Pros
- Good variety of work available on lots of different projects, both TV, film, and some new tech coming through. - Really nice artists and production to work with for the most part. Professional and hardworking. - Quite nice offices in Holborn, but mostly still working from home atm. - Decent pay for the industry, would be in the top band.
Cons
- Long hours. True of most VFX jobs, but I found at ILM a 10 hour day is pretty standard, often more. Liasing with Vancouver, San Fran, Singapore and now Sydney means calls from 9am to 7pm pretty regularly. - They work you hard. Often tasked with the work of 1.2 or 1.5 people so expect to be constantly going with little downtime. - High turnover of staff due to burnout means a lot of rescheduling work and trying to make unrealistic targets fit into a pre-defined schedule (I know it's VFX right?). - ILM definitely schedule shows over 100% capacity both on artists and production. You will be working lates. - A lot of pressure on artists to work unpaid overtime to get shots through. Leads working massive hours with the usual 'we just gotta do it to get the work done' mentality. Quite high-pressure environment justified with an unspoken 'we are lucky to work at ILM - it's star wars!'.