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John: Stacey, you wanna take it away?
Stacy: Yeah. This is gonna be a real short theme song, short and hot.
John: It's the showrunner Show Bitches. You know it. Wow. Sure. And hot. That was the right
description. Sure. And hot. Yeah.
Welcome to the Showrunner Show where every week we demystify some aspect of the job of
show running. For anyone who works in tv who wants to work in TV or just wants to know how
it's all made. Uh, today, uh, just like last week, we're trying something a little different. We're
calling this series. Our kind of best practices series.
These are the tips or tricks that we've used on our shows that have been transformative in our
processes and we found it very helpful. Feel free to use these, uh, don't, uh, but let us know how
you like 'em. This is the secret
Stacy: recipe people. You're getting a glimpse at our kernel Sanders, herbs and spices.
John: Yeah. Well, today's best practice, uh, we wanted to discuss is the 10 hour workday. Uh,
the idea of most shows, you know, they say they, they've scheduled a 12 hour workday, but
really they've budgeted for. 12 plus two, you know, for overtime. And, and Drew and I, you know,
realized, you know, in coming up directing and stuff, that as you know, we make our days over
and over.
We, we tend to be very punctual and very on time and on budget and, and on the second half of
it, like. We would ask for the big things we want, you know, financially, you know, crane days or
whatever. We'd wait for the second half of shooting because, you know, we make enough 12
hour days in our, in our shoots.
Uh, the second half of the day. There's all this overtime they budgeted that they haven't used,
and suddenly there's a, you know, extra million bucks sitting around and you can kind of get
whatever you want in the second half. Um, second half of the shoot. Yeah, second half of the
shoot. And then we shot a thing in Paris.
We were lucky enough to do a movie in Paris, and they have, like, by law, you can only shoot 10
hours a day, which, you know, only in film is a 10 hour day like. You know, a light load.
Stacy: Um, but they also have a state holiday about once every three or four
Drew: days. Yeah. Nice. Which is
John: amazing. Yeah. And they, and they also have a union.
The union, uh, forces you to give everyone a glass of wine at lunch every day, which is.
Amazing. That's like, I thought it was two glasses. Is it one glass of wine? One, one glass. But
the Americans were unable to, uh, unable to control themselves. They'd end up like the
American actors ended up, you know, a number of 'em ended up pretty saucy after lunch.
Uh, so we, we had to ask the French to please let us not do this because the Americans aren't
responsible enough to handle it.

Drew: We didn't kill it for the French crew. We just had to kill it for the actors. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. The drunk actors is not a good recipe for speed in the second half of the day, that's for
sure.
John: Yeah, so, so we were in France and we were doing these 10 hour days, and you're not
allowed, there's no overtime, there's like, they're like, they're, you know, that's just not an option.
They're like, you know, in France, you know, we. We work to live, we don't live to work like you
Americans. You know, they, they would say that a lot and um, I like that.
And the thing is, because they were 10 hour days and they were, you know, limited, uh, hours in
the day that you could shoot, we had to just add an extra week to the schedule. And so instead
of a five week shoot, it became a six week shoot. But what happened at the end of the shoot,
like I was used to, like, with our previous movies.
By the end of a shoot, you feel like you've just been run over by a truck. Like, you know, you've
had a cold and the flu and you've, you know, haven't slept and you know, you have big bags
under your eyes and you're, you know, 20 pounds heavier than when you started. And you
know, like, you just look like hell.
Um, whereas at the end of that shoot. I felt fit and rested and healthy. I could still, I didn't have
the same brain fog that I had on other shoots that by, you know, in most movies, day one, you're
just like, you know, full of ideas and you know, by the end of it you're just like limping and, uh.
And in that shoot, we felt great at the end of it.
And, and it was like one of these like, why can't we do this in America? Why can't we try this?
And we, you know, we asked kind of line producers over and over as we came back and did
more projects, why can't we do 10 hour days? And they're like, oh, actually, you know, it cost
benefit, like. If you applied that overtime to extra days, um, it would net out.
It wouldn't even cost more to do 10 hour days, um, and add extra days to the schedule. That
wouldn't even cost more. But you know, you'd have to get buy-in from the studios and nobody
wants to do it. And we're like, but why? And then we had on season. Two of Joe Pickett, so
season one of Joe Pickett. There was these days where it was like these long days and
everyone's been shooting.
It's now four in the morning and everyone's driving home in the pitch dark in the middle of
nowhere, and I found myself like driving home. It was dangerous. I could feel it was dangerous. I
was struggling to stay awake. I was nodding off in my car. I was, you know, having a hard time
getting home safely and like, you know, rolling down the windows, slapping myself, you know,
that kind of thing.
And then I was like, there's 200 other people doing the exact same thing I'm doing right now.
Like, what are the chances that every day, every day, and what are the chances. All 200 of those
are gonna get home safely every single day. And Michael dormant our lead on Joe Pickett and
Drew and I and Linda Ambry, we said like, okay, for season two, how do we, how do we
restructure this in a way that would allow us to keep people safe?
And we. Thought through a lot of ideas and, and finally we're like, let's do the 10 hour day. We'll
add an extra week or two to the end of the schedule and let's do a 10 hour day.
Drew: And, and how do you not kill your lead too? You know, on a show like Joe Pickett, you
know Michael Doman? Yeah. That was a 96 day shoot in season one.
And I bet Michael Doman shot. 85 of those days, you know, it was that kind of level where,
yeah, when you have a show where you have an actor or two that are basically in almost every
scene, like it's just brutal to to be shooting five days a week, 12 hours a day, that often going into

overtime. So it's often more than that.
And um, and I just wanna circle back too to the kind of the French mentality, a little bit of, you
know, living to work versus working to live. And I, there's truth to that, I think beyond. What
you're saying, John, as far as like ending a show and being so physically beat up and just, you
know, you also typically don't get to see your family at all.
Never have dinner with them. You come home after they've gone to bed and you're gone before
they wake up and, and that's, and that goes on for months, you know? And so, you know, I
always find like. After a show wraps, like just the kind of repairing you need to do on the home
front is pretty real. And I think that's true for all people.
And, uh, and that Paris experience is like, we were having dinner together every night. You
know, we were, you know, going out with some of the actors, having dinner with them. I mean, it
allowed for some just that, you know, two hour difference really allowed. Um. Uh, uh, life to
continue during production where it doesn't, like everything's not put on hold until after you wrap
and then you spend, then a month after you wrap, kind of rip, you know, putting all the pieces
back together of your life, you know, and it just really allowed for a continuity of, of, uh, family
and life in a way that, uh, was really, uh, eye-opening.
John: You know, the 10 hour days gives time to be a human being at the end of it, like you look
at. Like, let's say you, you, you're scheduling 14 hour days and you know, a day goes a little
long. It be, or 12 hour days. Day goes a little long. It becomes 14, even 15 takes an hour to drive
home, maybe an hour to go to sleep.
That's 16, 17. Then an hour to wake up and get ready. That's 18 an hour to drive back to set.
That's 19. That's three hours of sleep. And then you're preparing, like when do you prepare, like
when do you, when do you go through the script? When do you, you know, when do actors
memorize their lines? Like there's no ti it just squeezes everything out.
And by slowing things down a little bit, there's a little time to discuss things. There's a little time
to think about things to, you know, for an actor to go home, spend an hour memorizing their
lines, and then go to bed versus. You know, trying to do it in the shower, in the mar, you know
what I mean? Like it just,
Stacy: you said an hour, but for the leads, I think it's often two or three hours.
I know some of the leads I've talked to, I don't wanna name names because it's too personal,
but they were like, uh, like, you know, have a good night. Have fun. Like I gotta go home and
work for three hours. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But that's a typical. For crew members, you know,
directors and actors, that's one thing.
They go into a project, they go out of a project, but say you are like the boom operator,
something like that. Something where your whole job is production. Not pre-production, not
post-production. Production. That's your life all the time. Mm-Hmm. You know, I mean, I wonder
what divorce rates are like among
John: It's true.
Drew: It's, it's pretty high. It's, yeah, it's brutal. And I will say too, like the 10 hour day, I think. If
you're, if you're doing 12 every day and always slipping a half hour into overtime here and there,
there's a certain mentality that kind of is pervasive at the crew of like, we're gonna be here for
12 hours no matter what we do.
So we kind of move at whatever pace we kind of feel like, you know? And, um, you're not maybe
getting the fastest version of your crew if you're just, if they know they're gonna be there that
amount of time every day. And then, you know. Honestly getting into overtime a little bit is, is

good money. So that's not bad either.
But if you're on a 10 hour day and then you know, you often wrap in nine and a half or nine
hours and the crew can every day start to sniff that, we might get outta here early. Um.
Everyone just hauls ass. Like we found ourselves on, on Waco season two, like having days
where we wrapped in seven hours.
There's days that we wrapped at lunch. 'cause Yeah. Uh, because the crew was just hauling
ass. 'cause they knew we had a track record of, uh, you know, of, of not doing 12 hour days and,
and uh, and everything just moves so much faster and we're, we're shooting, you know, the
same amount of pages that a 12 hour schedule would allow and the same amount of everything.
Uh, but it's just like suddenly everything just was on. On like rollerblades, you know, it was
John: just great. It was Mm-Hmm. Yeah. We, it'd be like 10:00 AM and we'd be like, what? What
can we pull forward? Yeah. You know, we'd be like, what can we pull forward? What, what, what
are we supposed to shoot down field?
Like what could we shoot here today right now? And it became this game for the crew of like,
Ooh, like we we're gonna get so far ahead of it that we're pulling things from later in the
schedule up. And I don't know, that was, uh, that really, you know, infuses the, you know, the,
the set with an energy that you really, uh, you can't get and sustain for 12 to 14 hours a day
every day.
Yeah.
Stacy: Let me ask you guys, 'cause it sounds like that's you as directors, you know, which is
one of the things you guys are able to do that's so cool is write the stuff, direct the stuff, produce
the stuff, but. What about you as just as showrunners say, let, let's pretend it's all guest
directors, which obviously we've had some episodic directors on projects.
How do you communicate this to them? How? How do you find that they execute it? Do they
also have the experience of like, oh my God, we planned for a 10 hour day, but we ended up
with an eight hour day? Or is it more that it rolls toward that 11 or 12 often, but never dips into
the 13, 14? Like, what's your experience?
John: I mean, I, I think some of it is you, you, from the show running standpoint, like you have
to be willing to support your, if you want the 10 hour days, you have to support your guest
directors. And the guest directors will often be like, I don't know that I can make this day. It's up
to you to look at it and see like, I think it's a makeable day, or let's take.
I dunno, one location outta the day, let's take one character outta the day so there's less angles
to shoot or you know, something like to, to simplify it to a point that other directors can do it. I
think it's important.
Drew: I will say too, it guest directors, it really, you know, totally depends on the director, but I
think a lot of.
Guest directors want to be, uh, cautious and they want to get a lot of takes of everything and
they want to get all the coverage 'cause they don't, they wanna make, you know, us happy in the
studio and network happy and make sure that we're not sitting in post and why didn't you get,
you know, why didn't you get this shot or that shot or this coverage For us, it's kind of, I.
Relieving them of that pressure a little bit that we don't, we don't like to hose things down and
get, you know, 10 takes from every, you know, size and, uh, you know, and you can, you can,
you can move faster than that. You don't need to get that many takes. You don't need, uh, you

know, there might be a piece of coverage you just know you won't use.
And you tell 'em that. Like, just don't, don't bo don't spend the time without whole setup because
we won't use it. And, uh, um, and we're covered here. And I think that's, you know. For guest
directors. I think that's usually the issue is, you know, they tend to go longer because they're not
the ones, you know, um, responsible for the final cut and respon.
They wanna make sure we have everything we need, you know, so they're doing it for us, but,
uh, but we often don't need that much. They do their four day cut and then they're gone and they
just don't want to, you know, us to be sitting there with all the footage being like, oh, why didn't
you get this? Or Why didn't you get that?
And you know, so if you can communicate that in real time of what you do and don't need, and if
you feel like you have a scene from us, you know, on that setup, you don't, you know, need to
get more takes unless the director's looking for something very specific, they didn't get, I think
it's. Always helpful to be around and be like, Hey, uh, we're good.
You can move on. And, and just, you know, giving them permission to move that fast. And I think
a guest director would be like, oh my God, if I wrap two, two hours early, you know, what are
they gonna say? And are they gonna think, you know, and then they don't have something they,
they, they, they that they need, you know, then it's on me.
You know, there's a lot of that kind of game and I think, um, it's helpful to be really
communicative with your. Directors to let 'em know, you know, what you do and don't need, and
that you won't, you know, come back and be super pissed if, you know, if there's something that
you wish you had, that you didn't, that you don't have, that you're not gonna blame them and
that, you know, it's more important to keep, keep things moving and keep, you know, the spirits
high, and keep everyone rested and all those things, all the, all the upsides of shooting shorter
days.
Stacy: We should do a whole best practices or even two about coverage at some point,
because that is, at least as the covering writer, that whole question of like, Ooh, good, the script
says this. Are they gonna get that shot of the person being surprised or are they gonna get that
shot of, you know, the insert shot or the reaction shot?
Like, ooh, you spend so much time going, like, when am I gonna creep up to the director and be
like, excuse me. Yeah. You know? Anyway, I would love to, let's dig it at
John: some point. Well, and I think too, like. To Drew's point. Like part? Yeah. Part of the reason
we're, you know, when we're directing our own stuff, we're able to move very fast, is because we
know what we are aren't gonna use.
And as a guest director, you don't have that. Um, like there's certain kinds of shots that I know
Drew doesn't, like Drew knows I don't like, or, you know, I know Drew loves, drew loves a car
kicking up dust in the background. Drew loves that shot. Like if there's an option to do that, uh,
you know, drew will be happy every day.
Um, and you know, we both have. Things like that, that we know. There's certain ways we do
like to approach things where guest directors don't necessarily know how a, a showrunner or
how a, you know, a production likes doing it, even if they've watched the other episodes. And so
they, they do have to, you know, overc it.
And one of the things we try to say in the tone meeting is to really. Talk about like, we really
wanna see this, you know, this scene is about this actor. Let's make sure that actor, you know,
we have a, you know, reaction shot. Like, and to lay out the things that are really important to us
in scene so that everything's not important.

It's just, you know, where, you know, true north is on a scene. And, and then to give the guest
directors permission, like we try to give permission to people like, look. You have the right to
make a mistake. You have the right to miss a piece of coverage or to make, you know, decisions
on the fly where you're like, Hey, this is more important than that.
Like the, you know, horses walking through the woods is less important than this emotional
scene between these characters. I'm gonna spend more time on this, less time on that. You
have the right to do that and we won't, you know. After the fact. Second guess you. And like we
know what it's been. You know, we've been in a situation where we have a famous director, you
know, standing over our shoulder, like, why didn't you shoot it this way?
Why didn't you shoot it that way? And you know, I'm not, you know, saying we're famous. I, you
know, but we've been in that spot and it's, it's hard when someone's second guessing you. And
we try to, as much as we can, empower the guest directors on our shows to. To direct and to, to
make decisions as they see.
Like we've hired them for their judgment in part and for their creative creativity and their
judgment, and we have to trust that judgment to some extent and to let them know we will trust
that judgment and not be like. Dude, you didn't get a, you know, closeup of the, you know, the
hand picking up the water bottle in the middle.
Like, what, what the hell? You know, we won't be those guys and, and we can always mop
something like that up downfield anyway, you know what I mean?
Stacy: You guys always have a day or two at the end where it's all the inserts and all little, those
are fun. Those are fun weird days. As an observer, I wanna point out a couple of things that I
noticed that you guys do that are good time savers.
These might be good tips for, um. Other showrunners or for other directors. One thing I have
noticed is that you guys do often do. Three takes of something and if you've got it, you move on.
You know, there are some people, I've worked with, some directors where they're gonna do nine
or 10 takes every time, and by take eight, nine, or 10, like literally nothing has changed.
The camera setup's the same, the block's the same. It's like what magical thing are you
expecting the angel
Drew: to do? I know. And then you do coverage, and then you do a different piece of coverage
and you do those same lines 10 more times. And then you do another setup and you do the
same lines 10 more times, like, and then by the
Stacy: time you move on to the second scene of the day, it's true.
Everybody just looks like they got. Dirt in their mouth. It's just like, ugh, this so to do. If you've
got three and you got it, it's okay to move on. Nobody's gonna fault you for moving on after
three.
Drew: I would love to just make the point too, that it, it's not an easy sell, okay? So if you are a
showrunner and you want to convince the studio and network to do 10 hour days across the
board, um, you'll be faced with a lot of resistance to that idea.
And I think in their mind, the logic is okay if we have a, you know, five blocks, two episodes per
block. Um, you know, 10 hour days will add a shooting day to each block, so that's five extra
shooting days. Maybe it goes from, you know, 90 days to 95 days. And, you know, shooting
days can be somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, $200,000.
So five extra days, that's an extra million dollars that we don't have, you know, uh. What is really
useful is to have your line producer do the analysis and actually show them that it will not only,

uh, not only is it a wash, but it's actually a, a, a money saver to add those five days and shoot 10
hour days.
Um, and bank all those hours that you're not working. A lot of your crew are hourly employees
and if you're not hitting overtime ever, which is much more expensive hours than than regular
hours, if you can show that if you, you know, really stick to the 10 hour days. And aren't going
into overtime that adding five extra days is actually a lot cheaper.
And, uh, we did that and showed that, you know, in spades and I think it really, um, proved to be
true. And we actually, in that season two of Joe Pickett, where we got the 10 hour days, we
actually also added a week off in the middle of production, uh, which was also something that
the studio resisted heavily.
Um, but you know, kind of saying just everyone's so. Beat up a hundred days is a lot of days to
shoot. And uh, um, and our lead actor works, all of 'em. So let's just give everybody a week off in
the middle. And it was the best thing ever. Everyone took a vacation, a lot of people went home.
Uh, everyone came back totally refreshed.
And then we had, you know, the last 40 days and everyone just was like, it was like they're
starting a new show and it was, um, I think it probably saved millions of dollars, honestly, doing it
that way. How much more
Stacy: is overtime?
John: I think it's time and a half for those extra two hours and then double time and then it goes
into some point triple time at like, yeah.
Drew: Oh, it gets crazy. Yeah. It's like for two hours, it's time and a half and then double time.
And so crews can get exhausted doing it. But you know, a lot of crew members, a few of those
days, you know, here and there are really good for the, for the paycheck. So they don't hate it,
but they, they also hate it.
They don't,
John: but they do.
Stacy: That's how you buy your speedboat. But when we,
John: to use that speedboat, your WaveRunner.
So, yeah, and you know, generally like, so the 10 hour, 10 hour workday. You get the best outta
people. You know, you have people showing up, rested and able to like, think and function.
There's less drama 'cause people are less exhausted. There's less accidents and mistakes, you
know, because people are not exhausted.
People are more prepared. You know, you have better scripts because you have time to develop
things a little more. And it ends up being cheaper too.
Stacy: I have one to add to that. If you have, if you're competing with other shows, if you're in a
town like Calgary or Santa Fe, if you're in a town with multiple shows going on and crews, you
know, your script supervisor and your sound mixer and all that, and they have a choice of which
show they wanna join, you know, if future seasons, they're probably gonna like your show more
if it's more human, you know what I mean?
It builds, it builds loyalty and then you can um, uh, what's the word when you keep employees?
Retention. Retention. Yeah. You could contain the best of the best, which is nice.

John: It's true. Yeah. Which is huge. That's half the battle. It's getting the, you know, the best,
uh, you know, sound mixer in a, in an area or the best boon.
Yeah. Like, you know, if you, if you're known as a production that doesn't, that treats. Everyone,
you know, with compassion and kindness and equally, like, there's not that hierarchy that, you
know, exists on other shows. There's like everyone's human, you know, and there's time to be a
human. Like I, I think that goes a long way.
Drew: It does. I gotta say, your speedboat joke reminded me of something too, about double
time. John and I once worked with a, a sound mixer who had, um. Done the movie Armageddon
with Michael Bay. This is so funny. I love this line. And he was talking about working 20 hour
days for the whole sound books. We're like, wow.
Did you hate that? Was that just the worst? He said, no, I loved it. I just said, IIN a Ferrari.
John: He goes, Armageddon, arm Armageddon, A Ferrari, Armageddon, a Ferrari.
Drew: So good. So good.
John: Yeah. Well, please send us a message. Tell us if you like these best practice episodes
and please hit subscribe if and if you like our show, please consider rating us.
Thank you. Thank you. Oh,
Stacy: and you could recommend it to other people too?
John: Oh yeah. Please do. Okay.