring more and more from people with no regard for

490
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: their childcare needs. So we have well established that it's

491
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: tough out there for VFX artists. But let's super huper

492
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: close up onto women in the industry, because, as VFX

493
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: supervisor Lyndy de Quatrow told Jennifer Lee, quote, there are

494
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: more than there used to be, but not as many

495
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: as there should be. And part of that might have

496
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 1: to do with just how long it takes to get

497
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: any kind of security, much less any advancement within the industry,

498
00:29:56,880 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: at least according to a pretty in depth piece over

499
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: at tech Crunch. Yeah, and tech Crunch did mention that

500
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 1: this is an industry where you can be working for

501
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: a decade and never encounter a woman in a top

502
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 1: level technical position, and so that starts to breed that

503
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: whole thing that we've talked about in STEM before of

504
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: like the hiring bias and all these things, like people

505
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: start to think, oh, well, just women aren't interested. This

506
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: is just a dude's pursuit. Uh. That's cited over and

507
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: over again in the comments and some of these articles

508
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: that like, oh, well, there aren't a lot of women

509
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: in this industry, which just means that they're not interested.

510
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: But there's a lot more to it with this job,

511
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: as with any STEM job where there's a gender disparity.

512
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: But the thing is, speaking of tech jobs, and gender

513
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: disparity stats are really hard to come by. I didn't

514
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: realize this, but VFX houses aren't tracking their diversity data

515
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: like other tech companies do. Whereas some tech companies might

516
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, we're gonna increase our diversity. We're gonna

517
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: like put an effort into hiring women or at least

518
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 1: talk about diversity, the X houses tend to be a

519
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: little bit more insular. But there are a couple of

520
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 1: stats coming from Celluloid Ceiling Report. Yeah, it estimated that

521
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: women accounted for just five percent of all visual effects

522
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: supervisors working on the top two hundred fifty films, but

523
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: of those films had no female visual effects supervisors whatsoever. So,

524
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: of course then we have to ask the question of why,

525
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: what's going on? Well, part of this is related to

526
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 1: the fact that it is a STEM job. I mean,

527
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: it's reflective of what's going on in the broader tech industry,

528
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: which is something that Lyndy to Quatro pointed out as

529
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: well that you know, if you don't have enough women

530
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: in STEM in school, then you get into the whole

531
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: pipeline issue with not enough role models on the industry

532
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: to really cultivate those girls coming out of school, and

533
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: then you have all of the barriers that also exist

534
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: within the industry. So this sort of hurdle after a

535
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 1: hurdle as is, you know, reminiscent of of so many

536
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: of these topics that we've talked about on the podcast before,

537
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: one of which, as tech Crunch points out, is a

538
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: super well roey culture. That's steamy broke culture, steamy, sweaty,

539
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 1: hairy hill. I saw that, that steamy bro culture. That's right. Uh,

540
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: they cite and we've talked about this before. Uh, conferences

541
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: with booth babes and like super skin type motion capture suits. Um,

542
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: but even then, and I mean, that's that's okay. You've

543
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: got your booth babe showing off the suit like I mean, granted,

544
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: a motion capture suit probably has to be pretty tight.

545
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: That's related to VFX. Sure. Oh there's also the issue

546
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: of women getting groped at conferences. And this is not anecdotal.

547
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: I'm not just being like and maybe there's some women

548
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 1: who've gotten touched and appropriately. This is something that the

549
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: filmmaker Mary list Compson, whom we started earlier writing for IndieWire,

550
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: actually reported happened to her. She and some other women

551
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: were attending a VFX conference and there was drinking um

552
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: and it's a dark room and she was trying to

553
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: leave the room and ended up getting groped. She encountered

554
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: some other women in the bathroom, many of whom were

555
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: upset because the same thing had happened to them. And

556
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: as we hear about also in just tech issues at large,

557
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: there's a lack of awareness about the in group favoritism

558
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: that the steamy bro culture. I'm not going to stop

559
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: saying steamy bros by the way that the steamy bros

560
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 1: foster sometimes, but you know what's interesting, when we talked

561
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 1: to Kylie, she was actually saying, it's not even really

562
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: the browyeness that's the biggest issue in post production. There's

563
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: generally less an outright bro culture. It's more of an

564
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: institutional sexism and gender bias that's pervasive. A lot of

565
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: people think they aren't sex to or they don't see

566
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: your acknowledge the barriers keeping keeping women away. That's almost

567
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: harder to do with than outright sexus And in many ways,

568
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 1: since it's not so blatant as someone like snacking your

569
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: ass or cat calling you or some mad men's stuff,

570
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: it's more like the little voice in your head that

571
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: assumes a woman is a resectionist instead of an executive

572
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 1: producer when you walk in the door of a media company. Yeah,

573
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: and this is the whole idea that we just mentioned

574
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: a little bit ago, that every comment you see on

575
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: UH quotes and articles, comments on articles like, no, we're

576
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 1: totally genderblind. It's really like the best man or woman

577
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 1: for the job. It just depends on your qualifications, if

578
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:41,359
Speaker 1: you're driven, if you're a team player, all this stuff,

579
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: and it's like, yes, skill absolutely matters, and yes, perhaps

580
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: there are fewer women applying for these jobs, but there's

581
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 1: a general as author John C. Williams points out in

582
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: his book about this topic, um, there's also sort of

583
00:34:55,200 --> 00:35:02,240
Speaker 1: a general denial that an internal bias, hiring bias, promotion

584
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: bias could exist. It's the thing we've talked about before

585
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: of like hiring and promoting people who are like you.

586
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: And it's such a selective hiring process anyway. If you're

587
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: hiring manager doesn't think that women are even available or

588
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:19,399
Speaker 1: interested or will stick around after they get pregnant, then

589
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,760
Speaker 1: there's sort of less of an impetus to try to

590
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: seek out women for these roles and This is something

591
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: that Kylie echoed when we talked to her about the

592
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: challenges of getting and keeping women in the industry. There

593
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 1: are unique aspects the post production that require its own

594
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: initiative to get women in the pipeline. It's an odd

595
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: cross section of creativity and engineering, and it's got really

596
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: specific challenges from day to day. That's the most basic.

597
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 1: Aspects of gender bias that keep women out of these

598
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 1: fields can be applied to pretty much any industry where

599
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: women are a minority. There's an institutional sexism that keeps

600
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: women out. That is, men and women make assumptions about

601
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 1: what one and want. They don't want to work these

602
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 1: hours because they want to have kids. They don't like

603
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,279
Speaker 1: dealing with computers. They aren't interested in this stuff. The

604
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 1: idea a lot of people get is that if women

605
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: wanted to do it, they would, but that's false. If

606
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: you look at enrollment and media programs like USC or

607
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: n y U film schools, or the media program that

608
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: Savannah College of Art and Design, which is a larger

609
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,720
Speaker 1: college for more media West film type education, the numbers

610
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: are fifty fifty male female. So women are interested, but

611
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: there's a bias against hiring them. That is so internalized

612
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:36,439
Speaker 1: you don't even realize you're doing it. And then there's

613
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: something called the maternal wall bias, which is not the

614
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: motherhood off ramp that it might sound like it is.

615
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:45,800
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more of a bait and switch

616
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 1: that John C. Williams knows as well, where he contends

617
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,760
Speaker 1: that there's this automatic assumption that, oh, it's just culture

618
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: that drives women out of the industry because they can't

619
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 1: handle you know, being women, but particularly being working mothers

620
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 1: within you know, all of these demands. But in reality,

621
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: he argues that it's just straight up sexism, you know,

622
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: stop blaming it on our ovaries really and focus on

623
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 1: getting the institutional sexism out of the way. And also

624
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: not enough consideration of the idea that many women are

625
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: not self selecting out of the industry. Um. He also

626
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: cites to study that moms are sevent less likely to

627
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: be offered a job than equally qualified candidates. So maybe

628
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 1: it's not so much of an off ramp but just

629
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 1: a boot out the door. Yeah, so the same the

630
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: maternal wall bias absolutely ties into that whole in group favoritism,

631
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: unrecognized bias in terms of I'm going to hire and

632
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:49,399
Speaker 1: promote people who look like me, well, people who look

633
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:51,319
Speaker 1: like if I'm a hiring manager and I'm a dude,

634
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: people who look like me aren't going to get pregnant,

635
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 1: and so there could be a bit of that internal

636
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: bias about, well, you know, she might leave soon to

637
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 1: have a baby. So I need somebody who's going to

638
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 1: be on this job night and day, sixteen hours a day.

639
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 1: So when it comes to someone to look up to

640
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: within this industry, at the very tippy top, it seems

641
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: like is Victoria Alonso, who was Marvel's longtime VFX VP,

642
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 1: who was recently promoted to Executive VP of Physical Production.

643
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 1: And she was the first woman to hold such a position.

644
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 1: And not only is she held up as obviously, you know,

645
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: a success story, she's a mentor, but she's also very

646
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: outspoken about the need for more women in VFX. Yeah.

647
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 1: So she served as a visual effects producer on about

648
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: a half a dozen films, and she's not only vocal

649
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 1: about getting more women into the industry, but she's incredibly

650
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: vocal about wanting to be a visible role model for

651
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: girls and women. She herself cites pioneering producer Kathleen Kennedy

652
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: as her own role model. There's a story that is

653
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:05,760
Speaker 1: oft repeated about, you know, having grown up seeing Kathleen

654
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: Kennedy's names on movie posters like et and being like,

655
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: that's a lady. I can do that. I'm going to

656
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:14,359
Speaker 1: do anything I can to get in this industry. And

657
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: you know, she talks about finally meeting Kennedy and crying

658
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: and they're crying together, and she said she dorked out

659
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Um. And at the October fourteen Visual

660
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: Effects Society summit, Alonso got a lot of press by

661
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 1: urging VFX companies to work to reduce that gender disparity

662
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,560
Speaker 1: because she says it will improve the work. And she

663
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: told this room, you've got to get the girls in here. Boys,

664
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: it's better when it's fifty fifty. And she says that

665
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 1: women bring a balance that you need. And she also

666
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: gave advice to would be VFX women. She tells them

667
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 1: to fill the gap, do any job that gets you there,

668
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: which of course is in direct contradiction to what Mary

669
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:01,280
Speaker 1: Liz Thompson said, which was like to pay the bills,

670
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 1: I had to take every job I could, and now

671
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 1: I can't get full time work because nobody understands what

672
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: my specialty is. It seems like Alonso is a Sheryl

673
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:13,959
Speaker 1: Sandberg of the VFX industry. Oh absolutely, because she does

674
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: disagree with that author John C. Williams, who we just cited.

675
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: She says the gender disparity does have a lot to

676
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 1: do with motherhood, and this her ciniment totally echoes lean in.

677
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,439
Speaker 1: And it's worth noting that Alonso herself is a mother.

678
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:30,239
Speaker 1: She says, this is a tough road for women, not

679
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:32,439
Speaker 1: because it's a world of men, but because it takes

680
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time to be in a supervisory position,

681
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 1: and by that time, you're having to make a decision

682
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 1: about having children or not, which means you have to

683
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 1: take a break. If you take a break, you're out

684
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:44,319
Speaker 1: of the game. And once you're out of the game,

685
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 1: it's hard to get back in the game. I hate

686
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 1: this game. It sounds like the worst game. But I

687
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: mean that does that is indirect contradiction also to Williams's

688
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 1: discussion of the maternal wall bias that like, no, women

689
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:03,319
Speaker 1: aren't self selecting themselves out of the pool, they're just

690
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: not getting the same opportunities from the get go anyway. Um,

691
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: and so Alonso said that once women decided to have children,

692
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: about half don't come back to the business quote, so

693
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:18,280
Speaker 1: we're back to trying to fill in the fifty percent

694
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: that left. We're consistently trying to fill that gap of

695
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: women who leave. But Alonso is also like, as much

696
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: as your you might be like fist pumping, like, yeah,

697
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:34,239
Speaker 1: women lean into orcs uh, Alonso was like she's a

698
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,280
Speaker 1: super controversial figure in the industry because the industry itself,

699
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 1: like as we've talked about in detail, is experiencing a

700
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: lot of up people. There's a lot of problems. People

701
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: can't spend time with their families, they're traveling all over

702
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:48,879
Speaker 1: the world, maybe they don't have set benefits or set

703
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,359
Speaker 1: pay maybe they're being abused at work because everybody's saying

704
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:54,840
Speaker 1: do everything faster and cheaper, and so there's a lot

705
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,400
Speaker 1: of people who are saying not only that it's not

706
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:01,240
Speaker 1: a gender issue, it's an industry is you, but also

707
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: that Alonso might be part of the problem. Yeah, I

708
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 1: mean she is someone who is having to oversee Marvel's

709
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:12,760
Speaker 1: bottom line, and so she needs things faster and cheaper

710
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 1: as well because she has people that she has to

711
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: be accountable to as well. So I mean it's she's

712
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: kind of having to straddle both worlds of championing more

713
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: women hopping into this role that ultimately on the other

714
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: side of it isn't terribly supported by people like her.

715
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: So this is a big reason why blogger vfx Soldier

716
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 1: kind of wonders, like Alonso, why are you even encouraging

717
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:42,319
Speaker 1: more women to get into this job? It's awful out here. Yeah,

718
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 1: He wrote that studios like Marvel and executives like Alonso

719
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: have made the decision that create an environment that she

720
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 1: acknowledges is extremely difficult for women to participate in. He writes.

721
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:54,880
Speaker 1: Anyone can preach platitudes, but it takes real leadership to

722
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: propose a policy that implements those goals and executes it.

723
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 1: And vfx Soldier goes on to site it's funny, I

724
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: like citing VFX soldiers if it's a name, But vfx

725
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:11,840
Speaker 1: Soldier cites the example of Walt Disney Animation Studios, which

726
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,120
Speaker 1: continues he says, to make great movies with huge profits

727
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 1: while offering their workforce union wages with overtime, paid maternity leave,

728
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:22,719
Speaker 1: and other benefits. Oh, he writes, and they do this

729
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: without subsidy and dues displacement of their workers. And that's

730
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 1: one thing Kristen that I forgot to mention earlier, which

731
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: is that you've got all of this like crap going

732
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: on in this industry, but there's also no unions or

733
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: guilds two help workers fight for what they need. And

734
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: so how do we get and keep more women in VFX?

735
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:45,839
Speaker 1: A lot of it ties into how do you take

736
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 1: care of workers in general? Yeah, I mean one thing

737
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: that de Quatra suggests is getting rid of the disparity

738
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,879
Speaker 1: by prioritizing hiring women in technical fields. I mean it's

739
00:43:56,880 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: the whole you know, stem fill the gender gap, close

740
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: the gender gap, I should say, just fill it up

741
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: to still laugh with that that insulation foam um, but

742
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 1: you know, hire more women basically. Yeah, And tech Crunch

743
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: was like, yes, of course hiring practices need to be

744
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 1: looked at, but also focused on the distribution of responsibilities,

745
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:22,359
Speaker 1: performance evaluation, and how the current dysfunction of these processes

746
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: breeds an overall bias that colors the view of female competence.

747
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: It's the cycle if you don't believe, if you don't

748
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: see women, then you don't believe they're there, or they're capable,

749
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: or that they want to be there, or that they

750
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 1: want to be there, and so that the women who

751
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 1: are there have to work triple hard to prove themselves,

752
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: which is again same with a lot of STEM and

753
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: or male dominated industries, And as you might expect, we

754
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:51,240
Speaker 1: talked to Kylie about this too, and she totally agrees.

755
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: Here's her take on attracting and keeping women in the industry.

756
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: Merely having at their first staff mixed with minorities and

757
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:01,879
Speaker 1: genders a great way to attract women in the post

758
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: production industry. A diverse staff worked better together and creates

759
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: better work, and it becomes self correcting in that the

760
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: gender or racial bias that persists falls to the wayside

761
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: when so many of the people you work with have

762
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 1: their own experiences to share. By changing your culture to

763
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:22,399
Speaker 1: be inherently more accepting and interesting, you create a more

764
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: friendly environment with fewer institutionalized barriers. Of course, you can

765
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: also add other support systems like flexible work hours, healthcare, childcare,

766
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: but in post production that would be a major endeavor,

767
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: so I stick to the basics. Just hire women, higher minorities,

768
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: lots of them. Consider correcting the numbers. Your own moral

769
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 1: imperative and the rest will work itself out. And VFX

770
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: soldiers sites Walt Disney Animation Studios as an example of

771
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: doing it right in this regard. Yeah, he says, Listen, guys,

772
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 1: you've got to mitigate the use of subsidies that constantly

773
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: place VFX families. You've got to initiate a limit on

774
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: those long work hours by making overtime pay a standard

775
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: across the industry. Right now, you might work, you know,

776
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: twenty hours a day. That doesn't mean you're going to

777
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 1: earn overtime. And he says, you've got a mandate that

778
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 1: vendors provide proper maternity leave, child care, and healthcare to

779
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 1: VFX professionals. And how about everybody else while we're at it,

780
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: how about we all get great paternity and maternity leave

781
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 1: and childcare. So our listeners out there might be wondering

782
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: why and whether we should even care about this. After all,

783
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,600
Speaker 1: it's not like VFX is a huge industry. It's not

784
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: like this effects every one of our listeners. I mean,

785
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:45,759
Speaker 1: it is a pretty small segment of the population. But

786
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:48,360
Speaker 1: when we talked to Kylie, she was adamant that the

787
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:52,399
Speaker 1: gender issues in VFX and post production in general are

788
00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: part of a larger issue in the film industry. The

789
00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: sexist culture has a major effect on workers and then

790
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: on what viewers the on screen. There's a pattern here.

791
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 1: Women hire women, and they put women on screen to

792
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: inspire other women. But for women to get to the

793
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: point where they can hire, they have to make it

794
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:16,359
Speaker 1: for a really tricky pipeline. That's why diversity efforts are

795
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 1: so important. An interesting anecdote, the showrunner for The Shield

796
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: found that the female writers weren't speaking up anymore in

797
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 1: the writer's room, and he found out the reason was

798
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: because they were constantly being interrupted by men. When they

799
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: spoke up, they were being seen as too emotional or aggressive.

800
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 1: So the showrunner banned interruptions in the writer's room. So

801
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: what's our takeaway for for this women in VFX Hollywood

802
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 1: Stem conversation? Do you think? Well? I think Alonso's right

803
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: in that if you diversify your team, you're only going

804
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: to get a better product. You know, men aren't the

805
00:47:55,719 --> 00:48:00,359
Speaker 1: only ones who can create massive works of visual effect art.

806
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:03,359
Speaker 1: Obviously women can do this too. Um, But it's that

807
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,959
Speaker 1: it goes back to that importance of, like I said,

808
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:11,320
Speaker 1: diversifying the team to get a different and better perspective

809
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:14,760
Speaker 1: and hopefully like make a better product on screen too,

810
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 1: because every movie pretty much uses VFX these days. I'm

811
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: really curious to know if there are people in VFX

812
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: or people who hope to get into VFX listening. We

813
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: definitely want to hear from you because it seems like

814
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 1: there is a lot of conversation within your yes niche

815
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 1: industry um happening. So fill us in mom Stuff at

816
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com is our email address. You

817
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:45,240
Speaker 1: can also tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast or messages

818
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 1: on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages to

819
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 1: share with you right now. Well, I have one here

820
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: from Anne on our Gendered Kitchens episode. She says, Hey, ladies,

821
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: I've been working my way through your pie cast, but

822
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: your most recent one really got me thinking. A friend

823
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: of the family recently opened a restaurant. Shout out to

824
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: Jen at Strange Bird Bistro in Obilin, Ohio, and it's

825
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:12,280
Speaker 1: been exciting to watch her open. Her significant other, who's

826
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: a guy, is often referred to as the owner, and

827
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: he always politely corrects people that the owner is actually Jen.

828
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: Funny how people assume the owner would be a guy.

829
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:22,759
Speaker 1: She worked as a waitress for many years, but has

830
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 1: always been an excellent cook. She had plans to start

831
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: a food truck, but then she was approached by one

832
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 1: of the restaurants she had previously worked at, and the

833
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 1: rest is history. It's so nice to see lady round

834
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: businesses and I wish her much success as we do.

835
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:37,959
Speaker 1: So thanks Ann Well. I've got a letter here from

836
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: j k M about our Gendered Chef episode. She writes,

837
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 1: I was recently introduced to your podcast and have been

838
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: chain listening while at work ever since and must say

839
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 1: you guys are awesome. Thanks j k M. It was

840
00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:53,840
Speaker 1: refreshing to hear you'll talk about the lack of women

841
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 1: in professional kitchens, as it's a sore spot for me

842
00:49:56,960 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: as a self proclaimed displaced pastry chef. I work on

843
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 1: the line at a very popular organic bar and restaurant

844
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: that doesn't sell dessert, and I'm not only the only

845
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: woman in the kitchen, I'm also the only one with

846
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:12,480
Speaker 1: a culinary degree or any professional training for that matter.

847
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 1: I'm constantly fighting this she can't do it stereotype, not

848
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 1: only for myself but for new hires as well, since

849
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 1: my kitchen manager will only hire women for certain stations

850
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 1: like salad and prep. It chaps me, But what are

851
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 1: you gonna do? Bills have to be paid and I

852
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:34,880
Speaker 1: love to cook ps Alex Gorna, Shelley Rocks. So thanks

853
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: for your insight, j k M and keep it up.

854
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