Cinematographers Want Overly Long Workdays Addressed in Contract Talks
Recently fourteen top film industry cinematographers and the president of the Cinematographers Guild, IATSE Local 600, signed a letter urging The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) member producers to address the brutally long workdays commonplace in the industry. I couldn’t agree more. It’s a pervasive safety issue that many of us who work on set have been complaining about for years. Maybe now this issue will finally get some traction.
Somehow, the producers have avoided addressing the long workdays for one round of contract talks after another. It’s an institutional workplace problem that threatens everyone’s safety, both on set and off.
The problem
The likelihood of accidents at work increases significantly after a twelve-hour workday due to cognitive impairment. Imagine what happens after a sixteen or twenty-hour workday. Workdays of this length are increasingly common in the film industry, and I’ve worked abusively long hours like this numerous times in my career.
Several departments on set, such as stunts and special effects, are especially prone to accidents if the people setting up and making decisions are too tired to make clear-headed judgments about safety.
