Many have probably heard that the VFX industry brought £1 billion to UK’s economy, but apparently the VFX freelance artists who worked on Bohemian Rhapsody were left without payment, because Halo VFX Limited had gone bankrupt.
The BECTU union, an organization representing VFX freelancers, is currently in the process of handling cases totaling over £53,000 due to the bankruptcy of Halo VFX Limited, which provides visual effects on high-budget projects, including Curfew, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Discovery of Witches.BECTU needs a response from the company directors. They are requesting not only the payment of earnings, but also compensation for the damagecaused.
BECTU National Assistant Secretary Paul Evans commented: “I’ve never had a situation where individual BECTU members have been hit this badly and it is not something we can’t just shrug our shoulders and move on from.”
“This is a hugely profitable industry and the productions that our members worked on were successful. It’s not acceptable for VFX artists who have contributed to the success of multi-million pound features to be the ones to carry risk and to go unpaid for their hard work and talent,” added Paul.
Share your experience with colleagues and tell them if you’ve ever been denied payment your work, and how you struggled with it.
You can also read about the biggest lay-offs in GameDev in this month.