Film crew overtime, explained

Set days run long, and the pay that comes with them is built in layers. A twelve- or fourteen-hour day is not just your rate times the hours — it climbs through overtime tiers, and penalties attach when the production pushes a meal or a short turnaround. This is a plain-English guide to how those layers work, and why the exact numbers depend on your agreement. It is general information, not legal or payroll advice.

The shape of a shoot day

Almost every film and TV agreement pays in tiers across the day. You earn your base rate for the first stretch, and each threshold you cross raises the multiplier on every hour after it. The thresholds and rates differ, but the shape is remarkably consistent:

The hours above are a common pattern, not a rule — treat them as the shape, and your agreement as the truth. You can see the shape in numbers with the free film crew overtime calculator.

Straight time

Straight time is your base hourly rate, paid for the first block of the day before any overtime begins — commonly the first eight worked hours. "Worked" is the key word: unpaid meal breaks usually do not count toward the threshold, which is why a twelve-hour day on the clock can be more or fewer than twelve worked hours.

Overtime: time-and-a-half and double time

Once you pass the straight-time threshold, each additional hour is paid at time-and-a-half — one and a half times your base rate. After a second, later threshold, the rate steps up to double time. The move from 1.5× to 2× is why the last hours of a long day are worth so much more than the first, and why knowing where you are in the ladder matters before you agree to push.

Golden time

Golden time is an elevated rate — most often triple time — that some agreements pay after very long days, or on certain days off. Not every agreement uses the term or the trigger, so golden time is one of the areas where reading your specific agreement matters most.

Meal penalties

Productions owe a meal penalty when they work you past the deadline for a meal break. The clock usually starts a set number of hours after the previous meal (or after call), and once it passes, the penalty accrues — commonly a fixed amount for each interval the break is delayed, sometimes rising the longer it runs. Meal-penalty amounts are among the most agreement-specific figures on a timecard, which is why a general calculator can only estimate them.

Turnaround and rest

Turnaround is the minimum rest between wrap and the next day's call. If a production calls you back too soon, many agreements owe a penalty, or pay the invaded hours at a higher rate, until proper rest is restored. Turnaround is easy to lose track of across a run of long days, and it is real money.

Why the numbers differ

There is no single "film overtime" rate. A camera assistant on an IATSE show in Toronto, a performer under ACTRA or SAG-AFTRA, and a crew member under PACT/BECTU in the UK are each paid under different rules — different thresholds, different multipliers, different meal deadlines. Where no union agreement applies, a statutory floor (the legal minimum for your region) still sets a baseline. The honest position is that the tier shape is shared, but the exact figures belong to your agreement.

How to check your own pay

Two free ways to sanity-check a day. For a quick estimate from your rate and hours, use the overtime calculator. For the real thing — computed live from your actual agreement, with every figure showing the rule and source it came from — that is what Wrap Clock is built to do. It reads IATSE, ACTRA, SAG-AFTRA, PACT/BECTU or your country's legal minimums, watches the clock, and produces a timecard your production can sign. Where a rule cannot be verified, it withholds the amount rather than guessing.