Couple of interesting treatises from Digital Content Producer on the subject of long workdays typical in the production industry:
“After veteran line producer Robert Schneider budgeted a $40 million below-the-line studio feature film based on the usual 12-hour shooting day, he decided to try an experiment. He re-budgeted the same film based on an eight-hour day. He was challenging the long-held assumption that movie crews must work a 12-hour minimum day to counter the high daily costs of stage, location, and equipment rentals.
He extended the 17-week shooting schedule to 20 weeks and refigured the budget based on an eight-hour camera day with one-hour prep time and one-hour wrap time.
The new budget came in one million dollars cheaper.”
“Most film production professionals have stories about working extreme hours. I personally tell tales of a rainy all-nighter in Texas where the crew went into 13 meal penalties. That night, the gaffer ordered two electricians to link arms with me to hold me up because I was falling asleep on my feet between calling out “Rolling” and “Cut.” To this day, I bless Reggie Boatright for saving me the embarrassment of falling face-first into a sea of mud while Burt Reynolds was emoting. Fortunately, I was on a distant location, so a Teamster-driven van took me back to the hotel in the morning. I was lucky I didn’t have to face the danger of driving home.”
RH note: …and I can count the times on one hand when the shoot ran over there wasn’t a crybaby about paying the location owner overtime.
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