CINEMA: THE LONGEST DAY

Brent Hershman just wanted to get home. He had worked a 19-hour day as an assistant cameraman on the set of Pleasantville, a comedy starring Jeff Daniels, and he had about an hour’s drive ahead of him. When he got on the road, it was already 1 a.m., but he had promised his eight-year-old daughter that he would be home when she woke up.

Hershman, 35, never made it to the Los Angeles suburb where he lived with his wife and two kids. Exhausted, he fell asleep behind the wheel and slammed into a telephone pole. His death last month has prompted many professionals in the world’s most glamorous industry to call for an end to the grueling hours that are now the norm behind the scenes–a problem that has become even more endemic as studios rush to complete the megabudget “event” movies currently in vogue.

Hershman “was a big guy with a huge smile,” says Bruce McLeery, the chief lighting technician on Pleasantville. “He had been away from home for 22 hours, and the day before he had worked 15 hours.” McLeery understands why Hershman attempted the drive. “Brent’s little girl was sick, and he told her on the phone that he would be there,” he says. But after working so many hours, McLeery adds, “you’re impaired. You might as well be drunk.”

In an industry in which 12-hour days are considered short, Pleasantville was not an especially arduous production. But the fact that Hershman was killed on a relatively routine shoot instead of a challenging picture with big effects only underscores the danger. Says Steven Soderbergh, Pleasantville’s co-producer: “It’s amazing that it didn’t happen on other projects where these specific kinds of abuses are rampant.”

One project in which crew members say conditions are more difficult is Titanic, the $180 million extravaganza that director James Cameron is trying to finish in time for its scheduled July release. Crews on the film have routinely packed more than 80 hours of work into six-day weeks, sometimes going as long as two weeks without a break. “I think it’s the closest thing to slavery that I’ve ever laid my eyes on,” says Elizabeth Bolden, a set rigger who spent a month on Titanic’s Mexico location.

While union rules require extra pay if there is no lunch break after six hours, crew members say Cameron often kept them going as long as 10 hours without pause. (The director had already gained notoriety for threatening to fire employees who took bathroom breaks while shooting True Lies.) After working 13 days in a row before Christmas, the Titanic crew set up a spectacular special-effects sequence in which thousands of gallons of water would crash through a glass dome atop a staircase inside the ship. The stunt coordinator’s written assessment of hazards associated with the sequence included “risk of drowning,” but a crew member says exhausted workers actually fell asleep during a morning safety meeting meant to minimize the danger. Producer Jon Landau says he was not aware of people dozing during those sessions. “I know nobody was falling asleep when we were shooting,” he adds. Still, Landau says, endless hours are the nature of the business. “Any time you’re on a movie, it is physically demanding,” he says. “No one was forced to be there.”

While in Mexico, the film’s American crew members were driven to and from their hotels, but local workers did not receive similar treatment. A Tijuana woman was severely injured in a crash after working until 3 a.m. as a script supervisor. And TIME has obtained a memo from construction coordinator Les Collins protesting to managers that local laborers, who were required to work 12-hour days, received only bread and milk during a morning break as their meal for the day. At one point, even that was cut back. “It is deplorable that we have witnessed our workers digging through the trash to retrieve fruit and other foods…to try to get something to eat,” he wrote. “It’s hard to believe that this company has stooped so low to reduce costs.” Landau responds that Mexican workers were treated far better than the norm in that country.

For now, many crew members are focusing on improving overall industry conditions by curtailing hours. In a campaign prompted by Hershman’s death, Haskell Wexler, a renowned cinematographer (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest), is leading a petition drive to impose a 14-hour workday. “People are working as zombies,” he says. Among those who have signed are Julia Roberts, Kenneth Branagh, Mike Nichols, Sally Field and Harold Ramis.

A prominent producer says many crew members will resist the rule because they enjoy earning overtime pay. But cameramen like Kirk Bloom, who worked on Titanic, want some kind of limit to the grind. “I’d rather have a little less work and a little more of a life,” he says. Ed Gutentag, another Titanic veteran, is one of many crew members who say Hershman’s death hit home because they have caught themselves dozing at the wheel. “I smack myself in the face as hard as I can to stay awake,” Gutentag says. “But the big picture is, What value do we put on our lives? I don’t want to die because I’ve worked too many hours.”