There’s been a lot of discussion about ‘indie’ film directors and whether they get paid enough to live on given the 1-3 years they might spend on the film.
One person putting forth their opinion is indie producer Alex Saks, who suggests it’s less than or upwards of 75k per film for a director or perhaps a few hundred thousand dollars if the director is well established, and that it’s not enough. Well, Alex is entitled to her opinion, but it’s not fact, and it’s not true.
Indie director salaries come down to five things: the production budget of the film, the percentage of the budget that the director has negotiated as a salary, the percentage of the salary they give up for creative reasons, the different skills they possess in addition to directing, and the percentage of monies they pay to their representatives.
Any indie director represented by a lawyer who has any clue what they’re doing should expect an upfront salary of at least 3-4% of the production budget. If the budget exceeds $5million, something between 4-5% is not unreasonable. And if the budget is in the tens of millions of dollars, there will likely be a dollar amount cap on the amount the director can make.
Example: if the budget is $1,000,000 for something like RED ROCKET, Sean Baker should get paid $33,000-$40,000 to direct. It’s enough because they chose to make something this cheap and they chose to take on a 1-3 year project at the low salary because that is what the budget could allow.
Example: if the budget for ANORA was $6 million as reported, director Sean Baker should have been paid $300,000.00 pre-tax and pre-commissions. If you divide that total by the 3 years spent working on the film, 100k pre-tax per year (and even if you throw in a 10% commission that reduces it to $90k per year.) is more than a lot of people make as an average annual salary. Is this amount ‘not enough’. How much is ‘enough’? 500k? 600k? How about a million?
Another thing Alex touched on was the financial sacrifices that indie directors make to be able to afford things that were not otherwise affordable in the production budget. Well, if the director sacrifices money for creative purposes, that is on the director and he or she can’t claim that the sacrifice wasn’t their fault and that they didn’t make enough. Example: Sean Baker insisted on shooting ANORA on expensive 35mm film and not on less expensive video(which always fascinated us. It’s this strange thing where directors are beguiled by film and yet unless they are shooting epic/sprawling films LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, using film is pointless). In doing so, Sean sucked up a lot of money out of the budget for the larger camera crew required, for the film camera equipment, for extra shoot days b/c prepping shots for film versus video takes a lot longer (you can shoot for so much longer with video. With film, the time length allowed of each shot is limited) , and for purchasing the film itself.
What Alex Saks and others conveniently leave out of the earnings of a director is that the vast majority of indie directors don’t just direct their films. They write or co-write them as well and that means more money in the form of another 2.5%-3% of the budget. For ANORA, since Sean Baker wrote the script, that would be another $180,000 pre-tax pre-commission to Sean. Between writing and directing, Sean’s pre-tax pre-commission money would total $480,000.00. Is that not enough to live on?
FIFTH: when it comes to backend participation, In some cases (like Sean Baker), the director does more than just write and direct. He produces. He casts. He edits. He designs the sound. Accordingly, the more a director does on his/her film, the bigger piece of the upfront pie and backend participation they should have. Directors get 5% of the net. Writers should get 5% of the net. If a writer/director wears more hats, their net profit percentage should go way up. Example: Alex Saks says there was $300,000 in net profits for ANORA to divide up and that 150k went to the investors while the other 150k went to producers/writers/directors/actors. Sean Baker should have received the lion’s share of that money for his contributions. At least $50k. Anything less suggests Sean had weak representation and should replace his representatives.
And when it comes to commissions, directors get to choose what kind of representation they want, and depending on those choices, the commission percentages will dictate how much money they give up. An agent charges 10%. A manager charges 10%. A lawyer charges 5%. For Sean Baker, he has a management company that supplied no services for 10% and he had a lawyer who took 5%. We say the management company (Fusion Entertainment) didn’t contribute anything because Sean did all the heavy lifting, the money was raised by others, and so on. Sean Baker should have gotten rid of his management team to save the 10% commission and perhaps paid his lawyer on an hourly rate to keep down expenses.
So, there you have it. If Sean Baker ever happens to stumble upon this article, we hope he realizes that with negotiating team around him for less of a commission, his career moving forward will provide beyond enough to live on.