When you work in TV and film and are in with the crew, more than likely a free breakfast will be served. If you are on the clock when production sends you to get breakfast, oftentimes that will be called a “non-deductible breakfast,” usually referred to simply as “NDB.”

An NDB is a period of 15 minutes during which you are allowed to eat breakfast and not do any work. This means as a stand-in that you don’t stand in, you don’t watch rehearsal, and you aren’t en route to set in a van. Simply put, an NDB is fifteen minutes during which you get to eat or do whatever you want during that period.

It is called “non-deductible” because you are paid during that period — those fifteen minutes are not deducted from your paycheck. Aside from feeding you, the purpose of an NDB is to restart the clock on when you are supposed to eat lunch before accumulating meal penalties.

How NDBs Work

You and most crew receive meal penalties if you do not eat six hours after your calltime. If crew call was 8am, but your call was 7am, then crew would have to eat at 2pm, and you would have to eat at 1pm.

However, if you were NDB’d from 7:45am to 8am, then the clock for you would restart at 8am. You would then need to eat lunch by 2pm or else you would then start to receive meal penalties.

When You Are NDB’d After Crew Call

On occasion, you will be NDB’d after crew call rather than up to it. In the example above, that would be if you were NDB’d from 8am to 8:15am.

There could be a number of reasons that would happen. More often than not, the reason is because you were traveling to set in transportation provided by production and your ride arrived later than expected by production.

You are NDB’d in this case usually to ensure you get a proper breakfast before starting work, but also because many productions require crew members (including stand-ins) to NDB.

“On Paper”

So let’s say your calltime to catch a van to a faraway set is 7am, with a crew call of 8am. Let’s say that production predicted a ride of 45 minutes for you to arrive at set, so that you could NDB from 7:45am to 8am.

However, let’s also say your van hit traffic and you didn’t arrive until 7:55am. Production might say, “Take your fifteen minutes. On paper your NDB will be from 7:45am to 8am.” “On paper” means “what you will write on your voucher,” a phrase which emphasizes that the time on the voucher may not correspond to the actual time period during which you had breakfast.

Right or Wrong?

It might sound improper to you to account for your NDB as an earlier time than you actually took it — mainly because you were traveling during 7:45am-8am, so you couldn’t be eating breakfast during that NDB period. You would think your NDB should be 7:55am to 8:10am.

However, accounting of your NDB at 7:45-8am works to your advantage insofar as you still receive fifteen minutes during which to eat breakfast.

It works to your advantage because you get to eat breakfast late, have your fifteen minutes, but at the same time start accruing meal penalties at 2pm rather than 2:10pm.

In other words, if the crew breaks for lunch at 2:05pm, you will get a meal penalty because “on paper” your NDB finished at 8am, more than six hours before 2:05pm.

Had you written on paper your actual NDB time of 7:55am-8:10am, you would not have received a meal penalty in this case.

When to Object to an Improper NDB Time

Perhaps it is best to object to an improper accounting of NDB time in the following cases:

  • if you are not told by someone in production to take an NDB
  • when you do not get a full 15 minutes to eat
  • when there is no catering to serve you a proper breakfast during your NDB
  • when you have to travel during part of your fifteen minutes (e.g., taking a van from the breakfast location to get to a distant set)
  • when you have to do some sort of work during your fifteen minutes (e.g., wait for color cover, get a wig applied, watch rehearsal, etc.)

In the above cases, you might argue that you didn’t get your full fifteen minutes to eat a (real) breakfast, so any accounting of an NDB is improper. In the event that you are correct, in most cases you will start to accrue meal penalties before the rest of the crew.

Disputes about NDB Times

If you have a dispute about whether you got a proper NDB, talk to a SAG-AFTRA field rep that day about the NDB time in case the rep can settle the matter.

Should a field rep not show up that day, call your SAG-AFTRA Local office for assistance. You may have to file a claim inquiry in case the business rep for your production doesn’t respond in time.

Conclusion

While it might seem shady to account for your NDB during a time period when you didn’t actually have it, if the NDB “on paper” puts you in a position to accrue meal penalties with the rest of the crew, it is probably advantageous for you to accept it.

However, if you don’t get your full fifteen minutes to have a breakfast, it might be worth disputing whether you had an NDB at all — “on paper” or otherwise. Keep that in mind while you protect your contract terms — and your belly!

Have you encountered NDB times “on paper” that disagree with the actual time you ate? Has this worked to your advantage or disadvantage? Share your experiences below!