What Are Fringes in a Film Budget?
Fringes are the payroll costs that sit on top of a wage: federal and state taxes, union pension and health contributions, workers compensation, payroll service fees. They are why a $1,000 day does not cost $1,000.
Also called: payroll fringes · fringe benefits · fringe rate
What is in the stack
Start with payroll taxes. FICA is 6.2 percent, Medicare 1.45, FUTA 0.6, then state unemployment and disability on top, which in California adds another 3.4 and 0.9. That is around 12.5 percent before anybody has said the word union.
Union labor adds pension and health above that. SAG-AFTRA is commonly budgeted near 8.5 percent pension and 8.5 percent health. DGA sits around 7.5 and 7.11. IATSE around 7.5 and 9. Then workers compensation, which varies by state and job classification, and a payroll company fee of a percent or two.
Those rates move. Budget from the current agreement rather than from a number you remember from the last job.
Why they stack rather than add
Fringes apply per line item, not once at the bottom. A grip and a principal actor carry different stacks. A budget that applies one blended percentage across all labor will be wrong in both directions, and usually wrong by enough to matter.
Where people get caught out
Fringes are the most common reason a first budget comes in low. A department head quotes crew rates, the producer adds them up, and nobody adds the 25 to 35 percent that lands on top of the labor lines. On a $200,000 budget with half of it in labor, that gap is $25,000 at the low end.
