Salary in Brazil

This time I would like to talk to you about the salaries in Brazil. Most people know salaries here are much lower than in countries such as the U.S. and Western-European countries. I have no information about other countries so I just keep it in this column by these countries. But, please feel free to leave a reaction to share info with us. When I worked in the Netherlands in the TV area I started my career in EVS with a day rate of 90 euros a day. Mostly I worked at soccer matches and I used to arrive around three hours before the kick-off. Once we arrived, we divided work, who would be on which machine, who would make the roll out, who would make highlights etc. Then we went for lunch, about one-and-halve hour before the match we would go to the truck preparing ourselves. Then we worked on the match, and once the match was over we recorded interviews, press conference and we played out all valuable content to the network and our day was over. I think a total of six hours at the location. Like I said, in my first months my day rate was 90 euros, after it went in two years up to 275 euros per day.

Brazil is a whole different story; the country is way bigger than the Netherlands off course. When we do a production here in the city of Rio, the Maracanã stadium for example, we arrive as well around three hours before kick-off. We divide work once everybody arrived, and than it’s waiting until kick-off. We don’t get to lunch all together at the venue, or somewhere else. Brazilian productions are way cheaper in all ways. The production companies are not used, or allowed, to spend money on their crew. This only in sports by the way. When I work on a concert registration, there is lunch or dinner available. When I work on the carnival feed, the company takes really well care of the crew.

Now, in all these productions, except for Carnival, the day rate is around 250 reais ($ 65,00!!/€ 58,00!!). And this is a day rate without a maximum of hours. There should be a maximum of hours but almost never respected by the employers. This is for a production in the city of Rio.
For a production in the state of Rio, or even outside the state, day rate are a little higher, 300 reais ($ 77,00/ € 70,00). On these days you go with all crew together to the venue by shuttle bus. It is not unusual to travel over 5 hours to get to the venue, than you stay there for 5/6 hours and then you go back on the same day. This mean your work day is over 15 hours and you get paid a normal day rate, no extra money you spend travelling for your work. Mostly you receive 30-50 reais for food and drink along the way.

The number above are for an EVS-operator, doesn’t matter if you’re just starting or have 3, 6 or 12 years experience. I once talked about this with a cameraman and he said that cable men get better payed than this. It’s a big shame that Brazil still doesn’t recognize EVS-operator as a regular profession. We are videotape editors, officially. Funny, I never get to see a tape.

Roeland van der Manden
More info you can find on his LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/roeland-van-der-manden , Check his website or follow him on Twitter AmsterdamProductions


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