Falcon's Creative Group Reviews

~ The isn't really any "competitive" salary. There isn't really anyone else in the area with a full 3D studio. And it was fairly low for the spectrum of the industry that it's in, namely for those entering. ~ There's seems to be a disconnect between the definitions of "culture" and "image." Every time the word culture was used in the office, as in "maintaining the culture of the studio," it really meant the image. It didn't have anything to do with interactions between employees, but how the company/studio looked to clients or potential clients. For one example, a lot of the employees like to play board and card games together. This used to be done within the office, but because it's deemed unprofessional, it has a stigma to it from management, and was almost completely phased out because of it. ~ The inability to wear shorts... in Florida... even during the sweltering summers... ~ There's no hope for overtime pay. In a way, there's no hope for any form of compensation for having to stay late to complete assignments. Which is always happening, due to the horrible ability to schedule appropriately or accurately. ~ Inability to regularly hit a deadline, or set them up and maintain them as an actual deadline. Sometimes, even when rides have been opened to the public, it's still incomplete or being reworked. ~ An exceptional turnover rate. Falcon's seems to have the ability to lose people that are really good at what they do. Whether it's by the "image" drawing them in and then realizing what it is, or failing to fully utilize a person for their actual skillset. One example was hiring a producer to manage the projects and establish schedules and hard deadlines. But when these realistic timelines were thrown against what the higher ups wanted, and thus butting heads with the person, said producer was canned. To the grunts, he seemed a godsend. Another example was removing 2/3 of the effects department one morning, in the middle of a project, where effects were entirely behind, and without having a plan to compensate for it. Some of the people that have left the company have gone on to arguably larger endeavors, including Blizzard, ILM, Method Studios, and Third Floor. There isn't a lack of talent that comes through Falcon's doors. But it is vastly under-utilized. ~ There's also a semi-stigma for if you don't intend to stay with the company long term. On more than one occasion, when an employee has put in their two weeks notice, they've been asked to leave immediately. This included someone who'd been with the company since the birth of it's media side. ~ Depending on which department you are in, namely on the Media side, it's exceptionally hard to grow as an artist without outside instruction. I've heard that, especially for animators working there, learning from the job is almost nonexistent, and the marginal educational reimbursement was necessary to continue to strengthen their animation abilities and eye. Again, not all departments are like this- namely the Comp and Lighting departments, and those on the Design side- so just hope that you aren't in one if you would like to continue to strengthen your talents and skills. ~ Going back to the culture and image, it seems as though the employees are generally undervalued. Lots of discussion and actions are taken for family of employees working together, such as parties or saying that there might be changes on the horizon. However, it never seemed to fully come to fruition. Issues that staggered earlier projects will keep reappearing, due to things like scheduling conflicts or promising something to a client that hasn't been tested in house yet. Or agreeing wholeheartedly to offer a raise to an employee that "exemplifies the values we strive for," and then granting a raise that doesn't even bring the salary level up to other people in the same position as yourself, who have been there shorter periods of time. And again, overtime isn't ever a thing, but they will regularly ask for employees to stay late or work weekends to hit deadlines. Many employees remote in from home at all hours just to check file transfers, which is a severe hindrance to themselves, family life, and their own ability to further work at times. If one is lucky, they will receive dinner through the company, or will be allowed to get a reimbursement for buying them-self dinner if they stay to work late enough at night. The pay disparity is also very large between management and low level employees. ~ Since the Media side is still new, there are those in management that don't fully understand how it works yet. They are learning, but it still becomes an issue getting changes made to projects in a timely fashion. ~ There's a regular occurrence of throwing away hours or weeks of work due to poor planning. It's not unheard of for someone to tell you "why are you working on that, it isn't priority or in the project anymore." I've seen modelers spend three weeks texturing and uving models, only to have them told that they are working on an incorrect model, and the correct version needs to be done by the end of the week. Polishing an animation never happens because shots need to be restarted, not tweaked, several times as models or environments are changed completely, or naming conventions of rigs, and the animations are non transferrable. There's just a lot of poor planning for the projects, at least when I was there.