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By Root 4080 0

to release the schedule of the comings and goings of the ships using their port. Although this was certainly understandable, it made for a challenge if there were no ships passing by on the shoot day. Fortunately for me, the art director was aware of this, and when we scouted the day before, we essentially sat and waited for a ship to appear downriver and timed how long between when we first saw the ship and when it filled out our background, and then how long we had it as a background. On the scout day, exactly one ship came by, we had three minutes from first sighting to the ship being in position, and we had 10 seconds of it as a background. On the shoot day, we advised our subject that it would be a wait, and we prepared to sit around. For two hours there was nothing, but we were ready. Lights were set up, softbox was in position, makeup was done, and then the ship came by. We got several images that the client liked in the 10 seconds we had, and we were done. The key, however, in this entire scenario is that the client was aware of the risk that the shoot might not produce images if there was no ship.

Bringing the Factors Together

I'd like to put forth a few figures that should reasonably serve as a floor to your rates, and then I submit that there is no limit to the value of your creativity, save for the client's willingness to pay for it.

In the earlier example where I was shooting an ad on a TV commercial set, my creative contribution was limited. So, too, in the movie/film industry can the creativity of the job of "unit photographer" be limited. Generally, the primary task of the unit photographer is to reproduce on a still camera as closely as possible what is captured in the motion-picture camera. That is not to say that the unit photographer does not also capture behind-the-scenes images of the director giving instructions to the actors, overall set images, and so on. That said, however, the creative factor for a unit photographer can be very limited, and while the risk factor may come into play from time to time, the time factor is set by the number of hours on set, and the uniqueness factor is more about the uniqueness of the situation the director is creating than of your creative genius that you are bringing to the table.

Thus, for a unit photographer, the union that governs movie-set photographers (the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE, Local 600 of the Cinematographers Guild) has a set scale that unit photographers get paid, and it starts out at between $500 and $800 a day. (Other factors that affect it are whether it is in your region, out of your region, in country or out, a television production, or a movie.)

I offer this starting union rate that unions pay at the bottom of the scale as a floor for a day's worth of work. The greatest skill of a unit photographer is knowing how to work on a set, what to do, and more importantly what not to do. This is not to say that unit photographers are not creatively talented. They are. Many of them get paid much more than union scale, and many of them bring significant creative talents to bear on set. However, at the bottom end of the union scale, they are not using much of that in their general day-to-day duties.

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IATSE UNION REQUIREMENTS FOR BECOMING A UNIT PHOTOGRAPHER

To get into the IATSE photographers' union, you have to:

Work on a non-union production that "flips" to a union show. Essentially, if a large enough collection of the people working on a movie decide they want to be in the union, they will call in someone from the union and all sign a document stating they should be union and paid a union scale, and then the document will be presented to the people managing the production. Essentially, this means that all the people who signed are saying they won't continue to work unless they become union and that everyone is a union worker. This type of situation does not happen often and is very much frowned upon by the producers of the project because it means they will have to pay a lot more money.

Be grandfathered