Yesterday Mona Benjamin, MMF Secretary, gave a pertinent speech on behalf of the Foundation. The speech called for an end to the culture of long hours to protect crew well-being and ensure a sustainable future. Speech is below:
Focus talk, 10 x minutes, 10th December 2024 at 12 noon
“The industry would be a better place if…we weren’t still talking about hours.”
A few years ago, a friend and I went to a talk given by Matthew Walker, a scientist and professor of neuroscience and psychology, whose work focuses on the science of sleep and its impact – or rather, the lack of it — on mental and physical health.
Afterwards, my friend and I were thinking the same thing — trying to work out how far we’d travelled past what Walker considers the point of no return: that period in one’s life when, after a certain amount of sleep deprivation has accrued, the body and mind will never fully recover.
My friend and I said our goodbyes, but at home that night, I thought of her. I thought of myself too, and of the many friends and colleagues I’d worked with over the years: the editor on one job who told me that he didn’t think he’d yet recovered from the lack of sleep on his previous film – which had wrapped more than a year beforehand. The location manager, who while preparing boards for the next day’s recces, was jerked awake in the middle of the night, photos stuck to his face, by someone in the hotel room next door, thumping on the wall about the loud volume on the TV: the volume he’d turned all the way up to try and keep himself awake.
Then there was the friend who one night, was pulled over by the police on her way home and breathalysed. They were convinced that no one could be driving that way, that late, after “just” a day at work and that she had to be over the limit.
On one of my hardest jobs, we clocked up 93 to 97-hour weeks — for five months. And we weren’t even doing the longest hours: that honour went to Locations, who I think were grabbing 3 to 4 hours’ sleep a night. As we lurched towards wrap, my vision began to blur and a time lag set in between a thought forming and my being able to vocalise that thought. Much later, the friend on the job with me confessed that towards the end, she’d started hearing voices in her head. When I asked her why she hadn’t said anything to me at the time, she replied “I was afraid that you would send me home.”
It’s been a while since I’ve been in the production office, but all of what I’ve just described could easily have taken place last week, or this week, and might even be happening on a production somewhere, right now.
It’s astonishing to think that as little as six years ago, Walker’s conclusions on sleep were seen as groundbreaking, showing definitively the detrimental effects of inadequate rest.
So, my question today is not: how did we get here? But rather, what are we still doing here?
A lot has changed. Although the major reckoning that many thought would follow lockdown didn’t quite happen, we do have Covid to thank for helping to break the silence around so many issues, like mental and physical health, financial stress and the elusive work-life balance — but there’s still a lot to be done.
It’s no secret that there are recurring themes that crop up around the issue of working hours.
A big one is the fear of speaking up. When so many are worrying about their next job before they’ve even finished the one they’re on, there is a strong reluctance to be seen as a troublemaker. When we’re overtired, we don’t just put ourselves in danger; others around us are also at risk. Crew need to be able to speak up without worrying that doing so might affect the way they’re treated on the job or worse, jeopardise future employment.
Everyone knows that there are days — and nights — when all you can do is throw as many hours as you can at the problem and hope you get through the day; but the standard working days are already long enough, and when these extra hours become the norm; when overtime is knowingly, regularly, scheduled, something’s gone awry.
We have agreements that all parties work so hard to hammer out, but with no real cap to the number of hours crew can work, and no system in place for giving them an opportunity to recover from those extra hours, a crew’s diligence and willingness to drive the schedule forward can easily be exploited. Anxiety around job insecurity leaves crew vulnerable to punishing schedules when they feel they have no choice but to take what they can get.
Working in Film and TV is hard. It’s also amazing. A strong work ethic is a given. Everyone turns up because they want to there. Crew don’t need to be continually tested and pushed to their limits to deliver. Overtime needs to be the exception, not the rule. Turnaround times are there for a reason and they need to be respected – for everyone. By “everyone”, I mean those crew who aren’t on set and whose long hours are often dismissed or simply forgotten. I can’t tell you how many times, when I was working, extended hours were only regarded as “real” if they were worked on set.
And it’s not just the turnaround time that’s become problematic; the mandatory breaks set out in the agreements also seem to get conveniently “forgotten” – we’ve heard from too many crew who aren’t even aware that they are entitled to them.
Everyone, from producers to line producers and UPMs, from 1st ADs to HODs, need to prioritise communication, with each other and crucially, within their own departments. When a crew feels heard, the production becomes stronger. An HOD’s responsibilities are about more than creative excellence and a line in the budget.
Here’s just one example of what I mean. An old friend, on her first feature, many years ago, was forced to work such long days that she kept a washbag and change of clothing on her and slept in her car in the studio car park. For this to have happened, Someone either didn’t notice, or Someone didn’t care. Which of those two ‘Someones’ do you think is the better HOD?
You know that I can’t talk about long hours without bringing up the dreaded travel times, which no one can pretend are improving, particularly with the studio expansions of the last decade. If nothing can be done about the time it takes to travel to and from work each day, these hours cannot continue to be ignored.
88% of respondents to Bectu’s Eyes Half Shut survey from 2017 reported that they had, at some point, felt unsafe at work, or when travelling to and from work, because of tiredness.
Fast forward to a joint survey the Foundation conducted with Bectu last year, where 77.2% of respondents agreed with the statement: “I am sometimes so tired that I am concerned about my safety on the road travelling to and from work, and/or the possibility that I will work in an unsafe way.”
These statistics are grim and they are NOT okay. It’s time to move away from the entrenched “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” attitude taken towards travel times. If someone is driving to work exhausted, how can they be alert, efficient – and safe — when they arrive?
Travel times can’t go on being treated as irrelevant to schedules.
Long hours have for too long been regarded as a badge of honour, a rite of passage. A cultural shift is needed. This was one of the driving forces behind the Foundation’s own Health & Safety course: to educate, and to create awareness around minimum standards of safety that crew should be able to expect when stepping onto a set each day, and in so doing, empower themselves, and others.
But a cultural shift isn’t quite enough: structural change is needed. Working in this industry is a privilege and a joy, but it’s still a job, not a lifestyle. No one wants to think about budgets having to go up, or aspirations having to come down, but let’s not pretend that this isn’t an industry already in crisis. And the toll that long hours take will, in the long-term, have a further negative impact. Not to mention the human element that goes unseen: mental health issues, ill-health and sickness later in life, the result of years of industry burnout.
Everyone will know what I mean when I say that you cannot really learn how to do your job, whatever the department, anywhere other than on the ground. Reading about film will not teach you how to work on a film; watching a film will not teach you how to work on a film. You can only learn by doing, in the same way that reading a book about driving or watching a video about swimming won’t teach you either of those skills. You have to get in a car, your body has to enter the water.
And it’s my hope that all the trainees we mentor at the Foundation are able to learn, just as I was, from the very best. But for this to happen, you have to stay in the industry long enough to become your best, and then long enough again to pass the best of what you’ve learnt onto others.
What does it say about a profession when stamina is prioritised over expertise and experience? When the desire to please and impress at work becomes more important than one’s own wellbeing, and where, in the worst cases, gruelling hours are used to measure the quality of someone’s dedication?
Film & TV’s renowned for being at the forefront when it comes to the technical side of things; not so much when it comes to the human side. It’s time to stop “opting out” of the human element and for everyone to work together towards a healthier, more flexible environment. This is a huge challenge but stronger, safer working practices have been shown to lead to higher-quality productivity in the long-term. And it has been done; there are precedents; it’s not “impossible”.
And this isn’t all about “The Crew”. The issue of hours goes to the heart of the industry and the bigger question of sustainability. Where is the industry headed if it insists on continually working crew to the point of burnout? We know that people are leaving at an unprecedented rate, for a myriad of reasons. What’s left when crew are forced to walk away — whether through lack of employment, long hours that simply become unworkable , illness, injury, burnout or a combination of all these factors – and they take all their years of experience with them? Who will be left to pass on the torch? And when so many young people today view these hours as an obstacle to a long-term career, who will be left to carry the flame?
To those who cling to the belief that “This is how it’s always been, crew need to stop whining, be grateful and get on with it”, I say: wake up. Yes, this industry is unique, and extraordinary. I can’t think of any other profession I would have wanted to be in. But it’s a living, not a life. It’s not worth giving up your days, your nights, your health, your family, your friends, or your own life, for. Ever.
