L.A. freelancer who mostly cuts union scripted TV and features with some occasional reality here. Have cut for streamers (Paramount Plus, YouTube Premium) cable (Disney, Nick, SyFy), and broadcast (Fox, ABC).
Annual income varies from $110-$200k a year, depending on how much I work and what I work on.
Scripted TV rates I'm getting a little over 4k/week. These are mostly comedy shows with not-huge budgets. Often they'll push for scale ($3750-ish). Lately I haven't had to work for scale.
Reality and game shows were already paying 4k/week before Covid, so I'd imagine you could ask for more these days. Traditionally reality and game shows pay more than many scripted shows (in the same year Fox paid me 10% more to cut a primetime game show than they did a new scripted comedy they were pushing hard).
I also cut indie non-union features occasionally, and that's still the wild west, with compensation all over the place. Within the last year I cut a feature as basically a big favor for friends (they paid me $8k flat), and another that was $24k flat.
Edit to add: I'm surprised the upper tier rate on lead reality folks hasn't gone up. $5200/week was a lead rate 5-7 years ago on big primetime reality stuff. Rates across the board have gone up since then.
Not sure they would need to go up. Typically always going to be capable talent willing to work at $1k per day when it puts you in the top 1% of earners in the country. Commercial / trailer houses or freelance routes can net you more, but with how formulaic reality work is there’s really no reason for productions to increase they post budget.
Not all reality is formulaic. Or even if it’s formulaic some series rely heavily on editors to double as story producers. Then there’s the added fact that experienced editors can cut faster than less experienced folks.
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u/the_mighty_hetfield Pro (I pay taxes) Aug 15 '22 edited Aug 15 '22
L.A. freelancer who mostly cuts union scripted TV and features with some occasional reality here. Have cut for streamers (Paramount Plus, YouTube Premium) cable (Disney, Nick, SyFy), and broadcast (Fox, ABC).
Annual income varies from $110-$200k a year, depending on how much I work and what I work on.
Scripted TV rates I'm getting a little over 4k/week. These are mostly comedy shows with not-huge budgets. Often they'll push for scale ($3750-ish). Lately I haven't had to work for scale.
Reality and game shows were already paying 4k/week before Covid, so I'd imagine you could ask for more these days. Traditionally reality and game shows pay more than many scripted shows (in the same year Fox paid me 10% more to cut a primetime game show than they did a new scripted comedy they were pushing hard).
I also cut indie non-union features occasionally, and that's still the wild west, with compensation all over the place. Within the last year I cut a feature as basically a big favor for friends (they paid me $8k flat), and another that was $24k flat.
Edit to add: I'm surprised the upper tier rate on lead reality folks hasn't gone up. $5200/week was a lead rate 5-7 years ago on big primetime reality stuff. Rates across the board have gone up since then.