The short comings of Overtime

Overtime VS. Production.


This is one of the many conversations I must have with the director and the crew.
Crew asks me for OT after 12 hours.
Directors tell me there will be "NO" OT on their production.
I know, from experience, that there is OT on every show I work on. There are pre-calls for Hair, Make-up & Wardrobe, which equals OT. Every production has it's equipment issues, ie., cracked lens, faulty mic or loss of power, which causes a few more hours to make up for the lost hours due to faulty/damaged equipment. There is the actor who can only work this one day because they are flying away for the next 7 weeks for a lead role in some other production.
Mostly, it's the director, not knowing exactly what they want or having consideration for their crew. I've worked with many of these types of directors. It's a mind-cracking experience for me, to say the least. My words fall on deaf ears every time I explain the results of a 9 or 8 hour turn around. The director and production are unable to comprehend the scientific result of sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation causes many problems for the person suffering from it. Some examples; mood swings; poor decision making; slow reactions and low moral of the crew, just to mention a few which directly affect a film production.
In the end, the production will have extremely high L&D charges from rental houses, vehicle rental companies, locations & prop houses. Not to mention the OT fees, 2nd meals and penalties.
Needless to say, my POC and I spend each day putting out fires caused by a sleep deprived crew. The project I am presently on has gone in to OT every day! There have been three days where OT has exceeded 3 hours.
The budget is over in 2nd meals and L&D, for obvious reasons. However, the executive producer told me he thought that L&D was high for a production of this size.
This is where my mind cracked. We are going in to week 4. In week 1, I told this very EP that if we keep going in to OT, he will see an L&D bill and may very well have someone land in the hospital. This is my example of the "falling on deaf ears."
I could go on and on about OT. I could write a novel about the many negative affects of OT and how poorly it reflects on the director and his production team. However, this is one of the oldest arguments in production. I'm not sure what to tell anyone in this situation.
Three people have quit the show and one has been fired. Many crew has threatened to quit on a daily basis and several crew members have snapped during a late wrap out, over the walkies.
Alas, we all show up, each day, on 5 to 6 hours of sleep, do our jobs, sip the coffee at crafty and bitch about how bad OT sucks!
I'm in production. I'm above the line, I hate OT, I fight hard to avoid it. It will never go away.
It's the nature of the beast.
All I ask is, production, be honest and budget for OT. Crew, be smart and negotiate for OT, no matter what dept. you are in.
Happy movie making! xoxoxjoy