History of Audition Pay
Audition Pay has been in our contract since 1947.
For every audition we perform without booking the role, we’re entitled to half our scale day rate. Since our rate is $1,082, that’s $541 per audition for every SAG-AFTRA TV show, studio feature, or high-budget indie film.
Today, the provision can be found in SAG-AFTRA’s TV/Theatrical CBA, Schedule A 15 (B):
So how did Audition Pay come about? Why haven’t we known about it? And why is it more important than ever?
1930s - 40s: SAG establishes pay for camera tests
SAG’s first contracts with studios include pay for members who perform fittings, sound tests, and camera tests, without booking the role.
1947: SAG adds Audition Pay to the contract
Many performers are salaried by studios with auditions making up much of their jobs. The Audition Pay provision protects the wages of performers without salaried positions. SAG also establishes overtime pay for performers who do book the role but were kept waiting for an audition over an hour past its scheduled start time.
The 1947 contract also differentiates between Auditions and Interviews, based on required preparation. In 2023, our contract still includes the distinction:
Click here for other early contract provisions that the union enforces to this day.
1960s: The studio system collapses
Now freelancers, rather than salaried employees, more performers must file claims through SAG to receive their owed Audition Pay. In the absence of automated payment procedures, individual claims pose the risk of employer retaliation.
1970s: Third parties start to profit from auditions
In 1971, former child actor Gary Marsh founds Breakdown Services as a messenger service to deliver breakdowns to talent agents. This creates a rich market for third-party casting services to profit off performers’ need for work.
1980s: Industry professionals teach classes on auditioning
Acting teachers and casting directors start offering performers courses on auditioning. These courses will grow in popularity through the present day. Auditioning becomes more understood as a unique skill, distinct from on-set performing and from job interviews. Unfortunately, without enforcement of the Audition Pay provision, the performers who invest in developing this skill are still not compensated for the value it creates for employers.
1980s: SAG adds more protections for auditioning performers
The Auditions section of the contract is revised three times. Producers are now responsible for keeping sign-in sheets at auditions to provide the union later. These help hold producers accountable so they pay performers for wait time and provide (or reimburse for) parking. Producers also agree to erase performers’ auditions at their written request.
1980s - 90s: Auditions require more work and save producers more money
Fax machines make it cheaper and easier for employers to send performers sides in advance, changing the industry standard for a competitive audition.
Third-party companies again capitalize on performers’ need for work by charging performers for access to sides.
Email later replaces fax machines, further reducing the employer cost of sending performers materials to prepare in advance, while giving performers more work to do on a tighter turnaround.
1992: Producers make contractual commitment to talent discovery
In Section 47 of SAG’s General Provisions, producers agree to either “send a casting director…to the showcases jointly sponsored by the [Screen Actors] Guild and Casting Society of America” or “expend a comparable amount of time holding general interviews.”
Producers and SAG create the Industry Advancement and Cooperative Fund (IACF), which, like SAG’s health and pension plans, is funded by employer contributions. Per Section 32, the IACF is made responsible for “providing showcases” and administering “seminars to enhance awareness of the casting…mandates contained in the Agreement.”
1990s - 2000s: Actors publicly acknowledge audition payments
Stephen Dorff recounts being paid in the 1990s for an audition he performed but didn’t book:
“Mr. Dorff first started auditioning when he was 12. After a series of small TV roles in the 1980s, the first major paid audition he had was for a lead role alongside Al Pacino in the 1992 Scent of a Woman. Chris O'Donnell won the part in the end.”
Brooke Shields recounts being paid in the early 2000s for an unbooked audition:
“I did this paid audition for Disney years ago for Chicken Little where you work with animators and they see if they can see you as a character. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had. I didn’t get the part—Roxy—which was crushing to me.”
Eric Singer recounts being paid in the late 2000s for an unbooked audition:
“Two days later he had a paid audition for a Warner Brothers movie called Life as We Know It. Eric reports that he did not get the part.”
2000s - 10s: Auditions make casting platforms rich
In 2003, Breakdown Services creates Actors Access, shifting the casting process online. Performers and their representatives are required to pay monthly or annual fees in order to post reels, access breakdowns and audition requests, and submit tapes. Casting professionals are not required to pay for access to performers’ auditions and pitch materials.
Watching audition tapes instead of attending sessions saves producers time. They start requiring that casting provide audition tapes for the kinds of roles producers never previously attended in-person sessions for. This creates more work for casting professionals at no extra cost to producers.
As Breakdown Services and their competitors launch more platforms, casting continues to grow as an industry unto itself, from which only performers do not profit.
2019: SAG-AFTRA members discover Audition Pay
SAG-AFTRA member Charlie Bodin discovers the Audition Pay provision during a research project and compiles all of the union’s TV/Theatrical contracts for members to study.
2020s: Producers use self-tapes to save money
COVID-19 shuts down production. Auditioning shifts almost entirely to self-tapes, burdening more performers with more production labor.
Even after SAG-AFTRA’s Return to Work Agreement allows in-person auditions to resume, most producers request self-tapes instead. Once again, employers save money and work while performers take on extra work and costs. Performers now provide the space, equipment, software, readers, and technical labor that producers once paid casting to provide. Not paying for readers alone saves them an estimated $250 million.
Employers start to request that casting solicit up to hundreds of tapes per role at no added cost. Performers are auditioning more than ever, with decreased chances of booking each role.
2020s: More third-party companies, such as self-tape studios and private equity firms, profit off auditions
More self-tape studios open, offering services to paying performers who lack the equipment, space, or readers necessary to complete their audition requests. Performers are forced to choose between paying for such services, or investing in their own equipment; outsourcing production labor at a cost, or doing more work on their own.
Private equity firm RedBird Capital buys a majority stake in Breakdown Services competitor Talent Systems, which owns casting platforms such as Casting Networks, Cast It, Casting Frontier, and Spotlight.
September 2022: SAG-AFTRA limits Audition Pay
In response to members’ interest in Audition Pay, SAG-AFTRA issues a statement clarifying how it currently interprets the contract language. This interpretation is harmful to members. It limits the circumstances in which the union will pursue Audition Pay to in-person screen tests, overtime waits, and when performers are “expressly required” to memorize lines. The memorization qualifier is nowhere to be found in the SAG-AFTRA TV/Theatrical contract.
The statement was drawn up by the TV/Theatrical Standing Committee–an anonymous, non-elected body appointed by leadership in 2019.
SAG-AFTRA members are not given a chance to vote on this significant change to our ability to collect contractually owed wages.
The statement also acknowledges that “SAG-AFTRA believes that audition pay language can be read to require payment in circumstances beyond those...and reserves the right to pursue those interpretations in the future.”
2022 - present: Producers issue memorization disclaimers
In direct response to SAG-AFTRA’s statement, producers begin adding disclaimers to auditions, claiming performers are “not required to learn or memorize lines in advance of your audition.”
These disclaimers are not only nonsensical; they contradict what has long been the industry standard. And, they are clearly producers’ bad faith attempts to continue to benefit from our auditions while using legal jargon to avoid paying what they contractually owe us.
March 2023: Performers speak out on the unbearable cost of auditioning
Betty Mae Casting posts an ad for paid self-tape services, igniting an online firestorm. Performers criticize the exploitative nature of the current casting process, creating a confrontational dynamic between many performers and casting professionals. Performers and casting also debate their preferences for self-taped versus in-person auditions.
We believe the bigger picture is clear: Auditions are work, whether they are self-taped or in-person. SAG-AFTRA members are contractually owed payment for them. It is the studios who are responsible for paying us, and for the casting process. It is the studios who have steadily offloaded more casting labor onto us, over time, at no extra cost to themselves. The studios profit most from the exploitation of performers and casting professionals alike. And the studios are the ones who owe us Audition Pay, per our contract with their bargaining representative, the AMPTP.
June 2023: SAG-AFTRA members approve Strike Authorization ahead of negotiations with the AMPTP
On June 5, 2023, 97.91% of SAG-AFTRA members voted to approve a Strike Authorization before the union began negotiating with the studios on June 7th to settle on a new contract before the 2020 contract’s expiration on June 30, 2023.
With a turnout percentage of more than 47.69% of eligible voters, the historic turnout and powerful show of strength and solidarity set the table for a negotiation that, when combined with an on-going WGA Strike, would prove to be an inflection point for the entire industry.
July 2023: SAG-AFTRA goes on strike
On July 13, 2023 the TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee voted unanimously to recommend a strike. The SAG-AFTRA National Board then met and voted to approve the recommendation to strike, effective at Midnight, July 14th 2023.
Major reasons for the strike included the need for minimum wage increase accounting for inflation, increasing contribution caps to pension and health plan, establishing guardrails for the use of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), establishing residual formulas for streaming platforms, and creating rules and regulations for self taping and virtual casting.
With pickets and rallies held across the country, and with solidarity from other unions and entertainment industries around the globe, the 2023 TV/Theatrical Strike was the first TV/Theatrical strike since 1980; the first combined strike with the WGA since 1960; and would go one to become the longest TV/Theatrical strike in union history.
July 2023: SAG-AFTRA offers Interim Agreements to independent productions during strike
Duncan Crabtree Ireland, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Lead Negotiator, embraces the controversial strategy of offering Interim Agreements to truly independent productions. The agreements allowed truly independent projects to film during the strike - working under the terms of SAG-AFTRA’s final offer to the studios prior to the strike - and eventually bound by the terms of whatever deal the guild eventually reaches with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
The Interim Agreements included language that protected the Audition Pay provisions in the TV/Theatrical CBA. Notably, the wording “Self-Tape Auditions and Interviews” (Exhibit A) ensured that self tapes were bound to the original definitions and rules for auditions and interviews, including the Audition Pay Provision.
While the Interim Agreement language specified that “No compensation is due to a performer for a self-tape interview”, it did not include such language for self-taped auditions.
September 2023: Casting Directors stoke fear about Audition Pay during strike
A pair of controversial instagram posts from a former casting director stoked fear about Audition Pay within the performer community and called into question the support of a casting community that frequently claims to “love actors”.
The posts include problematic rhetoric that sought to invalidate the creative labor that goes in to auditions and self-tapes and blame performers for the the exploitative practices they endure while navigating the casting process and the market forces that determine the number of opportunities available at any given time.
The posts created a firestorm of online discourse and made Audition Pay a more polarizing topic than ever, all while performers continued to walk the picket lines and struggled to survive during a historic work stoppage.
November 2023: SAG-AFTRA reaches tentative deal with the AMPTP that gives Audition Pay away.
On November 8, 2023, after 118 days on strike, the TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee voted unanimously to approve a Tentative Agreement with the AMPTP. The SAG-AFTRA National Board subsequently met and approved the agreement by a majority of 86%, thereby sending the agreement to the SAG-AFTRA members for approval.
On November 13th, SAG-AFTRA published an 18-page Summary of the Tentative Deal, with members voting on the deal between November 14th and December 5th.
After pressure from members asking to review the full contract language of the deal, SAG-AFTRA released the full 128-page Tentative Agreement on November 23rd.
Fierce discourse surrounding whether or not to ratify the deal ensued during the voting period, embroiling union leaders, negotiators, celebrity and rank-and-file members alike. While the deal largely delivered on promised to raise minimums and contribution caps for the pension and health plans, there was debate within the membership about the proposed guardrails for A.I., whether the proposed “Streaming Bonus” was a sufficient replacement for residuals.
While the Agreement does include a slew of new protections and guidelines for the Casting process, it does not include Audition Pay safeguards from the Interim Agreement. Instead, it includes new provisions that define “Self Tapes” as un-paid non-work separate from Auditions; codifies the memorization requirement, making compensation for Auditions or Virtual Auditions dependent on whether producers “explicitly require memorization”; and mandates that producers “may not require memorization” for virtual auditions.
Taken together, this new language arms studios with all the loopholes needed to avoid ever having to pay performers for their Auditions or Self-Tapes; effectively giving away an estimated $0.5 billion annually in Audition Pay for a contract valued at $1billion over three years.
December 2023: SAG-AFTRA members vote to approve contract that includes drastic changes to casting process
On December 5th, 2023 SAG-AFTRA members voted to ratify the 2023 TV/Theatrical Contract by a majority of 78.33%, with voter turnout of 38.15%.
As a result, simply “Auditioning” for work ceased to be the reality for performers. Effective July 30, 2023 - there are now separate definitions and rules governing “Self Tapes”, “Auditions”, “Virtual Auditions”, “Interviews”, and “Virtual Interviews”.
The changes to these definitions represent the largest redefinition of the labor performers contribute to the casting process since Auditions and Interviews were originally defined in 1947.
January 2023: Casting Networks implements exploitive changes to casting platform pricing
Casting Networks - one of the eight hiring platforms owned by Talent Systems, LLC - announced a new pricing structure that would charge performers to store footage requested by casting directors, in clear violation of new rules in the 2024 TV/Theatrical Agreement.
The cost of subscribing and uploading materials to multiple casting platforms has been a point of contention amongst SAG-AFTRA members for years, and the move by Casting Networks to force most working performers to pay for a premium membership was met with outrage from performers and members of the casting community alike.
SAG-AFTRA issued a letter responding to the controversy on January 20th, 2023, in which it said “it has come to our attention that there are a number of casting websites and apps charging a fee for performers to submit for roles. As a reminder for union jobs, performers must have a no-cost method to submit themselves for a commercial casting.”
The letter went on to cite California Labor Law 450, which says “no employer, or agent or officer thereof, or other person, may compel or coerce any employee, or applicant for employment, to patronize his or her employer, or any other person, in the purchase of any thing of value”, and referenced a similar law in New York.
The 2023 TV/Theatrical Agreement requires that, for general casting calls, actors cannot be charged a fee to access a notice (or information relating to a casting call) and ensures that Producers can’t give preferential treatment to a performer who paid a fee to a casting service, either.
February 2023: Fake self tape scandal roils UK agency
6 clients of UK talent agency Bodhi Talent accused the agency’s founder - talent agent Archie Purnell - of professional misconduct after performers discovered he was sending them fake self tape requests in order to make keep them happy by making them feel busy and to bolster his standing in the industry.
The performers, who have since left the agency, accused Bodhi of copying and pasting the details of genuine self-tape briefs from casting directors and supplying them to actors who had not been called to audition for the specific role. Some recall receiving (what would turn out to be) fake requests soon after questioning a lack of work. Others would recieved invitations after submission deadlines had already passed, or find out that they didn’t actually fit the role breakdowns from rival talent agents.
The controversy highlights not only a complete lack of respect for the labor performers do while self-taping, but also a troubling lack of transparency within the casting process, including verifying whether requests are valid or if the footage they send in is ever actually seen by casting directors, some of whom claim to request tapes from hundreds of performers for a single role.
March 2023: Trouble at talent agencies
Kazarian Measures Ruskin (KMR) Talent Agency became the latest talent agency - following the closure of A3 and client payment issues at BBA - to make headlines, close, or lose their franchise agreement with SAG-AFTRA in the wake of financial trouble, including failure to pay clients their earnings.
Audition Pay, when enforced, is considered “initial compensation”. This means that it is commissionable by talent agents and managers.