Film-maker Get Thy Release! And other stuff too.

I'm in the midst of trying to release Freeze Out my first indy feature on home video and I have to say I've learned a couple 20/20 hindsight lessons:

1. Get your releases signed the day of the shoot. In fact, have your performers sign the release before you shoot one frame of film/video. This might seem obvious to some of you. I even knew better but thought in one special instance getting the signature wouldn't be a pain in the ass. I have some folks who appeared in my film who I'm having to bug to sign the release a year after we did the shoot. It's not really a priority for them you know they've got life going on, things to do, and they're not really in the mood to watch a movie and sign a release. For me it's a huge inconvenience.

If you don't have forms I recommend you get some from a site like this: FilmTVContracts.com. They provide good simple forms that you can modify for you individual productions. This is especially important for people who are appearing and are not covered by a SAG contract.

2. Become chums with your SAG representative and stay in touch with them regularly until your movie is released. I produced "Freeze Out" under the Experimental Film Agreement (now no longer offered by SAG). The Experimental Film Agreement seemed like a great idea at the time. I got to work with any performer I could convince to be in my shoot for free. Now, unfortunately, I have to get them all to sign off on the film. I don't think it's going to be a problem but it's taking a long time because of the number of people involved. If I didn't have a good releationship with my SAG representative who has to guide this sign-off process for all my performers I would be screwed. SAGindie now has a much better contract called the Ultra Low Budget film agreement. It does require that you pay your actors $100 a day during the course of your shoot. However, once your film is in the can you're free to exploit the title and you don't have to go getting permission. So do your best to create a positive experience with your SAG rep when you start up your project.

3. Make sure clothing your performers are wearing (and back ground art such as pictures and posters) don't have any trademark logos on them. You'll spend a butt load in post-production painting them out if you can't get a sign-off from the trademark holder. If they're a big corporation you'll have to be really nice to a bunch of bureaucrats to get a sign off. And big corporations don't really look at accidental use of a logo as "product placement" since it's really more of a nuisance.