Foundry has announced a collaboration with ACCESS:VFX, the NPO focused on improving inclusion and diversity in the VFX, animation and games industries.
According to ACCESS:VFX founder and chair Simon Devereux, “The UK’s VFX industry is estimated to be worth more than £1 billion a year to the UK economy, yet is currently 85% white and only 27% female. We need and want more diverse talent to join our sector. Our practical e-mentoring program is at the heart of our mission. We connect aspiring creative and VFX talent to leaders at VFX, animation and games studios – including Framestore, Union, Outpost and Fix FX, amongst others – through a private Slack channel. With so many exciting events planned for 2019, having a world-leading VFX brand like Foundry add its weight and support to our diversity campaign to mentor the next generation of talent is a win-win for our industry.”
Read the announcement in full on Foundry’s website.
Typical Marxist divisive crap to build own power. Will they want ugly people? small people? smelly people? despite being VFX i guess diversity should not be only visual isnt’t!?
Other senses matter shouldn’t they?
Just some examples of “diversity” that The Foundry isn’t interested in… i wonder why….
Quite the opposite I think – as I understand it, its an attempt by the bourgeoisie to widen the meritocracy net and increase the efficiency of the capitalist machine 😉
Nice one mate. Theres some truth there. Haha
So now CG press posts political posts – well just one kind of political posts, then censors when don’t like the replies. Typical Stalinist.
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I have only made the second post because the first one , which is now put online – thank you – was erased.
I think the issue LLAlex brings up that Diversity is only wanted if it’s the Right Kind of diversity. Certain issues such as right-wing politics, religious views aren’t welcome because the industry as a whole want similar ‘types’ of employees. My experience is that if you spend the day virtue signalling and shouting ‘Jesus Christ!’ all day, you’ll get on fine.
The broader issue is whether businesses will be shamed into meeting quotas of male to female genders. I obviously think female or male makes no difference – you have smart, talented people regardless of their gender – but politics should stay out of hiring policies!
The first part of your post is so problematic its not even worth addressing.
Politics is everywhere and is the reason why the diversity is skewed to one side, theres nothing wrong with having a look and seeing how you can make things better for everyone.
Can you love someone if you look at every person at cellular level?
You can look at everything politically, but should you look at everything politically?
What if, regardless how much money and effort is put into these diversity programs, nothing changes? Will they go into families and force women and non white people by gun point to go into VFX? btw, I’m not white…
I know what you mean, but looking at their site it doesn’t look like they’re trying to get the tail to wag the dog – which is how I tend to see positive discrimination working (or rather not working). If our industry really values a more diverse mix of people then it needs to find ways to understand why it isn’t happening and then find ways to engage with people at a grass roots level. Maybe this is a worthy attempt toward achieving that? Personally I think we could learn something from how sport tends to spot and nurture talent. Also, at least in the UK, I would argue this is not an issue of purely gender and race – education opportunity and class might be the tougher nut to crack. Eg: a few of the most talented and passionate people I know in the industry have no university degree – but maybe they had to be blindingly good to get past the degree firewalls that were on recruitment pages last time I looked.
Really? in XXI century when majority of people have a computer?
How many persons today have had to use a phone that you had to call the operator to talk to some family member 30kmm distancee?
Blender is there, have been there , being free. So tell me what is ” Marxist political diversity” of Blender users?
Yes, in my view, really.
Just because many young people have access to a computer/smart phone/tablet at home, it doesn’t mean they have the wisdom or even the motivation to navigate through the mirkwood of social media and digital distractions to discover and establish their place in the sunny uplands of CG/VFX.
What you are saying seems to be the same as saying football teams shouldn’t reach out to spot young talent because most kids have a football at home.
I strongly believe one of the great un-tapped reservoirs of potential talent in the UK lies in average working class communities, but any enthusiasm or hope for their future is squished out of many by the time they reach 16. The UK (I don’t know about other countries) needs more vocational structures and approaches to education to prepare a proportion of young people for their future working life. This can only be provided by government and industry working together. NGO’s could probably help to bridge that gap.
Sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re saying in your last sentence. I can’t see any link between providing opportunity to youngsters living in a liberal economy with Marxism (if that’s what you mean).
Of course they should reach, and i agree with you that are a great untapped human potential in most areas and i fault current school and journalism for that.
A soccer spotter does not care for the skin color of a potential good player.
The last sentence meaning, it is different what you are saying than what “diversity” proponents say, “diversity” is an expansion of Marxist class concept now including skin color and sexual/gender.
What if your reaching for many more 3D/VFX users reinforces that males and white( or whatever RGB skin is dominant) people increase their representation ? For example Asians are discriminated against in US in their access to Universities due to their success. That is not a Liberal economy, it is a Marxo/Racist economy.
The comments clearly show that this kind of initiative is needed.
Like i said you and others don’t care about diversity – i defy you to define what a is it without being a Social Supremacist and even entering in racism/sexism-
There are many types of persons without entering into skin color or sexual organs you know.
Introverts, why those persons aren’t a designated Political Social Class?
People just build a narrative to promote themselves, to improve their social status by showing others how they go to the church…
Hopefully I will never have to sit with someone like you in a studio.
It’s simple it’s about levelling the playing field so that people who would normally not get the opportunity to have a chance. I don’t see why anyone would be threatened by this. Seeing your other post you clearly believe that everyone has an equal opportunity so what’s the fuss about? I can guarantee you that is not the case. that is what they want you to believe that we live in a egalitarian merit based society. But that it’s obviously not true.
“Hopefully I will never have to sit with someone like you in a studio.”
Ah the “equality” of accepting “difference” if only you think just like me.
Ok, yes, we’re all defined by more than our sex and colour.
I agree introversion is tragically undervalued by most companies, and misunderstood by many managers. Perhaps introverts are paid less on average than extroverts by virtue of a reluctance to haggle – even if they are more productive (I have no evidence of this – its only a hunch). I think the prevalence of open plan spaces and regular large meetings are the bane of many offices/studios. They tend to be woeful as work environments for introverts, and poor for the productivity of some on the extrovert side of the scale. Just look around almost any open plan office – how many people are wearing headphones trying to isolate themselves from the din and focus? I read somewhere that many of the most successful business leaders are introverted. I imagine they just needed to wrestle past the middle managers and get their foot in the door of that corner office with its relative peace and quiet to really shine.
I’m sure the Foundry had their eye on some PR kudos from this move but hopefully it wasn’t their main motivation, and hopefully they see the % ratios of x and y as symptoms of something more deeply rooted rather objectives in themselves. What I’m advocating isn’t top-down social engineering (Marxism?), or cheap PR, its about getting stuck in and solving problems at roots level.
Yes, if you think about it, skin color and sex are the easiest ways to define humans. Now how many introverts should have a company?
Of course this is an absurd question because you can’t micromanage a society at that level without violence.