Brent Hershman’s Death 25 Years Ago This Week Sparked Demands For Shorter Workdays In Hollywood

deadline.com:

Sunday marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Brent Hershman, the second assistant cameraman on Pleasantville who was killed March 6, 1997, when he fell asleep at the wheel and slammed his car into a utility pole while driving home after working a 19-hour day – which had been preceded by four 15-hour days in a row.

His death sparked industry-wide demands for shorter workdays and inspired a 2006 documentary by legendary filmmaker Haskell Wexler.Wexler, the labor activist and Oscar-winning cinematographer of Bound for Glory and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, took up the cause of set safety in the days immediately following Hershman’s death, placing an ad in Variety calling for the “humane treatment of humans,” and setting out to make his documentary film, Who Needs Sleep?Watch Wexler’s film below.Hershman’s widow, Deborah Eden, recalls that her husband “was a family man and he wanted to get home,” she told Wexler in the film, recalling their last conversation. “It was late when Brent called to say he was coming home, and I remember asking him if he was going to be able to have enough rest to get up to take Ariel to the doctor; she had strep throat.

He told me he loved me and he would be home. He was exhausted, but his 8-year-old daughter Ariel had been sick, and he wanted to be with her when she woke up.”But he never made it home at the end of that first week of filming. “Midway through his trip, the exhaustion overcame him,” his widow recalled. “He drove his car off the road and was killed.” Afterwards, she said, “I remember being very angry that he lost his life simply for working hard.”John Lindley, the cinematographer on Pleasantville, now is the president of the International Cinematographers Guild, IATSE Local