A Call to Shorten Hollywood’s Work Hours

In the wee hours of March 6, 1997, Brent Hershman completed an exhausting 19-hour day on the Long Beach set of “Pleasantville,” a modestly budgeted comedy for New Line Cinema, and headed home to his wife and two young daughters in West Hills.

While driving on the Century Freeway, the 35-year-old assistant camera operator fell asleep and his car struck a utility pole, killing him instantly.

After Hershman’s death, his co-workers drafted a petition asking for a 14-hour shooting limit on film and TV sets. Dubbed “Brent’s Rule,” the petition received more than 10,000 signatures.

On Friday, one year after the accident, supporters of Brent’s Rule are asking that production companies reschedule their workday so that it will not stretch beyond 14 hours. They also are asking all film workers--including actors, directors and production managers--to honor Brent’s Rule and go home safely after 14 hours.

“It’s not like a strike or it’s not like a work action,” said cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who took out ads in Hollywood trade publications asking for the one-day curtailment in work hours on the set. “It’s not meant to be against the producers. It’s not meant to be against anything.

“As I look at it,” Wexler continued, “it’s an affirmative act to say human beings who make films are as important as the films that they make.”

While the request has met with widespread support among individuals, it has not received the official backing of Hollywood’s labor unions and guilds. Meanwhile, the industry itself has yet to adopt any concrete proposals to limit excessive work hours.

Wexler blames “big bureaucracies” for the impasse.

“Talk to any decent person and they say, ‘Of course, it’s insane that we are working this way,’ ” Wexler said, “but some faceless people in some business accounting office sitting in front of a computer says, ‘If we squeeze two days of work into this week we will save a certain amount of money.’ That rule falls on the heads of directors and it falls on the heads of production managers.”

The Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America and the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees have formed committees to examine the issue, but sources say they have had difficulty coming up with proposals satisfactory to all and, thus, have yet to present a united front to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood’s studios and production companies in bargaining talks.

“I think it still has some steam, but there have definitely been some roadblocks thrown up along the way,” said Bruce McCleery, a gaffer on “Pleasantville” (which New Line plans to release this fall) who helped draft Brent’s Rule.

“Most producers are very accommodating and are very willing to try and accommodate that rule,” he said, but noted that it is “problematic” for the producers to feel that the unions are dictating the length of the workday.

“We don’t think you can dictate hours in this kind of environment,” said Nick Counter, president of the producers’ alliance. “There are so many variables that go into the situation.”

Counter said there is “certainly a meeting of the minds on the willingness to address the issue in all its various facets, but having one single, fail-safe solution is probably unachievable.”

Counter said when productions go over schedule, producers have contingency plans such as finding hotel rooms and transportation for tired workers.

SAG President Richard Masur said he, for one, endorses the idea of honoring Hershman’s memory on Friday by voluntarily limiting the workday to 14 hours.

“I think it’s a message,” Masur said, “and as a gesture I think it’s a terrific idea.” Masur, who currently is working on a new TV pilot, said he plans to ask the producers if they can abide by the rule that day.

Masur confirmed that a meeting between the unions and the industry over the issue of excessive work hours was postponed. He declined to state the reason for the postponement, saying only: “I feel confident we’ll be doing it soon.”

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Masur said the unions are not unsympathetic to the producers, who occasionally have to schedule long work hours, especially on location shoots where returning is not an option.

“We want to set up safety valves for those kinds of situations so you aren’t crippling production,” Masur said. “Nobody wants to do that.”

The Directors Guild had no official comment on Wexler’s proposal, but a guild spokesman said the DGA “fully supports efforts to come up with a solution for excessively long work days.”

John Lindley, a director of photography who worked with Hershman on “Pleasantville” and who helped draft Brent’s Rule, expressed frustration at seeing a year go by without any concrete action taking place.

“It feels like progress some days and other days it feels like no progress,” Lindley said.

“It so happens Brent was a craft member, but it just as easily could be anybody from any of those guilds,” Lindley added. “The people on ‘Pleasantville’ were very good people. These were not cowboys on that movie. And that is one of the things that makes it so shocking and so universal. It makes people realize that it could happen to them.”

Meanwhile, an attorney who filed a wrongful-death suit against New Line and the production company over Hershman’s death on behalf of Hershman’s widow, Deborah, and their two daughters, said his investigation shows that the camera operator had worked some 70 hours in five days and, on the last day, he worked nearly 20 hours.

“By rushing and pushing production and requiring people to work these god-awful hours, they didn’t use care to mitigate the potential of someone being injured,” said Beverly Hills attorney John Lawrence.

“Everybody in the industry says this is terrible and sort of shrug their shoulders and say, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ ” Lawrence added. “But nobody is doing anything about it, except Haskell, who is trying to make sure the industry doesn’t forget about it and walk away from it.”

Commenting on the suit, a New Line spokesman said Wednesday: “Although we completely deny the allegations, as a matter of policy we don’t litigate matters in the press. These are complex and sensitive issues that ultimately a judge and jury may be called upon to decide.”