Costume Designers are really low on the totem pole of salary. This is a very sensitive topic and deserves a reckoning. The union scale for a union film is around $3,000 to $3,500 a week. It varies from television to film, television being slightly lower. But someone like myself is above scale, and that can mean anywhere from $4,000 to $12,000 a week. Very few people make $12,000 a week. I’d just like to say that.
But realistically, after decades of experience, you would probably get up to $7,000 or $8,000 per week. So there’s the union scale, and if you’re getting above scale, it’s probably $4,000 to $5,000 a week. As you build your career, you would get up to $6,000 and $7,000.
There’s a grid that recently came out in a Hollywood trade paper. The Cinematographer is at the top, and the scale for a Cinematographer is $8,000 or $9,000 a week. The scale for a Costume Designer is $3,000 +-. That’s quite a discrepancy. Even the Assistant Prop Person makes more than the Costume Designer’s scale. It has a lot to do with it being a traditionally female position.
The only thing I can say is that those positions are tied to an hourly wage on set and Costume Designers’ rates are typically on a flat rate. Whether you work two hours in a day or twenty-two hours in a day, you get the same amount of money. If you work a sixth day, you get paid time and a half, and if you work a seventh day, you get paid double. If you make $5,000 a week and you work a sixth day, you’ll make $1,500 on that day and $2,000 on Sunday. That’s pretty standard in any union.