It’s a place to work in Boston, for artists with niche skills
Pros
- Access to insane in-house render farm that allows for a lot of advanced ideas for project scope and execution, as well as less headaches if a render or animation comes out wrong. - Excellent office facilities outfitted with quality Steelcase workstation desks, chairs, and breakout spaces for alternative ways to get away from your desk for a minute. No IKEA furniture here. - Boston location has incredible huge windows offering spectacular views of downtown Boston, the harbor and Logan airport. Ship repair drydock across the street always has interesting ships coming and going to gaze at while waiting for coffee. - Client portfolio involving some of the biggest names in architecture and property development all over the world. You can work on BIG projects for BIG clients here. - Generally friendly, low-office-politics atmosphere. Everyone here tends to keep a professional attitude and not contribute to a interpersonally toxic workplace. Not quite so on the company level, in the cons. - Easy to get to via public transit, it just takes a while. - - Neoscape (Boston) is ultimately a good place to work — for what availability there is for creative opportunities in Boston. It’s not a bad place to get started for an artist or designer if you’re OK with and are aware of where its problems lie, or this is your best opportunity for now. Don’t be surprised if you feel you want to move on after a few years, though, and don’t feel you have to stay longer than you want to.
Cons
- Expectation of working unpaid overtime. Being a little slow and needing to stay late to catch up is one thing, but many large projects are taken on under tight schedules where the bosses will basically straight up say “there will be many late nights.” Either that, or some projects prove to be more technically challenging/broken than others, which requires long hours of troubleshooting into the night. It can reflect poorly on you if you don’t partake in this FREQUENT project crunch. This is not the same as Warrior Projects, which are PAID short-turnaround projects on a volunteer basis. Even if you do get paid, you pay for it with your health either way anyway. - On that topic, the studio is truly the definition of “fast paced” — project deliveries are fast, frequent, and numerous. On the plus side, if you find you can easily handle Neoscape’s work load, know that you can work confidently and comfortably literally anywhere else too, probably with less stress. - Pay is below the industry expectations elsewhere. Boston is an expensive place to live these days, too, you know. - Seemingly annual benefits changes. The benefits (healthcare) were good when I started, and downgraded each year until I left. Prepare for an annual staff meeting where you have to go over the new healthcare being given to you for hours. - Company prioritizes big parties and other strange expenditures instead of bonuses in recognition of hard work. Only got one bonus in five years. - Lack of ownership of work. Neoscape doesn’t like to give credit to the artists, designers, filmmakers, editors, and programmers who bring their big showstopping projects to life. The bosses, managers, and directors are listed on the website, but that’s it. Individual projects never give recognition to who made them, which is behind the ball compared to competing studios who do. If your specific work wins an award, Neoscape takes it in their name, no mention of you. - Tasks that induce existential dread. For ArchViz, Neoscape has a lot of overlap with VFX work due to project scale requiring absurd amounts of set dressing with pre-made assets that can often cause system instability and software crashes. It’s tedious, monotonous work that’s gotta get done as part of the trade, yes, but just pray you don’t become the guy who always gets stuck doing it while others around you do the more fun stuff. Also hope they give you a computer that isn’t 8+ years old with a monitor that’s burning out. - Observed high employee turnover rate, especially in the entry-level and 2-3 year experience range. Most people who get hired tend to be young/first job artists. Weirdly don’t tend to often see new hires with experience from other studios. Lots of ‘grass is greener’ stories from ex-employees. “Ex-Neoscapers” are a common find in other studios across the country. Moving up in the company basically seems to happen when someone else above you quits. Take this information as you will.