How much do actors make for independent films?
Most indie films fall into the low-budget category, between $700,000 and $2.5 million. The daily rate for low-budget actors is $630 while weekly SAG minimum pay is $2,130. If the director uses non-union actors as well, they receive the same rates.
| Annual Salary | Monthly Pay | |
|---|---|---|
| Top Earners | $97,000 | $8,083 |
| 75th Percentile | $74,500 | $6,208 |
| Average | $59,950 | $4,995 |
| 25th Percentile | $34,000 | $2,833 |
- Get a distribution deal for your film.
- Self-distribute your films.
- Shoot corporate training videos.
- Make commercials.
- Shoot weddings and/or events.
- Teach filmmaking.
- Edit someone else's film.
- Become a content creator on YouTube.
Salary Ranges for Movie Actors
The salaries of Movie Actors in the US range from $53,095 to $1,390,785 , with a median salary of $254,556 . The middle 57% of Movie Actors makes between $254,562 and $632,455, with the top 86% making $1,390,785.
Beginning actors often break into the movie industry by taking jobs as background actors or “extras.” Project Casting reports that entry-level background actors can earn up to $12 an hour. After paying their dues and gaining experience, they may apply for union membership in SAG-AFTRA and earn more money.
Low Budget Films Can Make Money
In fact, sometimes keeping the budget low provides more margin for profit. If the film flies and costs little to produce, then you are on to a real winner. The classic example of a low budget indie film that made it big, is The Blair Witch Project.
How likely is it for an indie film to become profitable? Statistically speaking, the picture is quite bleak – 97% of independent feature films fail to turn a profit. Most filmmakers assume they will be in the lucky 3%, not realizing that turning a real profit with a low/micro-budget film is practically unheard of.
Film crew
Each film production requires a large number of people in the film crew, which can make this a stable job with a lot of demand.
There are many different career paths or side hustles that will bring in the income after film school. From traditional positions in the film industry, freelance filmmaking, social media, and more, you can make money in film or as a filmmaker in many different ways.
1. Jonah Hill. Jonah Hill voluntary accepted the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) minimum salary just so he could work with director Martin Scorsese. Hill told The Howard Stern Show he jumped at the chance to film for seven months on a thin $60,000 salary claiming, “They gave me the lowest amount of money possible.
Do actors get paid every time a movie airs?
I asked a SAG-AFTRA spokesperson for help, and here are the basics. Actors (other than background actors) get paid again when a performance is rerun. In TV's past, those payments ended after a certain number of replays; now they can go on forever — making those “Law & Order” reruns an annuity for the actors.
What is this? If the money doesn't arrive by this day, the production company has assessed a penalty of $10 for each late day—up to $200 in total. So, to answer the title question, movie actors get paid during the production of a film.
Just two percent of jobbing actors make enough to earn a living, a new report has shown. Mathematicians at London's Queen Mary University worked up figures dating back to the 1880s to come the their conclusion, studying almost 2.5 million screen actors.
Netflix Salary FAQs
The average salary for an Actor is $41,558 per year in United States, which is 71% lower than the average Netflix salary of $147,794 per year for this job.
If they are needed for more than five days, they are paid a weekly rate. Rates vary if actors are needed for the entirety of the film shoot or the entirety of a television season. Television actors can also be paid per episode. Stage actors, however, are usually paid a weekly rate.
| Characteristic | Revenue in billion U.S. dollars |
|---|---|
| Adventure | 64.95 |
| Action | 50.56 |
| Drama | 35.68 |
| Comedy | 33.63 |
“For an independent film, take about three to six months for pre-production and one to two months for principal photography, and then take maybe six months to a year for post-production,” says cinematographer Hiroshi Hara.
They had perfectly average production budgets and expenses for movies of their scale. Their lack of profitability, in fact, is typical. Over 80% of Hollywood movies fail to turn a profit.
The standard AVD royalties are 15 cents per hour in the US and 6 cents per hour internationally. Across the board, the cap for royalties in a month is $75,000. Filmmakers also receive 50% of all purchase/rental fees for their movie (this will also be the split Sundance films receive when going on AVD).
And showing just how broad the category is, the highest grossing independent film of all time is “The Passion of the Christ,” with a gross of almost $1 billion.
Who makes the most money in a movie production?
- Executive Producer. Top of the list is the executive producer – the person who controls the entire project. ...
- Director. ...
- Screenwriter. ...
- Editor. ...
- Other opportunities. ...
- Media Schools.
- Actor.
- Camera operator.
- Animator.
- Sound technician.
- Choreographer.
- Video editor.
- Writer.
- Art director.
Not only does film school help you in the field, but it can also aid in your post-graduate job hunt. Listing a film degree on your resume can increase your chances of being hired by a production company, editing house, or writer's room. This is because employers recognize the skills it takes to complete a film program.
The film industry is notoriously hard to get started in, and nowhere is that more true than behind the scenes. There are a lot of jobs on a movie set that need to be done, but landing that first one can be difficult, especially if you don't know where to start.
Netflix doesn't publicly disclose its deals, but from what we managed to gather around the Internet, Netflix is currently paying between $100 and $250 million for blockbuster movies, while popular TV shows with multiple seasons have budgets that range from $300 to $500 million.
Generally, the lead actors will make more money than the director, although the director will make more money than the supporting cast members. In most cases, a director will be awarded “points”, a percentage of the gross receipts of the movie as well.
According to May 2020 numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual salary for a film producer is $113,860. For the 23,680 producers and directors working in the Los Angeles area, that number jumps to $135,160.
Filmmaking is also a very risky investment, since most movies, even those small, intimate dramas, take several million dollars to make. Still, it's definitely a hugely profitable business—if you hit the jackpot (aka the target audience).
The truth is that the majority of movies break even and make a little bit of money. About 20% are blockbuster hits that create massive revenue.
A low-budget movie is a movie that's (usually) financed through self-financing or small private funding. There's some conjecture as to what the low-budget movie range is (especially when accounting for inflation) – but most analysts agree anything below $5 million USD can be characterized as low-budget.
How big is the independent film market?
While exact figures for most of the world's markets are extremely vague on the market share won by independent films, various publications in the US estimate that in the country's domestic market, independents make up 10-13% of box office revenues.
