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Day Player

aka Daily contract · Day-rate cast

An actor hired for one or more individual shooting days on a daily rate, rather than weekly or contracted to the run of the show.

Day players are the actors who appear for one or two days — the bank teller, the customer in the diner, the cop at the crime scene. They sign single-day contracts, get paid a SAG day rate (in the US) or Equity equivalent (in the UK), and clear in and out on the same call sheet as the leads. StoryboardCanvas Cast tracks day-player vs principal vs guest-star status per cast member, drives the DOOD off the per-day allocations, and flips a budget line automatically when the deal memo gets signed.