# Day rates or hourly pay



## Dagger (Dec 8, 2019)

What do you bill companies?


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## tdrga (Dec 8, 2019)

It depends.
Regular stagehand work (someone else is telling me what hours to work and there's no prep before I walk in to the venue) - hourly with OT after 10/day.
Programming/designing/consulting (I'm in control of how many hours I put in as far as prep goes and how long it takes to get the work done) - day rate with OT after 10/day.
-Todd


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## macsound (Dec 9, 2019)

Very difficult question. I might bill both ways for the same client depending on what I'm doing. 
Consulting it's usually hourly because I can include on-site meetings, phone calls, drafting etc.
Recurring events such as film shoots where the schedule is determined ahead of time it's day rate. Non recurring events that have no schedule is minimum day rate plus hourly after 4-6 hours. 
Corporate events however is hourly because they're accustomed to paying union folk that way.


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## Dionysus (Dec 16, 2019)

I go Both ways depending on hours (or potential hours), kind of work, etc.
Really depends on what I am doing.

Depends on my feelings and with who is hiring me. Often for festivals etc I do day rates because it takes guess work out of budgets. For most theatre work I do hourly.


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## Darin (Dec 17, 2019)

When I worked at the Oprah Winfrey Show, it was a day rate for the first 8 hours, then hourly afterward, with time-and-a-half after 10 hours, double time after 16, and time-and-a-half on a short turnaround

Oh, plus meal penalties

We made a ton of money there


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## TimMc (Dec 17, 2019)

Darin said:


> When I worked at the Oprah Winfrey Show, it was a day rate for the first 8 hours, then hourly afterward, with time-and-a-half after 10 hours, double time after 16, and time-and-a-half on a short turnaround
> 
> Oh, plus meal penalties
> 
> We made a ton of money there


Sounds like IATSE Local 2 was involved.


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## Darin (Dec 18, 2019)

TimMc said:


> Sounds like IATSE Local 2 was involved.



Nope, that was the beauty of it. Harpo Studios was purposely built just outside of Local 2's jurisdiction, so it wasn't technically operating under union regs, but the studio chose to follow the pay structures. The advantage was that the studio wasn't locked into the job divisions of a normal union house, but could still attract high quality technicians. In a single shift, I could hang/focus lights, build scenery, pull props, decorate the set, drive the forklift or paint the floor. The studio attracted more theatre people than IATSE people because of their ability to work in several areas


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## TimMc (Dec 19, 2019)

Darin said:


> Nope, that was the beauty of it. Harpo Studios was purposely built just outside of Local 2's jurisdiction, so it wasn't technically operating under union regs, but the studio chose to follow the pay structures. The advantage was that the studio wasn't locked into the job divisions of a normal union house, but could still attract high quality technicians. In a single shift, I could hang/focus lights, build scenery, pull props, decorate the set, drive the forklift or paint the floor. The studio attracted more theatre people than IATSE people because of their ability to work in several areas



Other than departmentalization, it sounds like Local 2 had a direct influence on wages and benefits. Harpo had to pay prevailing area rates to get the technicians needed.


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## Darin (Dec 19, 2019)

TimMc said:


> Other than departmentalization, it sounds like Local 2 had a direct influence on wages and benefits. Harpo had to pay prevailing area rates to get the technicians needed.



They chose to, they didn't NEED to. Very few technicians at Harpo were members of IATSE


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## TimMc (Dec 20, 2019)

Darin said:


> They chose to, they didn't NEED to. Very few technicians at Harpo were members of IATSE


I suppose it depends on which camera shot one is viewing (pun intended)... but if Harpo was paying below scale you'd bet they'd have had a hard time attracting the high level of talent they got (and kept for a long time, most of 'em). Harpo's a great reputation for both treatment and compensation.


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## Darin (Dec 20, 2019)

TimMc said:


> I suppose it depends on which camera shot one is viewing (pun intended)... but if Harpo was paying below scale you'd bet they'd have had a hard time attracting the high level of talent they got (and kept for a long time, most of 'em). Harpo's a great reputation for both treatment and compensation.



Yes, high pay absolutely attracted more qualified people. They were smart to adopt union pay structures. They were also smart to not handcuff themselves to union workers who couldn't cross lines of job duties


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