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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Anyone on the board know any entertainment attorneys in the LA area. My son has been offered a contract for a series and he sent me the contract for review.
Things that seem really odd to me are most likely standard provisions in contracts of this type but I would like to refer my son to an expert.
Also seems to put the performer between a rock and a hard place......here is the contract, sign it if you want the job.....otherwise there are 500 other people lined up that will happily sign it.
I suppose once you get some clout this doesn't happen but when you are starting out......
Thanks in advance for any help. |
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Joined:
September 2003
Posts: 815
Location: Colorado | Best I can do is a friend who worked in CA and here in CO as a patent attorney for Hewlett-Packard. He is laid off and doing what he can get his hands on. AFAIK, he hasn't been involved in the entertainment industry, but it may be worth at least talking to him. He's a sharp man.
Let me know. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | Stephen, I've sent an email off to somebody who might be able to get me a referral. I'll let you know. Probably not going to happen until Monday at the earliest.... |
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Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | Stephen - I'll send you a pm. |
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Joined:
March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | Believe it or not there is a very good entertainment lawyer right here in Hot Springs. He moved here from Denver and he even said that at one point he had to sue Johnny Cash over the rights to a song.
Anyway, a few years ago there were some people here who had done some work for PBS and they decided to shoot a pilot called "North of Nashville" which was being filmed at the Songbird Cafe in Custer. They had heard a lot of us locals at a songwriter's workshop concert that they filmed for PBS and invited us all to come play at the taping for the pilot. After wining and dining us they passed out the contracts. Most signed it right on the spot but I don't sign ANYTHING unless I understand it. I showed it to Jim, and there was a clause that said that in the event that the pilot was not picked up, the filmmakers owned the pilot and could do anything they wanted with it. Jim said that meant they could sell it to a "stock film company". In other words, our performances could at some point show up in a commercial or a porn film or anything, and not only would we not get paid, but we had no control over where it was used. He said to make them an offer - do the performance but we would need that clause removed from the contract. When I spoke to them about it they said, "Looks like you have a better lawyer than we do"! They refused to remove the clause, I refused to sign the contract and so didn't take part in the program. The others did it. The pilot never sold and so far I don't think any of the performances have shown up anywhere they weren't supposed to. So far. |
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Joined:
November 2002
Posts: 3664
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Great story. Another one of my blessings, for lack of talent. |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Back in my showbiz days, our agent showed up at the door one day with some guy who wanted us to join the Child Actors Guild. We did, or my parents did on our behalf, and a few years later it was rolled into Equity. I've signed numerous executory contracts since then, but it was always on a project-by-project basis: I do such-and-such (usually choreography, but an appearance now and then) and in exchange, they'll do such and such (primarily pay at an agreed upon rate, but also dates and other avccommodations) along with other boilerplate provisions. Never had a contract issue arise myself, but what I do has always been pretty small potatoes in the big scheme of things. There has never really been much at stake. |
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OT - CA or LA Attorneys
