Featured Extra is the tier producers get wrong most often on an Australian TVC. Book one as an extra and the casting agent pulls the call sheet. Book one as a principal and the usage bill tips over needlessly. The CGA Recommended Guideline 24 September 2024 settles the dollar question with a firm adult floor — $1,500 per day — but the tier itself turns on the role, not the fee.

A Featured Extra is a non-speaking performer who is individually recognisable in the final cut — singled out in coverage, held on a close or mid, featured in a brand-hero beat, reacting on camera in a way the viewer follows. They do not deliver a line. They are not lost in the crowd either.

The test most casting agents apply is simple: could a reasonable viewer identify this person as a specific performer in the ad, rather than as generic background? If the answer is yes and they are not speaking, they are a Featured Extra.

How it differs from an Extra and a Principal

The three tiers sit on a clear ladder. Missing the line between them is the single most common budget error on a TVC prelim.

  • An Extra is a general background performer. Crowd, pedestrians, café patrons, commuters. Non-speaking, not individually featured, not held on coverage. Lowest dollar tier on the CGA 24 September 2024 ladder above walk-on.
  • A Featured Extra is a non-speaking but individually recognisable performer. Singled out in coverage or a brand moment. The CGA 24 September 2024 adult floor is $1,500 per day.
  • A Principal is a named, speaking, identifiable performer. Delivers dialogue, the face of the scene, drives the beat. Paid under the MEAA TVC Standard Contract 2024 principal base rate — materially above the Featured Extra floor.

For the full ladder and how it stacks with employer costs, see the TVC performer rates guide.

The CGA Recommended Guideline 24 September 2024 sets the adult Featured Extra daily floor at $1,500.

Why the $1,500 floor exists

The CGA 24 September 2024 number recognises that a Featured Extra is doing identifiable performance work — their face lands in the final cut, their likeness ties to the brand, and the usage implication is materially different from a crowd body. The $1,500 floor sits deliberately above the general extra rate and deliberately below the MEAA TVC 2024 principal base. It is the tier that says: not crowd, not principal, but visible.

Because the CGA is a recommended guideline rather than a statutory instrument, the floor is not enforced by a statutory tribunal. It is enforced by the casting industry itself — which is the only enforcement that actually matters on the day.

How casting agents enforce it

Casting directors and performer agents hold producers to the CGA 24 September 2024 figure as a matter of course. A TVC brief that lists a Featured Extra role at less than $1,500 gets the same response across every reputable agency — the role is rebooked as a principal at a higher rate, or the spec is rewritten as a general extra with no featured coverage.

The floor is also the reason producers occasionally find themselves reclassifying a role on the day. If an extra ends up getting held on a reaction shot or a branded product interaction, the casting agent will call the change on set and the rate steps up to the Featured Extra floor.

When to budget above the floor

The $1,500 figure is a floor, not a ceiling. Several common scenarios warrant budgeting above it:

  • Named brand ties — the Featured Extra is associated visually with a specific brand logo, product hold, or hero shot, and the usage makes the likeness commercially meaningful.
  • Day-out features — the performer is the hero of a specific scene or day within a larger spot, doing more than a single held moment.
  • Likeness usage beyond the standard period — the MEAA TVC 2024 usage terms imply a baseline; anything beyond that (longer rollover, additional territories, digital-display derivatives) attaches a premium.
  • Talent with agent representation — a represented Featured Extra will usually negotiate above floor, with 10% or 20% + GST commission layered on top.

Child performers are a separate question. Rates for child Featured Extras vary with state child-employment law — NSW, VIC, QLD and WA each run different hours, supervision and chaperone rules — and the CGA 24 September 2024 adult floor does not apply in the same way. Any TVC budget that includes a child Featured Extra should reference the shoot-state Children and Young People (Employment) regulations specifically. The project cost builder handles child-performer overrides alongside the state-level loading, so the budget reflects the actual compliance envelope.

Put the number into the budget

Featured Extra sits between the crowd and the principal. The CGA 24 September 2024 sets the floor at $1,500 for an adult day, and every downstream line — super at 12% on top, state workers comp, agency commission — stacks on top of that fee, not inside it. The performer day rate calculator defaults to the floor and lets you override upward when the deal warrants it.