Day 1 of week 5

Started badly. We ended up doing 17 hours and it was an hour & half from the city. There were so many disgruntled crewmembers that Production offered hotel rooms and to keep them on the clock for an hour & half after wrap. Usually it's one or the other. The next day, we were in NYC so the union rep came down (not our VP, the Business Manager). So they capped it at 12 hours. But something changed midweek, I think the new Production Manager they hired helped because all of a sudden, my friend JW was able to make Producer decisions and could be more proactive instead of fighting fires all the time.

Anyway, we ended the short week with decent days. It was all driving shots and they wrapped us at 930pm today (Thursday), arriving back in the city at 1130p. And they are paying us for 4th July (8 hour day) which is customary but this Production was being a stickler about it earlier.

It seems like all we do is ask for money doesn't it? It's funny cos we make so much (comparatively) and yet all we ask for is more. But you have to realise it's more to prevent them from abusing us rather than actually earning more money. For example, we have to eat every 6 hours. If we don't break for a meal, we get a 'meal penalty' which varies from contract to contract. This low budget contract stipulates it is $7 every 15 minutes until we are fed for the first hour, then it's $8 every 15 minutes. The 4th hour gets ridiculously expensive and it's just so that Producers will break you. Otherwise, they would just keep on shooting.

Once we break for the 1st meal (called Lunch no matter what time it is) then we are cool for another 6 hours. After the next 6, we have to have a "second meal" This job has never had a second meal. Last week, we racked up over 40 meal penalties amounting to $700 (per person). it's ridiculous. I don't want to eat at 1 am anyway, so I don't care. But still...exorbitant punishment is meant to prevent abuse and not for us to capitalise (although we do too). On "Enchanted" we were shooting in Central Park and they didn't want to lose daylight so they delayed our lunch by 3 hours. Under that contract, after the 2nd hour, we get our hourly rate every half hour. So we were making lawyer rates after a while. But those situations are budgeted for - daylight is precious in the summertime and you have lots of extras and costumes etc so it's something that cannot be helped. On this job, it's just poor planning and lack of foresight.

Anyway, next week is only 2 days. One day is driving/stunt shots (a motorcycle fires at the RV) and the second day is going to be bad...2 day interiors and 2 nights exteriors. We barely eke out one night ext each time and they scheduled 2! But it would be the last day so I guess it's not a big deal. Then the production moves to LA and we get to move on.