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The Rules Around Lunchtime
G-d forbid lunch should be late! Never mind that the caterer, a guy who has been providing his services to movie crews all over Chicago for many years, has never been late or missed a location.
Pileup on the freeway! How dare they delay our Milanese chicken with rice pilaf and fresh Italian bread. Move those flares off to the side of the road! Use the Jaws of Life later! Our lighting crew is famished!
In fact, it was not about hunger on the set that day. This was a group of professionals who were hungry, sure, but who had a job to do, and lunch would come when it would come, right?
Well, not exactly. There are rules concerning meals on the sets of union productions, and the caterer's absence posed a serious financial threat, especially for a $1,000,000 production where watching every penny was the norm.
All film and television-related unions address the entitlement of their members to a certain number of meals throughout their workday. Legally, a union member cannot work more than five continuous hours before they are entitled to one continuous hour for lunch.
So, if certain members of a crew reported to work at 8 AM, just those crewmembers must be fed at 1 PM. If crew straggle in, and another subset of the production was called for 9 AM, those workers are not fed until 2 PM, and so on.
On the set of "Stolen Summer," only the lighting crew was called that day at 8 AM. As a result, their lunch was scheduled for 1 PM.
When crewmembers work past their assigned lunchtime, the production enters what is known as a "meal penalty."
A meal penalty is a fee paid by the producer for the failure to provide meals or meal breaks as specified by the contract. Usually charged in 15 minute increments.
The initial 15 minute increment would cost the "Stolen Summer" production eight dollars, times the 20 people that were due lunch at 1 PM. After that first time period, the second penalty would cost an additional 12 dollars, per each of the 20 crewmembers, on top of the initial eight dollars per. You can see, it begins to add up.
But Bruce Terris, 1st AD, knew of a caveat. There is what is known as a "grace period." The "grace" period is allotted to production when going over onto lunch or dinner. Once grace is called the production is allowed to finish the current shot, and no lens changes are permitted.
So while grace was called on the set, it bought some time for the slacker caterer to arrive. Problem was, the caterer ended up being nearly two hours late, and grace only bought the producers thirty minutes before a penalty was incurred.
Lucky for the crew, Chris Moore was around, and flagged down an ice cream truck. Even the locals who were merely standing around watching were beneficiaries of Chris's generosity, as he bought drumsticks and popsicles for everyone. The truck driver was pleased. Chris handed over a cool hundred dollar bill, and told him to keep the change.
Meanwhile, 2nd 2nd AD Frank ran around trying to figure out how to procure 20 McDonald's value meals for the lighting crew, and avoid the meal penalty. But Bruce would have none of it, saying, "Dude, you can't give my crew McDonald's."
That decision would later incense Chris Moore. When Bruce assures the big boss that McDonald's was "standing by," Chris counters that "there should never have been a meal penalty if that was the case." Hard to win with that guy.
Nonetheless, the caterer did arrive (he was fine, thanks for asking), and rest assured, every cast and crewmember was well fed.
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