A producer negotiates hard with an agent, lands a good deal, and sends it to counsel to paper. Half of it cannot go in the contract, because the union agreement the picture is shooting under does not allow it.
It happens after the handshake, when taking a term back costs the production goodwill it cannot spare.
No Run-of-Show or Weekly Deals Under the Ultra Low Budget Agreement
Producers like a run-of-show deal because it is simple. One number, the actor belongs to the picture for the shoot, and nobody counts days.
The Ultra Low Budget Project Agreement covers day performers only. It has no weekly category and no run-of-show contract. An actor engaged under it works by the day, and the paperwork has to say so.
The structure that works is a guaranteed number of days. Guarantee a specific number of workdays at the negotiated rate, payable whether or not the production uses every one of them, and schedule those days inside the principal photography window. The actor knows what she will earn. The production knows what it owes. Nobody has drafted a category the agreement does not recognize.
Say the number out loud during the negotiation. On a phone call, run of show and fourteen guaranteed days sound like the same deal. In a document they are different deals.
No Exclusivity for Performers Between Shoot Days
Under this agreement a production cannot hold a performer exclusively. That surprises producers, who expect to hire an actor the way they hire anyone else.
In practice an actor may take other work between the days the production has scheduled her. The production can require availability on those days, reasonable notice of changes, and the professional obligation to arrive prepared.
The scheduling clause should fix the workdays, permit changes on notice, and state that nothing requires the performer to render services exclusively. That last sentence keeps the agreement inside the union agreement’s terms, where a grievance cannot reach it.
No Most Favored Nations Clauses, Whatever the Agent Calls It
An agent asks for parity. Sometimes directly, sometimes softened into something that sounds harmless: if another actor’s rate goes above ours, our client should see a corresponding increase.
The polite version is the one producers say yes to.
Decline it, and tell the agent why, since agents accept the reason. A clause keyed to what another performer earns only works if somebody tells the client what another performer earns. The confidentiality clause in every other performer agreement forbids that disclosure. So the clause either means nothing or obligates the production to breach every other contract on the cast list.
Most representatives take that answer without a second call.
If the agent needs something to bring back, there is a safe sentence. State that the parties negotiated the terms individually and that no most favored nations treatment applies. Add that no other performer’s deal reopens this one, and that the production may raise compensation at any time in its discretion with no obligation to do so. Each of those statements is true, and none of them creates a right.
Pension, Health, and Residual Obligations for Principal Performers
Pension and health contributions run twenty-two percent of gross salary for principal performers under this agreement, up from twenty-one percent on September 6, 2026. On a modest cast that is real money, and it belongs in the budget before the offers go out.
Principal performers also earn residuals once the picture reaches television, streaming, or home video. The production pays them quarterly, at between 3.6 and 5.4 percent of the distributor’s gross receipts depending on the market. A performer agreement can rule out backend participation, and it should. It cannot waive those residuals, because the union agreement’s terms form part of every performer’s contract and no performer may waive or reduce them. Draft the no-backend clause so it says that. Otherwise an agent reads the clause as an attempt to waive something unwaivable, and the negotiation takes an extra round.
Settle Your Union Agreement Before Casting Begins
Settle the union posture before casting begins. The agreement the picture shoots under determines what the production can offer, and it reaches every professional performer in the cast, union member or not. That answer should come before anyone quotes a rate to an agent.
Then give the producer one page listing what the agreement permits. Day contracts are required. Exclusivity is not available. Parity clauses are off the table. Contributions and residuals apply at the agreement’s rates. The rates are floors: the day rate is $257 as of July 1, 2026, it rises three percent each July through 2030, and the production may pay more.
A producer holding that page negotiates faster and never has to walk a term back.
New Jersey’s Production Boom and Low Budget Union Deals
New Jersey is absorbing new production, and much of it is independent work under the low budget agreements. The film tax credit pays an independent production thirty-five percent of its qualified New Jersey spending. Goods and services bought for use within thirty miles of Columbus Circle earn thirty percent, and wages earn thirty-five percent wherever the crew works. Netflix broke ground at Fort Monmouth in May 2025 on a complex projected to open in 2028. Lionsgate Studios Newark is under construction, with completion expected in 2027. Paramount signed a ten-year lease at 1888 Studios in Bayonne in October 2025.
More first pictures means more first negotiations, conducted quickly by producers who have not read the agreement their film shoots under.
Alex Aldea is a Partner at Weiner Law Group LLP and Chair of the firm’s Entertainment Law Division. He serves as production counsel to independent film and media companies in New Jersey. This article is general information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. His direct line is 973-503-1881, and his email is [email protected].