In our continued effort to reduce overly long shoot days and improve crew wellbeing, the APA have agreed to add the additional wording to our new APA agreement.

“Our recommendation and best practice for APA members is not to schedule shoot days to go beyond 12 hours (10 hours plus one hour for lunch plus one hour overtime)”

This is another step in the right direction towards encouraging better planning from production companies and avoiding overly long shoot days.

As with jobs that intend to pay under our agreed rates, jobs that plan on shooting preposterous hours should be reported to the Branch Mobile Phone  immediately so that we can engage the APA before the shoot starts.

“Crew shall not be engaged to work without at least a 10 hour break between call times i.e they may only be engaged to work one hour of TOC…”

This effectively caps time off the clock to a maximum of one hour and helps protect our members from egregious turnarounds between shoot days.

This means improved planning is needed to protect and maintain these turnarounds, especially if Electricians are driving technical vehicles. 

Moving forward, the branch advises that vehicles, generators and equipment are dropped off and/or collected by the lighting equipment supplier.

It must be recognised that production companies will often try to stack overtime towards the end of a shoot period in order to avoid TOC. 

In these cases it is vital that you contact the Branch Mobile Phone  so that we can challenge the APA and the production company directly, be it before, during or after the shoot.

“If the first meal break does not commence within 6 ½hours of the main unit call, the day becomes a continuous working day…”

The maximum that a lunch break can be delayed is now 6 ½ hours from the unit call time. After this the day becomes a continuous working day.

As always, it is the responsibility of The Gaffer to work with the production to avoid lengthy pre-calls and to ensure that the lighting crew are fed in the morning.

“All work commencing between 5 p.m and 5 a.m is considered as night work and pays double time for all hours worked with a minimum call of ten hours.” 

We have received numerous calls from our Members reporting that they were asked to work several hours of pre-call to facilitate night work and further hours after shooting has wrapped.

Lengthy pre-calls on night shoots are strongly discouraged by The Branch.

The Gaffer must make it clear with production that pre-calls entirely at the discretion of the Lighting Crew and are charged at double time.

The onus is upon the Gaffer to avoid pre-calls altogether by engaging a separate rigging crew working day hours.