b-independent production

OOH! FOR A LOCATION!
by Alamelu Narayanaswamy
This is the recap of a discussion held on the B-Film interactive community. A great deal of useful information was covered and Al was nice enough to recap and share with the world. To join go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/B-Film/. Thanks, Al, I owe you one! --Allen
Stan tosses around a question about getting permission to use property for shooting purposes How important it is, what to do or not do, contracts et al: Troy, Nathan, Jon, Mike, Jeff, Scott, Susan, Danny and Matt tackle the question out of experience with different viewpoints as there will be in any discussion: But the important things that came to the forefront have been put together.
1. One must be very diligent in getting permission from the actual owner of a property before shooting there. Otherwise, you could be cited for trespassing. ASK and don't assume getting permission will be difficult, and ask BY ASKING, NOT ASSUMING.
a) Role of the Location Release Agreement: Get one signed or if you do not get one signed and you later make money off your film, the property owner can sue you not only for not getting permission, but can also make outrageous claims for "rental" fees for having used the property. This is because part of the Agreement deals with compensation. They should also include a "hold harmless" clause. This says if anything happens, you will take responsibility for everything. Legally it is worthless, as they are still liable by virtue of being the owner. But for some people, this will do.
b) Coming to compensation, technically if there is no money exchange and the contract is not really valid, it may or may not be challengeable in court.
c) So, what makes a valid contract?
1) The first party agrees to do something under certain terms. e.g.: Joe Moneybags agrees to let you use his Building to shoot in. Obviously if someone never agrees to giving you something, there can't be a contract between you and them.
2) The second party agrees to ACCEPT the services agreed to by the first party. (e.g. Yes, Joe Moneybags can let me use his building for my shoot). The idea being that if you don't accept it, you can't be held responsible for not following through with part 3 of the contract, which is:
3) In exchange for the 1st party providing a service to the 2nd party, the 2nd party agrees to compensate the 1st party in someway. Money is the most trackable form of compensation (apparently to be legal, at least a "token" amount has to be offered. Usually $1.00 (one dollar), but it can be in other forms as well (trade of goods or time of equivalent value, credit in the film and promotional materials etc.) though these other things do not always hold up in court as viable forms of compensation.
I cannot stress enough how much contracts are important to the whole process. You will need contracts with ALL cast, all crew, music people, basically anyone and anything that does something for your film, even if they are your friends -- especially if they are your friends.
d) Sometimes, they will want to be listed as an "additional insured" for which you would have to have a liability policy first.
…..But here's a different viewpoint…..(Matt)
I would avoid calling the film offices and the leasing company. And here's the reason why... What's your budget? And how is your movie? Cause if it's below twenty grand and your shooting an SOV (and yes, digital counts as an SOV), it's not going to matter. That's too small of a movie for anyone to worry about. As long as you have permission by the people renting the space out to be there then you should have no problems. Also, by calling the leasing company and the film commission wastes your time, wastes your energy and (you're going to have to trust me on this) draws a lot of unnecessary attention to your production. Because if you contact the film commission about one location, they are going to want to know about every location that you are shooting at in your movie. They are going to inquire about permits. They will talk to you about insurance. Hey, someone might even bring up a union issue. You never know. Here's what it boils down to: Will someone ask questions if your movie goes on to a Blair Witch type of success? Sure. Is your movie going to go on to have that kind of success? Probably not. And if it does, well then great for you and having some office company go after you for a movie that's already in the can would be the least of your troubles. Like I said, you have the permission to be there from the company who rents out the space. Then, as long as you don't permanently destroy or damage anything, then just go shoot it. Don't worry about anything else.
…..Jon suggests talking with people who have worked with your local commission to find out what they're like.
2. If I shoot in a business, I need the business owner's permission, but what about the building owner?
a) Yes, you need the building owner's permission to use the building it is in. The business. owner is only part of the equation in that case.
b) Whatever company that owns the building will know who in the company can sign such an agreement.
c) If the owner happens to be a Multi - National Corporation, it would be easier to contact the leasing agency for permission. However, there is also the viewpoint that many of these leasing companies are paid on a commission basis, The more money they bring in, the more they get paid...so in that sense, it would be bad to go through them. The location release is two part, permission to occupy the space, but also permission to put the space in your movie, not unlike products or person's likenesses. So, I'm pretty sure the actual Owner of the business still needs to grant permission, unless there is something in the leasing companies contract that grants them this power.
d) The good thing about dealing with a building owner vs. a business owner is that (with the extreme exception of liability concerns, and if they are just greedy (had a guy who wanted to charge us $150 to >use his roof for two hours - NOT!!), you aren't bothering them at all so it doesn't really matter if you are there or not.
3. What if I want to show a company's logo in my film?
You also need to get permission if you show a company's Logo (or identifiable brand name, trademark, etc) in the film. Could probably contact their Public Relations Department. What Mike feels.... Unless you are displaying name brands prominently I wouldn't even worry about it. The likelihood of companies' clearance offices seeing these micro budget films are slim to none. Just don't defame a known product unless you can back it up with facts.
4. How can I find some help in identifying locations?
Call your Local or State Film Office (commission), they can be very helpful in helping you find locations and contacting the right people.
5. Wily nily ways of getting around the issue….
a) Don't complicate matters, for there are plenty of other issues to contend with. And just to be safe...shoot in off-hours if possible when there are less people around to ask questions about permits and permission; If confronted, claim you thought it was public property.....you'd be surprised how well that can work for certain locations.
b) Shoot during off-hours and if caught, act totally off guard - saying : What do you mean, we're not allowed to be doing this? Tell who ever the authority figure is, that what you're shooting is for school, college, night class or whatever. For some reason if your project is attached to some education related notion, that always puts people at ease.
c) You might even feign poverty. However, for most of us, there is no feigning necessary. We are a small crew, doing a small, no-budget independent film, blah, blah, blah...being a student has never had more advantages than in these situations.
d) And of course you can feign ignorance as well. "We thought the guy was the Owner!" But I don't recommend this, as it is not a valid legal excuse.
6. Do you need permission from someone when shooting scenes at a cemetery?
Only if you get caught! Actually, old graveyards are the best, in the middle of nowhere.
7. Real-time experiences:
Troy:
We were renting studio space in an artist building which required business liability insurance as part of the lease. It was then about $350.00 per year. When we were shooting our feature, we had several people require us to have property damage and liability insurance and to list them as additionally insured. I'd just call the insurance company and they would send me a certificate of insurance with the various people listed as additionally insured. Everyone was very happy. However, we got lucky. I found out after we finished shooting, that the insurance we had only covered the "Studio Space" we rented and the office equipment we had (up to $15,000 of stuff no production equipment cover at all). It did NOT cover equipment we rented or anything damage, liability or otherwise, that was done outside of the studio. The insurance to cover "Production" is much more expensive. Too expensive actually. As it was, the way we did, it worked, but had something actually gone wrong and we had to file a claim, or someone tried to sue us....creek without a paddle time...whew!
We got permission to use a box of Fruit Brute in our film, directly from General Mills (a very big company). They actually hired a company who deals with licensing their products, logos, etc. They are based here in Minnesota. I just called their public relations department, told them what we wanted, and they told me whom to contact. I found a sample product release, faxed it to the guy and 5 mins later we had official Fruit Brute permission. It helped that they don't make Fruit Brute any more, and that we weren't using the "produce in anyway inconsistent with it's intended use" (e.g chocking someone to death with a Fruit Bruit box ala Ash in Alien), so they didn't really care, and best of all -- IT WAS FREE!!!! We also didn't mention that we had actually already shot the scene with the Fruit Brute box and were in fact asking for permission after the fact!!
I shot a scene for a project in my local highway patrol office (on the county level...I grew up in rural Wisconsin), because my neighbors mom worked there. A friend that I went to high school with was the local cop so I got him, in uniform for free...wow...what production values...a real cop badge!!!
We called the Minneapolis Film Office and said what do we have to do to close down a street? They said "Well, if it is a busy one, you'll need to hire off duty cops, double your liability coverage. However, if you find a less use street you just need to send notices to the locals, and rent barricades for the street. So we found a "service" road right downtown, shot between 6 am and 9 am on a saturday (least amount of traffic) and rented a barricade for $100 bucks!
Matt:
With The Good Book, not only did we shoot in an office space that was rented out (exactly like your description) but we also shot in an owned office space. In neither place did we have any problems (for not getting permission straight from the owner)
Jon:
While I can't speak of film commissions outside of Texas, our film commission was incredible on our virtually no-budget movie. They helped us out with only the locations we needed, never brought up permits unless we asked about them, and otherwise stayed completely out of our hair. They found us locations that we were able to use for free, and everything else was up to us. Our commission stands behind all arenas of filmmaking and helped us achieve a lot that we may not have been able to otherwise.
Danny:
The fight scene in Horrorvision was shot on the go as well. I remember that morning well, "So Dan, where we gonna shoot this fight scene, the contest winner is here?"... I remembered a shady part of town and we just drove up, hopped out of the car and went at it before the neighbors, or gangbangers complained….it was fun, but there were a few close calls.
Other hilarious stories:
Director of Photography Dean Cundy (Jurassic Park, Back to the future, Halloween) (or was it shooting for John Carpenter's The Fog)?! talked about his early days when they were shooting a film and went downtown in a city to shoot late at night on the exterior of some building - they never asked permission which is why they shot late at night!
All in all, beware, the age-old wives' tale is that "if I don't plan on making any money with my film, then I can just do what I want" is an ENORMOUS falsehood. This is especially the case when using copyrighted materials (which is a whole different discussion alone).