Please accept our apologies, as we are busy making TiM better than ever.
We promise to have it back up just as soon as humanly possible.
Whilst you wait…
Perhaps you’d like to learn a bit about the work break. Would it surprise you to know that there is no federally-mandated break for meals or rest time? It’s true! The Fair Labor Standards Act, while establishing many (ahem) standards for the wellbeing and ethical treatment of the U.S. workforce, makes no provision for actual work breaks. That is left up to the individual states, of which only 20 have requisite meal periods. California and New York are, of course, two of these states.
While California the state calls for a meal break for hourly employees within the first five hours of the work day, the California Wage Order for the Motion Picture Industry actually stretches that max work time to six hours before a meal must be taken. Most industry union contracts do the same; thus, calling the first meal six hours after call time has become standard in production.
Even in states without specific rules (say, Georgia – wait, Georgia? Really??), crew and cast members have come to expect a meal break or penalty at the sixth hour. Some even prefer to go into the penalty, enjoying the extra $$ it provides, especially the bigger figures that come with multiple penalties. Still, feeding your crew well and on time is a smart investment in morale, and a goal worth targeting.
Something fun on production is when you’re on a night shoot, and folks call the first meal “lunch”… even if it’s at 3am! It’s funny because, like who eats lunch at 3am on purpose, right? So silly. It’s kinda like when a director says “On the day, we’ll have you do this and that” even though they may be blocking out a scene that’s going to be shot like 30 minutes from now. Not a different day at all! So fun.
Anyway, we’ll be back from our break soon! Thank you for your patience; we do truly appreciate it.