If you’re selling your movies already, stop reading.
If you want to make money from your films, see below.
The film business is ultimately a business. Stop thinking only about actors and directors and start thinking about accountants and producers as well. Actors and directors need good scripts, whereas accountants and producers need good products.
Yes, your sellable film is a product.
Not only does it need to be a damn fine film, it must have a “clean chain of title.” Title simply means ownership. The chain are all the creative people who’ve helped you along the way. You document their agreement and the terms of their involvement in contracts.
And there are a lot of contracts:
- Writer Option Agreement
- Crew Agreement
- Actor Agreement
- Location Release
- Composer Agreement
- Etc., etc., etc.
You need these agreements to get Errors and Omissions insurance.
Why do you need E&O insurance?
Distributors and television outlets want to know that they’re not going to get sued when they show your film.
Want to know more? Want free resources about Chain of Title? See Jordan Clark’s Chain of Title campaign on Indiegogo.
My take: kudos to Jordan for getting this rolling. Keeping your chain of title clean is just plain smart.