Budget

Bata

Also called Batta, Daily allowance, Night bata

What is bata in film production?

Bata is the daily allowance paid on Indian film sets on top of a wage, originally for food and travel. Night bata is the extra allowance paid for working a night shoot. It is usually a fixed amount per person per day rather than a share of pay, and is budgeted separately from wages.

Who receives bata, and how much, depends on the language industry, the union or association agreement and the production — crew, drivers and junior artistes may all be on different figures. Because it is per head, it scales with the size of the unit on a given day rather than with anyone's rate.

Keeping bata as its own line rather than folding it into a day rate is what lets a production see the cost of a night schedule, or of a large crowd day, before it commits to one.

Reviewed 2026-09-30

Related terms

Junior artiste: A junior artiste is the term used across Indian film and television for a background performer — the crowd, villagers, passers-by or police in a scene. Junior artistes are usually booked in numbers through a coordinator or agent rather than individually, and are paid per head for each call they work.
Per diem: Per diem is a fixed daily amount paid to cast and crew working away from home to cover meals and incidental costs, on top of their wage. It is paid per day on location rather than per call, and is budgeted separately from pay so a location schedule shows its real cost.
Cost report: A cost report is the periodic statement, usually weekly, comparing what a production has spent and committed against what it budgeted, account by account. It carries the Estimated Final Cost and the variance, and it is the document a financier or guarantor monitors the production through.
Shooting day: A shooting day is one scheduled day of principal photography, defined by its call time, its planned scenes and its wrap. It is the atomic unit of a production schedule: budgets, crew bookings and location agreements are all counted in days rather than hours.
Call slip: A call slip is the record of one person's work on one production on one day: how much of a call they worked, any overtime, and what that day pays them. Daily-wage crew are paid by adding up their call slips, so the slip — not the week — is the unit of money.