How Does A Film Director Earn Money?
When someone asks me what I do for a living, and I tell them that I work as a director on film-related projects, most of them instantly assume there is a shit load of money involved and that I get paid mountains of cash daily. Unfortunately, that’s not (always) the case.
Honestly, working as a freelance filmmaker could be a synonym for grinding to make money. If you want to stay mentally sane, you have to love working extremely long hours for what sometimes seems to be a relatively small paycheck compared to the amount of work you have to deliver.
Especially at the beginning of most filmmaking careers, it’s all about turning every penny twice. But once you start getting some business momentum and can get your hands on some financially rewarding projects, you’ll be able to make some proper money while doing what most of us love most, working in the film industry!
In this article, I will tell you all about how a film director makes money, how much a director makes, and how you can elevate your income as a director!
Table of contents:
How does a director earn money?
The director is the person who is responsible for the final creative outcome of a project.
It’s the director’s job to ensure that all the different elements and people of the cast and crew work together on one unified vision for the project.
In most cases, directors work as freelancers or co-owners of their own production company that facilitates the production. But I’ve also seen companies with contracted directors get paid monthly salaries while doing all sorts of jobs.
Nevertheless, a director earns money by selling their time working on a project. He or she will bring their vision, skills, expertise, and experience onboard a particular project.
The more skills, experience, and expertise a director has regarding a specific type of directing, the more money they can charge for a particular job.
A fixed fee
In this world, many businesses work with a charge-per-hour rate, but it doesn’t work like that in the world of filmmaking.
A director usually gets paid a fixed fee for directing a film production from start to finish. This can range from zero bucks to making millions of money once you play in the big Hollywood league.
Besides a fixed director’s fee, a director can have many hats on a production, like a producer, writer, cinematographer, and editor. The more job titles and, therefore, the more responsibility a director will have, the bigger the paycheck can be in the end.
Slice of the pie
It can also happen that a director decides to get a very low or even no paycheck during production and negotiate a percentage of the total earnings of the project after its launch.
This happens more often on big (Hollywood) film productions and not on projects like music videos, commercials, and other short-format productions.
This construction was used, for example, by director Todd Phillips directing his film ‘Joker’ a few years ago. He deferred his upfront salary in exchange for a greater percentage of the total gross, which reportedly was between 10 and 13 percent.
Eventually, the movie made more than 1 billion dollars at the box office, so Todd made a ridiculous amount of money in the end!
How much money does a director earn?
How much a freelance director earns depends on so many different factors. A lot of times, it’s linked to the amount of experience they have and the size of the projects they have worked on in the past.
film directing is A game of trust starts with small beginnings.
At the beginning of every director's career, just like everyone else working in the film industry, they'll have to do many poorly paid or unpaid jobs to gain experience before they can start charging the big bills.
I’ve also walked this path, doing lots of free work before people eventually offered me paid work. This started with a few hundred euros initially and eventually grew to get paid tens of thousands while working on longer format productions.
This career ladder of paychecks works in every business on earth. You need to grow to get more money because filmmaking, like every business on earth, is essentially a business model based on trust.
Companies who invest money into the project want to know that the person they assign as the director can deliver the best possible outcome to achieve their aimed results.
The more experience, skills, or expertise a director has regarding bringing a specific project to life, the more valuable they can be on a particular job. Therefore, the more money a client is prepared to pay them.
Different projects, different paychecks.
In general, directing commercials pays exceptionally well compared to directing documentaries, music videos, or short films. Think of getting anywhere between 5K - 100K per job on a decent-sized production.
Of course, there are many exceptions to this rule. For example, a director for a brand new Beyonce song with massive commercial potential will get paid much more than working on an average laundry detergent commercial.
There is no industry standard For How much money a director earns.
Unfortunately, when it comes to making money as a director, there is no real industry standard for how much someone makes on a job. There is no labor organization that represents the creative and economic rights of directors.
If I look at my own career, I’ve done projects that got paid exceptionally well in terms of money and projects that paid a bare minimum or nothing.
But, those ‘freebee’ projects were more creative or experience-rewarding. The currency in which I was paid was different because, with that experience, I could get my hands on other paid projects that I otherwise would have missed.
Whether or not I jump on board a project is usually based on whether I like the project or not, if it matches my style, the amount of creative freedom I might or might not have compared to the amount of money I can make, or if it’s a building block to get to access to something else in the near future.
Of course, there are a million other reasons for somebody to be on board with an opportunity or not.
The Directors Guild of America.
In America, directors can become members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). This labor organization represents the creative and economic rights of directors and members of the directorial team working in film, television, commercials, documentaries, news, sports, and new media.
Working on commercials, a director has a minimum salary in 2021 of $1,527 per day, or $6,108 per week (Source). Working on shorts and documentaries, this is $14723 for a week.
For longer format productions, the director's fee depends on the kind of project and whether it's a Network Prime-Time or a Non-Prime-Time with a high or a low budget.
It can vary from a program rate of $135,287 for a Dramatic Network Prime-Time 91-120 minute production (42 days of filming) to $42,797 for a 91-120 minute Dramatic Non-Network or Network Non-Prime-Time production with a high budget (24 days of filming), or $9,638 for a Dramatic Non-Network or Network Non-Prime-Time production with a low budget (9 days of filming).
Besides director fees, the DGA rate cards also include working overtime, per diem, working hours, periods of rest, dinner allowance, vacation, pension, health plans, travel, mileage, and other allowances.
Unfortunately, Europe and most parts of the world don't have a craft union like the DGA to help support the director's rights and protect a minimum salary. It makes it a bit of a wild west situation where everybody can do everything they want.
How to make more money as a director?
You can do two things if you want to make more money as a director.
Charge more money
The first option is charging more money for the jobs you can get your hands on. If you like to choose that option, you'll have to justify your pay raise. You can best specialize in a particular kind of directing and become a master of that specific niche.
For example, you can only work on Italian sports car commercials, do horror (short) films with pirate zombies, commercials with a particular species of snakes, or focus solely on directing music videos for Albino artists.
Once you start specializing in one specific niche market and become a master at it, it will be very easy to raise your price without getting questions to justify your price.
Acquire more work
The second option is to get your hands on more work. How do you do that? Either funding your own projects to make money or increasing the chances of winning when you pitch for a new project.
In the world of directing film-related projects, whether a commercial, a music video, or a (short) film, it all comes down to pitching your filmmaking vision and ideas.
This involves convincing a company or person funding the project that you have the right skills, expertise, and experience to bring this specific project to life.
You can do this in person, but this is a very time-consuming strategy. Especially if you want to get your hands on projects internationally.
Everybody is short on time in today's world, so you must pitch your filmmaking ideas quickly and easily understandable. The best way to do that is by creating so-called ‘director treatments.’
If you want to make more money as a director, you need to become a master at creating director treatments. These digital documents help you outline your vision, ideas, or approach.
There are millions of different ways to create, formulate and design a director's treatment, but all job-winning treatments have one thing in common. They are heavily persuasive.
