Salary for Director on low budget film?

That's a tidy budget for a short film! If you're directing only, then it's whatever you think your day is worth on the day. You may want to add 1/2 day rates for scouting, pre-production, etc. What have you charged for directing in the past? With that budget, it's a really about knowing what you're worth to them. It's a nice problem to have.
 
Ok cool thanks guys....no this this isn't a situation where they want my gear, they have money for that separately, for that budget they can afford everything 20X better than what I own....in terms of the salary I think I had heard also it should be a certain percentage of the budget.
 
Back in the 80's and 90's in the UK, it was common for a Director's fee to be 10%.

But that was for a Union director (ie the old Director's Guild of Great Britain). Now, it's fairly wide ranging and always dependent upon the Director's experience... and also how involved in pre and post they'll be.

Just get your agent to negotiate... or do it yourself. If they want you on the movie, it's for you and them to define your value to the production.
 
In a way it's an easy equation. Define how many shooting days, how many pre-pro days, how many post days. Then just multiply by daily rate you are comfortable with. Whatever you come up with it will be much less than the actual amount of work you will be putting in the film.
 
Yea that makes sense. It's going to be 2 prep days and 5 shooting days. I'm not quite shure how many days of post it will be because that's still in discussion.
 
Do you have final edit or just a director's pass? That can add days to the process to be cosidered.

Michael
 
MichaelP said:
Do you have final edit or just a director's pass? That can add days to the process to be cosidered.

Michael
Click to expand...

No final cut, but the producer seems to like my ideas even when I'm just spitballing different scenarios. It's his own material he's written and having a screenwriter convert into a script.

Patryk_Rebisz said:
I guarantee you your 2 day prep day will turn into at least 2 weeks.
Click to expand...

Yea I mentioned that. He seems to think it will only be 2 days, but mentioned he's open once the script is finalized.
 
A 150K short is a pretty high budget for a short.

10% seems high to me. If I were the producer, I wouldn't be paying the director 10 percent of my production budget. I'd be trying to put more $ on the screen. And as a director, you might want to consider that as well.

The trick is that you need to get a decent rate because there isn't much backend potential typically for a short (unless it's some licensed content or something that is being made for revenue purposes).

I assume that you haven't done much daily rate work? What would your quote be?

It is obviously a negotiation, so ultimately, get the best deal you can.

-M
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top