Budget

Call slip

Also called Day sheet, Wage slip

What is call slip in film production?

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.

What a call covers — the hours in it, the grace before overtime begins, whether a half call exists — is set by the union or association agreement and the production, and it differs by language industry and craft. The slip records the fraction actually worked against that rule rather than a number of hours alone.

Keeping one slip per person per production per day is what catches the double payment that happens when someone works two of a house's films on the same date, and what lets a settlement, an advance recovery and the daily cost report all count the same figure.

People on contract — usually the lead cast and the director — are not paid by the call, and have no slips; their fee is committed to the budget once.

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Reviewed 2026-09-30

Related terms

Bata

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.

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.

Hold day

A hold day is a day on which a performer is contractually retained and paid but not called to set. It sits between their first and last working day, keeping them exclusive to the production and unavailable to take other work.