Customer Reviews

Who Needs Sleep?

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The 1997 death of Brent Hershman was the seminal event which inspired Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler to undertake this documentary. Hershman's untimely demise was the result of contiguous sleepless days/nights on jobsite. Briefly, a cause celebre coalesced. Intent upon ending sweatshop hours in the film/television production industry, the movement lost steam after an auspicious beginning. With uncanny specificity, all this coincided with my own awakening to the urgent gravity of this issue within our industry. About the time Wexler was considering this documentary, I'd begun to broach the subject within the production community in Texas, and even drafted a very preliminary "compact," submitted to established professionals for feedback. Though response was overwhelmingly positive, various obligations eventually sidelined any extracurricular projects...but I never lost interest in this subject. Something--this documentary--finally emerged dealing in depth with this subject, and I CANNOT IMAGINE ANYONE IN THIS INDUSTRY GOING ANOTHER DAY WITHOUT SEEING IT.

This film hits home, outstanding. Being a film technician I have experenced all these things first hand and a change is needs to be made and this is a start. I recommend this film all. Great work.

This video is almost unheard of in mainstream media. Despite the crucial subject matter, this video hasn't been made widely available by the very studio system that it is critical of.
While Academy Award winning, Haskell Wexler exposes the cost in lives and lifestyles that the film and television industry takes on it's front line working crews, this important film points out a much broader problem affecting the American worker in general.
Europeans value time with family, time to travel and time to recover from illness. Americans have forgone those necessities and have been pushed by corporations into a paradigm of taking the most pride from unmatched productivity, for the gain of the company.
The title, "Who needs sleep" exemplifies Americas drive to "be the best", to be the most productive, and to outwork the competition. At a huge cost.
The film industry as a whole functions and maximizes profits by demanding a 13-14 hour work day and a 5-6 day production week. So, while crews are paid "overtime", they trade for it with their health, their families and their lives.
14 hours working leaves 10 hours a day to drive to and from work, eat, sleep, shower and shave. Oh, and fit in help with your kid's homework.

Know an Attorney, Doctor or Politician that wants to be succeed? He's putting in 60-70 hours a week, too. At minimum!
Know somebody supporting a family on minimum wage? They're working two, three or four jobs, totaling 60-80 hours a week just to scrape by on our shameful bottom wage scale.

The situation is endemic in America. We pay for "better" lives by trading in the things that make our lives best.
Who Needs Sleep?
We all do.
Buy this movie, Watch this movie, Share this movie.

Let's get this straight. A bunch of whiny, self-centered, self-serving, arrogant pompous-ass actors and directors who get paid obscenely extravagant amounts of money for making movies that are mostly garbage are complaining about how hard they work. After they work hard they then take several months [or years] off to recuperate. These buffoons haven't worked in the real world in so long [if they ever did] that they no longer remember what it's really like. There are multitudes of jobs that require sleepless nights that are far more dangerous and don't offer even remotely close to the amount of money that these self-obsessed people earn + the five-star treatment they get off of the set. I personally have worked jobs where I worked 18-24 hours a day for months on end and didn't earn what some of these people make in an hour. They deserve neither our sympathy nor our respect.

I just recently saw this film on the Documentary Channel. It seems crazy that in this day and age motion picture industry professionals are working sweatshop hours on the set. I love movies, but I don't want anyone to lose their lives trying to make entertainment for me. If you love movies or if you love someone who works in the industry, you should really see this film. It is a truly eye opening documentary.

These film crew people working in the film industry have very strong unions, I believe the camera people are unionized by the IATSE.

Other unions in American were able to manage to have work hours reduced for their members over the decades. But apparently IATSE failed miserably in so doing, which necessitates its members working these preposterous 15-19 hour work days, like modern-day slaves.

Now I finally understand why many small independent productions and producers dislike trade unions and want to shoot their films non-union. Unless you want to kill your own people, you cannot do these ultra-long union hours with them.

Thank you, Haskell Wexler, for brining this serious issue to the public's eye. I had no clue something liek this was still possible in America today.

The service was very professional and I received the product in great shape and right on time. I was very satisfied!