It was horrible to work for a VFX firm in terms of work-life balance, but the pay was okay. I quit after 3 years. One crunch time lasted 27 days in a row many of which many were 10hrs per day. And then I didn't even get credit on the final film even though what I did was critical for it.

When I started my own firm in 2005 I adopted a no-overtime policy in reaction to that. This was more feasible since I was creating and delivering software and this was more predictable and containable than doing VFX itself. This has loosened a bit as the company grew, we got funding, then got other divisions, etc.

10 hours per day! You worked at one of the nicer places then. Next you'll be telling me they gave you more than one toilet break a day and even let you out from time-to-time to find food.

I couldn't take the hours, honestly. The place I worked I was ended up sleeping under the desk and doing 20hr days to make crunches.

> 10 hours per day! You worked at one of the nicer places then. Next you'll be telling me they gave you more than one toilet break a day and even let you out from time-to-time to find food. > I couldn't take the hours, honestly. The place I worked I was ended up sleeping under the desk and doing 20hr days to make crunches.

I think all of this is also completely unnecessary. Work-life balance is necessary if you want to have a family and enjoy it - that means you need weekends off, and you need standard business hours. Otherwise, it messes up daycare, evening children events and the split of chores between you and your significant other (which will lead to fights.)

I agree. I was pushed into those hours, but it was because of bad scheduling, for deadlines that didn't matter. And your productivity drops considerably the more hours you do.