Drawing the line on workshop time: Art department and Post-production case study
In any other industry, people working in the art department or in post-production editing roles would be based on the standard eight-hour day that strikes the right balance between productivity and quality. However, many Bectu members have remarked upon a toxic culture in the industry where workers are expected to put their work ahead of every other aspect of their lives.
‘Some people live the film life – they don’t have kids and can be very obsessed and they are allowed – even encouraged to set the pace for everyone else. But nurseries and after-school clubs close at 6pm and if a couple both work in the industry, one of them has to leave it when they have children.
‘Work always ends up going home with you – you need to do a lot of planning outside of your formal working hours. You are not just working when you’re at work – you take your laptop home and often have to keep working from home.’
This toxic working-hours culture in the film industry insists on perverse working practices. As a result, lots of draughtspeople will be working for long days in a room, doing 2D and 3D modelling. During ‘crunch points’ that can last a week or two, picture and sound editors can be work can be working up to 14 hours a day with few breaks or even the opportunity to get up and walk around.
Outside of those intense periods, a picture editor can be working a 9am-6pm day with an hour for lunch, and this pattern is seen as being one that is manageable. For sound editors, the day is more likely to be longer and will usually end at 7pm (a ‘nine-plus-one’), but in many cases, productions can insist on the shooting-crew contracted hours which effectively means working at least two further hours. When this happens, the day is still paid at the same rate as one where a nine-plus-one day was worked.
For both editors and art department teams, it is exhausting high-intensity concentrated work that – if managed poorly – is antithetical to both creativity and productivity. This department make the same observations that other ‘workshop hours’ departments do. As one member put it:
‘There are no “forced breaks” that on-set workers experience where people can stop and gather their thoughts while things are being set up. It’s relentless, it goes on for months on end. On a big budget film, draughtspeople tend to start at 8am finish at about 6pm (so nine-plus-one) though art department assistants, co-ordinators and runners will be there before and after that time.
‘There is an expectation that they are there before and after – and they won’t be getting overtime. They are expected to be there right to the end of the day. There are some in management who also do lots of emailing at weekend with onerous lists that need to be addressed before the Monday.’
A sound editor told Bectu:
‘The job involves thousands of decisions each day. You can’t just stop, walk around and gather your thoughts. It can be very intense and very stressed. To manage this, we need to be able to work a structured day that isn’t any longer than 9am-6pm, and it needs to be a working schedule that allows for regular breaks, but the reality is that we often just can’t take those breaks – they get wiped out by the demands of the production – by deadlines that often feel unachievable.’
Picture editors set the pace for their teams. They are in charge of the of their own time, and it is up to them to ensure that it is manageable, but assistants aren’t able to do this. If an editor is working from 9am to 6pm, assistants are often needed to arrive before and leave after the editor to make sure that the edit suite is ready for use. A picture editor told Bectu:
‘The reason that we want to get rid of the “departmental norms” and have this managed by the industry agreements is that having assistant editors signed up to standard 10- or 11-hour industry agreements effectively allows an editor prerogatives to insist on days that can last 12 hours without having to pay any more than they would for a sensible day. It legitimises bullying, poor planning and bad scheduling.’
For editors, the daily commute is somewhat different to the experiences of other ‘workshop hours’ departments. In many cases, the work is done within a few streets in Soho, so unlike those who are expected to hop between different studios all over the M25, it is possible for people to choose an optimal place to live, and to travel on public transport. However, larger-budget productions sometimes need picture editors to be based at the studio for periods of time working in a team.
Job-sharing and other flexible working options could help to solve some of the long-hours problems. As one senior editor put it:
‘The key point is that lots of people can’t contribute their experience and talent to the industry because of the default position of long-hours working. Anything more than an 8+1 day makes it impossible for many people to work in the industry and balance their family responsibilities and commitments. Our priority should be to put a hard stop on the end of the working day and not have contracts that give productions a free contingency that they can just dip into at will.
‘If our industry could do more to remodel itself around job-sharing, it could provide part of the solution.
‘It would be easy to get assistants to do job-sharing and flexible working if the incentives were there. There are practical problems that would get in the way of senior editors doing this, but some productions have found ways around this. This is going to have to be something that we address because the direction of travel is towards a much more high-intensity editing standard. Take a film like Baby Driver – it would have been almost impossible for that to be done by one editor and the director had to share the work out. I understand how hard it is to direct this – directors don’t always have the grammar needed to describe what they want to the editors, and this in turn makes it harder for editors to share their work out. It makes the personal relationships with the director very important.
‘But it’s possible, and it’s something we need to resolve as a craft in the way that other creative professions do. If we could sort out this issue of allowing flexible working out, it would transform the industry. There are so many people in this boat. So many good people – especially women – leave the industry because they can’t reconcile it with their need for a work-life balance. This is a problem that the whole industry needs to think through.’[i]
Other members raise the matter of work-life balance and their own mental health:
‘Working as a flexible job-share mum, I can start work at 9am and finish at 5pm but there’s a long commute and I have to be up at 6am to get the kids ready for school/childcare. Not having time to look after your kids damages your wellbeing and is passed on to your working life – no time allowance to look after your social life.
‘Also, people working very long hours can’t make the kind of ethical changes to their working practices that they like to make – to promote sustainability and environmental concerns – it’s even bad for the planet!’