Ethical Trading and Human Rights
Our commitment
Frank VFX will not profit from anyone's exploitation. That applies to the people on our own
payroll, to the freelancers and crew who work on our productions, and to the artists and
workers at the companies we buy from — wherever in the world they are.
This page summarises what we commit to and what we actually do about it. The full
policies behind it are published at the foot of this page, and we would rather be held to
those than to a statement.
Modern slavery and forced labour
We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery, forced labour and human
trafficking, and we publish a Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement each year
setting out what we found and what we did.
In practice that means three things. No one who works on our productions pays a fee to
get that work — not to us, not to a recruiter, not to anyone, and we require the same of
our suppliers. We do not hold anyone's passport or identity documents. And we ask our
suppliers who actually employs the people they send us, because layered labour supply
is where exploitation hides.
We publish our statement voluntarily. Our turnover is below the threshold at which UK law
requires one, and we would rather our clients could read it anyway.
The people who do our work
Most of the people who make our work are not employees. They are freelancers, crew and
artists at other companies. We do not treat that as a reason to care less about their terms.
Everyone working on a Frank VFX production should have written terms before they start,
be paid at least the legal minimum for where they work, be paid on time, and know what
can and cannot be deducted from their pay.
On hours, we will name the thing our industry does not like naming. Long weeks in post-
production are usually caused by a schedule, and the schedule is usually set by whoever
is paying. Where we are the client, unpaid overtime at a supplier is partly our doing. We
ask our suppliers about their longest week of the year and whether overtime is paid, and
we would rather move a date than pretend the answer is their problem alone.
Children and young people
Two separate duties apply to us, and we treat them separately.
Child labour. We do not employ children. Where young people work with us at all, their
hours and tasks are restricted as the law requires, and we expect the same of every
supplier, in every country we buy from.
Child protection. Children appear in the material we handle. Where children perform on a
production we work on, we check that the licensing and chaperone arrangements are in
place rather than assuming someone else has. Once that material reaches us, access to it
is restricted to the people who need it for the job, and we ask the same of anyone we send
it on to.
How we choose and check our suppliers
Suppliers whose work involves people's labour complete a due diligence questionnaire
before we place work with them, and again at review. It asks how their people are engaged
and paid, who recruits them, whether anyone pays a fee, and — the question that matters
most — whether the work we place would be passed on to anyone else.
We rank suppliers by how their workers could be harmed, not by how much we spend
with them. A small cleaning contract gets more scrutiny than a large software licence,
because one buys someone's labour and the other does not.
Where we find a problem, our first move is to fix it, not to leave. Dropping a supplier
moves the problem somewhere we cannot see and usually leaves the affected workers
worse off. We work with the supplier on a dated plan and carry our share of the cost
where our own schedule or pricing contributed to it. We end the relationship where there
is forced labour, child labour or trafficking the supplier will not address — or where we
have been lied to.
We do not charge suppliers for any of this, ask them to fund an audit, or require them to
buy certification. A small studio with no written policies and honest answers is a better
supplier than a polished document that matches no practice.
Where our reach stops
We can say something useful about the people who do our work, because we can ask
them and they can answer. We cannot say the same about everything we buy.
The workstations, drives, displays and phones this studio runs on carry mineral extraction
and assembly risk several tiers below anyone we can contact. A company of our size does
not audit a semiconductor supply chain, and we are not going to claim otherwise. What we
can do is buy from established suppliers, favour equipment with a longer service life, keep
hardware in use rather than replacing it on a cycle, and ask the question at purchase
rather than never.
We would rather tell you where our control ends than imply it covers everything.
Speaking up
If you see something wrong on work connected to Frank VFX, tell us. This route is open to
anyone — our staff, freelancers, crew, people working at our suppliers, and anyone else.
You do not have to work for us to use it, and you do not have to be certain you are right.
Contact [name, role] at [email] or [phone]. If the concern is about that person, or about
anyone at the top of this company, contact [alternative name, role] at [alternative email].
We will not retaliate, and that includes the quiet kinds. Nobody who raises a concern in
good faith will be let go, taken off a show, not rebooked, frozen out or passed over for it. If
that happens, it is a disciplinary matter here.
You can also go outside the company, and you do not need our permission to do so:
Modern Slavery and Exploitation Helpline — 08000 121 700, 24 hours, anonymous
reports accepted
Protect, the whistleblowing advice charity — 020 3117 2520
Call 999 if someone is in immediate danger
If you would rather not approach us at all, that is a legitimate choice and the numbers
above work without us.
The full policies
This page is a summary. the documents it summarises, and they are what we are accountable to are available on request
Ethical Trading, Human Rights and Whistleblowing Policy — our full policy, including
the Supplier Code of Conduct that forms part of our contracts.
Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement — published annually, approved
by the board and signed by a director.
Our suppliers can also see the questionnaire we would ask them to complete, on request.
If you are a client, a supplier or a prospective employee and something here does not
match your experience of working with us, we want to hear about it. Use the contacts
above.
This page was last reviewed on 2026-09-20 and is reviewed annually.