Film Career · Casting
Extras Casting Director
Casting · Teamsters Local 399 (casting directors); varies
- Union
- Teamsters Local 399
- Day rate
- ~$50K–$250K/yr
- Experience
- 8–18+ yrs
What does an Extras Casting Director do?
The extras casting director is a leadership chair in the casting department, responsible for crew, planning, and the department's delivery to the production.
Union coverage for the position varies: teamsters local 399 (casting directors); varies. The role is engaged show by show, and careers in casting are built on the department heads and crews who hire the same trusted people back.
What does an Extras Casting Director make?
- This is a department-head chair, toward the top of its department's range.
- Casting is paid per project or weekly: assistants and coordinators run modest day rates, and casting directors roughly $25K-$100K+ per feature.
- Roughly $50K-$250K a year (Teamsters Local 399 covers casting directors in the West).
Film work is gig based, so crew are paid a day or weekly rate rather than a salary. These are realistic 2024-2025 ranges grounded in union rate cards and industry data; actual pay swings with budget tier, market, overtime, and reputation.
Sources & how we estimate pay
Union scale is the floor; the ranges above also reflect market day rates above scale. They are grounded in the following 2024–2025 sources:
Union rate cards & wage schedules
Official guild scale — the floor each craft is paid from.
- IATSE — 2024 Basic Agreement wage scales (PDF) ↗
- IATSE Local 600 (International Cinematographers Guild) — camera rate cards ↗
- DGA — minimum salary rate cards (director, unit production manager, assistant directors) ↗
- WGA — schedule of minimums (writers) ↗
- SAG-AFTRA — theatrical & background rate sheets (cast, stunts, background) ↗
- Teamsters Local 399 — basic feature wage rates, 2024–27 (transportation, locations, wranglers) (PDF) ↗
Government wage data
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the closest federal occupation.
You’ll like and be good at this job if:
Hard skills
- You know talent and can run auditions and deals
Soft skills
- You can lead a crew, hold a budget, and answer for the department
- You are as comfortable managing people as doing the craft
Career progression
The role advances the way most casting careers do: repeat hires from the same department heads, growing responsibility within the craft, and a reputation that travels between productions faster than any resume.
How do you become an Extras Casting Director?
Nobody is hired into this chair from outside: it is a promotion earned inside the casting department, from the people who watched you hold the junior versions of the job. The route in starts at the department's entry positions and runs through years of trusted work.
Covered by a union? The joining a film union guide explains how each one takes members.