Film Career · Location Management
Key Assistant Location Manager/Scout
Location Management · Teamsters Local 399 in Los Angeles; varies by market
- Union
- Teamsters Local 399 in Los Angeles
- Day rate
- ~$3,500–$5,500+/wk
- Experience
- 8–18+ yrs
What does a Key Assistant Location Manager/Scout do?
The key assistant location manager/scout is a leadership chair in the location management department, responsible for crew, planning, and the department's delivery to the production.
Union coverage for the position varies: teamsters local 399 in los angeles; varies by market. Like every location management role, the job is hired production by production, and repeat work comes from department heads who trust the name on the call sheet.
What does a Key Assistant Location Manager/Scout make?
- This is a department-head chair, toward the top of its department's range.
- Location work is paid weekly with heavy prep and overtime: assistants lower, and location managers roughly $3,500-$5,500+ a week.
- Roughly $60K-$250K+ a year (Teamsters Local 399 in Los Angeles).
Film work is gig based, so crew are paid a day or weekly rate rather than a salary. These are realistic 2024-2025 ranges grounded in union rate cards and industry data; actual pay swings with budget tier, market, overtime, and reputation.
Sources & how we estimate pay
Union scale is the floor; the ranges above also reflect market day rates above scale. They are grounded in the following 2024–2025 sources:
Union rate cards & wage schedules
Official guild scale — the floor each craft is paid from.
- IATSE — 2024 Basic Agreement wage scales (PDF) ↗
- IATSE Local 600 (International Cinematographers Guild) — camera rate cards ↗
- DGA — minimum salary rate cards (director, unit production manager, assistant directors) ↗
- WGA — schedule of minimums (writers) ↗
- SAG-AFTRA — theatrical & background rate sheets (cast, stunts, background) ↗
- Teamsters Local 399 — basic feature wage rates, 2024–27 (transportation, locations, wranglers) (PDF) ↗
You’ll like and be good at this job if:
Hard skills
- You can scout, permit, and manage locations
Soft skills
- You are as comfortable managing people as doing the craft
- You make decisions calmly and own the results
Career progression
The role advances the way most location management careers do: repeat hires from the same department heads, growing responsibility within the craft, and a reputation that travels between productions faster than any resume.
How do you become a Key Assistant Location Manager/Scout?
Nobody is hired into this chair from outside: it is a promotion earned inside the location management department, from the people who watched you hold the junior versions of the job. The route in starts at the department's entry positions and runs through years of trusted work.
Covered by a union? The joining a film union guide explains how each one takes members.