According to this document, there are only 263 Flame artists worldwide. That sounds really low. What do you think?
1 Like
The last estimate I heard a couple years ago was around 3,000.
can’t imagine AD putting the resources into maintaining such a costly application if there were less than 300 users. Makes no business sense.
1 Like
I’ve been communicating with Joseph Bell, the author of the atlas. He admits his data comes from limited resources (I think he is mainly utilising LinkedIn). The simple fact is, I don’t think there is an easy way to access of collate that data in any meaningful way. In some ways, he would be better off working out how many licenses are for each product and their locations to get a better picture. Don’t think many DCC companies would be willing to part with that data,
We would probably have more than 263 people on Logik alone wouldn’t we?
2 Likes
3000 is still low imho. I was guesstimating between 17.000-22.000 users/systems. Don’t ask me where it comes from.
Considering one license/year is around 4000 Euro/USD a higher number like 20.000 makes just enough sense from a business pov.
That type of stat is more of a distraction than a value. Not sure it’s worth spending too much time on, as it only furthers misinformation.
@Sinan yes, the number has to be big enough to make sense for ADSK, but take into consideration that it it’s part of a portfolio which complicates things. There will be big studios which may leverage their other ADSK licenses to make sure Flame continues on.
The title Flame artist is notoriously unreliable, because it’s ambiguous with other industries such as glass blowing and entertainment and we know of cases where this ambiguity created real world problems for this community.
Then you have the fact that not everyone (especially freelancers) who may among other apps use Flame may call themselves a Flame artist. And Flame has gone through some naming iterations which may not be reflected - such as Smoke, etc.
Well intentioned, not well executed. When it comes to information that is counter productive and possibly dangerous.
Back in my days of 3D animation, I was asked on a date, if I was working in vacation resorts as said “animator”.
I also agree it’s not worth spending time on the actual number.
2 Likes
I think the VFX Atlas cannot be utilised as a “resource” unless the data is much more highly accurate, which I voiced to Joseph Bell. I respect what he is trying to achieve but without a solid way of capturing/collating the data, I am not quite sure of its usefulness.
more leverage to raise our rates! …shouldn’t complain… let our clients know! there are only 263 of us ;).
should delete this post and rewrite it ,… saying how special rare and expensive we can be 
before clients read it
1 Like
5 Likes
Hi folks, as the author of the atlas I can speak to some of this.
The atlas gives you a sample of a larger population. If you read the report, I think we’ve made it pretty clear that it is NOT saying there are 263 Flame artists in the world. It is saying that of the 55,000 Visual Effects professionals we looked at, 263 identified themselves as Flame Artists in how they described themselves in public.
Another thing to keep in mind is that each person in the data gets put in one “department”. If someone describes themselves as a VFX Supervisor, Creative Director and Flame artist, they go into the data under the category they put first – VFX Supervisor. It’s safe to say the number of people who know how to use Flame is higher than the number of people classified in the Flame “department” in the dataset.
For comparison 6,989 people in the same dataset said they were Compositors or Comp Supes.
Finally, the atlas looks mostly at VFX studios. We’ve tried to include Post houses that have a VFX division, but the data is skewed towards the MPCs and Framestores of this world. A lot of post houses with Flame artists aren’t in the study – you can see a full list of the companies that are at the back of the report.
To Adam’s point about the usefulness of this data, it really depends on what you’re looking to get out of it. If you want to answer the question: how many Flame artists are there in the world, then yes, this is not the data for you. If you want to see the percentage of people who work for visual effects studios who see being a Flame artist as their primary role, and where in the world those people are, then it is the data for you.
The data “only shows what it shows”. I totally get that it doesn’t show everything that people might want to know, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccurate in what it can tell us.
Hope that clarifies things a bit!
11 Likes
in my experience a lot of flame ops in the world of tv and film finishing don’t really consider themselves flame artists per se and would more readily identify as online editors, DI editors etc. but there are a lot of them!
4 Likes
And we know that every flame artist, is not only a Senior Flame Artist, but also a VFX Sup.
8 Likes
@ALan - or button pushers for the stars…
Yes, the full title of a Flame Artist is, “VFX Supervisor / Senior Flame Artist / Compositing Lead / Creative Director / Opinions on the Lunch Place Haver”
9 Likes
This.
from an actual LinkedIn profile.
2 Likes
2 Likes
I mean, people can do whatever they like, but what if a CEO had a quadruple barreled title–“CEO / ECD / EVP of Vision Questing / Head of Talent”? You’d think they’re a joke.
Just pick the best title, either by rank or whatever you like the most, and use that. You don’t need your whole CV in there.
2 Likes
Wannabe president…