Movie Contracts

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philclaffey

New member
I've been offered work as Cameraman / Editor on a horror flick. Can anyone tell me where I might find a suitable / adaptable contract that would, for example, ensure I got points off the finished project before the investors got their money back and / or make sure I got some points if I decided to leave the project or got chucked out before it was finished. Something to protect me from the sharks.

Thanks,
Phil.
 
Phil... Usually "Below the Line" people like Editors, etc. don't get any percentages (points) until AFTER the investors get their money back plus some interest. Getting paid with points is chancy at best anyway. How "profit" is defined may well be much different than how you think of it (otherwise known as "Hollywood Accounting"). If you are not getting any up front money, you may want to insist on points of Gross profit after the investors have been paid. Even then, you'll have to insist on auditing rights, otherwise who are ya gonna trust to tell you what the profits might be? Most of the time, what you get up front is all you're ever going to get. Half the time I have to write my own agreement since the producers either don't know what they're doing by using some simplistic Deal Memo... or worse, they want to take advantage of you.
You might try to take a look at books by Mark Litwak (attorney), even Dov SS Simens, or start the Google search. Amazon has a bunch. I find lots of interesting things that way.
 
Good luck with that. If you're not getting paid up front the chance of you ever seeing anything is highly unlikely.
 
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