SAG Indie

Interesting that this topic came up. I'm looking to shoot a short that has SAG actors in it. Could someone enlighten me on SAG contracts concerning short films? I dont expect to make any money from this short because shorts tend to not make money, but I do plan to submit it to festivals for all to see. I spoke with one of my actors concerning this situation and she told me not to worry about it. Because there's no money involved, there's nothing for me to worry about. Can anyone agree or disagree with this? If it is true that I have nothing to worry about then why would anyone bother to get the short film contract shown here...

http://www.sagindie.com/contracts2.html
(The 2nd one... the one for short films)

I am so confused:undecided
 
i'm no expert but i believe the idea is that if down the road you were offered distribution for the short on a festival compilation DVD or a cable outlet like IFC or sundance, you will have to immediately pay up for the actors' deferred salaries at "scale" if you don't use the short film contract, which will significantly reduce the deferred salary to $100/day.

you also have the option of ignoring SAG's requests to pay up, but they will take you to court (you wont be the first). even if they know you have no money. its in their best interest to "make an example out of you".
 
cygnet74 said:
back row. right next to one of the big columns -- maybe ten seats down from the guy that kept asking antagonizing questions about SAG shutting down productions.

you? or was that you?
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Oh, the guy in the Hawiian shirt? I remember him. I was in the row in front of that guy. I asked about upgrading the film contract after you begin shooting.
 
morisato said:
Interesting that this topic came up. I'm looking to shoot a short that has SAG actors in it. Could someone enlighten me on SAG contracts concerning short films? I dont expect to make any money from this short because shorts tend to not make money, but I do plan to submit it to festivals for all to see. I spoke with one of my actors concerning this situation and she told me not to worry about it. Because there's no money involved, there's nothing for me to worry about. Can anyone agree or disagree with this? If it is true that I have nothing to worry about then why would anyone bother to get the short film contract shown here...

http://www.sagindie.com/contracts2.html
(The 2nd one... the one for short films)

I am so confused:undecided
Click to expand...

You should sign the short film contract. If there isn't any money made from the project, then you won't have to pay anybody anything, but it you DO happen to make money, then you're safe and all you'll have to pay anyone is a deferred payment. I was talking with the Sag Indie rep after the workshop and that's the advice he had to give.
 
Before signing *any* SAG contract, you'd better look into whether doing so makes you, personally, a SAG-signatory producer, which could theoretically bind you to all future productions being SAG as well.

The common advice has been to form a specific separate production company dedicated to the purpose of producing this particular film, and have that company sign the contract, not you personally.
 
Barry_Green said:
Before signing *any* SAG contract, you'd better look into whether doing so makes you, personally, a SAG-signatory producer, which could theoretically bind you to all future productions being SAG as well.

The common advice has been to form a specific separate production company dedicated to the purpose of producing this particular film, and have that company sign the contract, not you personally.
Click to expand...
signatory status lasts one year.
 
Barry_Green said:
Before signing *any* SAG contract, you'd better look into whether doing so makes you, personally, a SAG-signatory producer, which could theoretically bind you to all future productions being SAG as well.

The common advice has been to form a specific separate production company dedicated to the purpose of producing this particular film, and have that company sign the contract, not you personally.
Click to expand...

They brought up the fact that the Short film and the Ultra low budget contracts do not require you to be a signatory producer.
 
This one guy had some horror stories... He shot under the SAG experimental contract and wound up getting a small distribution deal from it and profited about 1000 bucks. Then SAG came after him to pay his deferred payments and he wound up owing all of the actors something like 80,000...
 
Hey Barry,

In your post in topic "Another SAG question" you said that SAG cant technically touch you if you hire a SAG member in your non-union production. But posted above, someone said that if you make money off your production, SAG will take you to court... who is right?

Tommyinia said, "You should sign the short film contract. If there isn't any money made from the project, then you won't have to pay anybody anything, but it you DO happen to make money, then you're safe and all you'll have to pay anyone is a deferred payment. I was talking with the Sag Indie rep after the workshop and that's the advice he had to give"

This implies that if you dont sign the contract, then you're not safe and will end up paying more than the deferred payment amount if you do make money.

Also, my actor brought up that if I report this production with SAG and get all the paper work, I will have to pay money for insurence and stuff, and they will keep a close eye on my progress. Anyone have any information on hidden fees and surprises?

Still confused here...
 
Anyone can take you to court anytime they want. Whether they can win is another question entirely.

If you don't sign the SAG contract, then SAG has *no* jurisdiction over you whatsoever. Regardless of what some may try to tell you, this is still a free country and you can hire whoever you want. It's the *actor* who has a relationship with SAG, and SAG can punish the actor, but they cannot touch you.

Now, technically they could boycott your production, they could put up picket lines, they could send out memos asking distributors to not carry your product, but they have no relationship with you.

It's like if you hired Terminix as your exterminator, and Orkin started sending you bills. Would you pay the Orkin bill? You didn't hire Orkin, you hired Terminix; you paid Terminix, you have no relationship to Orkin, why do you care what Orkin does? Same with SAG. If you don't establish a relationship with them (by signing their contract) then you have no relationship, and no obligation whatsoever.

The *actor* has a relationship with SAG, the actor signed a contract with SAG (vowing to abide by Global Rule One), and the actor is he/she who has a responsibility to SAG. Not you. Not if you don't sign their contract.
 
Barry_Green said:
It's the *actor* who has a relationship with SAG, and SAG can punish the actor, but they cannot touch you.
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Absolutely... you don't have to sign a SAG contract if you don't want to... The actor is the one who will get in trouble, not you. Rule One says a union actor can't do non-union, not the other way around. But if you want to have a SAG actor in your short, it's a good idea that you get a short film SAG contract so that the actor doesn't get in trouble. It can and does happen. If they don't care, then there's no point in going through the trouble.

As far as SAG taking you to court, that's if you've signed the contract and refuse to pay the actor... now that's a different story...
 
Not to stir anything up, but I have been "advised" that SAG minimums and other SAG requirements do not apply to SAG members in relation to projects which the SAG member produces. I have thus further been "advised" (but have never done it) that by giving your SAG member Associate Producer status and some negotiated points (which may amount to a small hill of air), you can get around the whole SAG waiver problem on low budget shoots.

Personally, I find that a little too easy a workaround, but I simply ask if anyone has heard of this or can otherwise confirm or rebut the advice I have received.

And having previously gone the SAG waiver route, yes it's a little work but in reality it's not too onerous a task (and at least in relation to the forms I signed, there were no provisions that by signing, the Producer became a SAG-signatory Producer).
 
Not true at all... even if you're the producer and you're in SAG, you have to pay yourself...

I'm so glad I went to that workshop!
 
Our feature "American Standard" was shot under the ultra-low budget agreement. It was worth it to get the amazing talent we got. But SAG is not easy to work with - they originally asked for 100%, yes 100% of SAG salary as bond to hold for our 6 week shoot- we got that knocked down to about 30%. The weekly paperwork kills you and you have to send your checks to sag who send it to the actors even if you are seeing them everyday. Its a pain but worth it for the right actors.
 
tommyinla said:
Not true at all... even if you're the producer and you're in SAG, you have to pay yourself...

I'm so glad I went to that workshop!
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suddenly i feel like an expert thanks to that workshop. an important (but still inconvenient) point about this is that once you pay yourself, nothing stops you from re-investing that money into the production.
 
except that you will be reinvesting the money minus taxes and sag pension and health - so it costs you about 130 to reinvest 92

not a bargain
 
Awesome

Awesome

Sumfun said:
Josh: Being a member of SAG doesn't necessarily mean that the actor is good. Conversely, there are many good actors who are not members of SAG. Make sure you audition all your actors to see if they can meet your project's requirements.
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That is so true. I don't know why people think so. Maybe its the mentality that if your SAG then your "Awesome and Great". :kali:
 
Realistically speaking if you ever want to see a distribution deal you will use well known actor. There are no well known actors who are not SAG members. If you know of one, let me know, I could use him in the movie.
 
No matter what your production, it is best to have your production company become a SAG signatory. Here is why:

Short Film:
1.) You're company (not you) is signing the Short Film signatory agreement. You can hire SAG and non-SAG actors. You don't have to pay them anything (although you'll get far better actors if you pay SOMETHING. I paid $100.00 a day for my actors on Saturday Night Special. It was worth it...its one of the reasons I could raise the budget for my current feature).
2.) The required contracts are simple 1 page contracts. SAG provides them.
3.) SAG will almost entirely leave you alone. Are they rude, slow and bureaucratic? Yes...but once you file your paperwork with them they leave you alone.

Feature Film:
1.) You're company (not you) is signing the Ultra-Low Budget signatory agreement. Stop talking about the Experimental Film Agreement because it hasn't existed for several years. The ULB agreement is very straight forward. You must pay all actors $100.00 a day. You can hire both union and non-union. There are a LOT more hoops to jump through than on a short film, but that's the price one pays to have access to celebrity actors.
2.) You owe no residuals for theatrical exhibition worldwide.
3.) You can pay actors through a payroll company.
4.) As long as you handle a sale correctly you will only owe about 3% of your various DVD or Cable distribution deals to a residual pool, which SAG will divide amongst all actors.
5.) You have to pay health and pension, which is currently 14.8% of their day rate. This applies to non-union actors on your project as well even though they aren't SAG and can't get access to SAG's health and pension.
6.) You'll have to give a security deposit that will take SAG about 2-3 months to return to you after they have cleared your production.

Do many of these elements suck? Yup. What is your alternative? Well, it is:

- Post your auditions as a non-union project looking for non-SAG actors only. You've now eliminated about 80% of all great actors. Are there solid non-union actors out there? Yeah...but I hold auditions in LA all the time and I find only 10% of union actors are good. For non-union it's probably closer to 2%.
- Because it is non-union far fewer actors will take the project seriously. So, even good non-union actors will avoid submitting themselves to your project. Who are you left with? Weirdos, people with emotional issues, people who are rejected by all good projects...why on earth would you want to work with those types?
- Now that your stuck with second-rate actors your project will turn out like every other indie short...crappy acting, which means it won't get into festivals, it won't help you raise money for a feature and it won't move your career forward.

I say this stuff all the time. I've never had anyone listen to me. They all say "yeah, but my project will be DIFFERENT. My local college has a great acting program. I can cast out of there. I know a bartender who did two episodes of Hill Street Blues in the 80's. He's a pro. I have friends at a local community theatre. They do theatre all the time. They're pros."

I was the president of a local indie film community here in Albuquerque. This became the most contentious issue. I kept saying "Our goal is to make good movies, not to cast our neighbors and feed their delusions." The response was always "But, what if there is one great local actor?" I'd say "Maybe there is one great local actor. My time is too valuable to hold a massive local audition for one great local actor. Even more importantly, I don't want just one great actor. I need ten. And I want them to LOOK like the character in my head as well as possess professional acting skills. And what if a local is good in an audition but has never been on a set before? I don't want to hold their hand as they struggle with bringing their character to life in front of large crew with tons of gear. Have they dealt with the constant technical hickups of production? Do they know how long a film day is? This ain't community theatre. They don't show up at 6:45 for a 7:30 show and go home by 10:00 PM." I eventually quit because it was clear they didn't want to make real movies...they wanted to create an insulated community of wanna-bes who were afraid of risk, afraid of competition and wanted to make movies as a hobby. I'm not a hobbyist, so I was the wrong person to be in charge of the group.

Thanks to SAG's new agreements there is NO REASON to ever work with non-professionals. The two most important elements of your movie are your screenplay and the acting. Don't compromise on this. Deal with the headaches of SAG and put your short in the position to win film fests.
 
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