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John W. Cones - Film Industry Contracts

In the past seven years, I have made lecture presentations relating to film finance and distribution topics some 127 times to audiences which in the aggregate totaled in excess of 3,000 people. These seminar presentations were sponsored by such film industry organizations as the American Film Institute, the USC TV-Cinema Alumni Association, the UCLA graduate level Independent Producer's Program, the UCLA Anderson Graduate School

of Management's Entertainment Section, UCLA Extension, Loyola Marymount Continuing Education, Cinetex and Cinewomen. Typically, these lecture audiences include producers, attomeys, screenwriters, executive producers, line producers, directors, distributors, bankers, broker/dealers, investment bankers, recent film school graduates and others seeking specific information or a general overview about film finance and distribution. One of the things that

comes along with that much contact with so many people at different levels in the film industry is that I get questions and feedback from the audience. One of the most persistent inquiries over the years has been "Where can I get an example of a particular type of film industry agreement?" This book has been compiled and edited to answer that question.

Although there is a form book that is published for attomeys relating to motion picture industry contracts it is part of a four volume set dealing with other topics besides film; the entire set and updates are quite expensive; it is not available on diskette and it does

not offer as many agreements as are found in this collection. Thus, this book or the set of diskettes may prove to be useful and fairly priced for those attomeys who are particularly interested in documentation of film transactions. Although many of the agreements may contain sophisticated and current language, these agreements merely serve as a starting point for such attomeys.

Another segment of the film industry which is often represented at my seminars is the recent film school graduate. One of the things I have leamed from this group is that their film school educations invaribly focus on the technical and creative side of film as opposed to the business side of producing. Thus, each year our films schools across the nation are tuming out class after class of highly talented and wonderly trained film school graduates who are "vulnerable to the deal". And, of course, the Hollywood "dealmakers" are just waiting to make deals with these guys! On the other hand, the film schools may argue that it

is not their place to teach business and management, even if the business and management skills needed are somewhat unique to the industry. Unfortunately, very few business and management schools (with the exception of AGSM at UCLA) offer any concentration relating to the film business or even entertainment for that matter. And also unfortunately, most of these film school graduates who choose to become independent producers probably are not in a position to hire or go into business with anyone with business and management expertise or training left away. That is not to say that these sample agreements will meet all of their business and management educational needs either, but recent film school graduates, film students and even film school professors can certainly take a good step in that direction and get a feel for how the film industry actually does business by reading through and/or

studying this collection of sample agreements.

The other film industry group which may have a use for these agreements are producers and those who hope to produce feature films at some point in the future. In talking to thousands of independent producers over the years, I have determined that there ar many low budget producers out there who probably never will use an attorney for their transactional work. Making these sample agreements available to that segment of the market will not likely change their habits in that regard. Another segment of the producer group will look at these agreements and say, "I didn't realize a certain transaction was as complicated as it is. I think I'll use an attorney this time." At least in those circumstances, these sample agreements serve a useful educational function and make it possible for the producer to communicate more effiCiently with the attorney regarding the transaction and its documentation. So, it is possible that some producers who would not have otherwise used the services of an attorney will after being exposed to these sample agreements and it is possible

that some producers who probably were not inclined to use the services of attorneys anyway will try to go it alone. MY BEST GENERAL ADVICE IS THAT AN ATTORNEY BE EMPLOYED IN EACH INSTANCE OF THE USE OF THESE AGREEMENTS, IF NOT TO DRAFT THE DOCUMENT ITSELF, AT LEAST TO REVIEW THE PRODUCER PREPARED DOCUMENT.

Good luck!

JC

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