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Stop the Madness


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post-1358-0-76131900-1405027287_thumb.jpStop the Madness

A couple of weeks ago I wrapped a week of reshoots on a Saturday morning.

We started at 4pm Friday afternoon and went all night and shot a day scene on Saturday and finished around 8 am. This was after a week that started at 6 am Monday, you all know what I’m talking about. I loaded my gear in my truck and headed back to Santa Fe from the San Cristobal ranch. Not a long drive but there is one long open empty straightaway. In my drowsy state I noticed a car about 100 yards ahead of me suddenly go airborne. In my slow reacting mind I thought thats wierd why is that car flying. Then it flipped and came down on its roof with more force than any stunt I’ve ever seen. The whole thing exploded and slid across the road upside down into the oncoming lane. Thank God nothing was coming the other way, it would have hit them like a missile. I had to stop because of the debris in the road, and there were already two guys on the other side of the road, who had pulled over earlier and stopped there before all this happened. I tried to call 911 but couldn’t get a good connection so I slowly drove around the debris pulled over and got out. I was pretty jacked on adrenaline and said to myself they got to be really fucked up in that car. As I approached I noticed there were now 3 guys standing there. One was a crew member, I said who was in there, noticing the car was empty. He said I was. Fuck. He was OK except for a badly cut left arm that was injured when the windows blew out. The car did exactly what it was designed to do and came apart to absorb the impact. It also had all the new air bags which cushioned the crash even more. He had made it to the long straighaway and said himself it’s over and fell immediately to sleep. He must have awakened hit the breaks and turned the wheel at the same time launching himself into the air. 

A couple of weeks later on the TV series Longmire a Teamster Brother fell asleep at the wheel on the same east side of Santa Fe, rolled his truck over and died.

Rest in Peace. 

I know many times when I lived in LA I drove home on Auto Pilot. Luckily there you are surrounded by cars and if you start to drift you may hit something long before you have the chance to really fuck yourself up. Here in NM those long empty straights are hypnotic and dangerous as hell. I personally have never stood up to a production and asked them to Stop the Madness. I did quit a TV series once because I couldn’t hold up to the long hours. All I can say is if I’m on a show and the crew decides to make a stand I’ll join them. I have proof now of what will happen to anyone of us, eventually.

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Jesus, that's an awful story, but I'm glad everybody survived. We've all had some real close calls. I knew some VFX guys who worked at the (now-defunct) LA house Cinesite where they had about 6 weeks where they worked 20 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. Some slept under their desks, catching cat-naps when they could, particularly in the last perilous week before the project they were working on shipped. None of them had wrecks, but I bet they had some close calls.

 

A videotape operator I used to work with in the early 1980s fell asleep at the wheel and got T-boned on her way home. Car got totaled, but she was fine. Very close call. She and I worked some very long shifts every week, never less than 15-16 hours. It's stupid, because at a certain point, you just start to go dumb@ck crazy and the mistakes start piling up. 

 

There's always a mentality that it's cheaper to do two long days than three standard 12-hour days, and maybe it's true from a financial point of view. But when you factor in the costs of overtime, plus the risk to life and limb, you gotta ask if it's worthwhile -- both for the production and people's health. 

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The only thing scarier is that the staff at the local emergency room is probably working similar hours. When the medical field won't come out and say there is anything wrong with their staff working these kinds of hours while saving lives, who is going to listen to us? 

 

I have a bad feeling change is going to take a car accident where a crew member runs into a car of civilians, or a school bus, or something and a lawyer sues the movie, the studio and production company as well as the driver.

I've definitely done a 16 hour day where I am driving home in morning rush hour traffic. Fortunately I had a co-pilot/boom op with me, and a cup of coffee. Nothing like drinking coffee just to make it home safely, and then trying to immediately fall asleep for your crappy turnaround. 

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