Jody Smith Strickler is a script supervisor in Richmond, Virginia. She
says she often gets calls from people asking for her script supervisor services.
If she is too busy to take the work, they ask her if she could suggest someone
else in the area.
"At any given time, there may be two or three [script supervisors] in the
Richmond metropolitan area. And a lot of times, I am the only one."
A small percentage of script supervisors work on staff with a production
company, usually producing commercial videos. Tom Adair works with the International
Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees. He says there are about a thousand
in the United States. "This is a very specialized field," he says.
Specialized but growing! Adair says the film production industry is growing
by 15 percent a year and will likely continue to do that for the next few
years. The push is on to supply material for all those new cable channels,
and the direct-to-video feature market.
"In the film industry specifically, it is still a viable career -- though
the changes in video have really encroached [upon the duties of a script supervisor].
In many ways, a script supervisor is becoming obsolete," says Strickler.
Strickler says it's really hard to say how much a script supervisor earns
because most are paid a daily rate. Script supervisors who belong to a union
are paid by their union's wage scale.
However, Strickler provides an example. "If someone calls you up and says,
'I can pay you $75 or $100 a day,' there are people that would take that [money].
There are people who wouldn't look at it." So earnings are really hard to
determine, she adds.
Earnings and employment information from the U.S. Department of Labor is
not available for this field at this time.