Around 100 digital effects artists have reached an agreement with the owners of the former Meteor Studios in Montreal to be partially paid for work done on Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Meteor — co-owned by the U.S.-based Discovery Channel subsidiary Discovery Trademark Holding Co. and Evergreen Films — closed in November 2007 after work wrapped on the 2007 blockbuster. The company filed for bankruptcy, leaving the artists and another 30 support staff owed three months back pay.

Former Meteor artist Dave Rand, who led a nine-member team on Journey, tells Playback Daily that $590,000, or 70% of the monies owed, has been recovered after lengthy negotiations between the Canadian Labour Relations Board and the former studio owners.

Those talks included offers of 45 cents and 63 cents on the dollar that were rejected by the artists.

Rand, who is based in Los Angeles, welcomes the out-of-court settlement, but questions why authorities negotiated with the studio owners rather than demand a full payment.

Steve Hulett, business representative for the animation guild at IATSE Local 839 in L.A., says the now-defunct Meteor Studios emerged from the negotiations in good shape.

‘They [the Meteor owners] got a 30-cent cut in their contractual pay rate. Good deal for them,’ says Hulett.

Discovery — which has said before it had only ‘passive non-controlling interest’ in Meteor, referring the issue to Meteor’s principals — had no comment on the settlement.

Meteor was led by then-president Pierre de Lespinois, who is also co-founder of Evergreen, a nature film company with offices in L.A. and Alaska. Calls for comment to Evergreen were not returned by press time.

The situation at Meteor, which came to light last year, has become an example of the often erratic working conditions faced by effects artists around the world.

Rand and Hulett warn that artists, who are often so passionate about their work, can be easily exploited. And Montreal has an impressive concentration of movie effects talent, notes Rand.

Hulett advises effects artists to rise politely from their computers and leave a studio once its owner stops paying out contractual wages.

‘You do not, ever, work for free and you do not accept bullshit excuses,’ he advises.