How Much Does a Film Production Coordinator Make? A Look at the Job Responsibilities of a Film Production Coordinator and How Much Money They Make

How Much Does a Film Production Coordinator Make? A Look at the Job Responsibilities of a Film Production Coordinator and How Much Money They Make
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What is a Production Coordinator Anyway?

A film production coordinator is a necessary position on almost all major productions, and in reality this can be a consistent position that a person can shift themselves toward after paying dues as a production assistant. The job of a film production coordinator is much of what it sounds like, which is the actual coordination of everything needed in production. As is somewhat true with a production assistant, much of the job responsibilities can change. A film production coordinator will often be ordering materials, helping to put together all the organizational functions for a shoot day, working on arranging extras and actors, communicating with different departments for the film or production company, and solving different problems. On a feature film the film production coordinator will actually be a unionized crew position under the direction of the unit production manager. Overall, the production coordinator can be a great place to get started and then maybe move on to positions like the production manager, producer, or really start doing production coordination in different areas of productions where you would like to move up in.

Film Production Coordinator Salary

Just as the duties of a film production coordinator can change, how much a film production coordinator makes can also fluctuate. The reality is that a production coordinator’s salary is going to be determined by the size of the company, project, employer, or determinate, but you can tend to look at what the average of the salary in regards to the size of the operation to determine what you will be making. There are fewer salary estimates about how much a film production coordinator makes than with other positions, but there is a range.

You can see some of these salaries for those on small projects and who freelance, yet are not consistently employed, will make under the thirty thousand a year mark.

For well employed film production coordinators at commercial production companies you can expect to make in the forty thousand dollar a year range. It can also go up from there, but you are also going to be looking at a more advanced position at that point as possibly a production manager or unit production manager.

You are going to make a financial trade off at all points as a film production coordinator as you will make more money if you are willing to provide more services and have more of a professional background or education. You are not usually going to see an absolute education requirement of more than an associate’s degree, but you are not going to put yourself up for much of a high salary film production coordinating position with anything less than a bachelor’s degree. Graduate film students are also going to find that they will be in a good position to get a higher paying film production coordinator position, though they will need to spend time interning and possibly taking brief positions as a production assistant and production coordinator before applying for the more established positions. Since you have to be more flexible with your hours and positions you will find that to really make a satisfactory wage you will have to give up personal time and accommodate any hours needed by the position.

This post is part of the series: Film Jobs

Here are different articles that concern film production employment.

  1. Film Production Employment
  2. Finding Film Production Internships
  3. How Much Does a Film Production Coordinator Make?