Does the film producer really need a film lawyer or entertainment attorney as a matter of professional practice? An entertainment lawyer’s own tendency and my stacking of the question despite, which might naturally indicate a “yes” answer 100% of that time period – the forthright answer is, “it depends” مجید رضوی. A number of producers these days are themselves film lawyers, entertainment law firms, or other kind of lawyers, and so, often can take care of themselves. But the film producers to worry about, are the ones who act as if they are entertainment lawyers – but without a driver’s license or entertainment attorney legal experience to back it up. Filmmaking and motion picture practice comprise an industry wherein these days, unfortunately, “bluff” and “bluster” sometimes serve as substitutes for actual knowledge and experience. But “bluffed” documents and inadequate production procedures will never escape the trained eye of entertainment law firms working for the studios, the distributors, the banks, or the errors-and-omissions (E&O) insurance carriers. For this reason alone, I suppose, the job function of film production counsel and entertainment lawyer is still secure.
I also suppose that there will almost always be a few lucky filmmakers who, throughout the entire production process, fly under the proverbial radar without entertainment attorney accompaniment. They will secured in a dark avoid pitfalls and liabilities like flying bats are esteemed to avoid people’s hair. By way of analogy, one of my best friends hasn’t had any health insurance for years, and he is still in good shape and economically afloat – this week, anyway. Taken in the aggregate, some people will almost always be luckier than others, and some people will almost always be more inclined than others to roll the dice.
But it is all too simplistic and pedestrian to tell one self that “I’ll avoid the need for film lawyers if i simply stay out of trouble and be careful”. An entertainment lawyer, especially in the realm of film (or other) production, can be a real constructive asset to a motion picture producer, as well as the film producer’s personally-selected inoculation against potential liabilities. If the producer’s entertainment attorney has been through the process of film production previously, then that entertainment lawyer has recently learned many of the harsh lessons regularly dished out by the commercial world and the film business.
The film and entertainment lawyer can therefore spare the producer many of those pitfalls. How? By clear thinking, careful planning, and – this is the absolute key – skilled, accommodating and complete documentation of all film production and related activity. The film lawyer should not be considered to be simply the person seeking to establish deference. Sure, the entertainment lawyer may sometimes are the one who says “no”. But the entertainment attorney can be a positive force in the production as well.
The film lawyer can, in the course of legal representation, assist the producer as an effective business consultant, too. If that entertainment lawyer has been involved with scores of film productions, then the motion picture producer who employees that film lawyer entertainment attorney benefits from that very cache of experience. Yes, it sometimes may be difficult to stretch the film budget to allow for counsel, but professional filmmakers tend to view the legal cost expenditure to be a fixed, predictable, and necessary one – akin to the fixed obligation of rent for the production office, or the cost of film for the cameras. While some film and entertainment lawyers may price themselves out of the price range of the average independent film producer, other entertainment law firms do not.
Enough generalities. For what specific tasks must a producer typically retain a film lawyer and entertainment attorney?:
- INCORPORATION, OR FORMATION OF AN “LLC”: To paraphrase Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko character in the motion picture “Wall Street” when speaking to Bud Monk while on the morning beach on the oversized mobile phone, this entity-formation issue usually what people mean about the entertainment attorney’s “wake-up call” to the film producer, telling the film producer that it is time. If the producer doesn’t properly create, file, and observe after a corporate or other appropriate being through which to conduct business, and if the film producer doesn’t thereafter make every effort to keep that being safeguarded, says the entertainment lawyer, then the film producer is potentially hurting himself or herself. Without the shield against liability an being can provide, the entertainment attorney opines, the motion picture producer’s personal assets (like house, car, bank account) tend to be risk and, in a worst-case scenario, could ultimately be gripped to satisfy the debts and liabilities of the film producer’s business. In other words:
Patient: “Doctor, it wounds my head when i do that”.
Doctor: “So? Don’t do that”.
Like it or not, the film lawyer entertainment attorney continues, “Film is a speculative business, and the statistical majority of motion pictures can fail economically – even at the San Fernando Pit film business level. It is irrational to run a film business or any other form of business out of one’s own personal bank account”. Besides, it looks unprofessional, a real concern if the producer wants to attract talent, bankers, and distributors at any point in the future.
The choices of where and how to file an being are often caused by entertainment lawyers but then driven by situation-specific variables, including tax concerns relating to the film or motion picture company sometimes. The film producer should let an entertainment attorney do it and do it correctly. Entity-creation is affordable. Good lawyers don’t look at incorporating litigant as a profit-center anyway, because of the obvious potential for new business an entity-creation brings. While the film producer should be aware that under You. S. law litigant can fire his/her lawyer at any time at all, many entertainment lawyers who do the entity-creation work get asked to do further work for that same client – especially if the entertainment attorney bills the first job reasonably.
I wouldn’t recommend self-incorporation by a non-lawyer – any more than I would tell a film producer-client what celebrities to engage in a motion picture – or any more than I would tell a D. P. -client what lens to use on a specific film shot. As will be true on a film production set, everybody has their own job to do. And I believe that as soon as the producer lets an ideal entertainment lawyer do his or her job, things will start to gel for the film production in ways that couldn’t even be originally foreseen by the motion picture producer.
- SOLICITING INVESTMENT: This challenge also often constitutes a wake-up call of sorts. Let’s say that the film producer wants to generate a motion picture with other people’s money. (No, not an unusual scenario). The film producer will likely start soliciting funds for the movie from so-called “passive” investors in any number of possible ways, and may actually start collecting some monies as a result. Sometimes this occurs prior to the entertainment lawyer hearing about it post facto from his or her client.
If the film producer is not a lawyer, then the producer should not even think of “trying this at home”. Like it or not, the entertainment lawyer opines, the film producer will thereby be selling sec to people. If the producer promises investors some pie-in-the-sky results in the context of this inherently speculative business called film, and then collects money on the basis of that representation, believe me, the film producer will have even more grave problems than conscience to deal with. Sec deference work is among the complicated of matters faced by an entertainment attorney.
As both entertainment lawyers and sec lawyers will opine, botching a solicitation for film (or any other) investment can have severe and federally-mandated consequences. No matter how great the film script is, it’s never worth monetary fines and imprisonment time – not to mention the veritable unspooling of the unfinished motion picture if and when the producer gets nailed. All the while, it is shocking to see how many ersatz film producers in the real world try to float their own “investment prospectus”, complete with boastful anticipated multipliers of the box office figures of the notable motion pictures “E. T. ” and “Jurassic Park” combined. They draft these monstrosities with their own sheer creativity and imagination, but usually with no entertainment or film lawyer or other legal counsel. I know that some of these producers think of themselves as “visionaries” while writing the prospectus. Entertainment law firms and the rest of the bar, and seat, may tend to think of them, instead, as prospective ‘Defendants’.
Enough said.
- DEALING WITH THE GUILDS: Let’s assume that the film producer has decided, even without entertainment attorney guidance yet, that the production being will need to be a signatory to collective bargaining agreements of unions such as Screen Celebrities Guild (SAG), the Owners Guild (DGA), and/or the Writers Guild (WGA). This is a subject theme area that some film producers can handle themselves, particularly producers with experience. However, if the film producer can afford it, the producer should consult with a film lawyer or entertainment lawyer prior to making even any initial contact with the guilds. The producer should certainly consult with an entertainment attorney or film lawyer prior to issuing any writings to the guilds, or signing any of their documents. Failure to plan out these guild issues with film or entertainment attorney counsel ahead of time, could lead to problems and expenses that sometimes make it cost-prohibitive to thereafter continue with the picture’s further production.