Hasta La Motion!

As of less than an hour ago, every form of industry chatter has been focused on one thing: the end of Boards Mag. It has been confirmed that the 10 year run of one of the leading mags on commercial production has come to an end.

The amazing editorial crew of Rae-Ann Fera, Ed White, Kevin Ritchie and Christine Clarke consistently elevated the creative dialogue from their in-depth writing to their global events — and we’re all better off for it.

As friends of Motionographer, we’ve been humbled by their continuous support. We’ll all be waiting in anticipation to see where you land next. Until then, take a breath and have some drinks for us in Toronto tonight!

Statement from Boards:

It is with sadness that we inform you that Boards magazine has ceased publishing immediately. Established in 1999, Boards rapidly evolved into one of the world’s most respected media brands serving the international advertising and commercial production community. Over the years we’ve built a legacy of cutting-edge journalism that helped to unite a disparate market with unflinching perspective and insight.

Each month we took the pulse of the industry and pointed the way towards new opportunities for our entrepreneurial readership. There wasn’t a single moment that we didn’t consider how our efforts might contribute to a better industry for all. Through that lens, we hope we made a difference.

Major long-term trends over the past several years have forced our clients to re-evaluate their business models and the recent global economic turmoil has simply accelerated that need. This process will take many years to unfold but, ultimately, this business will thrive once again in a new form by harnessing the sheer creative force from which it was born.

It has been a pleasure to serve you all of these years. We thank you for your undying support, all of the good times we’ve shared and, most of all, wish you much success as you tackle this brave new world.

Posted on Motionographer

Contagious‘ North American Editor Nick Parish (former Creativity/Ad Age) caught a screening of Banksy’s recent film, ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’. He’s been kind enough to share his take with us and our readers. Enjoy!

The Sex Pistols did it first. The KLF wrote The Manual on how to do it. Now Banksy is doing it: creating a story to spur demand, lending authority to it in a rapidly popularizing subculture, satisfying the hunger and laughing while everyone eats it up.

It is almost a performance edition of the ‘I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit’ piece.

Thierry’s the ultimate idolator, a King Toy of the graf world, but in an endearing, ‘let me hold the ladder and learn to do it’ savant-ish sense rather than cynical or ill-meaning way.

In him, Banksy has a tool to make us aware of our desire to belong and understand, nudging him forward, enabling his rise, only to gloat over the result. The art fans, clad in Ed Hardy, lined the sidewalk to see Life is Beautiful and take home a piece. But once everyone catches on to the gag, what happens to the work? And Thierry’s (clearly unbalanced) ego? If Banksy was affiliated, does that mean it has value (in an artistic or financial sense)?

Keep reading…

Posted on Motionographer

At some point in their careers, freelancers have probably asked themselves perfectly reasonable questions like, “How did a 10-hour day become standard?” And “Why are discussions about overtime so difficult?” Or “What can I do if I haven’t been paid?”

Building on momentum from this post and the open document linked in the comments, we’ve set up an open wiki dedicated to developing standards of practice for employers and employees working under the broad umbrella of motion design, including freelance directors, animators, designers, visual effects artists and other work-for-hire artists.

While other groups have established standards of practice for their fields, the specifics of motion design differ enough that it seems prudent to create this kind of a forum.

This site’s success depends on focused, mature contributions that raise the level of professionalism for the entire motion design industry. Any content that is not in accord with these goals will be respectfully removed.

At the moment, the site is focused on standards of practice in the United States, but we hope that with your input it can be expanded to include markets around the world. Because it’s an open wiki, the scope of the site will evolve and expand. Please add topics and content that you think will be helpful.

Special thanks to LA3D and countless others for getting the ball rolling.

Photo by Pierre Bédat

Posted on Motionographer

What is an Executive Producer? This role may go unnoticed by many of us, but the success of a company is often defined by this individual. They shape the culture of the production company they lead. In addition to their sales and strategic roles, they must define and reinforce the creative ethos of the company. This begins with bringing in the right talent and nurturing them to their full potential.

The ways in which this takes place varies from EP to EP. What follows is how some of the good ones do it, including:

• Michael Adamo (EP at Passion Pictures, London)
• Nick Hussey (EP at Rokkit, London)
• Chris O’Reilly (EP at Nexus, London),
• Adina Sales (EP at Blacklist, New York)
• James Bretton (EP at Blinkink, London).

Read the round table discussion and get a glimpse into 2010 and beyond.

Posted on Motionographer

Do you ever wonder how many people actually work in the Motion Graphic Design business? Do you ever think about where they might live and work? Do you ever wonder what kind of salaries they make? How they charge their clients? How many projects they do a year? If they do work in advertising, short films, visual effects, or music videos? And what kind of software they use?

We do.

That’s why we’ve created the 2009 Motion Graphic Design Census, the first-ever salary survey for professionals in Motion Graphic Design, Animation, Visual Effects and Film-making. This survey is designed to count everyone in the industry—from owners to interns, producers, designers and animators. The online survey will be hosted at Motionographer for the month of December. We’ll then publish the results in 2010.

We plan on continuing the survey as a yearly effort in order to track salary, rates, and other relevant issues. We’d love to get the entire Motion Design community to participate, to give us a full and realistic overview of the entire profession.

Please follow the link and fill out your information, which will remain completely anonymous. Then sign up for our mailing list to get the results of the survey in 2010.

If you’re wondering why you should spend 10 minutes or less filling this survey out, here are some reasons:

• The AIGA has never truly identified and defined our field of work in its annual salary surveys. It has always classified positions as entry level designer, designer, senior designer, art director, creative/design director, owner/partner/principal and solo designer – positions geared towards its base of print designers. This leaves out producers, animators, CG artists, storyboard artists, and quite a few other job types related to our industry. Other membership-based organizations like BDA/Promax or AICP also leave out whole segments of our colleagues and do not make their information accessible to the public.

• We should no longer be seen as a “young” industry. Some of the leading companies in our field have been in business for 10 years or more now. A salary survey is long overdue in our industry to gauge year-by-year the value companies place on full-time and freelance talent that they hire.

• By conducting this first-ever salary survey tailored to our industry, important data will be gathered that will give insight to individuals as to where they fit in this complex and always-changing industry and hopefully help them see more clearly the path they wish to take with their careers

• There are other relevant issues in our industry like unpaid pitches, spec work, work-for-hire agreements and other labor practices that we’d like to bring up as issues of concern to our community. Seeing who is affected by these issues is one of the first steps in addressing them.

• We’d simply like to quantify and count all the people who do what we do, and eventually help all of our colleagues explain to their parents what they actually do for a living.

The Motion Graphic Design Census was written and will be published by Bran Dougherty-Johnson and Jake Sargeant, two Motionographer authors who have worked several years in staff positions and now currently freelance within the industry.

Posted on Motionographer