Jeff,
It's been a while since you've been in the twenty bid world of commercial imaging, but it's a lot different today than before.
I can give you dozens of scenarios where it's normal to work on a weekend and it usually comes down to money. You have the crew and talent , the pre production is in place, most of us travel and a large crew on the road is burning cash every day.
Also everyone works from a bottom line. I haven't heard the term day rate or creative fee in years and if you do it really doesn't mean much because client's don't care if you sleep in a weekend or keep working, because they are only gonna pay what they are gonna pay. It's not unusual in production for some crew member (usually me) to ask what day ii is and they don't mean the date, they mean is it Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Now in regards to David, I understand his side, but I don't know how Phase can do anything about getting a backup in a timely manner that works for a compressed schedule project, unless your shooting across the street for a well stocked dealer.
As you said, that's why everyone has backups, though as you know having $30,000, $20,000, or $60,000 backups seems like a waste or money . . . until you really need them.
That's one of the reason just about everyone I know has not only thrown a dslr in their bag but a lot have just moved to 35mm, superior image quality or not, because every added case of cameras can translate to thousands in baggage overage if your moving country to country and of course every extra system brings it's own unique workflow, battery chargers, lens sets, etc.
So I guess I'm saying I don't see this as a Phase One fault, I just see it as the way the industry's business model has changed.
IMO
BC
P.S. I will admit I'm somewhat envious of people that can work 8 to 5. This Thursday night I was in the process of constructing a creative treatment for a project and thought it was about 2 am until I noticed the room was getting brighter and brighter as the sun was coming up.
I think I need a vacation.