Pros
If you want feature films on your resume
Cons
Where to start... this is one of the worst studios I've ever worked at. The company treats their employees like slaves. You're just a number to them. With an impossible to reach quota that's never ending. Quota is everything to them. Even if there's no way to reach it. Mass layoffs are the norm around here. If you're not working crazy over time, be afraid that you're going to be laid off. They will clean house without any notice. They will start with temp artists because that's easiest. It's too much hassle for them to ask the leads who are good and bad artists. If you're "lucky" enough to be around when it hits 40hrs a week, you won't be happy for too long since they don't pay you enough to survive on 40hrs. Raises pretty much don't exist. They will also claim to give performance based reviews and the leads will even rate all their artists based on guidelines that are set up to make sure the artist is average and therefore no raise. Then they'll proceed with giving the studio a blanket percentage raise that will amount to pocket change. Or it just won't happen at all. If you end up working there just remember, there is no reward for going over quota. Just stop and save it for the following week. Because you're no better than the artist who doesn't show up for work or ever hit quota. I say it's like beating a dead horse because Stereo D will never say no to work, even if they are already over booked. Weeks averaging 80-100hrs a week are normal. Upper management will force you to work 12+ hrs a day while they going home at 6pm every night. When holidays come and they have to give it off to us or face paying double time, you'll have to make up those hours since they didn't account for holidays in their calculations for quota. They will burn you out repeatedly and then wonder why so many people are calling in sick or just not showing up at all. The studio is like a bunch of dead zombies somehow working to put shots together. Even though most movies need at the very least 6 months. We do the vast majority of a movie in about 2-4 weeks. The quality is crap and they're just praying the client can't see stereo. Most artists have to work 12+hrs a day, 4-6 months at a time with no days off. Kiss your social life goodbye and for that fact, say goodbye to your spouse, children, family, friends and soul. You'll never see them. HR is not there to support the artists. They are there to support upper management. We went through 4 HR people in 2yrs. Some left because they realized they couldn't help the artists and even one got let go for promising temps that they would be full time after a certain amount of time. If you do decide to work there, get everything in writing, because they will lie to your face. Know your rights, they will take advantage of you. A lot of the work falls onto the leads and the senior artists. The supervisors and stereographers are so far removed from reality of what's happening on the floor. They will yell at you for not getting shots into dailies and then proceed to note the hell out of the shots that are in dailies. They will only approve shots on fri/sat, because they have to hit quota for the week. Mon-thurs, be prepared to have your shot noted over and over again. Then come friday they will approve a weeks worth of quota and that will consist of pretty much anything that is in 3D regardless of the quality. Their head of stereography who has "final" say on everything before it goes to the client is a psychopath. Everyone who is below him is deathly afraid of him. He could snap on you at any moment, even if you did exactly what he told you to do. "Party in the front" will become a phrase that will haunt you for the rest of your life. He doesn't care what stereo direction is given from the client/director. He only cares about his stereo vision. He will unapprove shots that are finaled and make you start over from the beginning and then preach about how you shouldn't crap on the pipeline. He believes he runs the company and can do whatever he wants. Many good artists have left because of him. Even worse is that upper management and HR knows this and does nothing. Most of the sups and stereographers have gotten to where they are by being friends with the right person or by kissing ass. They are not supportive and will constantly contradict themselves with their notes. There are but a few good sups there who will try to fight the never ending battle of artist abuse. But they are mostly silenced by upper management. Anyone who has been there longer than a week can see that the company is run ass backwards. It's so blatantly obvious. Whatever is logical, they'll go in the opposite direction. Burning out artists is so unproductive. You're pretty much just throwing money down the drain at that point. As other people have said, please only work here if you absolutely need money or you just want to add some resume fillers. Make it a transition between jobs and not something permanent.