A breakdown by Vanity Fair of the take-home pay earned by the hypothetical cast and crew (excluding non-human costs, and based on average union rates) of a hypothetical 200 million dollar Hollywood movie. To wit:
Moviemaking is an art, of course—but it’s also a business, and a lucrative one at that. How lucrative? Well, that depends on your place in the pecking order. Let’s just say that if you’re helping to make a $200 million movie, it’s better to be a producer than a dolly grip operator—although as you’ll learn in this video breakdown of who’s earning what, based on average union rates, even the gaffer makes out pretty well.
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Ah video.
The absolute worst way to show this information.
What I want to ask is, what is a Best Boy and surely agents get a few quid as well ?
Agents get a percentage of their clients pay.
Two actors are walking down the street and they pass their two agents who are walking on the other side. One actor says to the other, ‘Look at those two p****s who take 20% of our earnings.’ After they have passed by, one agent turns to the other and says, ‘Look at hose two p****s who take 80% of our earnings.’
Best Boy is next man down after the main electrician or the main guy who moves camera gear around (key grip). I suspect it’ll be a while before positive discrimination hits these departments (or the Production department).
Pay scales are fantastic in movie and TV now. A bloke i know was working on show filmed here in parts of ireland. He was paid a great rate of pay because although only an extra he got in scenes early on beside the lead man and they liked the look of him beside the lead characters and kept him in the show right till the final battle. Remember he was an extra with no spoken lines yet the paid(I promise this is the truth) €1000 extra for the inconvenience of having to travel back to the set from Dublin after telling him he was finished, they needed to re shoot a scene he had spent about 10 mins in.
Whilst the other extras were getting around 80 quid for a 14 hour day, not including the drive up and down.
I’m sure a film accidentally released what everybody got paid on a movie, I think it was Sahara staring alright, alright, alright fella. He got 8 million and another fella with a lot of screen time and speaking bits got 45 grand. I’m sure Google could answer my questions but that is almost effort.
Some of those sums of money look good but how long would it take to earn that?….how long would would you be involved? 125k is super for 6 months work but if the whole thing takes two years of your life its a different kettle of fish.
Yep.
Plus California state tax. Plus federal tax. Plus union dues.
plus the time, effort and money it has taken to get to that point.
Not a staff job, but. You may earn well one month and not work again for four years, no matter how good you are. Very chancy.
There was something to be said for the old studio system
Shocking, that clearly be the states, while here in Ireland can only expect to earn a fraction of that depending on the project.
With the extras as usual coming in last place.
Think, should say, lest it be taken up wrongly, that, most extras, here, depending upon the project, are not on 1000 euro extra just for travelling expenses.
Mind ye could always try.
Anyway depends on what ye be doing in the film in the scene and props, as in battles.
Without mentioning names, there be a lot of sword and scandal yokes being made here.
Obviously depends on budget.