A trip to the Earth VFX director explains how Brendan Fraser went to fight them when he found out they weren’t being paid.
It’s no secret that visual effects artists are often overworked and poorly compensated, which seems unfair when their work drives so many of these billion-dollar blockbusters. . If you need another reason to love Brendan Fraser, you’ve come to the right place. Brendan Fraser starred Journey to the Center of the Earth 15 years ago, but when he found out that the VFX artists behind the film were not being paid, he went to bat for them.
Dave Rand was the VFX supervisor Journey to the Center of the Earth and took Twitter defined as “right” Brendan Fraser helped them.
#Brendan Fraser he is a righteous man.
In November 2007 our paychecks stopped. I was ahead of FX #Journey to the Center of the Earth for Meteor Studios in Montreal and I was asked to get my crew to stay and finish the picture with the guarantee that we would all be paid with overtime. It was… https://t.co/DmQUIEAkMQ pic.twitter.com/1jegFlWECd
– Dave Rand (@daverandla) March 13, 2023
Dave Rand was working for Meteor Studios in Montreal at the time, but when their paychecks stopped coming, the studio asked him and his crew to stay and finish the film, promising that all paid with overtime. “We had a bunch of shots left,” explained Rand. “As soon as we delivered the last shot, we were taken out. It was two weeks before Christmas and we soon learned that there was no money. Meteor declared bankruptcy. They owed 1.3 million dollars.” He took the story to Variety, but they didn’t want to touch it. Rand believed that the studio had pressured them to bury him. He tried to contact Brendan Fraser directly, only for his “people” said they would pass the information on to the actor. They didn’t.
Finally, the gossip section of The Post picked up the story, and an hour later… Rand got a call from Brendan Fraser.
My phone rang when I was reading the piece, area code 212, I answered thanking the girl, but a man answered and said. “Is this Dave Rand?” I said “Yes”. “This is Brendan Fraser, what the fuck is going on?”
Brendan Fraser had no idea that the VFX artists had not been paid and promised to keep in touch until things were put right. “Brendan kept his promise, campaigned publicly for us,” said Rand. “We finally got 80% of our money almost 2 years later. To quote the great Steve Hulett: “What runs the world is not who is right, or who is the richest, it is leverage, and who has it.” We had none, but Mr Fraser gave us wings. He is a righteous man.“Of course he is, and now he’s a proper Oscar winner.
