Hi everyone. I have been spent considerable time reading about this across the internet trying to figure out now how to handle this, and now am asking your advice. Here's the old common scenario: Someone calls you up and wants you to video their performace (play, dance recital, etc..) and the intended purpose is to sell the DVDs/Blu Rays to parents/performers. How do you handle this with all the potential problems involved?
I have some ideas.
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Scenario 1: Set a minimum order amount and sell directly to parents/customers.
Fill out at production order/contract and have the institution/school/instructor sign it which stipulates the work order. Video company is being hired to record the performance and make discs available for $25 to parents/etc.. Video company has in the contract there is a minimum order of $500 and if $500 worth of discs are not sold, the hiring institution must pay the difference. This is to ensure that at least $500 will be made for the work and to motivate the hiring institution to want to have enough sales.
So then the institution could..
A: be provided with order forms to distribute to customers and be responsible for taking the orders and then hand off the orders to the production company in exchange for the completed discs.
B: On performance night, Video company has a booth with representative having customers fill out order forms and pay in advance. This brings revenue in up front without having to pursue it after the fact. Any customers that are not paying that night can take an order form with them and mail it to the video company with payment to place an order. The order forms not only provide contact info but also a release form so that the footage can be used by the video company for demo reels. The discs are then either delivered to the institution for customer pickup or mailed directly to customers.
The advantage of this scenario is it's perceived easy by the hiring institution because in essence the video company is selling directly to the parents/customers and the institution does not have to actually "hire" and "pay" the video company, unless the minumum is not met.
Scenario 2: Have the institution pay for the work and they sell to the parents/customers.
Video company is hired to document/record the one time event for $XXX.00 amount and provide the institution with a pre-determined number of discs (lets say 50 discs) included in the price. The institution then determines the price they want to sell the discs to the parents in order to recover the cost or make profit, it's up to them. Let's say the institution hires the video company for $700 and then sells the discs to parents for $25 each. The video company is out of that end of the deal. Therefore the video company is only being hired to document the event and is not actually selling to the parents/customers. Should the institution need more discs, the contract would allow for additional copies to be sold to the instition for let's say $10 each which in turn they would sell to the parents/customers.
___________________________________________________________________________
If it sounds like I'm over-complicating things, consider the potential problems: First there are release issues with the footage. If the video company wants to be able to use the footage for promotional purposes/demo reels they must get releases from everyone, which often will be underage students who will have to be signed for by parents/guardians.
And the big kicker is MUSIC copyrights. Recording a dance recital chocked full of copyrighted music, editing it and then selling the discs is clearly a very big potential problem. If the video company COULD even get clearance for all the music it would take months/years (if they could even get clearance on everything) and the cost would be well over a million dollars depending on number of songs and varying amounts charged by various copyright holders.
So, now a parent wanting to buy a video of their little daughter Katie's dance recital has to wait 2 years before they can buy a DVD which will cost them $150,000. Sounds absurd, right? Well once the video company managed to clear as much music as they could and the time and expense it cost to do it, they'd have charge accordingly to pay for it which would mean each disc would likely have to cost well over $100,000 each, if not significantly more. Which that of course means no one would buy one, and the video company would instantly be bankrupt from one dance job.
So obviously attempting to get all the necessary sync licenses and music clearance is NOT possible for any small time local performance, so what do you do? How do you do this with the risk of the big boys slapping you with outlandish lawsuits and ending your business you poured your life blood into all these years?
Scenario 2 seems as though it might offer a little protection as in it the video company is hired to "document" the event for the institution via a production order which includes providing a number of discs to the institution. The institution is actually selling discs to parents. In most cases the institution will only have license to use the music for their performances during the year and NOT to use it in a video production. If you are lucky they may have the ability to produce one video recording but you can bet they won't have license to duplicate and sell it. In fact they may not even have the necessary licenses for using the music in their own performances!
And now scenario 3: Create another company which duplicates and sells the media.
Video company is hired to record / document the event for the institution and produce one video for $XXX.00. Now a second company steps in and duplicates and sells the discs to the video company to sell to the institution or parents. Or they bypass the video company all together and sell directly to the institution or parents/customers. The idea here is that if the stuff hits the fan, the intermediate duplication company is sued and crumbles into oblivion while maybe the video company lives to fight another day. I presume even with this attempt at extra protection, when it wound up in court with the resources the record companies have, they'd manage to take everyone down in a heap of burning bankrupt ash no matter what.
_________________________________________________________________________
And one last scenario, The "work for hire" agreement.
This one I'm still reading up on, but with it the hiring institution appears to own all the footage and would specifically have to grant you permission or may even charge you in order for you to use the footage in a demo reel. And lets be honest, demo reel footage and future work from parents/clients like weddings or other work that might spinoff of getting your name out there is really the only benefit to doing this type work anyway. These places are not willing to pay the $4,000 or $10,000 for the kind of production work these things take. And even with the "work for hire" the area of duplication and selling still looks very messy and risky just the same. With this approach the video company might record the event for the institution and hand over all raw footage to them. The institution would then have to edit the footage themselves OR hire someone to edit it for them. This way would seem to allow the only real "out" for the video company since the video company merely recorded the event, but did not edit or sync anything. But this is rediculous because then the video company would either lose creative control or have to write in another deal that they were to be hired to edit the footage, which in turn is where the problem starts again. Not to mention, any institution faced with all this "hassle" would simply just hire someone else to do the whole thing because the original video company is making it way too complicated when all they want are some videos to be made available for parents without a big complex hassle.
So, what do you do when you are a struggling company and have clients trying to hire you for dance/theatre work? You can say, "it'll never happen. Everyone does it", but all it takes is one sinister person bent on causing trouble and even though your company name might not be on the credits or even the disc/case, they still manage to connect you as being the company that shot, duplicated and sold the discs that didn't have clearance, to some parents who cherish the videos for their entire lives, while the video company that was only trying to provide a service at a break-even price at best is sued and ended. There are any number of other guys out there willing to take the work (who cares it's not as good of quality as yours) for the same or less money.
So I would very much like to hear how some of you seasoned pros handle this stuff. Coming from a performing art background I actually enjoy recording performances and pour a lot of hard work and resources into creating a product that really touches the people that watch them. I know the importance of capturing moments in time to be held onto forever and these videos live on until the families are old and gray, becoming more priceless with time.
While I enjoy it, I also have poured my every resource and life blood into making a production company and it deserves to survive, make money and I am not about to easily let some crooked malicious creeps take it all away from me. If someone is to try to do some of this type of work, which approach is best and how do you set up the production order to help protect yourself? Or do you minimize as little paperwork as possible so it's more difficult to even show you were "hired" in the first place, but then that could make it real hard to get what you are owed. So, what is an honest hard working guy to do?
I thank you in advance for reading my extensive post. And happy recording to all!
I have some ideas.
------------
Scenario 1: Set a minimum order amount and sell directly to parents/customers.
Fill out at production order/contract and have the institution/school/instructor sign it which stipulates the work order. Video company is being hired to record the performance and make discs available for $25 to parents/etc.. Video company has in the contract there is a minimum order of $500 and if $500 worth of discs are not sold, the hiring institution must pay the difference. This is to ensure that at least $500 will be made for the work and to motivate the hiring institution to want to have enough sales.
So then the institution could..
A: be provided with order forms to distribute to customers and be responsible for taking the orders and then hand off the orders to the production company in exchange for the completed discs.
B: On performance night, Video company has a booth with representative having customers fill out order forms and pay in advance. This brings revenue in up front without having to pursue it after the fact. Any customers that are not paying that night can take an order form with them and mail it to the video company with payment to place an order. The order forms not only provide contact info but also a release form so that the footage can be used by the video company for demo reels. The discs are then either delivered to the institution for customer pickup or mailed directly to customers.
The advantage of this scenario is it's perceived easy by the hiring institution because in essence the video company is selling directly to the parents/customers and the institution does not have to actually "hire" and "pay" the video company, unless the minumum is not met.
Scenario 2: Have the institution pay for the work and they sell to the parents/customers.
Video company is hired to document/record the one time event for $XXX.00 amount and provide the institution with a pre-determined number of discs (lets say 50 discs) included in the price. The institution then determines the price they want to sell the discs to the parents in order to recover the cost or make profit, it's up to them. Let's say the institution hires the video company for $700 and then sells the discs to parents for $25 each. The video company is out of that end of the deal. Therefore the video company is only being hired to document the event and is not actually selling to the parents/customers. Should the institution need more discs, the contract would allow for additional copies to be sold to the instition for let's say $10 each which in turn they would sell to the parents/customers.
___________________________________________________________________________
If it sounds like I'm over-complicating things, consider the potential problems: First there are release issues with the footage. If the video company wants to be able to use the footage for promotional purposes/demo reels they must get releases from everyone, which often will be underage students who will have to be signed for by parents/guardians.
And the big kicker is MUSIC copyrights. Recording a dance recital chocked full of copyrighted music, editing it and then selling the discs is clearly a very big potential problem. If the video company COULD even get clearance for all the music it would take months/years (if they could even get clearance on everything) and the cost would be well over a million dollars depending on number of songs and varying amounts charged by various copyright holders.
So, now a parent wanting to buy a video of their little daughter Katie's dance recital has to wait 2 years before they can buy a DVD which will cost them $150,000. Sounds absurd, right? Well once the video company managed to clear as much music as they could and the time and expense it cost to do it, they'd have charge accordingly to pay for it which would mean each disc would likely have to cost well over $100,000 each, if not significantly more. Which that of course means no one would buy one, and the video company would instantly be bankrupt from one dance job.
So obviously attempting to get all the necessary sync licenses and music clearance is NOT possible for any small time local performance, so what do you do? How do you do this with the risk of the big boys slapping you with outlandish lawsuits and ending your business you poured your life blood into all these years?
Scenario 2 seems as though it might offer a little protection as in it the video company is hired to "document" the event for the institution via a production order which includes providing a number of discs to the institution. The institution is actually selling discs to parents. In most cases the institution will only have license to use the music for their performances during the year and NOT to use it in a video production. If you are lucky they may have the ability to produce one video recording but you can bet they won't have license to duplicate and sell it. In fact they may not even have the necessary licenses for using the music in their own performances!
And now scenario 3: Create another company which duplicates and sells the media.
Video company is hired to record / document the event for the institution and produce one video for $XXX.00. Now a second company steps in and duplicates and sells the discs to the video company to sell to the institution or parents. Or they bypass the video company all together and sell directly to the institution or parents/customers. The idea here is that if the stuff hits the fan, the intermediate duplication company is sued and crumbles into oblivion while maybe the video company lives to fight another day. I presume even with this attempt at extra protection, when it wound up in court with the resources the record companies have, they'd manage to take everyone down in a heap of burning bankrupt ash no matter what.
_________________________________________________________________________
And one last scenario, The "work for hire" agreement.
This one I'm still reading up on, but with it the hiring institution appears to own all the footage and would specifically have to grant you permission or may even charge you in order for you to use the footage in a demo reel. And lets be honest, demo reel footage and future work from parents/clients like weddings or other work that might spinoff of getting your name out there is really the only benefit to doing this type work anyway. These places are not willing to pay the $4,000 or $10,000 for the kind of production work these things take. And even with the "work for hire" the area of duplication and selling still looks very messy and risky just the same. With this approach the video company might record the event for the institution and hand over all raw footage to them. The institution would then have to edit the footage themselves OR hire someone to edit it for them. This way would seem to allow the only real "out" for the video company since the video company merely recorded the event, but did not edit or sync anything. But this is rediculous because then the video company would either lose creative control or have to write in another deal that they were to be hired to edit the footage, which in turn is where the problem starts again. Not to mention, any institution faced with all this "hassle" would simply just hire someone else to do the whole thing because the original video company is making it way too complicated when all they want are some videos to be made available for parents without a big complex hassle.
So, what do you do when you are a struggling company and have clients trying to hire you for dance/theatre work? You can say, "it'll never happen. Everyone does it", but all it takes is one sinister person bent on causing trouble and even though your company name might not be on the credits or even the disc/case, they still manage to connect you as being the company that shot, duplicated and sold the discs that didn't have clearance, to some parents who cherish the videos for their entire lives, while the video company that was only trying to provide a service at a break-even price at best is sued and ended. There are any number of other guys out there willing to take the work (who cares it's not as good of quality as yours) for the same or less money.
So I would very much like to hear how some of you seasoned pros handle this stuff. Coming from a performing art background I actually enjoy recording performances and pour a lot of hard work and resources into creating a product that really touches the people that watch them. I know the importance of capturing moments in time to be held onto forever and these videos live on until the families are old and gray, becoming more priceless with time.
While I enjoy it, I also have poured my every resource and life blood into making a production company and it deserves to survive, make money and I am not about to easily let some crooked malicious creeps take it all away from me. If someone is to try to do some of this type of work, which approach is best and how do you set up the production order to help protect yourself? Or do you minimize as little paperwork as possible so it's more difficult to even show you were "hired" in the first place, but then that could make it real hard to get what you are owed. So, what is an honest hard working guy to do?
I thank you in advance for reading my extensive post. And happy recording to all!