The 10-Hour Day: Industry Standard or Creative Crutch?

Look, I've seen countless DAOs discussing how to fund films, how to decentralize distribution, all great stuff. But let’s cut to the chase on set, the 10-hour day is a creative crutch, not an industry standard we should aspire to. It’s actively detrimental to creativity and production value.

Working longer hours, past a certain point, doesn't mean more gets done; it means worse gets done. I've been on features where the producers champion the 10-hour day as 'efficient,' but by hour nine, you're looking at flagging crew, mistakes mounting, and a general loss of focus. That 'extra' two hours often requires reshoots or re-doing setups the next day because someone was too tired to catch a missed mark or a lighting error. It's a false economy, burning out talent and wasting resources in the long run.

Now, some will argue that the 10-hour day is a necessary compromise for indie films, that funding dictates tighter schedules. And yes, budgets are real. But are we actively designing around this constraint, or are we perpetuating a bad habit? What if we shifted the focus from 'how much can we cram into 10 hours' to 'how can we maximize the creative output of genuinely engaged, rested individuals in 8 or 9 hours'? Can a DAO truly innovate if its production practices are still dictated by outdated, harmful notions of 'grind culture'?