Setting up a station, prepping supplies, and breaking down a kit before or after the official call time is generally compensable work under California law if the production requires it. Pay is supposed to reflect actual hours worked, not just the window between a printed call time and wrap time, and unpaid prep time can hide unpaid overtime.
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Hair, makeup, and wardrobe departments routinely arrive before the rest of the crew and leave after everyone else has gone home, setting up stations and breaking everything down at the end of the day. That extra time is real work, required by the production, and it's supposed to be paid the same as any other work time. Because this work often happens off to the side, in a trailer rather than on the main set floor, it's also one of the easiest categories of work time to lose track of.
Prep and Wrap Are Work, Not Favors
California uses a broad test for compensable work: whether the employer knew or should have known the work was happening, known as being . Setting up a wardrobe rack or prepping a makeup station is work under that standard, whether or not it appears on an official schedule, as long as the production knows or should know it's happening.
A production doesn't need to explicitly instruct the early arrival for that time to be compensable. If a coordinator sees the same department show up 90 minutes early every day without objecting, that pattern alone can establish the required knowledge, since the standard is about what the employer knew, not what it formally scheduled. This standard exists specifically to prevent employers from benefiting from work they know is happening simply because no one formally logged it.
A costume department is told to be dressed and ready backstage by 7 a.m., which means arriving at 5:30 to steam and lay out wardrobe. That 90 minutes of prep time is generally owed, even though the call sheet only lists 7 a.m.
Call Time vs. When Pay Is Actually Supposed to Start
A printed "call time" is often treated as the moment pay starts, but if a department must arrive earlier to be ready by that time, the earlier arrival is itself compensable. The legal question is when the work actually began, not what time is printed on the schedule. This gap is often baked into a production's scheduling without anyone consciously deciding to shortchange pay, but that doesn't make it lawful.
A hair and makeup team required to be "camera ready" at 6 a.m., meaning they arrive at 4:30 to prep, should generally be paid from 4:30, not 6.
The same logic runs in reverse at the end of the day. If a department is expected to finish touch-ups or breakdown well after the printed wrap time, pay is supposed to extend to the actual finish, not stop at whatever time is on the paperwork.
Kit Fees and Rate Confusion
Many wardrobe, hair, and makeup professionals receive a separate kit fee for equipment and supplies they bring and maintain. That fee compensates for the cost and use of the kit itself, not the labor time spent prepping, maintaining, or breaking it down. The two are legally distinct, and folding one into an argument about the other doesn't hold up.
Some productions bundle the kit fee into an inflated day rate rather than listing it separately, making it harder later to identify how much of the payment was meant for labor versus equipment. Asking for kit fees and labor rates to be itemized separately in writing before a job starts can help avoid this confusion.
Union vs. Non-Union Differences
Union agreements covering hair, makeup, and costume departments often specify prep and wrap time explicitly, sometimes building in a fixed period before and after the shoot day. On non-union productions, those same protections exist under general California wage law, they're just not spelled out in a contract, which is why they get overlooked more often on smaller or non-union projects.
Even on a union production, it's worth checking that the actual pay stub reflects the specific prep and wrap minutes the agreement calls for, since a contractual entitlement doesn't guarantee payroll applied it correctly, particularly on a production juggling many different department agreements at once.
Common Violations in Hair, Makeup, and Wardrobe Departments
Frequent patterns include being told to arrive early "informally" without that time being logged, being required to stay late for strike and inventory without pay reflecting it, and a day rate that doesn't account for the real span between true start and true finish, especially on multi-cast productions with staggered call times.
Wrap time tends to be even more consistently underpaid than prep time, since the rest of the crew is often released while wardrobe and makeup are still breaking down stations and doing inventory for the next day. Because these departments often work in a separate trailer away from the main set, this time can go unnoticed by production management even when it happens consistently.
Documenting Your Actual Hours
Track your true start time (when you actually begin prepping, not the printed call time) and true finish time (when kit breakdown is actually done), every day, not just when something feels unusually long. Run a sample week through our Overtime Pay Calculator to see whether that additional prep and wrap time changes your overtime calculation.
Photos of your setup at the actual start of your day, and the kit's state at true wrap, can help corroborate a written log, especially on productions where timecards are informal or inconsistently collected.
This article is for general educational purposes and is not legal, tax, or financial advice for your specific situation, and may not reflect the most current law. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with the Law Offices of Corey A. Pingle. If you're dealing with a real workplace issue, contact our office or start a free case review to get guidance based on your actual facts.