Commercials

• 1st and 2nd Auditions:  No payment is due for the first hour from the call time or arrival time, whichever is later. For each additional half-hour, a performer is entitled to $42.00.

• 3rd Audition:  No payment is due for the first 2 hours as long as 3 or fewer performers are called back per role, and none of those performers is on their first audition. Otherwise, a performer is entitled to $167.94 for the first 2 hours. For each additional half-hour over 2 hours, $42.00 is due.

On the front of the standard SAG-AFTRA employment contract, there are 4 separate boxes to check if you do not consent to use of your commercial on the Internet, as a dealer commercial, and/or on New Media. On the reverse side, two separate paragraphs grant rights to producer for foreign and theatrical/industrial use. Although not a contractual term, “clean contract” is used by producers to mean as a condition of employment, that you must grant these rights at the time of booking at scale, i.e., you may not mark your contract by checking off these boxes or crossing out the paragraphs.

No. Performers cannot be required to accept minimum fees as a condition of auditioning.  A producer is permitted to state the company’s intent to offer a performer the minimum fees; however the producer is obligated to advise the performer at the same time of his/her right to negotiate for better terms and conditions. 

When a casting director issues a “first refusal” it means that a final casting decision has not been made; the casting director is requesting that the performer contact him/her before accepting a booking for another job on the same day(s), i.e., giving the original producer the first opportunity to book the person. A “first refusal” is not a booking and the performer has no contractual obligation to get back to the casting director or turn down the second job nor does the producer owe a cancellation fee if the performer is not used.

Session payment for a commercial is due 15 business days after the session.

A principal performer receives time-and-one-half for the ninth and tenth hours and double time thereafter, in hourly units. Principal performers receiving more than two times the session fee per commercial per day receive time-and-one-half instead of double time after the tenth hour.

Normally, session and residual checks are sent to the performer directly, or to whomever the performer has designated on the employment contract (such as to his/her agent).  However, checks for Spanish and Asian language commercials, as well as for claims that have been filed, are sent directly to the Union, and in turn, are forwarded to the performer.  

Multiple tracking, which requires an additional 50% of the original fee for solos and duos, is a re-recording over the original track or adding another track, electronically or mechanically, which contains the same material as recorded on the original track.  Sweetening, which requires an additional 100% of the original fee for solos and duos, is the addition of a new or variant track over the original track. Group performers are paid an additional 50% of the original fee for unlimited multiple tracking and/or sweetening.

Holding fees are paid to a performer in “fixed” cycles, every 13 weeks from the session date, if the producer wishes to retain the rights to air the commercial and wants to hold a performer exclusive to the product.  During this 13-week period, a performer cannot accept work in a commercial for a competitive
product. For example, if a performer has received a holding fee for a Pepsi commercial, he/she may not accept work for a commercial advertising Coca-Cola during that period of time.

If the producer has not paid a holding fee to a performer by the first day of the new holding fee cycle, he/she is released from exclusivity and may audition for, and accept employment in, a commercial for a competing product.