I am what my client wants me to be
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I hate the laundry list job titles, which is why I switched to Post Finishing Artist. No brand crap, single phrase, donât have to change if software gets rebranded or dies.
Does it explain what I do? Itâs descriptive but not a standard title people are used to. So it fails or creates a conversation starter.
And it doesnât help with surveys like this. But Iâm happy to give you whichever label makes you happy. No ego lost.
Maybe pixel washer? Last exit for blemishes ?
Anything that you need after picture lock.
I work across color, sound, vfx, cg, gfx, and online.
Whether thatâs a film maker dropping off an edit, someone giving me a list of vfx shots of their film,
color and retouch of beauty content, cg comp on footage, screen comps, etc.
Which is why I dropped the laundry list.
Sure. There is no singular answer. Iâd rather have a conversation starter than a badge.
What title do you want? In that situation Iâd just pick whichever one I liked (or could charge the most money for) and leave it at that.
Multi-titles make me think the person is overselling themselves, sort of saying, âyeah, i can do that too,â over and over; It doesnât inspire confidence.
Weâre all sometimes producers, sometimes creative directors, sometimes roto artists, sometimes on-set supervisors, sometimes leads, sometimes assists, but it looks best to make a call on the title versus listing all of that.
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Thatâs usually what I call myself, but being a pedant piece of shit, I swap âartistâ for âoperatorâ but thatâs a whole other thread⌠haha.
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Job titles are so pre-Covid. A visual representation of your job description is totally the way to go⌠maybeâŚ
At the end of the day results matter more than titles.
Titles are for org charts, door signs, LinkedIn profiles, and email signatures. And sometimes egos.
Titles donât comp, paint, stabilize, track or comp.
I mean, Iâd argue thatâs hard for a Creative Director to say too, so I donât know if the title buys you much leverage. Haha. Lord knows most of the CDs i dealt with had exactly the same level of input on a job as I did.
One of the nice things about the Flame Op/Artist title is itâs so fucking broad and stacked with very skilled people, that it works well as a premium title.
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I must say though, I have mentioned that I was a Flame Artist to a VFX graduate not too long ago to which their reply was âOh, thatâs cool. So do you do all the flame effects in Houdini?â
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Still photographers have more singular input to an image and can register a copyright.
When you work in film, itâs a team sport. No single person or idea carries the day.
When the team succeeded because of your contribution they want you back for the next game. Thatâs a more important story rather than whose idea the pixel at 500/235 was.
If you canât register copyright, it wasnât your idea alone.
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Still just a slice of the pie.
Self chosen titles are not a guarantee. Your work history, your referrals, repeat business are more meaningful.
Is a Flame artist better than a Nuke artist or someone toiling in Fusion? Not really. But many of the Flame artists here have decades of experience and work to prove it.
I say âCommercial Video Artist.â It is precise in itâs vagueness and ambiguously direct and nobody connects it with arson.
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I used to say âDigital Composite Artistâ and my elderly uncle said âYou mean you work with your fingers???â
Well to wrap it up: this group is full of very accomplished, creative, helpful, friendly, and just all around good people that often go more than the extra mile.
And thatâs what I appreciate the most.
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All 263 of us . . .
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Just the other day a client said my work reminded him of hĂĄkarl.