WHAT WENT WRONG - Below The Line - Safety On Set (with Dave Chameides)

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

This week we are joined by friend of the pod, legendary steadiam operator, Dave Chameides, to talk about safety. Too often on this podcast we find ourselves discussing people being hurt or killed in situations that could have been avoided. In his extensive career, Dave has worked with the Local 600 Safety Committee to establish on-set safety guidelines and protocols that keep cast and crew safe. Join us for a discussion on what has been done, and the work that remains to be done to keep people safe while they make the films and TV shows we know and love.Check out Dave's podcast, The Op, for more on the art of camera operating and cinematography.Go Ad-Free - Join Our Patreon!Check Out Our Merch!Follow Us on Instagram!What Movie's Next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey listeners, thanks for checking out this great interview with Dave Kamite's Steadicam extraordinaire on the importance of onset safety. Before we begin, we do need to issue a quick correction. You may hear Dave mention the DGA pushing back against having onset safety officers during this interview. Dave misspoke, and what he meant to say was that he dealt with some directors pushing back against onset safety officers, not the DGA as an organization. More important, however, is that since the recording of this interview, the DGA has struck a new agreement with the AMPTP, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, in which a number of safety measures have been implemented. Specifically, safety training is being expanded for all DGA categories. Remember, the DGA covers not only directors,

but also unit production managers, assistant directors, and more. This includes a course specifically for new directors. A safety officer pilot program is also being introduced in New York and Georgia, adding to a program that was established in Sacramento for California earlier this year. This program would ensure safety officers are on set to conduct risk assessments, much like Dave talks about in this episode. Last but not least, live ammunition is now banned on set with limited exceptions. This last provision is very much a response to the tragic death of Helena Hutchins on the set of Rust in 2021. Thanks again for listening to this great interview on an extremely important topic. And with that, I give you Dave Kamides.

And welcome back for another episode of Below the Line with Chris and Lizzie, hitting below the belt with all the hard questions. Yes, we are here with Friend of the Pod, Dave Kamides, Steadycam operator, crazy stories from the West Wing. Check out our other episode with Dave on his incredible steadicam career. Lizzie, why don't you let our audience know what we're talking about with Dave today? Well, today, friends, we're talking about safety. We're talking about the thing that the kids love to talk about, which is how to be safe on set.

But it is actually, I mean, something that we're fascinated with and something that we talk about constantly on what went wrong. And Dave, you are a safety expert on set as far as I understand. So if you could talk a little bit about your background with safety on set and what it is that you do. Thank you. And thank you for doing this. Yeah, I'm definitely not a safety expert on set, but I've been involved in a lot of actually was for a while, the chair of the Local 600 Safety Committee. Local 600, by the way, for anybody not knowing, is the camera union, the Camera Guild. So it's like directors of photography, operators, assistants, et cetera. And we have had a safety push for a long time. So we have an app that we've created and created a number of videos and whatever. But, uh, You know, the thing is, anybody who's never worked on a set won't really understand that they have the potential to be the most unsafe places in the world. And I'm not talking about stunts. That's a whole other thing. I'm just talking about regular day-to-day stuff because there's equipment moving. There's, you know, we're using high, I mean, my dolly has a hydraulic, you know, arm on it that if you're not careful with, et cetera, et cetera. And nine times out of ten, the big thing that we've found is that most of the things that you run into that are problematic can actually be dealt with way, way before you ever get on set.

And that's the best way to do it, to have options to do it. I mean, I'll give you one example. I'm a camera operator. So we're always being put in all sorts of different places. And a couple of years ago, a friend of mine called me up. And he goes, I'm doing a shot in the front of a car today. and we're driving down a street, and it's a locked off street, whatever. And I'm leaning against the front of the, you know, the front dash.

And he goes, what happens if the airbag goes off? And I was like, oh, my God. And I said, I never thought about that. He goes, I didn't either. And then all of a sudden, I was like, those things are really hardcore. And I said, well, I don't know. And he goes, well, I think we should figure this out because this is not a good thing. So actually, I called up, you know, some of the upper ups at the union.

and I said to them, here's the deal. And I said, I want to grab some money and call one of these companies that does dummy tests and go down and put a camera on the shoulder of a dummy and blow the airbags and see what the hell happens. And that's exactly what we did. And we created a short video that's on the Local 600 safety page, which hopefully you guys can mention at the end. But anybody can Google Local 600 safety. It's outside of the firewall and get all the videos that we've done and see that. It's the kind of thing that if you show it to a producer, they can never put someone in that position again because of what happened. And we actually got an expert from USC who basically explained how bad it would be, not only for the operator, but for the actors as well.

But so there's a myriad of things. And truthfully, it's mundane and it's kind of boring and whatever. But the biggest thing that we all on every single set, on every single show, fight is exhaustion because we're sometimes working 12, 14. 14 hours a day. And the big thing that nobody thinks about is you can work a 10-hour day, but because of our shift changes, you could work like, you know, 8 to 6 and 8 to 6 and 8 to 6, and then you could come in at 6 o'clock and suddenly you're turning around. And people drive home tired and a number of people unfortunately have fallen asleep and been killed doing this. So we have programs for that, but it's just, it's this kind of, it's all about the number of hours that we

work, which is a real problem. That is, yeah, and that's something that I'm embarrassed to say had never occurred to me until someone pointed out to me the number of people that die because they crash going home. It's horrible. It is horrible. I mean, you've been on so many sets. What have you seen is sort of the kind of like red flags or telltale signs that maybe this is not a set

where safety is being considered. Like before you're in a situation where it's going to get bad, what are kind of the early signs? Well, I mean, you know, and I'm talking about union shows, which is what I work on, so I don't know about non-union shows. But, you know, the first idea is, I don't want to say the required, but it's become pretty standard for the first day to have a safety meeting first thing in the morning. And if they don't do that, that's problematic. If they don't care about the hours and they go, yeah, what are, you know. And because, like, we'll go up to them. We go, hey, man, it's 12 hours.

How long are we going today? Like, what's the deal? Because a lot of shows have gone. We're not working over 12 hours. And most people who are in the film industry hear that and they're like 12 hours. It's like, bizarrely, that's a short day for us. I mean, or not a short day. That's a good day.

You wrap out in 12 hours. That's great. And you had everything that you needed. But here's the dirty little secret about 12 hours. Okay. When I say 12 hours, I'm saying shooting 12 hours. So add in an hour lunch, you're talking about 13. hours. Adding the load in to where you are and the load out, my assistants have to go probably

half an hour on each side. So now you're at 14 hours. Let's look at hair and makeup and wardrobe. They're there three hours ahead at times sometimes. And they're there three hours afterwards. They'll sometimes work an 18 hour day. And people, there's all these. And you got, you know, you got Teamsters who were there at the trucker there in the morning and trucks are there in the morning and trucker at the night. There's just so many people. And it's just at the end of the day, it's unsafe. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, one of the things that we've tried to do quite often is we try not to talk about long hours, because anybody can go, well, I'll work long hours because I make more money. And it's like we try to make sure that people talk about them as unsafe hours because there are very few people who go, I want to work unsafe hours. But that's really what it is. And we have all sorts of band-aids for it. But, um, yeah, it's, it's a real problem. And then, you know, if I'm on a set, I'll usually, I'll usually sort of take the temperature of the first AD, when I get there and sort of, you know, try to talk to them about different things. And before I even start, I will usually send an email out with that video that I mentioned

in a couple other videos and go, hey, I just want to let you know about this. We're all on the same page. And if there's any driving stuff, if there's this and out of the other. And then, of course, unfortunately, after last year, you know, there's a whole new thing on using guns on set, of course. Yep. Two years ago now, I think, actually. And to really quickly to clarify, this was the filming of the movie Rust, which

Alec Baldwin was the lead actor in who fired a gun. It was supposed to be loaded with not loaded or loaded with a blank. It's supposed to be loaded with a dummy round, actually. A dummy round. Yeah. And the bullet fragments struck and killed the cinematographer, Helena Hutchins. Yes, and injured the director as well. And we actually immediately made, and it's also on that page, a video with Larry Zanov,

who's one of the top armors in the business explaining. Because what I did do was I said, look, I'm like a dyed-in-the-wall liberal who doesn't like guns. And I work around them all the time. I honestly don't know what I'm – I mean, I sort of know. Over the years, I've picked it up, but nobody's ever sat down and said, this is what you want to check for. And so we made a video, and I said, I want you to make a video for an idiot on set to know, A, what they should be checking, you know, what they're seeing and what they're hearing and whatever. And also, the bigger thing to me is, is what to look for to know if the armor knows what they're doing. Like, what are the red flags for that?

And so, you know, one of the things that he told me about, which I never thought of, was there has to be a chain of custody for the weapons. Because either the weapon is locked up, it's in the hand of the actor or it's in the hand of the armor. I mean, another thing is, at the beginning, I sort of, you know, ignorantly was saying, like, well, how many armors do you need if you have 20 guns? And how many, what if you have 30 guns? And he said, well, it's a ridiculous question because the thing about it is there has to be an armor to step in at any moment and grab a gun that's misfiring or something like that. So if you have five guns, but they're all standing next to each other, you could theoretically have one or maybe two armors. But if you have a gun here and a gun on a rooftop and a gun on a rooftop, you immediately have to have three armors. So there were all sorts of things, you know, like that.

And unfortunately, you know, the tragic death of Helena Hutchins kind of was. a wake-up call, I actually, six months prior to that, shot a gun scene in that exact same church on that exact same property. Wow. But our set was run like clockwork with the weapons. It was a movie called The Harder They Fall as a Western. And just at the very beginning, our first AD, and you were asking, this is a perfect example. Our first AD, I remember, said, look, we're going to have a lot of gunfire on this show.

And what I want to say is this, every time a gun comes out, every time a gun comes out, everybody slows down. I don't care if we don't make our day. I don't care what happens. We're going to be safe. We're going to do this right. And I don't know how many thousands of rounds we fired off on that show. And there was not a single person hurt because we did it correctly. And the reality is hopefully nobody will ever die that way again on a set because the chances of getting shot on a set are minuscule because there are safety precautions in place. And unfortunately, they weren't followed there. But next year, I don't know how many people are going to die driving home after a long day and fall asleep. And to that point as well, you know, you're talking about,

like, what are the sort of cues to look for? You mentioned one of the first things being if they're not respecting your time, if they're not respecting the long hours. And my understanding is that that was very much the case on that set, too. So I guess an important thing, and this goes for everything, I feel like, but what I'm hearing from you is sort of like, if you see one thing, pay attention because things will snowball particularly on a set. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, you need to speak up. And what I always tell my crews now, I've been doing this for 33 years, is I go, look, when I was a year or two in the business, I didn't want to speak up because I didn't want to be the troublemaker. And I always tell them, I've been in this for 33 years, but I'm in there

with the camera. And I have the tendency to go, let me get a little closer to the edge because I want that shot and I'm not thinking the way that you're thinking standing back 20 feet for me. So number one, if you see something, I need you to speak up. And number two is, if you're afraid of repercussions, tell me and if I feel that it's valid, I will speak up on your behalf without your name. I don't care. And the other thing is, you can tell pretty quickly if an AD will say at the beginning, if there's a safety problem, I want to hear about it. You know, if they set that up, and they got obviously follow through on it. But if they set that up, you know, that's an important thing. But one of the reasons why I love your podcast, besides the fact that

it's fantastic, is you guys will actually, I remember on the Revenant, you were talking about how cold it was. And one of you was like, yeah, well, what about the crew? And it's just like, yeah, what about the crew? And they got put through the ring around that show, I know. But, you know, the thing is everybody always wants answers, right? And the problem is, our business, one day we're doing this thing and one day we're doing that thing. And one day were on a building and one day we're underground and there's just so many things. And first of all, to have, to have the idea that one person or two people are in charge of safety on a set who are doing a full another job, like an AD, like a key grip, those are usually the two

people that people think about. It's sort of ridiculous, right? Because it's like, yeah, the AD has nothing else to do. So he can look at it, you know, the key group doesn't have, so she can look at this. So it's just, you know, they've got a, full job to do. So, I mean, the answer, which is, which is being talked about, and they're talking about legislation, is doing what they do in Australia, which is to have dedicated safety officers on set, to have the studios and production companies, whatever, pay a small percentage or I don't know how they do it, into some fund that pays these people, so they're autonomous, so that they can literally say, those cables over there need to be covered, no, I don't want to do it. I'm shutting this

down. And they have the ability to do that. And they have to be enabled with the authority because that's the key is. They have to have autonomy and authority. And the thing is, there's a lot of pushback from the Directors Guild because, you know, there are a lot of people who say, well, I don't want to be told what to do. And I totally understand that. But at the same time, if we know that we're doing something. I don't.

No, no, no. I, let me put, let me, let me rephrase that because you're absolutely right. I'm not saying I understand them saying I don't want to be told not to do something that's unsafe. I think their concern is I don't want to give authority of my set to someone else and it being abused or whatever. But at the same time, I always say, yeah, but if we're doing a shot and we point out that it's unsafe, then we're not going to do that shot. So this is just someone whose job it is to do that. But the bigger thing, and I've actually pitched this to a couple of people, and I'd love to see it get out there more, is you've got a script. there are people out there who work for insurance companies whose job it is is to do risk assessment.

You could hire those people, and you could hire them on a one-off basis to read the script, and with each scene go one to ten, and one to five is like, yeah, there's not too much here, and five to ten is like, hey, there's something serious. And you number each scene, and they read every rewrite, and then you can go through the script and go, okay, we got a six here. What's the, oh, okay, we got a lion, okay, how we do we do. dealing with the lion or whatever. And then you deal with it all in prep because the thing with me that always drives me nuts is when it gets to the point where I'm on a dolly and my dolly goes behind me

and a boom guy's next to me and the assistants there and whoever, whatever, and we're being asked to do something unsafe. I have to look at a director and say, I know this is what you want, but we can't do it. And to me, that is the single worst thing because my job is to give the director exactly what they want. And what I always think at those points, and they're very rare, because usually what you do is you go, we can't do it this way, but we can do it this way. But if we could have talked about this a week ago and seen it ahead of time, then we would have gone, okay, there's going to be a problem with this. Here are the hurdles. How do you still want to tell your story as best you can without putting us in jeopardy? Because I don't really think anybody wants to put us in jeopardy. There are probably

two producers out there who would like to put me in jeopardy, but that's a different thing. But it's that they don't have any choices at that point because you're on the date. Do you know what I'm saying? So, yeah, well, the risk assessment, actually, the actuarial approach that you're discussing, right, where you're going, that's, that actually is exactly how you budget a movie, by the way, and schedule a movie, which is you go through it and the line producer says, well, this scene alone is costing us X, and you, as the director, it's your job to go in and say, Well, no, actually, I wasn't envisioning a real lion. It was going to be a puppet, you know, for one shot. Oh, no, that seems far less expensive.

And it would be the same conversation of, oh, that seems far less dangerous. So we effectively have that system already in place. So it's an augmentation of an existing process, which is great. I love this idea. I think it's talk to everyone out there about it because. Well, we are. What's funny is we all, there's a movie I'm working on right now that I'm in that process on the budgeting side. and we're actually doing the same thing.

We actually just removed all the guns. It's a vampire horror film. It's like a comedy movie. And we had actually pulled the guns after there were not very many, but there were a few. But we've been now going through the scenes in a very detailed level with the stunt work that we're doing. And it's the same. It's a, it is not exactly what you're talking about. But it's like one permutation away from being what you're saying, which would be extremely helpful.

And again, to your point of the safety regulators, I think. think to draw in all of these elements that you're talking about, Dave, and tell me where I'm getting this wrong, but in my mind, all of this comes down to time is the elusive, precious resource that you have on set. Studios don't want to give you more because it's expensive, because what everybody thinks is expensive on movie sets or the sets or the special effects or the CGI, what's expensive is labor. You have hundreds of people working. and not getting paid some obscene amount of money. It's just that when you start stacking up hundreds of people every single day,

it gets very expensive. Your run rate's very high. And it's very easy to simply, and the problem is you have a subset of people like yourself, Dave, who once you put them in the job, they're actually willing to put themselves at risk to give you the best version of this movie or story possible. So the incentives are so perverse.

Your employer has every reason to say, well, I'm going to shorten the time because I know you're going to kill yourself. That's exactly right. To try to deliver this movie for me. And that's why you need an independent arbiter of some kind. That's exactly right. To exist as a friction in that system. Well, and the reality is like we are our own worst enemies because what happens is they constantly

hand us these impossible tasks and we somehow pull them off. So next time they go, well, that was easy. We'll just do that again. And it's like you don't know what was involved in that. So, you know, there's that. And then there's the other thing is like you said, And I mean, I hate to say it, but it's a reality. We will put ourselves in harm's way only to a point, but we'll do things that maybe probably

aren't that smart, like working 14 hours a day because we love what we do and we want to be the best of what we do. And we don't ever want to say, we can't do this, do you know? There's a lot of pride in that. And there's a lot of sort of like, I mean, there's a little bit of bravado, I guess, or whatever. But there's just like, you know, the ability to say, like, no, we pulled that off. but it's a double-edged short, right?

So, I mean, some of the things that I would just say to the people who are listening are check out the Local 600 safety page, which is if you just Google Local 600 safety, it'll come up the page. And it's got a ton of stuff on it. One of the big things that we worked on that's on there is the, is the, I'm saying it wrong, but it's the crew bill of rights. It's basically how to discuss safety issues. And one of the keywords that I usually use when we're not getting, you know, we'll bring something up quiet. Hey, this is a problem. And if nobody's listening, I'll just look at them and go, look, here's the big concern. Number one, I'm concerned for the safety of my fellow workers and myself. If you just say yourself, you're actually closing yourself off to OSHA problems down the lower. If you say if you're worried about everybody or any number of people, it's a different thing.

And then also you just show you, I think you guys are putting yourself in a position of liability. we do this. And then suddenly... That's the one that people perk up at. It's literally like there are times where I want to get on set and just scream, liability. Like, see what happens. Because the second you said that, people go, whoa, wait, wait a minute. We don't want to put ourselves in a liability, you know? And for someone who doesn't know, like, you know, being a, particularly being a young person on a set, I think, there's, it can be hard to know sort of what the resources are and also like what the chain of command is. So if someone is on set and doesn't know who to talk to or who to say, like, this looks like a liability, or, you know, I think everyone is unsafe.

Like, what are sort of the steps they need to take? Who do they go to first? And how does that get handled? I mean, assuming that they're, assuming that they are comfortable with it, they should go to the first AD. If they're not comfortable with it, they should go to their department head. So, like, a camera assistant can come to either the director of photography or the camera operator director of photography is ahead of our department. Like, you know, a grip could go to the key grip, a electrician, go to the gaffer, whoever the head of their department is, which probably is a better way to go. But, you know, sometimes the thing is you will go to those people and they'll go, ah, it's no problem. And then you're like, well, what do I do now? And it's, and here's

the thing that I always tell people is there are times when you're going to have to make a decision. And it's not going to be an easy decision. But if you are certain that there's a real problem going on, you may have to do something that will jeopardize your job. But it's going to be a lot better than calling someone's better half, loved one, whatever, and saying I was there and this is what happened. And usually when I explain that to people, something kicks in because it's like you're not going to carry that lost job with you for the rest of your life, but you're going to carry with you. I could have stopped that and I didn't. And I mean, I've been in some very close calls because I was young and stupid and was doing

things that I shouldn't have done. And I've been lucky enough to, you know, have gotten through those things. But sometimes it's not even that. There was a show, I don't remember what show it was, but a DP was telling me that they had a shot where a camera was in front of a car and the car was supposed to pull right up to the camera and stop. And did it, no problem. And the guy didn't get out of the car and they opened the car and he had had a heart attack. And if it had happened five seconds earlier, it would have taken that camera up here. So when we do a shot like that out now, I always go, look, it's got to be a lockoff or we do it with a remote head, which we usually have. Now, there are like six different ways to do that shot now where I'm not standing there.

And people are, wow, what do you? What do you know? Thankfully, we've gotten a little bit past this whole. Oh, what are you chicken? And it's just like, and I used to go, yeah, I'm completely chicken. I'm fine with that. Like, I don't really need you to be impressed with me, but I do need to go home tonight and see my kids. So, you know, and now I'm at the point where I'm like, look, if you want to fire me, you can fire me.

But we can't do this shot this way. here are three other ways we can do the shot. And the reason we can't do exactly what you want is because nobody talked about this ahead of time. And had I been there, I would have. And I'm sorry, but, you know, this is something that we have to deal with. We can't ignore it, you know. Let's say, like, in a worst case scenario, someone goes to their department head and then they go to what department head says, it's fine. They go to the first AD, first AD says not a big deal. At that point, are they done? Or like, is there? there another resource they can go to? At that point, at that point, you can call your union and get a union rep in there.

And I mean, look, I can't speak for every union. Local 600 is very good. We actually create an app that you can actually report these things on. And I've had people call up production and go, hey, I'm hearing from set right now that this is going on. I'm coming down there. You guys need to stop. And they won't necessarily make them stop. But that let's see at that end, by the way, I guarantee you they use the word liability. But at that point, the producers are going, well, what's going on it? We got. Okay, everybody's got what's happening and everything slows down. Because the key to 90% of this is just to stop the train long enough for everybody to take a breath and go, okay, what are we doing here? Yeah. You know, and that's why, by the way, I, the email that I usually said to my cruise ahead of time is I go, look, I've been doing this a long time and people seem to think that I have some special knowledge of safety. I really don't. I just have been doing this long enough that I know what to look for. I know what the signs are. And that said, I can do really stupid stuff just because my head is so in the shot. So I need you to keep an eye on me just like I'm going to keep an eye on you. And I mean, you know, it's it's unfortunately not enough. But anytime we're on a split or in a late night, our crew or at least the camera crew will check in with every single person and say, are you okay to drive home? Of course, everybody says yes, because we all want to sleep on our own things.

But there have been twice where I've taken people aside and said, you are not okay to drive home, you're getting a hotel room. Because production will do that a lot of times, et cetera, et cetera. And you have to fight with them because everybody thinks they're okay until they're not. There's also on the way on the safety page, there's another really good video that my friend John Lindley made on unsafe hours that talks to people who have driven home.

And it's always, I was 10 blocks from home and then I woke up, you know. And it's just, it's horrible. And the reason why he's so invested in it is because he was on, He was a DP unpleasant bill, and his assistant, Brent Hirschman, went home after a 19-hour day, drove home. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, he was going home for his daughter's birthday. And he was killed in a car accident. And John has never been the same since.

And he's fought long hours, unsafe hours, I should say, more than anybody else that I know. And it's a personal, you know, crusade for him. And we've made, we've gotten better turnaround. we've gotten like weekend turnarounds. They're starting to come back around, but it's still not enough. And to clarify, just so the audience understands, turnaround refers to the duration of time

that needs to be given between the wrap of one day and the call time, so when you're supposed to be on set for your next day. Exactly. But to be clear, the turnaround time is not universal for all crew and cast. And so what's interesting is that, for some crew, your turnaround time can be very short, you know, sub eight hours in certain

instances sometimes. It's insane. And then, but for key cast members, you can't force, unless you force them, you can't turn someone around shorter than, you know, 12 hours in some instances for your top-billed cast. So film is still very hierarchical. And even though progress has been made with some, you know, specific groups, you know, on set, It's not been done. There needs to be a more universal approach.

And again, what Dave mentioned is the part of the issue that we run into is the staggering effect of, well, if you want to start at nine, we got to get load in at four. The Teamsters got to get going at 3.30 and hair and makeup is going to come in at 5.30. And so it's, it's, excuse me, complicated logistically, but it's just not worth it to risk anybody's life to make a movie. Yeah, and I don't think anybody goes into it going, if we lose a couple of people, it'll be all right, because people just assume it's not going to happen. And you're right about the difference in turn around with different people.

But the thing is, as an operator, I get, depending on location and this and that, the other, I think I get 11 hours now. Now, my assistants, I think generally get 10. But the thing is, they can come in a little bit before me, but there's no way that they can come in that much before me because there's nothing to be done. And then the big thing in that I always respect is I respect the actors who go, I'm not going to wave my turnaround because this crew needs rest. We're not going to do that. Yes. Well, that's a good thing. So the studio will oftentimes push an actor to wave their turnaround. And they'll just say, fuck you, because they're the one person that can on set. But I've had them go, no, we're not doing this. This crew is tired. We're going home.

And we're getting some sleep. Usually they're executive producer actors. But I have great respect for those people because they look at. around and people are just, you know, fallen asleep. I mean, uh, I'm not going to say what show, but there was a big show that I did where our final day was a sixth day and, uh, it was a 15-hour day. And by the time that we finished as the sun was coming up, there were people who were falling over in their chairs because they were falling asleep. And I had to be doing some massive shot. And, you know, and it's just, you're just, you're just, you're not firing at all cylinders. You're just, there's no way. There's no way. I mean, I think the end of that week, I, I probably, I must have

worked a 70, 75-hour week that week, you know. And when I was 20, I could do that. I'm 53 now. It doesn't work as well. And I get really angry. So most people try not to make that happen with me. Also, I mean, you're not going to get the highest quality product if people are falling asleep in their chairs. Thank you. Well, yeah, John, John Lindley, the gentleman I told you, always says to me, show me one other industry in the world, well, they'll pay you twice as much money because we're on overtime to get half the quality of work. And he's right. And it's, and it gets exponential. And I've had people go, you know, I mean, it hasn't happened in a long time, but like in the 15th and 16th hour, it's like, why can't you nail this shot? And I look at them and I go, because I've been working

for 15 hours. And, you know, I look at him and I go, anybody else who's putting on a 50 pound study cam, feel free to step up here, but I'm pretty tired, you know. And, you know, it's just, it's the reality of this business. But, you know, we try to, we try to limit it. And, especially as a union, every time we renegotiate our contracts, we try to get a little better and a little better with the hours. But it's a really tough thing. The one thing that I've heard in the past, you know, there's been this, you've probably heard of this 12 on, 12 off thing where it's like, we should work for 12 and we should have 12 hours off. And personally, I still think that's too much, but that's another story. I agree. And the thing is, that's not that much. No, it isn't. And I mean, that's how brainwashed we are, the people are, the people are like 12 hours. That'd be great.

And one of the weird things is, is I've worked on shows where it's a 10-hour day and that's it. And especially after COVID, you know, there was a 10-hour day for a while. But then there were people who were complaining that they weren't getting the overtime and they were making enough money. So there's a delicate balance. But the one that I've heard that makes the most sense to me is hours worked equals hours off. And so if you work an 11-hour day, you have to have 11 hours. I think actually the thing was if you, it has to be minimum of 12 hours. But so if something happens where you have to work a 16-hour day, then you get 16 hours off.

And obviously, you'd have to have weekend turnaround so they didn't mess with that. But if on Monday you work 16 hours, then by Tuesday you're coming in 16 hours later. And by Wednesday, it just screws everything. So there's a built-in mechanism for making sure that you don't mess that up. But I don't know what the magic answer is. I mean, I think the reality is there are many shows that I've worked on where they've done. just going, we don't need as much coverage as we're getting. We can do this in 10, 11 hours. And there's a mandate to the directors to not get every single shot. Yeah, it's a reconceptualization

of what your movie is going to be. And that could be on a big movie, a studio saying, well, I'm reconceptualizing how much it's going to cost and we're going to spend more money and get more days because you have the resources. Or if you're on a small movie, it's going to be, hey, guess what? We're doing that organic why that Dave suggested by. putting the camera in the corner. And you have to make a sacrifice at one end or the other. There's that triangle of cheap, fast, and good pick two. And you can't, you know, you can't square that. And it isn't always even a sacrifice. I mean, sometimes being limited that way makes you think smarter and go, oh, I found a much better way to tell this story, you know. So, so, you know,

and there's this, and I will say, especially in TV, now that writers have become executive producers, you've got the director going, I want this. And the writer's going, but let's get that. and that too because I really like that. And they're executive producers. So it's like suddenly you're shooting several shots. And I mean, I'll tell you on Ozark, Jason Bateman was our executive producer showrunner. And there are times where he'd come up and be like, no, no, no, you don't need a shot back on me. Everybody knows what I look like. It's one line. It'll be fine. I'm the one who's doing the final gun anyway. Trust me. You don't need this. Let's move on. And to have someone in that seat who knows that much, it makes a big difference and it moves things along. So, you know, sometimes

you need that. Well, Dave, thank you very, very much for joining us. If I've learned one thing today, it's that I absolutely could not hold a 40 to 50 pound weight for 14 to 16 hours, so God bless you. I'll tell you, by the way, on the movie Psychocop Returns, which I'm sure both of you saw and enjoyed, if you didn't, you probably should. Of course, you probably have a poster somewhere there in the room. I had a Panavision camera that was too heavy for the rig, so the whole thing probably wait about about 65 pounds. And I remember I fell asleep leaning against a wall, holding the camera in between takes. And the only way that I knew was I started to slide and my assistant slammed me back against the wall. But I was like 21 and I remember thinking, this is amazing.

Only when you're 21. Oh, how stupid we are. Yeah. Truly. Well, thank you again. This was really insightful. And I think honestly, like so helpful. I hope that people listen of this and understand what they should be looking for, who they should be talking to, how to advocate for themselves. So thank you very, very much for everything that you're doing. Thank you. By the way, I totally appreciate you guys taking the time to make this part of this because it's so important. And if no other reason, maybe more crew members will come and listen to your podcast, as they should, because it's hands down the best podcasts in the world. Even better on take two.

Guys, please, you can also go check out ICG600.com slash safety for more information that Dave talked about, including the Safety Bill of Rights. And a lot of, you know, I think the landscape is going to change in the next few years. We're going to, we're going into another writer's strike now. And I'm hopeful that things are going to start to shift in more positive directions in terms of safety and equity and whatnot. But in the meantime, I think the best thing that we, all of us that work on film sets can do is be the, no matter what our role is on the film, be the eyes and ears of those around you, as Dave mentioned, because there are people doing jobs on set who are unable to watch themselves, obviously. And so it is up to their co-workers. And that could be you or me or any number of people out there to keep an eye out and make sure things are always above board. But Dave, thank you again for coming on our show.

We deeply appreciate it. And guys, I know you don't believe us. So listen to Dave when he says that this is hands down with the best podcast out there. Well, also listen to Dave when he says, get care of yourself. But mostly for his podcast recommendations. Guys, thank you so much for listening. Thank you to our patrons. Until next time, it has been What Went Wrong.

Bye. Go to patreon.com slash what went wrong podcast to support what went wrong and gain access to bonus episodes, video content, and more. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast, presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Editing and music by David Bowman with cover art from Uthana UOS.