BARRY OLIVER CHASE On Legal Advice for Indie Filmmakers

Law Office of Barry Oliver Chase http://www.lawharvard.com/FSL5CS/Custom/home.asp

Q) What is one of the biggest mistakes first-time filmmakers make?
A) Probably the biggest mistake (from a legal point of view) is launching expensive and time-consuming pre-production/production without creating a paper-trail to show the eventual distributor that you actually own the movie. It isn’t enough to say that the movie is “yours.” You need to have written agreements with every creative participant, agreements that leave you owning the “results and proceeds” of their work. Would you buy a car without being certain that the seller actually owned the car? Well, distributors feel the same way about a film that comes to them without “chain-of-title” papers saying, for example, that the female lead has actually agreed that the filmmaker owns her performance in the film. Under the copyright laws, these need to be written and signed agreements, and even if you paid the participant, you don’t own what she did for you without one. Read More

From its office in Miami, Florida, the Law Office of Barry Oliver Chase provides legal advice and representation to clients in the national and international entertainment, arts, sports and media industries. The firm provides a full gamut of legal services to clients in these industries. Mr. Chase has a unique combination of education and experience that sets him apart from most other entertainment attorneys. As a well-trained professional (honors degrees from both Yale and Harvard) with an insider's perspective on the entertainment industry (he’s a former programming head of the PBS National Television Network), Mr. Chase provides his clients with legal representation at what he likes to call a “Harvard level.”