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From the linked article…
In a day and age when literally everyone connected to a film production gets a credit, from craft services to on-set teachers of child actors to random “production babies” who didn’t even work on a film, it is utterly incomprehensible that vfx artists, whose work makes possible the final images that appear onscreen, are routinely omitted from screen credits.
I can attest to this, having worked in the field. Most of the work in TV and cinema goes uncredited, with team leaders or just the post houses at most being recognized with an end credit placement (by contract, of course). I understand totally that it is always a team effort and hardly any of the viewing public sits through the entire end credits roll. I totally get it. But when it happens that you are included, that small token of recognition does remind you why you’re doing 12-hour days erasing power lines, making day look like night, adding/removing people and/or signage from shots they weren’t supposed to be in and pushing greenscreened people in front of moving cars.
In my job, I often ghost write extensive legal arguments for Supreme Court litigation, on behalf of Senior Counsel (we call the practice ‘devilling’).
I do weeks of research, strategy, writing, rewriting, and the senior will then submit and argue my papers as their own.
Most of the time, I don’t even get to attend. I’m not officially on record. And when I do a great job, judges might praise the senior for ‘their’ excellent work, and I’ll hear about it second-hand.
It can be hard to stomach because everyone likes affirmation and appreciation for their labour, but I’ve learned to take all my satisfaction from the work alone, and doing an excellent job.
At least in my case, I know this is how it goes so it’s never a surprise. But it’s lonely behind the scenes in a thankless role.
I empathise with the uncredited, but at the end of the day the reward is in the quality of your output.
If you are a permanent employee and get a good salary I can follow your argument, you are a cog in a machine and get reimbursed regularly. But if you are hired project by project and get paid some lump sum (and probably not a good one), then exposure in credits and on IMDb is really valuable.