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When shooting a film how much time do you put in a workday?


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A basic film work day is 12.5 hours (with .5 being lunch, unpaid) And your day rate already factors in the overtime after the 8th hour.

So for example, if I'm making 800/12, then on my time-card I would put  $57.14/Hr as my hourly pay. You get this by dividing the day-rate by 14 for a 12 hour day and that takes into account 1.5x time and the 2x time.

Many shoots, especially music videos, it seems will go into 14 or even 16 hour days, on occasion. And this is paid as over-time like anything else.

This applies to most everyone on set who are, by law, employees and not independent contractors, and therefore must be paid over-time.

 

Now a LA-Centric thing will also add 1 hour to the work day, unpaid, on each end, for your travel to and from location, generally, as well as the getting to set 15 minutes early and the often 15 min or so of B/Sing with the crew or talking with the producers and director after wrap (but off of the clock, generally) about whatever. And for myself, maybe another 30 ish to 45ish minutes at home after going over the day in my head or prepping for tomorrow, in my head. So, on some shows you may be putting in 19 hours in a day (or more) to just that one shoot. And they wonder why everyone is so upset when there isn't breakfast and coffee RTS before call.

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Edited by Adrian Sierkowski
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I think some contracts list 1.5X overtime rate after 8 hours and then 2X rate after 14 hours, knowing that 12 hours would be a typical day. That doesn't include travel time usually.

Truth is that shooting really should be limited to 10 hours because of driving time and sleep, but that probably won't happen on a regular basis.  It would be nice to at least implement Brent's Rule of 12-On / 12-Off.  The reoccurring 14-hour day with the hour drive home at each end and a forced turnaround the next day is a recipe for an accident.

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Even if you're not union, you should still be able to get a copy of your local local's agreement. Mine is as David said, 1.5x after 8 and 2x after 14, which means we get OT pay every day--but the hourly rate is tempered to account for that.

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1 hour ago, Andy Jarosz said:

Even if you're not union, you should still be able to get a copy of your local local's agreement. Mine is as David said, 1.5x after 8 and 2x after 14, which means we get OT pay every day--but the hourly rate is tempered to account for that.

Yes, the line producer or UPM basically decides how much they want to offer for a 12-hour day... and then figures out what the rate will be for 8 hours plus 4 hours of OT at 1.5X so that it adds up to what they've budgeted for. In fact, most will offer a DP a weekly rate and then work backwards with the payroll accountant to make it all add up in terms of an hourly rate.

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Meanwhile in Ireland the working hours are 9 with running buffet or 10 + 1. 
In Spain for commercials is between 12 + 1 or 14 +1 although there are many production companies which cramp 17 hours in a day. 

Have a good day.  

 

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