The Intro
I am just a random dude and my name is George. You've seen my kind many times before: recently discovered VFX, wants to learn the trade, decides to take an online course ... in other words, a noob. Well, as a noob, you can imagine I drooled abundantly when I saw VFX Learning's indiegogo VFX campaign. It's long been edited now, but at the time (2013), it promised 10+1 "case studies" of various effects from blockbusters:1: Harry Potter Effects Part 1
2: Harry Potter Effects Part 2
3: Battleship Effects
4: Tintin Effects
5: Transformers Effects
6: Wrath of Titans Effects
7: The Day the Earth Stood Still Effects
8: Prometheus Effects
9: Constantine Effects
10: Pearl Harbor Effects
11 (Bonus): Avatar Effects
Just glancing at the Luis Pages'(instructor) movie credits I instantly knew he was for real, so I was foaming at the corners of my mouth with excitement over getting this HUGE opportunity to learn stuff from a top industry professional. I checked the deadline for this project: December 20th 2013. Whoa!, it was already the 16th, only a few contributor seats left and I didn't have the $300 needed to secure my spot... $300 may not seem like a lot of money to some readers and it's actually cheap when compared to most high-end VFX courses available, but it was a reasonably consistent financial effort for me, at the time $300 being my salary for an entire month. Anyway, I managed to raise the amount and I was in. 130+ contributors (myself included) were now eagerly waiting for the rest of content, as Harry Potter and Battleship effects had already been published. Luis had promised he would deliver ALL the courses before Christmas, but that didn't happen. The campaign raised $37,722 in 2 months and everyone thought it was going to be a success. It wasn't.
The chain of events
On December 22, 2013, Luis posted a message explaining the situation: he was going through some tough family issues and hoped to resume recordings on January 3rd and have the courses ready by the end of that month. That was definitely not an issue for any of the contributors, an outpour of sympathy and moral support went Luis' way, I personally left a message wishing him well and insuring him all of us would wait patiently for him to sort out his personal problems.
January came and went with no updates, but in mid-February the Tintin effects case study was released and everyone was cheering, as things appeared to be back to normal. But joy didn't last for long.
On February 21st, 2014 Luis announced that due to the situation in Venezuela (street protests, power outages, government caps on internet bandwidth), he was unable to upload new material. Once again, the community was, naturally, very understanding and supportive.
On February 23rd, 2014 Luis announced this:
"The season of bad luck continues on my end. I guess due to the several power outages in the last few days due to the protests in my country (particularly in the city of Valencia where I live) My computer started to shut itself down as soon as I hit the Play button in Maya. A red light in the front goes off when I turn it on, reading online it seems that is due to a problem in one of the RAM modules. I checked all that and it looks like is the actual board which has the problem."
On March 12th, 2014 he made another announcement:
"I have been locked down in my apartment for a month due to the riots in my country, I invite you to look over CNN and any news station of your choice and look for the situation in Venezuela. When is safe for people to leave their homes and businesses open their doors I will take my computer to repair and finish the courses."
That was not good news and I said to myself it would be a while until Luis managed to finish the courses, but by all means, that was fine! I just hoped he would be OK. Knowing about the situation in Venezuela, I knew Luis was not exaggerating, so once again, he got my full support. So I patiently waited for the situation in Venezuela to go back to normal and for the Apple repair shop to re-open so that Luis could take his computer there.
Little did I know that was the last thing I would hear from Luis. Not long after that last announcement, all the pages referencing the initial campaign began to be edited to only include 4 courses (Harry Potter part1 + part2, Tintin and Battleship - a course which was never finished in the first place) instead of the original 11. On VFX-Learning website, on indiegogo, on Facebook. All traces of the existence of an 11-course campaing were simply erased. People tried to reach Luis on e-mail, on Facebook and on vfxlearning.com but got no response! All that while VFXLearning continued to promote their tutorials on Facebook on an almost daily basis. Word was among contributors that Luis had simply sold VFXLearning and moved on.
By November 23rd, 2014 it became clear Luis was still running the show, as live events featuring him were promoted through the VFXLearning Facebook page. People started asking questions again, but ALL the negative comments or questions related to the case studies were deleted on sight. People then started leaving bad page reviews. Unsurprisingly, reviews were removed altogether. One day I posted a question on the VFX Learning facebook page, asking Luis when he was going to fulfil his promise and deliver the rest of the "case studies". Not only was my comment deleted, I was banned from the page. No explanation or anything.
On November 25th, 2014, in a last effort to do something about it, I wrote to indiegogo support, letting them know about the situation. They tried to put me in direct contact with Luis, but Luis did not answer any of indiegogo's or my own e-mails. This was the FINAL statement issued to me by Indiegogo after failing miserably to reach Luis. What they're basically saying is that they don't give a sh*t:
Hi George,
Campaign Owners are legally bound to perform on any promise and/or commitment to Contributors (including delivering any Perks). If a Campaign Owner is unable to perform on any promise and/or commitment to Contributors, the Campaign Owner will work with the Contributors to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution, which may include the issuance of a refund of Contributions by the Campaign Owner.
We are reaching out to Luis who will be reaching out to you to discuss with you your questions.
So after trying themselves to reach Luis 3 times, knowing he did not respond to any of my messages and knowing he banned me from his page, indiegogo's final solution is telling me to get in touch with him. If that is not indiegogo pissing all over me, I don't know what is. So that was that...
"In addition, our team of Trust & Safety experts identifies, reviews, and removes users and campaigns that may try to abuse the system."
That quote above is taken from Indiegogo's "Terms of use", but my guess is that's only for suckers to believe. Because since then, despite my repeated notifications to Indiegogo that Luis has indeed abused the system with his 10+1 Case Studies campaign, he was allowed to post more, no questions asked (or rather, answered):
Second campaign (4 case studies) - raised $15,656,
Third campaign (no case studies) - raised $32,803
Fourth VFX-unrelated campaign promoting Luis' nature photography - raised $6,080
I'm not saying the other campaigns were a scam (most likely they were not), but Luis should have been blocked from using the indiegogo platform until the issues with his first campaign were solved. It was an insult to me and to more than 100 other people what Luis did. With 2 case studies campaigns, he raised more than $50,000 in just 4 months, for Jeebus' sake!! One would expect that thing alone to be a pretty good incentive to keep his promises, don't you think? Instead, he repeatedly appealed to our understanding during whatever difficult times he was going through, then started to gag us wherever he had admin privileges, banned us from his page, took down the VFXLearning forums, deleted our reviews, modified older pages to hide the initial deal, ignored all our messages (of course I wasn't the only one trying to reach him) and still had the nerve to act like nothing happened: starting new campaigns, advertising live events on his page, responding nicely to people interested in buying his courses. That is unacceptable, especially for someone of Luis' status. If I can't trust a guy with 15 years' experience who has worked on some of the biggest movies of all time, then who can I trust?
I expect an apology, Luis
I obviously don't expect a refund, just to get it out of the way. I expect an honest apology. Not to me personally, but to all the people who were misled. In March 2014 Luis lamented over:
-"speed of upload of the new case studies is being compromised"
-"my computer (...) can't handle heavy processes"
-"locked down in my apartment for a month"
-"I will get this resolved asap and continue recording what I owe you"
Reading this, one would be inclined to say "Hmm, this dude has a tough time, I'd better give him some space", yet in September, Luis was already busy travelling all over Venezuela taking photos "by car, jeep, boat, helicopter, cable car, commercial airliner and small 4 seater planes, I've walked on the desert and jungle.". He goes on:
10,000 km is a project that I dreamt to do for years, on September 2014 I finally managed to set my work schedule, sold my car and a few other things, got all the photo equipment and set off for this great journey.
In between trips I return to my home studio and have prepared the first set of images and even managed to get the first round of posters printed and ready to ship. All is going according to my plan and schedule and now I feel confident and ready to share this project with the world hoping you will appreciate the hard work as well as the time and money investment that an endeavor like this implies.
Appreciate the hard work? The money investment? Are you kidding me, Luis? You raised $37,000 for stuff you never delivered, mate! And I certainly didn't see any of that "hard work" for the past year and a half. How is it fair to all the people who supported you and, willingly or unwillingly, already gave you so much time to fulfil your end of the deal??? As late as November 2014 people were still asking when they would see the rest of the courses, so I know I am not the only one who has not yet forgotten about what you did. Why taking such a huge piss on everybody, even after your problems are over? I hope there is a good explanation to this (if you ever consider breaking the silence), but I doubt it. If there is, please share it with the rest of us.
The Conclusion
And I've reached the end...This was not pleasant to write, but I needed to get it out there, for fairness' sake. That is my sole motif. I am a fair person and I expect people to be fair with me. Luis missed his many, MANY opportunities to show me and the others that he is a fair person. Or that he respected us. Or that he cared about what any of us contributors ever had to say. Instead, he constantly tried to hide everything under the carpet...and for the most part he succeeded.
Way to go, Luis, way to go.