May 15, 2025 • 60 mins
Legal expertise isn't just a box to check—it's a vital component of successful filmmaking that can make or break your project. Entertainment attorney Pete Salsich III pulls back the curtain on the often intimidating world of film law, revealing how proper legal structuring serves as the foundation for creative freedom rather than an obstacle to it.
At the core of film production lies one fundamental principle: copyright law governs everything, and establishing clear ownership is non-negotiable if you hope to secure distribution or funding. Pete walks us through the process of creating a dedicated LLC for your project, executing proper work-for-hire agreements with every contributor, and ensuring that all intellectual property flows to a single owner—crucial steps that many filmmakers overlook until it's too late.
Rather than viewing legal services as a drain on limited resources, Pete encourages filmmakers to reframe production legal as an essential line item in their budget—just like camera equipment or insurance. This shift in perspective transforms the attorney-client relationship from a transactional expense into a true creative partnership. Whether you're working with a micro-budget or gunning for seven figures, proper legal structuring signals professionalism to investors, qualifies you for valuable tax incentives, and prevents the heartbreak of "falling in love with footage you can't use."
The conversation demystifies everything from investor agreements to music licensing, offering practical guidance for filmmakers at every level. Pete emphasizes that while DIY contracts might suffice for your first project, they create a ceiling that prevents growth into larger budget productions. As you elevate your filmmaking ambitions, having an attorney who understands the entertainment landscape becomes not just helpful but necessary.
Ready to transform your approach to film legal? Visit www.thescreenlawyer.com to learn more about Pete's services or to connect with him for your next project.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
All right, welcome to the podcast, pete Salsik III.
Did I get it right?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You did.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Yeah, very good.
Really happy to have you here.
We met well.
I met Pete at our film'spremiere at the St Louis Film
Festival.
He was doing you weremoderating right A panel
discussion.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Right, we were, yes, we.
For a number of years now, I'vehosted a masterclass during the
week of the film festival herein St Louis, typically talking
about legal or business issuesrelated to film and filmmaking,
and so that was what was goingon when you were there, um, and
I remember that was it was apleasure to meet you, so I'm
glad to be able to reconnect.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It's fun to see you again too.
So Pete is a attorney whospecializes in intellectual
property and especially forpeople in film and the
entertainment business.
You're also a professor, Ibelieve, at St Louis University.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Adjunct yes, so I'm an adjunct.
Yes, at St Louis U law school Iteach a class on a couple of
upper division classes.
They rotate on semesters, buttypically it's intellectual
property licensing and draftingand it's really a contracts
drafting class with intellectualproperty licensing structures
built in to kind of get used tohow you, how you draft these
things and why you, how to thinkabout these things, so these
things.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So yeah, but yes well , and this is great because I
think, for example and I don'twant to throw any specific
person or company under the busbut we subscribed to a
subscription that was supposedto be legal help for whatever
your needs are and I found thatit was very difficult for them
(01:45):
to understand how to navigatefilm because it was not specific
to that.
So I love that you arespecifically focused on and
working in our industry.
You understand how thatbusiness works and I thought
it'd be really great to bringyou on and share, first of all,
just some of the pitfalls thatpeople run into if they aren't
(02:07):
aware of, maybe common problemsyou see people running into on
the back end that they wishthey'd known before they started
making their movie, especiallypeople with super low budget
first time filmmakers.
And then I'd also love to getinto your specialty in
intellectual property in film.
You know IP is like having aname actor.
(02:28):
It can be really beneficial togetting financing and getting
your film made.
But it's also this area that Idon't necessarily know how to
navigate, and there's questionsI have about that specifically.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So, yeah, no, I'm happy to have this conversation
with you, really genuinely.
Not just happy because I'm yousaid, you asked and I said yes,
but I really do like to sharethis information with you.
Know, I'll say aspiringfilmmakers, but also sometimes
seasoned filmmakers.
I mean, look you, you know Irun into people that have been
making films for a dozen yearsbecause they started when they
(03:05):
were nine with their phone andthey're really good craftspeople
.
They can tell a story, they canframe issues, they can put all
that stuff together Right.
So you may be new to thefilmmaking or newer to the
filmmaking business, but you mayhave a lot of talent and I run
into people like that all thetime and it's that wanting to
take that and turn it into abusiness, a life, a profession,
(03:29):
a career which is wheretypically, before too long, you
run into somebody like me, ifyou want to do that and would
like to have people to come intothat without fear.
And the biggest way I think todo that, and what I try to do
(04:00):
when I put information out, isto let you know that, while
there are some key things towatch out for and some key
things to take heart, it's notthat complicated to do it right
and there's a couple of basicprinciples that apply, basic
principles that apply, and thenall the nuances on a
deal-by-deal situation fitwithin a category you can kind
of already understand.
Right, you may still have todeal with unique situations, but
there aren't completely out ofthe blue, never even thought
that would come up kind of stuff.
And the biggest sort of where Ioften start on this is trying
(04:24):
to get people to understand.
Filmmakers understand a coupleof basic points.
The first is copyright lawgoverns all aspects of your film
and the filmmaking process.
Period, end of sentence.
It never does not cover, it'sliterally always the key,
because the entire business ofthe filmmaking process, that
(04:45):
whole structure, is based onthere being one copyright owner
at the end of a finished project.
Right, so you've got afive-minute short or a five-hour
limited series or anything inbetween.
That thing that's going to endup on a screen and go out into
the world for others to see isprotected by copyright law and
(05:06):
there's got to be one owner ofthat copyright, because if
there's more than one owner orthat ownership is not clear,
you're almost never going to getthe distribution or funding,
because in every one of thosecontracts you're going to be
saying and representing to theother party we own all of the
rights, no one has any potentialinfringement claims.
(05:27):
Well, the only way that can betrue is if you do the work ahead
of time correctly.
But working back from that basicprinciple I think sometimes
helps people get grounded.
You simply cannot put a filmout into the world without
having gone through the legalprocess period.
I mean, you can try.
It may come down quickly andyou'll get a bunch of people
yelling at you and you won'tmake any money.
It doesn't mean you're notphysically able to do it.
(05:50):
You can right click, copy andpaste all day long, but it might
be copyright infringement allday right.
So just because you can dosomething doesn't mean that you
should.
And in this industry, workingback from the copyright one
copyright owner, making surethat's true is necessary.
If you are the, so typicallywhat happens is for a new film
(06:12):
project.
A lot of times you,particularly if you're going to
take other people's money, andthis is another thing we'll talk
about.
But if you are putting togethera new film project, typically
we recommend that you start anew company, typically an LLC.
Very simple process.
But you form a company and thatcompany is going to be the
(06:32):
copyright owner.
And a lot of times it's titleof film LLC or something like
that, right and that.
But if it starts, if, say, thetwo of you are working on the
concept, you've worked up sometreatments, maybe you've shot
some spec footage, or youstarted to put together a deck
or a trailer or a wish list ofact whatever the stuff you start
(06:54):
to put together as this thingcomes together, maybe you have a
screenplay that's reasonablywell-developed or something like
that.
But if you haven't formed thatentity yet, the you individual
humans, are the owners of thecopyright.
If you both did it, you mightbe joint authors, but you might
disagree about what to do withit.
And yet copyright law says youeach have all of the rights you
(07:16):
can't infringe each other.
One of you could go left, oneof you can go right and the
other party couldn't do anythingabout it.
But you never want jointauthorship or joint ownership in
these situations, because it'sreally messy.
So what you do is you would formthe new film LLC and then each
of you if the idea is that thetwo of you are gonna be
co-owners of that start with,you're gonna be on the producer
(07:39):
side, we would have you do acontribution agreement, which is
a written contract between you,individual person, and new llc,
in which you contribute intothe new llc all of your
intellectual property rightsthat have developed so far in
the concept that's, you know,being contemplated, um, and you
(08:00):
would agree that all futureefforts that you make in
furtherance of this project aregoing to be as works made for
hire for the LLC.
So in one written documentyou've transferred ownership of
anything that already exists andyou've transferred ownership of
anything that you create, goingforward that way.
And then in return, the LLCgrants you individual human
(08:27):
return.
The LLC grants you individualhuman 50% ownership in the form
of LLC membership units orwhatever, and so now we have an
LLC that actually owns all theintellectual property that has
happened so far.
That's the first step.
Then, at any point now now ifyou've assembled, if in putting
that material together you'vealready worked with other people
you got a friend who's a greatDP and somebody else whipped up
(08:49):
some music for you, conceptualor whatever get the same
document from everybody else Ifthose people are not going to be
owners in the LLC but you stillwant to comp them or give them
some right to participate in thefuture.
It might look like a slightlydifferent agreement, but the
point is you got to get it inwriting from every human being
(09:11):
who touches the film to becertain that, at the end of the
day, you've got one owner of thecopyright.
So, working back from that oneowner, you start with yourselves
, start with the immediatepeople and then, as you look out
, ok, we're going to need morecrew.
Well, you're going to have astandard crew agreement.
It's going to vary because thefirst page may say some person
(09:32):
is going to be there for 20 daysand get paid this much,
somebody else is going to bethere for three days and get
paid this much.
Right, you feel those thingsare variable, but the terms and
conditions are going to be thesame and everybody who steps
foot on a set or into apost-production bay or anything
else has signed something thatsays all of the results and
proceeds of their work will beworks made for hire owned by New
(09:54):
Film LLC.
Unequivocal right If somehow youdon't pay them, they can sue
you for money, but they can't gointo court and take that
copyright back.
That also has to be in thewritten agreement.
It's a little nuance.
It's very, very important.
In the entertainment industryPeople need to say I will not
(10:15):
and cannot give up my right towalk into court and try to get a
temporary restraining order orsome kind of injunction to get
the film shut down because Iwasn't paid.
I agree that I, if I get, ifyou, if you breached or
something, I can sue you formoney.
But I can't impact the therights that I've granted you in
(10:35):
terms of copyright ownership.
And that's necessary too,because you could have five or
500 people on a film and youcan't take the chance that any
one of them would get upset,walk into a state court judge
who doesn't know anything aboutthe film industry and grants a
three-week injunction andeverything has to dead stop.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Right.
So these are all little thingsthat you work towards to get
your good contracts in place,and there's kind of there's more
detail as it goes along.
But the basic principle isevery single human that touches
the project in any way, shape orform has to have a written
agreement that says work forhire.
Those words need to be in it,one of those rare cases in the
(11:18):
law where you really do havemagic words.
So you know, if that's in placenow you can start looking out
and say, well, what next?
Right, but that first thing isnecessary and one of the reasons
.
You know, sometimes I don'tknow how much do lawyers cost
and you know I got it.
(11:38):
Well, maybe I'll wait orwhatever.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
And so what I?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
always tell people is you know we.
If you get comfortable with theidea and it does it, you got to
have an attorney thatunderstands the space.
That's critical.
But if you get comfortable withthe idea that having production
production legal Is a line itemin my budget just like you know
(12:00):
camera rental, you know camerarental, any other insurance, any
other aspect, all of your crew,various people, talent, you
know everything cateringliterally everything in the
budget Production legal is justa line item in there and it's
typically done at somepercentage of the budget.
So if a budget is and this isagain, take somebody that
(12:22):
understands how to work in thisindustry, because that's
industry standard in terms ofour billing.
So if the budget is above $1million, $2 million, something
like that, the legal fees mightbe in the 1.5% to 2.5% range.
If the budget's $100,000, thelegal fees might be closer to
10% or more, because the workisn't really that radically
(12:44):
different depending on the sizeof the budget.
Right and so.
But whatever it is, figure thatout upfront, get a quote about
that from when you're puttingyour budget together and just
count on it.
Put it in there and it's notsomething that you think of.
I always have to write a checkfor my lawyer.
No, my lawyer is like my lightbill and my camera payments and
(13:07):
everything else.
It's just one of my regularongoing expenses on a project by
project basis.
And if you're going out andraising independent financing
for a particular project, it'sjust in your budget.
The people investing in you aregoing to expect that you have a
lawyer.
In fact, they're going to counton it, right, they're going to
count on you being able to sayyou can protect the copyright.
(13:29):
You've done all this stuffcorrectly.
So, and then you know what we doin that for that percentage of
budget, we do those crewagreements, talent agreements,
location agreements, a varietyof other things that might come
up on a one-off basis.
But then you know, are yougoing to have music, Are you
going to license third-partymusic?
(13:50):
Well, if so, that's a separatebudget.
And so we we we do sometimes domusic clearance work, depending
on the nature of the project,or composition agreements,
things like composer agreements,things like that, but typically
that doesn't fit underproduction legal.
That's just part of the musicbudget.
You may not really need us.
You may have a buddy who'sgoing to compose all new works
(14:11):
and we give you a simplecomposer agreement, it's done.
Or maybe you've got.
You know, you just have to havethese five, you know, Taylor
Swift songs.
Well, what's your budget?
Right, but we're going to be inthere somewhere.
But these are little thingsthat filmmakers can start to
realize.
Ok, here's how I figure out.
The lawyer part of this,Production legal, is all of this
(14:33):
stuff that has to happen oncethere is a budget, Once we have
that budget, that funding inplace to pay the crew and all
these things.
Now, all of those contractsneed to happen.
That's the production league,Music licensing.
If the lawyers need to getinvolved, they may, but that
goes under the music budget andthey will work with you and tell
(14:56):
you here's what I think it willcost and all of that stuff.
So, if you haven't, if youreally believe in some key song
that's necessary, talk to yourlawyer early, early, early,
early and find out what it'sgoing to cost.
And can you even do that?
Right, Don't fall in love witha bunch of footage based around
this one song that you can neverlicense.
(15:16):
And then the last piece is thefront piece.
The last piece is we need toform the new LLC, we need the
contribution agreements, we needthe investor agreements.
We need to put together thepitch deck to go out for private
financing, all of whichinvolves legal documents.
But you don't have a budget yet.
That is an out-of-pocket spend.
But we typically do that workfor a flat fee that we'll tell
(15:39):
you about ahead of time.
Try to keep it as modest as canbe so that we're going to do
this work for this amount ofmoney.
And so that's still a way of,early on, the filmmaker saying
what's it going to cost, what doI need for my lawyer and what's
it going to cost.
So you're not surprised, You'renot in that fear of God.
I hear these horror storiesabout hourly billing rates or
(16:02):
how do they spend so much timeon this?
And literally every time I pickup the phone call, it costs me a
hundred dollars.
We don't want to do that, Right.
It does not make sense for usto do the work in your industry
If that's how we bill.
You just won't call Right,Right, You'll fire something,
you'll fire us and go hiresomebody that knows what they're
doing.
So we have to understand how tofit within your economic
(16:25):
structure the life flow, themoney flow of a film project,
and we will talk to you ahead oftime for no charge, to say,
okay, here's what you need toget started.
This is what that would cost.
Call me when you're ready.
If you get that, and then thatturns into this budget, here's
(16:46):
what our production legal feewill be, because I want you to
be able to put my number in yourbudget when you go talk to an
investor, because you want toneed to show that investor this
is my real budget.
This is truly everything.
I need to get this onto ascreen.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
And so so yeah, I'd like to, like you know just what
you're saying is super valuable, because I think what some
people look at this as like oh,this is a cost, which means it's
like it's an obstacle in theway of me making my film, when,
in reverse, I actually think,having made one or two films
without much legal help at all,it's that's extremely valuable
(17:26):
and helpful for me to think likeI have someone I could call to
ask a question every now andthen I have someone who's going
to help me stay on top of all mypaperwork, because I'm
personally, when I get into thethroes of make, make, make,
shoot, shoot, shoot edit rightright it is almost impossible,
whether I'm making a fictionfilm or documentary film, to
stay on top of all of thepaperwork and usually we're
self-producing, right and sohaving someone there to keep all
(17:48):
that stuff covered.
And then, even further down theroad, when distributor
relationships start to happen, Ican also see where this becomes
hyper-valuable, because ifyou've got all your ducks in a
row, that working experience isway smoother and faster, whereas
if you don't, then you're justtrying to dig everything up in
retrospect, and that's hard, ifnot impossible sometimes to to
(18:11):
do properly.
So it really is actually amovie making mechanism rather
than a a wrench in the gears.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
No, I and I'm glad that you, I'm glad that you're
getting that point, you've cometo that realization, because
that's my point to make todayand as often as I can, is we are
a necessary part of your team.
So when you start from blankslate to end up on a screen, all
of the steps that are necessaryand the people that do the
(18:43):
different things are the teamand the producer role.
You know largely is assemblingthat team right and the right
team with the right project andeverything else, and then what's
going to cost?
How are we going to fund it?
Sometimes the producer role ismore time on the phone calling
for money or whatever, right,but it's still part of that
(19:05):
teamwork and we are a member ofthe team.
That's why we're in the budget.
Our fee doesn't go up or downdepending on how much time we
talk.
Why?
Because we signed on to theteam.
Some teams are busy this timeand slow another time.
I'm not telling you you've gotto pay me more this month and
less this month.
It's just here's the fee, andonce you have the budget, you're
(19:25):
going to pay a certain amountof that fee when we start.
You're going to be some of itat a certain milestone, just
like everybody else.
Right, it's just.
We literally are just part ofyour team.
We're necessary part of theteam, just as every one of those
other roles on set is.
And for you guys who are doing,you know, multi hyphenate writer
(19:46):
, director, producer, actor,star you know, janitor, if you
had to hire someone else to doany one of those roles someone
of your like, experience,quality, you know geographic,
location, all these factors forsome reason you break your ankle
(20:09):
and you can't go on set or youcan't do that, especially if
you've got other people's moneyinvolved.
You need to be able to.
Well, I'm going to grabso-and-so and see if they're
available.
They could drop into thedirecting role or the whatever
role, right?
Well, if your budget doesn'tinclude market rate for each
task that you are doing inaddition to this global producer
(20:34):
role, then your budget isn'treal.
It may be what you spent tomake the movie, but it's not a
real budget.
It's not the kind of budgetthat will withstand scrutiny
from investors or from somebodyelse.
And if I'm going to tell youthat I'll work at some
percentage of your budget, Ineed that to be the real budget,
not an artificial one, and alot of times, you know emerging
(20:57):
filmmakers will say, well, I, Idon't need to pay myself right
away, I don't need to pay myselfright away, I'm going to, you
know, hopefully get somethingback on the back.
Well, I hope you do too.
But my strong recommendation isdo not count on the only money
(21:20):
you get coming from the back end, because it's actually pretty
rare that back end happens right.
So pay yourself out of the onlymoney that you know will exist.
That's the money in your budget.
If you haven't accounted forpaying yourself your market rate
unless you have lotterywinnings and you don't need to
ever write a check for anythinghow are you really going to know
(21:41):
if you're making a life in thisbusiness and what is your
market rate?
If someone hired, hired youthis isn't not your film, but
you get known in your communitySomebody says, hey, will you
come direct or will you comeproduce this with me, or
whatever?
What would your fee be?
Right, you know you have amarket and it'll gradually grow
up and you have precedents andyou have.
(22:02):
I always get at least thiscredit.
I mean, that's how this worldworks.
Your IMDP page grows, so payyourself the same way and if you
decide to defer payment, that'sokay.
That's a deferral decision, butyour budget is still real and
then when you get proceeds, youpay yourself, then that's okay.
If that enables you to actuallyget the thing done with a
(22:25):
little bit less money right now,maybe while you're still
raising, or whatever but don'tpretend that you don't have to
pay yourself.
This is something that I see alot of young filmmakers do and
it's something to get over, sortof like learning to treat your
lawyer as part of your line item.
Treat yourself as part of theline item.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
You know, critically important, yeah, yeah, that's
definitely something I think weexperienced on our first film,
where we're like we're justgoing to do everything and we'll
pay ourselves, you know, lunchmoney.
And then on the second film, wewere a little more conscious of
these are our actual rates Nowthe amount of money that we
ended up raising, because thatwas more of an ongoing budget,
because it was a documentarySure, if it didn't get fully
(23:10):
financed, it just meant we wereeating our own income to a
degree which was fine for us.
But, like you, said it was areal budget and so that that
reframing is kind of whathappened from film one to film
two, ongoing from there it's.
That's why sometimes you see alot of director names, actor
names and sometimes dp names andother people in the executive
(23:30):
producer lines on movie credits,because that's essentially what
they're doing.
They're like this is my rateand this is how much I'm
actually paid, and right, noquestion yeah, and and if it's
properly accounted for, as itshould be, it should should
count.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
As say, if my rate's $100,000 and I'm going to take
50 in cash and have 50 in thedeferral, then if I want to
treat it, there's a couple ofdifferent ways you could do it.
One is I'm going to treat thatas if I put $50,000 in cash into
the budget, right, andtherefore I'm sitting here over
on the side of the investors tothe extent of my $50,000.
(24:08):
Because typically the proceeds,when they first come in, will
pay your investors back first,often plus 15% or 20% premium,
and then, after that's been done, they share in 50% of the
profits and you share in 50% ofthe profits.
So it depends on where you putthat deferral payback.
If you put that deferralpayback as comp, it gets paid
(24:31):
out of first proceeds before theinvestors get anything, because
it's a cost, right, there's nothing to give to the investors
until all the costs have beenpaid.
But then it's fixed at that$50,000 amount.
You get the other 50, you'redone.
Or you say I'm going to treatthis as an investment, which
means I may never get it but I'mgoing to get if I put $50,000
(24:57):
and the other investors put in$500,000, well then I'm going to
get 10% or 9%, whatever, ofeach bit of proceeds that goes
back to the investors and I hopeI'll get what I would have
otherwise gotten.
But I also might get more,because then I'm sitting in the
profit side.
If it becomes profitable, yes,and that's worth an executive
(25:19):
producer credit.
That's typically that structure, but, you're right, the
starting point included the fullappropriate rate for that
person and that's, I thinkthat's, I think, the key thing
to try to remember as you'reputting this together.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well, and what you're explaining is so valuable
because understanding that fromthe side of like this is what I
should be charging and it'sprotecting myself as the
filmmaker so that I can know howto negotiate, you know.
But it's also helpful whenyou're negotiating with
production houses, other keycrew, like you're saying you can
.
You can say, would you bewilling to adjust even name
actors, you know, adjust therates so that we're good on
(25:56):
whatever your contract andagreements are.
But you understand, we'reworking here with resources that
we may or may not have.
Yeah, that might help them beable to negotiate into a
situation where the movie getsmade, as opposed to where they
say, well, this is how much Icost, and you say, well, I can't
afford that, goodbye.
You might actually be able towork something out if they think
(26:17):
of it that way.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, and having an understanding of those little
nuances and how they fit intothe finance structure and
putting some skin in the gameyourself, so to speak, if you're
at a certain level, becomesrelevant and that can become a
valuable thing.
But again, all of that has tobe done in writing, has to be
(26:38):
properly documented, has to besomething that all of your
investors can see and agree with.
It's not like you're going toask your investors each time hey
, I think I might want to dosomething, are you guys OK with
this?
No, you do what you do, but bysaying this is how we're putting
this together, this is what I'mdoing, it gives them more
confidence that you do know, infact, what you're doing and
(27:01):
you've thought about it in orderto attract whatever it is
necessary to get a largeraudience, all of those factors
Right, so they all kind of playin together.
But you're right, it startswith having a reasonably
comfortable understanding of ofwhat it really takes to budget
and finance a film.
Um, you know, and that, I think, is that's one of the other
(27:25):
things that I try to stress tonew filmmakers is um, because
you're right, the way youdescribe, you know, shoot, shoot
, shoot.
Or the way I sometimes say youknow, get some money, shoot some
footage, go get some more money.
Or the way I sometimes say youknow, get some money, shoot some
footage, go get some more money, shoot some more footage.
It's very common and it's notnecessarily wrong given what you
(27:47):
do, but it does put you in acontinually limited You're never
going to get past here level ifthat's how you're always doing
a little.
You know, a lot of greatdocumentaries get made that way
because it's kind of thisguerrilla process over a long
period of time.
But these days so in Missouri wehave a new film tax credit.
There are 30, some odd statesthat have some form of a tax
incentive to attract a filmfinancing.
(28:07):
Here in Missouri and this ispretty common elsewhere you get
a percentage of the amount ofmoney you spend in the state
back in the form of a tax creditthat you use or can sell to
investors or whatever to helpfinance the film or return money
to the investors.
So what counts in yourstate-specific spend becomes
(28:28):
very relevant.
Right In Missouri, any moneyyou spend before you get your
tax credit approval letterdoesn't count.
So if you get some money, shootsome footage, get some money,
shoot some footage.
Oh, let's get a tax.
It's never going to work foryou.
(28:49):
You can still make the movie,but that fairly powerful piece
of financing structure is notgoing to be available to you.
So instead it elevates the roleof the producer to the front
instead of just alongside, alongthe way, the producer job,
assembling the team.
What's it going to cost to geteverybody lined up?
What agreements are ready to goin place?
Okay, we've got theseagreements locked up.
(29:09):
We've got a commitment fromthis lead actor, this director.
Within a window of time we canannounce they've agreed to be
attached for some level ofstructure and I need their names
to go out to investors.
Whatever is going on, however,you need to do that getting all
that in place without having topay for it yet, or keep the cost
that you pay to a minimum.
(29:31):
Sometimes you have developmentcosts that you're just never
going to get back.
But get it all lined up.
Then get the commitments forthe financing.
Then take that paperwork, go tothe state film office, get your
approval letter that says basedon what you submitted, we'll
approve a tax credit in theamount of $412,000, whatever.
It is OK.
(29:51):
Now you can start spending thatmoney.
Now you go to the.
You know so, but you have toput that together first, um,
which does change the sort ofstandard default go, go, go
mentality that you've alwaysbeen.
If you want to elevate up andput together projects that have
(30:11):
the potential for larger budgets, more significant financing,
tax credits in play, things likethat, you do have to do that.
Producer hustle pretty far downthe road, really, before you
start rolling cameras oranything else.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
So okay.
So I think that a lot of timesa first-time filmmaker making a
no-budget first film just to gettheir name on something and get
it out there, there's going tobe some obvious things that
they're aware of.
Like let's put a sticker overthis Apple logo so we don't get
in trouble and let's make surewe have rights to a song that we
want or a composer.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Or just avoid that entirely.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I think they're often using templates or, um sure,
platforms for their paperwork.
Uh, yeah, and then on the backend might be getting more legal
help for the yeah, yeah, becausethey just all they need is
really like eno insurance orwhatever, to get it distributed.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
It's like I've got my my diy contracts and I got my
eno at the end, and then I gotmy movie out and then they grow
into.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
You know more.
You know this becomes biggermoney on the line, bigger
investors and stuff like that.
I'm curious about how youapproach because you know we
have a way that we do it.
But I don't know, maybe it'snot good when you're doing the
contract for your investors.
They're not owners in the LLC,correct?
(31:41):
Well, often they are.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I mean you don't have to do it that way, but that's
the most common and it's oftenthe simplest.
But by being owners in the LLCthat doesn't mean they get
editorial control or managementdecision making, like that.
All of that's very clearly setout.
So you set up, you have anoperating agreement that governs
the operations of the LLC, notthe day-to-day business
(32:05):
management, not the product, butthe operational relationship
among the owners and how theyinteract with decision-making
Manager.
One of you would be the manager.
Manager makes all the decisionsright.
There's like three or fourthings the members get to vote
on and that's like majorcorporate changes that almost
(32:26):
never come up in this type of anenvironment.
So you're not giving up controlin that way.
Now you might have to negotiate.
If you've got a prettysignificant investor, or maybe
one investor for the whole thing, and they want to have some
level of input, you just have todecide am I willing to give
that for this person's money?
Speaker 1 (32:46):
So are you waiting to form the LLC until you have all
the financiers?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
No, no, no, no.
You do that.
First, the form the LLC is, youknow, 50 some odd dollars in
Missouri, a couple hundreddollars somewhere else.
It's an online.
It happens right away, butthat's only creating it into its
existence.
You still need the operatingagreement.
You need to figure out yoursubscription agreement structure
(33:13):
.
I would always recommend, ifyou have the opportunity to have
some kind of organicintroduction or whatever to
potential investors and theywant to hear about your project,
go ahead and have thoseconversations.
However you feel that, if youput together a deck or a short
or something to tease it up, ora proof of concept or treatment,
(33:35):
or if you've got a screenplay,whatever, you might have to
attract somebody.
Nothing wrong with beginningconversations like that.
But, before they, before theyagree to give you any money,
unless it's a unique person inrelationship, they're going to
want to see the documents andmost of the time they're going
(33:56):
to hand their documents to alawyer and an accountant who
don't play in the entertainmentworld.
Maybe they have some a littlebit, because this investor does
this regularly, but generallyspeaking, they're going to be
looking at it.
Just how does the legaldocument read?
Is the operating agreement inthe company structured correctly
?
Is this properly done fromaccounting and tax purposes?
(34:19):
So my view is always my job isto minimize the reason someone
can say no, right, so you wantto go talk to a potential
investor to put $100,000 intoyour film or whatever you want.
You know they, they first andforemost have to think it's a
(34:41):
good film.
You know, yeah, I can, I canvisualize that.
I can see that, uh, in my head.
Yeah, I think that's, I believeyou know.
Second, do I believe you canmake it?
Have you assembled the team orgiven me confidence and whatever
factors I'm going to measurethat you're actually the
filmmaker that can carry offthis vision and get it in the
(35:02):
can and up on a screen.
So those two questions arefirst, if the answer to either
of those is, I'm not sure, fullstop, you're never going to need
me.
But if the answer to those isyes, then the third question for
them is is there an audiencehere?
Have you convinced me thatthere's a potential audience
here?
That's at least as big as thebudget, or one and a half times
(35:24):
the budget, so I might actuallyget my money, and that's comps,
that's other factors.
That's minimum.
Gary D deals from a distributorahead of time if you've got
right names or whatever it is.
But somehow the third questionand remember the third question
doesn't care about your audienceif he doesn't like your film.
So these questions get answeredin order.
Yes, I want to see this filmmade.
(35:46):
Yes, I believe you could do it.
Yes, I believe there's anaudience.
Okay, here's the documents.
I can't have anything in thosedocuments that's going to make
their accountant or their lawyergo.
What is this?
This is a little off.
So we craft things that arevery common, understood both in
(36:07):
the industry, but also in almostany industry, because the
relationship in this structureis a very standard structure,
right, right.
So the risk or the exotic partof it is your story and you, not
the legal structure.
So I think any time you canpresent to anybody out there
(36:28):
that you understand and haveyour legal structure buttoned up
.
We have good counsel, we havesolid agreements.
Here's how they fit in thebudget.
This is our investment documentpackage.
Here's who our lawyers are.
All this stuff that says we'regrown-ups.
You know, we're legit, we're abusiness and all I have to do is
(36:50):
sell you on my product, not mycompany or not my understanding
of how even to wander throughthe world.
Right, you could be a brilliantfilmmaker and have no idea how
to put this together.
That's okay.
Partner up with somebody that'sa very good producer and can do
these things because, like yousaid, you know when you're going
(37:11):
, going, going, you got a littleof everything.
It's almost impossible to keeptrack of everything.
Yeah, right, and that's whereteams with people with different
right brain, left brainsuperpowers make a great
combination.
You know, lion producer, andthese days, now with the tax
credits, you've got to be reallymeticulous in your record
keeping and your invoicing andpayment structure as you're
(37:33):
paying through production,because you've got to hand all
that to the CPAs, they're goingto audit it and they're going to
send it out to the state andthat's going to determine what
you get back Right.
So again, that role.
If that's not you, then youneed someone who that, who can
do that and will do that.
Well, you know it just becomespart of your team.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
So and I'll mention this, on our first film we got a
lot of people asking like oh soI shot that film.
I'm a mediocre DP.
I'll just say that I'm awkward.
I totally get it.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I'm a below average guitar player.
Yes, all good.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yep, and so I work really hard.
But I work with you know, wehad a really good art person on
that film, claire, and we had areally, really good colorist.
And so people ask, like, what'dyou do?
We said, well, we did somecreative stuff with some cool
vintage lensing.
We worked with a really goodproduction designer and we had a
(38:32):
great colorist.
And when I work, especiallywith my colorist, I'll usually
sit with him and he's a greatpost supervisor.
He's a really talented editor,really good post guy all around,
but super good at anything post, especially color.
Every time I sit with him Ifeel like I'm getting like huge
masterclass crash courses andeverything he knows.
And no matter how many yearsI've worked with him, it's the
(38:53):
same story.
I I never will know as much ashe does about posts, because I
don't live and breathe it andyet, like I'm just so grateful
to have that that person in mycorner, you know, and so that's
kind of the sense I'm getting,even just from this conversation
.
It's like when you have someonelike that in your post corner,
in your color corner, in yourart corner, in your
cinematography, you get someonelike that in your legal corner
(39:15):
Because, like you said, I canmake, I could could make.
I could make $25,000 picturesor even $150,000 pictures almost
all day long, and I couldprobably DIY some of the
paperwork.
But I really want to crack themillion dollar picture stuff and
start to get into the one andthe 10 and the multiple tens,
you know, of millions, andthat's just going to be a
(39:36):
necessary relationship.
And as I make films with peoplewho know way more than me on
that stuff, I'm going to learntoo, you know, and so I start to
know.
This is the step.
We're going to take those stepsfaster the second time around
because we get it.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I'm not getting up to speed and, like you, said it
can cost you, for example, ifyou start shooting and you don't
know, you have to have your taxpapers in in advance for your
tax credit from your state andyou're counting on that to come
through and then you can't getit for what you've already spent
.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
You're going to miss out.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
You're going to waste money.
Or we actually like had someonewho was interested in investing
because we believed we could,that they could write it off tax
deductible.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Through section 181.
181, was it Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
And then their CPA and our CPA were like oh, I
don't think you can unlessthey're in the LLC and they're
actively working on it every day.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
And we hadn't set it up beforehand, early enough as
well.
There was a timeline thing thatwe'd yeah, anyway, because we
didn't really know how to makethat happen.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
We lost out on that opportunity.
So I do think that there arecosts to not having the legal
help in advance, and sometimeswe just think about like oh,
what does it cost me to get it?
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, but what does?
It is on me to price myself ina way that works for your
structure, right?
Speaker 2 (41:04):
The dollar amount may vary a little bit, as
everything does on certainprojects, but the structure
remains the same and we're linedup and pointing in the same
direction as you guys, and thatis.
Hopefully people recognize that.
That simple fact, which is therelationship between you and
your lawyer as one of oh, I onlycall when I need to, and it's
(41:27):
always expensive.
And my lawyer's talking to meand it's calls going on now for
I don't know how long.
But quit telling me about yourkid's vacation because you're
charging me for it.
Right, there's some part of thebrain that's dealt with lawyers
that has that going on all thetime and many types of legal
practice.
That's still sort of the bestway to capture the relationship,
(41:51):
but not here, right?
For two reasons.
One, it doesn't fit for you.
You need to be able to callwhen you need to be able to call
period, end of sentence, fullstop, without wondering whether
you should.
If your brain has said I wonderif I should call the lawyer, you
know the answer is yes.
You've already spotted theissue.
If there's any reason you don'tand it's because of my billing
(42:13):
practices.
That's a problem with mybusiness model, not your
thinking.
So we want to remove that right.
The second is think of it frommy perspective.
I can do things quickly andwell for you because I've spent
years educating myself andlearning how to do it and
putting time and effort to buildthe practice, to build the
(42:36):
relationships, to deeplyunderstand how this all works.
To build the practice, to buildthe relationships, to deeply
understand how this all works,if I only chart.
But because of that, I can dosomething in an hour that would
take someone else 10 hours.
If all I do is charge you formy time, I'm getting zero reward
or value from why I'm actuallyable to do it that well, quickly
and have it be correct.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah, there's no incentivize to yeah, it doesn't
make any sense more efficient.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
I'm stealing from myself and you're still going to
distrust my bill right?
Speaker 3 (43:06):
well, we got to we got to discard that and think
differently about how to do itand you know and I and I think
that diying it in the past hasserved me at least a little bit
to kind of, you know, learn somethings, but it certainly has a
ceiling, because I simply can'tget movies made if I'm spending,
you know, like you said, 10hours.
(43:27):
I could easily spend a wholeday trying to draft up documents
that I'm only going to set onedepartment and I've got to do
that for all the departments.
And I know this firsthand, likeI've drafted a lot of stuff
myself based on templates andthings like that.
And it also leads to someanxiety in today's litigious
culture when you think I'm doingokay, but I definitely didn't
(43:49):
go to law school.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Well, and I think you just hit on one of the most
important reasons.
One yes, you might actually notget it all right, that's
possible.
But more importantly, even ifyou did assemble it and there's
nothing wrong if you're a personthat likes to learn before you
get into something I really kindof want to understand what
you're getting into.
I'm going to hire a lawyer.
I want to know enough to knowwhether the lawyer's telling me
(44:11):
the truth or whether I can tellif this lawyer knows what
they're doing.
So whatever effort you've putinto DIYing it yourself over the
years has been valuable.
Taught you good things, butreally you get so many hours to
be awake a day and if you'redoing things that someone else
can do better, faster andappropriately and already
(44:34):
considered in the budget, thenget away from them, let them do
their stuff and go do the thingsyou need to do, and that frees
you up to do your craft, to knowthat you've got somebody on the
team that knows that part, andnow you've educated yourself by
doing the DIY to have enoughknowledge to recognize that they
are doing their job, and that,I think, is so.
(44:59):
I'm thrilled if I talk topeople that have already made an
attempt to put the contractstogether.
You've done some educatingyourself.
Yes, I know I gotta have peoplesign work for you know you may
know a lot more than you thinkyou know.
If you had to make a list ofall the things you know about
film contracts, you probablyknow a lot.
But noticing being able to tellwhen a particular document
appears to have you know, andparticularly wanting to get up
(45:41):
and punch up above their weight,as you just said, go up, you
know, add a couple digits toyour budgets.
Well, one of the ways that youcan hurt yourself is when those
bigger players ask you to sendyour contracts and they take one
, look at it and they can go.
That's LegalZoom.
Asked you to send yourcontracts and they take one,
look at it and they can go.
That's LegalZoom.
That's from somewhere else.
That's from somewhere else,even if they're right.
(46:03):
But if instead they all lookthe same, they've got your low,
your new little LLC logo on it,or name.
They're clearly drafted fromone.
Yes, they have all the stuffthey're supposed to have, but
they're all.
I mean even as simple asthey're on the same font.
There are no typos.
Reference each other properly.
You can send a package.
(46:23):
They can verify them.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, thatis a statement that you are pros
, you're going to be pros in thefilmmaking, but you're also
pros in assembling the necessaryparts of the team for the
business of making films, andthat sometimes it's little stuff
like that that just sends adifferent message.
(46:44):
Your contracts are part of yourbrand.
You know that may or may not berelevant in that many
circumstances, but to someextent it's always true.
If you have to send somebodythe contract that you want them
to sign, that is an expressionof you and your brand and your
professionalism.
Not just the terms but thecontract itself and is it the
(47:06):
right contract for thissituation, lined up correctly or
not?
Speaker 3 (47:11):
those are again part of your brand you know, that
makes me think of the fact that.
So I came at this, like youknow, just making short films
and stuff.
But then when we started, weneed to make money.
Um, you know what?
How do I make money doing this?
You know, at least for me, andI know a lot of people are in my
same boat I'm not gonna makemoney doing this, making movies.
So I'm gonna go make weddingvideos, I'm gonna make
(47:31):
commercials, I'm gonna worklocal businesses and whatever.
And what do you do?
You end up starting to make diycontracts for yourself and you
are adjusting those contractsafter 50 to 100 wedding films or
like a few dozen commercials,because you're realizing I ran
into a pitfall here with aclient, or this thing hurt me,
and and you, but, like, how manyof us have made, you know, 14
(47:52):
to 50 films?
You know what I mean?
Like to have that experience,to be like, okay, I'm avoiding
all these pitfalls.
So when you go into featurefilmmaking, which isn't a weeks
or months long endeavor, it's ayears long endeavor for each
film, it is nice to have someonewho's gone through this 50
(48:13):
times or a hundred times.
Sure, we, this thing is solid,like we get this as we know how
to navigate this with a, with acleanliness and a and a nice
efficiency, that that is reallyeffective, and and and that
makes a difference, because Ican tell you I'm working in any
industry, in any field,especially from, like a video
background.
Uh, you do, you adjust yourcontract almost all the time
(48:34):
because you're like, oh, likethey got mad at me for eating.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Okay, now my contract says I must be allowed to eat,
you know it's like you know likestuff like that and like
believe me, that is howcontracts get drafted and get
improved because of things.
Sometimes you're like like howis this?
Why is that paragraph there?
Because sometime, at one point,it wasn't there and something
bad happened.
Right, that's true, that's verytrue.
And listen, I do the same thingtoo.
(48:58):
I don't.
I don't want to give anybody theimpression that I've finished
learning.
I know everything there isabout it, not even remotely
close, but I have these basicprinciples that aren't going to
change close.
But I have these basicprinciples that aren't going to
change.
And we come at it from anapproach that recognizes we fit
into a budget that's appropriate.
And if we're too expensive foryour budget right now, then fine
(49:19):
.
If and when you're ready,you'll be ready and we'll be
here and you'll be a betterclient and I'll be a better
lawyer for you at that time.
Yeah Right, I'm not reallydoing you any good to give you
sort of half of something, right, and so you know, sometimes
it's a it's there is sort of adelayed response, if you will.
(49:42):
But I'm always learning.
Things come up, I add.
Sometimes I'll see othercontracts.
I'm like, wow, that is such amuch better way to deal with
this thing that I always have inthis clunky over here, easier
to read, easier to understandfor non-lawyers.
I'm going to just borrow thatand put that into my structure
going forward.
So I do the same thing.
(50:02):
Right, it's a very commonstructure.
But over time you start to see,okay, this category of things
can come up, so we're going todraft this way to capture all of
those things, so we don't haveto list each one, right, and
little by little you shape yourcontracts.
But the other thing is you knowsometimes you all is is in your
industry.
You might be working on otherpeople's projects because you're
(50:25):
that's another way.
You know filmmakers are alwaysworking on each other's projects
while they're putting togethertheir next one themselves.
Owns your craft, builds yournetwork, all those things.
But you might be asked to signsomebody else's paper.
It's a really good thing tolook at if you're also creating
your own contracts.
What am I being handed?
What do I think about that?
Oh, that's crap.
I know much better.
Or, wow, that's actually morecomprehensive than I'm doing.
(50:50):
The point is that it's aconstant learning process.
In any good endeavor, I thinkand this is no different we are
changing things that we wrote,even a year ago to deal with AI.
You know because how AI impactscopyright ownership and so what
do you need to make sure didn'tactually sneak in something
that undermines your copyright?
(51:10):
You know, just so.
It's always new.
Distribution models arechanging rapidly, radically.
You know how do you get thething on a screen?
You know used to be well,studios and festival and maybe
you get this or that.
Now there's a million ways toget on streaming.
(51:31):
But how do you figure out whatmakes sense?
How do you figure?
How do you know if you'regetting treated fairly?
Are you getting the moneyyou're supposed to get?
You know this new thing poppedup and it's shiny and it's oh,
something new dot com.
I'll just go there.
What's their history?
Who are they?
Those sorts of things we'realways there's always
uncertainty, right so, andprobably never be able to
(51:56):
eliminate it entirely.
But the more comfort you getwith not being afraid of the
legal side of things, educateyourself and then find somebody
that makes that, works well withyou and fits into your
structure and then know thatthat's going to be covered.
But continue learning.
If you get in a conversationwith somebody or you're at a
festival or whatever, you'retalking to other filmmakers and
(52:17):
they told you about somethingthat they had just done for the
first time.
It seemed to really work.
And you're not familiar with it, right, why not?
And if you were working with meand you came back and said, hey
, I was at this conference and Isaw this.
Have you ever heard of this?
Maybe I'm like, oh yeah, I justsaw something, or no, let me go
look.
But the point is it's a you areworking.
(52:38):
If you think of your lawyer assomeone on the filmmaking team,
well then that everybody on theteam can learn from everybody
else, including the lawyer canlearn from you.
And if you start thinking likethat there's a budget, okay,
everybody on the team's gettingpaid, right.
Well, now we just go do ourstuff, right, and it doesn't
(53:00):
become this thing that you fightagainst, or this fear that you
have, or this cost that you justwish you didn't have to have.
You know you need lawyers.
You have.
You know you need lawyers.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
You need insurance, you need a handful of things
that have nothing to do with thequality of the content yeah,
but they're necessary and don'tfight them, just find good
partners you know you say theyhave nothing to do with the
quality of the content, but ifthey come back and bite you, it
will affect, or it could affect,the quality of the content.
Yes, significantly, or even thequality of, uh, the content's
(53:32):
reach.
You know, because, like well,you can have the most.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
You can literally have the most fabulous content,
but if you can't get it on thescreen because you didn't do the
legal right, who cares?
exactly, exactly you know,somebody told me years ago and
I've always used this phraseit's not mine, but I I've
embraced it Please don't fall inlove with footage you can't use
and there's different ways thatthat can happen.
So figure out, okay, if I wantto use this footage, what rights
(54:00):
are involved?
Are those humans inside?
Do I need to get releases fromthem?
Are the logos here?
Where am I standing?
What am I saying?
When I'm done here, can I getit out in the public or will
there be barriers?
And if you're not sure, thenask Talk it through ahead of
time.
My early days working withproduction company and really
(54:23):
creative guys and they wouldfall in love with some footage,
and I would be thinking in myhead God, if you just move the
camera over here, all that stuffthat we're stressing over
wouldn't be in frame.
It's not necessary, but itlooked kind of cool at the time
because of the way the sun washitting, but because we didn't
block and tackle a little bitahead of time to figure out
(54:44):
those things you don't want.
These things are okay in theenvironment which you're
shooting, right.
So you don't want to blur abunch of stuff if you don't have
to or cut off your you know why?
Because you didn't think aboutand that's a super simplified
example, but some variation ofit is true, right, and so um it,
(55:05):
just so.
I always think it's a.
It's a revisited start of eachnew project.
Yeah, a quick call.
Hey, this is a new thing aboutwe're stretching this.
Here's some things that come up.
Is there anything we shouldwatch out for legally or
anything else we need to know?
No, no, sounds good.
You're going to use this?
Here's that?
Okay, when you're ready to go,standard, we'll do this fixed
fee, but it doesn't costanything if you want to call and
(55:26):
talk through your next projector it shouldn't, right, right,
this is just a conversationabout hey, we might be working
together in the future, buthere's a little bit where we're
at.
Can you tell me what I shouldprepare for?
What would your budget numbersbe to put you in the line item
when we go pitch?
We either need this or we don't, but if we do, what would it
cost?
Have those conversations withyour lawyer up front and you
(55:52):
might find out you're ready togo, you might find out you've
got more work to do.
But either way, that's not awasted conversation, right, and
you'll get better at them eachtime.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
Well, pete, I super appreciate the time you've taken
to talk with us.
I can tell right now first ofall, we're probably going to
want to do another episode withyou down the line.
At least a personal call Ialready have subjects, and that
was the second thing I was goingto say.
We might just be calling youjust for projects, because we
have one or two right on thehorizon.
So, thank you, I feel like I'velearned a ton.
(56:21):
I feel like I feel actuallymore empowered and a little more
focused, and a little morefocused.
And I think this came at a goodtime for us because of the stage
that our next project or two isat.
It's like, okay, this is theright time for us to have met
you and had this conversation.
So we hope that everyonelistening feels the same Like
okay, I know a little more aboutthis thing.
(56:43):
It's demystified, it's notscary anymore and because I can
tell you right now it was scaryfor me before this call like
there's things that people Ididn't want to talk to, because
I said that phone call is goingto cost me 200 bucks and it's
exactly what you said, exactlyso thank you so much for coming
on.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Yeah, no, you're well .
First of all, you're welcome.
Thanks for inviting me.
It's my pleasure, um, and Ienjoyed meeting you at the
festival.
Hope I'll get to see both ofyou guys in the future.
But, yeah, truly happy to havethe conversation.
And I really do, genuinely.
I love doing this stuff right.
Because I do it, because I loveit.
It's my passion.
I didn't do it right out of lawschool.
(57:18):
It took me a long time to workmy way back around it in a bit,
in a way that I could really bea professional at right.
So I care about it.
I love the industry.
I want people to be successful.
I'm excited about newopportunities in different
regions.
So if I can be useful, I'mhappy to do it and, like I said,
I really do learn fromfilmmakers and other lawyers and
(57:41):
everybody in the process.
It's always evolving, so happyto do it.
Yeah, reach out and if anybodyis, you know, catching the
podcast and is curious for moreinformation, how do we connect
with you?
Speaker 1 (57:54):
You know where should we send people.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
So the easiest way is just to go to the screen
lawyercom all one word, andthat's takes you to a landing
page.
It's got it'll connect you withmy law firm bio, all my contact
info.
It's got a link to my podcastand social media.
We've got a YouTube channel allof it under the screen.
Lawyer, and we, you know, wetalk, we interview guests.
(58:16):
We also talk.
I did.
I did an episode this morningon um uh for our podcast on the
Kendrick Lamar and Drakedefamation lawsuit and battle
and some of the weird nuancesbehind the legal side of that
very famous feud.
So sometimes the episodes aremore like that, like geeking out
(58:37):
a little bit on legal stuff.
But a lot of times I've gotguests who are filmmakers or
just I want to hear what they'redoing.
How'd you get here?
What's your story, what are you, what's next, what do you?
You know all of that, so I'llreach out to you guys as well.
Count on that.
Speaker 1 (58:51):
Yeah, we'd love to return the favor, so thank you
so much for your time and we'llput your link to your website in
the show notes as well.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Great yeah, thank you , and then just send me whenever
you've got it.
But I really appreciate it.
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (59:03):
Yeah, thanks, so much Thanks.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Pete, all right guys Take care.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
You too.
All right, welcome to the podcast, pete Salsik III.
Did I get it right?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You did.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Yeah, very good.
Really happy to have you here.
We met well.
I met Pete at our film'spremiere at the St Louis Film
Festival.
He was doing you weremoderating right A panel
discussion.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Right, we were, yes, we.
For a number of years now, I'vehosted a masterclass during the
week of the film festival herein St Louis, typically talking
about legal or business issuesrelated to film and filmmaking,
and so that was what was goingon when you were there, um, and
I remember that was it was apleasure to meet you, so I'm
glad to be able to reconnect.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It's fun to see you again too.
So Pete is a attorney whospecializes in intellectual
property and especially forpeople in film and the
entertainment business.
You're also a professor, Ibelieve, at St Louis University.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Adjunct yes, so I'm an adjunct.
Yes, at St Louis U law school Iteach a class on a couple of
upper division classes.
They rotate on semesters, buttypically it's intellectual
property licensing and draftingand it's really a contracts
drafting class with intellectualproperty licensing structures
built in to kind of get used tohow you, how you draft these
things and why you, how to thinkabout these things, so these
things.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So yeah, but yes well , and this is great because I
think, for example and I don'twant to throw any specific
person or company under the busbut we subscribed to a
subscription that was supposedto be legal help for whatever
your needs are and I found thatit was very difficult for them
(01:45):
to understand how to navigatefilm because it was not specific
to that.
So I love that you arespecifically focused on and
working in our industry.
You understand how thatbusiness works and I thought
it'd be really great to bringyou on and share, first of all,
just some of the pitfalls thatpeople run into if they aren't
(02:07):
aware of, maybe common problemsyou see people running into on
the back end that they wishthey'd known before they started
making their movie, especiallypeople with super low budget
first time filmmakers.
And then I'd also love to getinto your specialty in
intellectual property in film.
You know IP is like having aname actor.
(02:28):
It can be really beneficial togetting financing and getting
your film made.
But it's also this area that Idon't necessarily know how to
navigate, and there's questionsI have about that specifically.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So, yeah, no, I'm happy to have this conversation
with you, really genuinely.
Not just happy because I'm yousaid, you asked and I said yes,
but I really do like to sharethis information with you.
Know, I'll say aspiringfilmmakers, but also sometimes
seasoned filmmakers.
I mean, look you, you know Irun into people that have been
making films for a dozen yearsbecause they started when they
(03:05):
were nine with their phone andthey're really good craftspeople
.
They can tell a story, they canframe issues, they can put all
that stuff together Right.
So you may be new to thefilmmaking or newer to the
filmmaking business, but you mayhave a lot of talent and I run
into people like that all thetime and it's that wanting to
take that and turn it into abusiness, a life, a profession,
(03:29):
a career which is wheretypically, before too long, you
run into somebody like me, ifyou want to do that and would
like to have people to come intothat without fear.
And the biggest way I think todo that, and what I try to do
(04:00):
when I put information out, isto let you know that, while
there are some key things towatch out for and some key
things to take heart, it's notthat complicated to do it right
and there's a couple of basicprinciples that apply, basic
principles that apply, and thenall the nuances on a
deal-by-deal situation fitwithin a category you can kind
of already understand.
Right, you may still have todeal with unique situations, but
there aren't completely out ofthe blue, never even thought
that would come up kind of stuff.
And the biggest sort of where Ioften start on this is trying
(04:24):
to get people to understand.
Filmmakers understand a coupleof basic points.
The first is copyright lawgoverns all aspects of your film
and the filmmaking process.
Period, end of sentence.
It never does not cover, it'sliterally always the key,
because the entire business ofthe filmmaking process, that
(04:45):
whole structure, is based onthere being one copyright owner
at the end of a finished project.
Right, so you've got afive-minute short or a five-hour
limited series or anything inbetween.
That thing that's going to endup on a screen and go out into
the world for others to see isprotected by copyright law and
(05:06):
there's got to be one owner ofthat copyright, because if
there's more than one owner orthat ownership is not clear,
you're almost never going to getthe distribution or funding,
because in every one of thosecontracts you're going to be
saying and representing to theother party we own all of the
rights, no one has any potentialinfringement claims.
(05:27):
Well, the only way that can betrue is if you do the work ahead
of time correctly.
But working back from that basicprinciple I think sometimes
helps people get grounded.
You simply cannot put a filmout into the world without
having gone through the legalprocess period.
I mean, you can try.
It may come down quickly andyou'll get a bunch of people
yelling at you and you won'tmake any money.
It doesn't mean you're notphysically able to do it.
(05:50):
You can right click, copy andpaste all day long, but it might
be copyright infringement allday right.
So just because you can dosomething doesn't mean that you
should.
And in this industry, workingback from the copyright one
copyright owner, making surethat's true is necessary.
If you are the, so typicallywhat happens is for a new film
(06:12):
project.
A lot of times you,particularly if you're going to
take other people's money, andthis is another thing we'll talk
about.
But if you are putting togethera new film project, typically
we recommend that you start anew company, typically an LLC.
Very simple process.
But you form a company and thatcompany is going to be the
(06:32):
copyright owner.
And a lot of times it's titleof film LLC or something like
that, right and that.
But if it starts, if, say, thetwo of you are working on the
concept, you've worked up sometreatments, maybe you've shot
some spec footage, or youstarted to put together a deck
or a trailer or a wish list ofact whatever the stuff you start
(06:54):
to put together as this thingcomes together, maybe you have a
screenplay that's reasonablywell-developed or something like
that.
But if you haven't formed thatentity yet, the you individual
humans, are the owners of thecopyright.
If you both did it, you mightbe joint authors, but you might
disagree about what to do withit.
And yet copyright law says youeach have all of the rights you
(07:16):
can't infringe each other.
One of you could go left, oneof you can go right and the
other party couldn't do anythingabout it.
But you never want jointauthorship or joint ownership in
these situations, because it'sreally messy.
So what you do is you would formthe new film LLC and then each
of you if the idea is that thetwo of you are gonna be
co-owners of that start with,you're gonna be on the producer
(07:39):
side, we would have you do acontribution agreement, which is
a written contract between you,individual person, and new llc,
in which you contribute intothe new llc all of your
intellectual property rightsthat have developed so far in
the concept that's, you know,being contemplated, um, and you
(08:00):
would agree that all futureefforts that you make in
furtherance of this project aregoing to be as works made for
hire for the LLC.
So in one written documentyou've transferred ownership of
anything that already exists andyou've transferred ownership of
anything that you create, goingforward that way.
And then in return, the LLCgrants you individual human
(08:27):
return.
The LLC grants you individualhuman 50% ownership in the form
of LLC membership units orwhatever, and so now we have an
LLC that actually owns all theintellectual property that has
happened so far.
That's the first step.
Then, at any point now now ifyou've assembled, if in putting
that material together you'vealready worked with other people
you got a friend who's a greatDP and somebody else whipped up
(08:49):
some music for you, conceptualor whatever get the same
document from everybody else Ifthose people are not going to be
owners in the LLC but you stillwant to comp them or give them
some right to participate in thefuture.
It might look like a slightlydifferent agreement, but the
point is you got to get it inwriting from every human being
(09:11):
who touches the film to becertain that, at the end of the
day, you've got one owner of thecopyright.
So, working back from that oneowner, you start with yourselves
, start with the immediatepeople and then, as you look out
, ok, we're going to need morecrew.
Well, you're going to have astandard crew agreement.
It's going to vary because thefirst page may say some person
(09:32):
is going to be there for 20 daysand get paid this much,
somebody else is going to bethere for three days and get
paid this much.
Right, you feel those thingsare variable, but the terms and
conditions are going to be thesame and everybody who steps
foot on a set or into apost-production bay or anything
else has signed something thatsays all of the results and
proceeds of their work will beworks made for hire owned by New
(09:54):
Film LLC.
Unequivocal right If somehow youdon't pay them, they can sue
you for money, but they can't gointo court and take that
copyright back.
That also has to be in thewritten agreement.
It's a little nuance.
It's very, very important.
In the entertainment industryPeople need to say I will not
(10:15):
and cannot give up my right towalk into court and try to get a
temporary restraining order orsome kind of injunction to get
the film shut down because Iwasn't paid.
I agree that I, if I get, ifyou, if you breached or
something, I can sue you formoney.
But I can't impact the therights that I've granted you in
(10:35):
terms of copyright ownership.
And that's necessary too,because you could have five or
500 people on a film and youcan't take the chance that any
one of them would get upset,walk into a state court judge
who doesn't know anything aboutthe film industry and grants a
three-week injunction andeverything has to dead stop.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Right.
So these are all little thingsthat you work towards to get
your good contracts in place,and there's kind of there's more
detail as it goes along.
But the basic principle isevery single human that touches
the project in any way, shape orform has to have a written
agreement that says work forhire.
Those words need to be in it,one of those rare cases in the
(11:18):
law where you really do havemagic words.
So you know, if that's in placenow you can start looking out
and say, well, what next?
Right, but that first thing isnecessary and one of the reasons
.
You know, sometimes I don'tknow how much do lawyers cost
and you know I got it.
(11:38):
Well, maybe I'll wait orwhatever.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
And so what I?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
always tell people is you know we.
If you get comfortable with theidea and it does it, you got to
have an attorney thatunderstands the space.
That's critical.
But if you get comfortable withthe idea that having production
production legal Is a line itemin my budget just like you know
(12:00):
camera rental, you know camerarental, any other insurance, any
other aspect, all of your crew,various people, talent, you
know everything cateringliterally everything in the
budget Production legal is justa line item in there and it's
typically done at somepercentage of the budget.
So if a budget is and this isagain, take somebody that
(12:22):
understands how to work in thisindustry, because that's
industry standard in terms ofour billing.
So if the budget is above $1million, $2 million, something
like that, the legal fees mightbe in the 1.5% to 2.5% range.
If the budget's $100,000, thelegal fees might be closer to
10% or more, because the workisn't really that radically
(12:44):
different depending on the sizeof the budget.
Right and so.
But whatever it is, figure thatout upfront, get a quote about
that from when you're puttingyour budget together and just
count on it.
Put it in there and it's notsomething that you think of.
I always have to write a checkfor my lawyer.
No, my lawyer is like my lightbill and my camera payments and
(13:07):
everything else.
It's just one of my regularongoing expenses on a project by
project basis.
And if you're going out andraising independent financing
for a particular project, it'sjust in your budget.
The people investing in you aregoing to expect that you have a
lawyer.
In fact, they're going to counton it, right, they're going to
count on you being able to sayyou can protect the copyright.
(13:29):
You've done all this stuffcorrectly.
So, and then you know what we doin that for that percentage of
budget, we do those crewagreements, talent agreements,
location agreements, a varietyof other things that might come
up on a one-off basis.
But then you know, are yougoing to have music, Are you
going to license third-partymusic?
(13:50):
Well, if so, that's a separatebudget.
And so we we we do sometimes domusic clearance work, depending
on the nature of the project,or composition agreements,
things like composer agreements,things like that, but typically
that doesn't fit underproduction legal.
That's just part of the musicbudget.
You may not really need us.
You may have a buddy who'sgoing to compose all new works
(14:11):
and we give you a simplecomposer agreement, it's done.
Or maybe you've got.
You know, you just have to havethese five, you know, Taylor
Swift songs.
Well, what's your budget?
Right, but we're going to be inthere somewhere.
But these are little thingsthat filmmakers can start to
realize.
Ok, here's how I figure out.
The lawyer part of this,Production legal, is all of this
(14:33):
stuff that has to happen oncethere is a budget, Once we have
that budget, that funding inplace to pay the crew and all
these things.
Now, all of those contractsneed to happen.
That's the production league,Music licensing.
If the lawyers need to getinvolved, they may, but that
goes under the music budget andthey will work with you and tell
(14:56):
you here's what I think it willcost and all of that stuff.
So, if you haven't, if youreally believe in some key song
that's necessary, talk to yourlawyer early, early, early,
early and find out what it'sgoing to cost.
And can you even do that?
Right, Don't fall in love witha bunch of footage based around
this one song that you can neverlicense.
(15:16):
And then the last piece is thefront piece.
The last piece is we need toform the new LLC, we need the
contribution agreements, we needthe investor agreements.
We need to put together thepitch deck to go out for private
financing, all of whichinvolves legal documents.
But you don't have a budget yet.
That is an out-of-pocket spend.
But we typically do that workfor a flat fee that we'll tell
(15:39):
you about ahead of time.
Try to keep it as modest as canbe so that we're going to do
this work for this amount ofmoney.
And so that's still a way of,early on, the filmmaker saying
what's it going to cost, what doI need for my lawyer and what's
it going to cost.
So you're not surprised, You'renot in that fear of God.
I hear these horror storiesabout hourly billing rates or
(16:02):
how do they spend so much timeon this?
And literally every time I pickup the phone call, it costs me a
hundred dollars.
We don't want to do that, Right.
It does not make sense for usto do the work in your industry
If that's how we bill.
You just won't call Right,Right, You'll fire something,
you'll fire us and go hiresomebody that knows what they're
doing.
So we have to understand how tofit within your economic
(16:25):
structure the life flow, themoney flow of a film project,
and we will talk to you ahead oftime for no charge, to say,
okay, here's what you need toget started.
This is what that would cost.
Call me when you're ready.
If you get that, and then thatturns into this budget, here's
(16:46):
what our production legal feewill be, because I want you to
be able to put my number in yourbudget when you go talk to an
investor, because you want toneed to show that investor this
is my real budget.
This is truly everything.
I need to get this onto ascreen.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
And so so yeah, I'd like to, like you know just what
you're saying is super valuable, because I think what some
people look at this as like oh,this is a cost, which means it's
like it's an obstacle in theway of me making my film, when,
in reverse, I actually think,having made one or two films
without much legal help at all,it's that's extremely valuable
(17:26):
and helpful for me to think likeI have someone I could call to
ask a question every now andthen I have someone who's going
to help me stay on top of all mypaperwork, because I'm
personally, when I get into thethroes of make, make, make,
shoot, shoot, shoot edit rightright it is almost impossible,
whether I'm making a fictionfilm or documentary film, to
stay on top of all of thepaperwork and usually we're
self-producing, right and sohaving someone there to keep all
(17:48):
that stuff covered.
And then, even further down theroad, when distributor
relationships start to happen, Ican also see where this becomes
hyper-valuable, because ifyou've got all your ducks in a
row, that working experience isway smoother and faster, whereas
if you don't, then you're justtrying to dig everything up in
retrospect, and that's hard, ifnot impossible sometimes to to
(18:11):
do properly.
So it really is actually amovie making mechanism rather
than a a wrench in the gears.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
No, I and I'm glad that you, I'm glad that you're
getting that point, you've cometo that realization, because
that's my point to make todayand as often as I can, is we are
a necessary part of your team.
So when you start from blankslate to end up on a screen, all
of the steps that are necessaryand the people that do the
(18:43):
different things are the teamand the producer role.
You know largely is assemblingthat team right and the right
team with the right project andeverything else, and then what's
going to cost?
How are we going to fund it?
Sometimes the producer role ismore time on the phone calling
for money or whatever, right,but it's still part of that
(19:05):
teamwork and we are a member ofthe team.
That's why we're in the budget.
Our fee doesn't go up or downdepending on how much time we
talk.
Why?
Because we signed on to theteam.
Some teams are busy this timeand slow another time.
I'm not telling you you've gotto pay me more this month and
less this month.
It's just here's the fee, andonce you have the budget, you're
(19:25):
going to pay a certain amountof that fee when we start.
You're going to be some of itat a certain milestone, just
like everybody else.
Right, it's just.
We literally are just part ofyour team.
We're necessary part of theteam, just as every one of those
other roles on set is.
And for you guys who are doing,you know, multi hyphenate writer
(19:46):
, director, producer, actor,star you know, janitor, if you
had to hire someone else to doany one of those roles someone
of your like, experience,quality, you know geographic,
location, all these factors forsome reason you break your ankle
(20:09):
and you can't go on set or youcan't do that, especially if
you've got other people's moneyinvolved.
You need to be able to.
Well, I'm going to grabso-and-so and see if they're
available.
They could drop into thedirecting role or the whatever
role, right?
Well, if your budget doesn'tinclude market rate for each
task that you are doing inaddition to this global producer
(20:34):
role, then your budget isn'treal.
It may be what you spent tomake the movie, but it's not a
real budget.
It's not the kind of budgetthat will withstand scrutiny
from investors or from somebodyelse.
And if I'm going to tell youthat I'll work at some
percentage of your budget, Ineed that to be the real budget,
not an artificial one, and alot of times, you know emerging
(20:57):
filmmakers will say, well, I, Idon't need to pay myself right
away, I don't need to pay myselfright away, I'm going to, you
know, hopefully get somethingback on the back.
Well, I hope you do too.
But my strong recommendation isdo not count on the only money
(21:20):
you get coming from the back end, because it's actually pretty
rare that back end happens right.
So pay yourself out of the onlymoney that you know will exist.
That's the money in your budget.
If you haven't accounted forpaying yourself your market rate
unless you have lotterywinnings and you don't need to
ever write a check for anythinghow are you really going to know
(21:41):
if you're making a life in thisbusiness and what is your
market rate?
If someone hired, hired youthis isn't not your film, but
you get known in your communitySomebody says, hey, will you
come direct or will you comeproduce this with me, or
whatever?
What would your fee be?
Right, you know you have amarket and it'll gradually grow
up and you have precedents andyou have.
(22:02):
I always get at least thiscredit.
I mean, that's how this worldworks.
Your IMDP page grows, so payyourself the same way and if you
decide to defer payment, that'sokay.
That's a deferral decision, butyour budget is still real and
then when you get proceeds, youpay yourself, then that's okay.
If that enables you to actuallyget the thing done with a
(22:25):
little bit less money right now,maybe while you're still
raising, or whatever but don'tpretend that you don't have to
pay yourself.
This is something that I see alot of young filmmakers do and
it's something to get over, sortof like learning to treat your
lawyer as part of your line item.
Treat yourself as part of theline item.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
You know, critically important, yeah, yeah, that's
definitely something I think weexperienced on our first film,
where we're like we're justgoing to do everything and we'll
pay ourselves, you know, lunchmoney.
And then on the second film, wewere a little more conscious of
these are our actual rates Nowthe amount of money that we
ended up raising, because thatwas more of an ongoing budget,
because it was a documentarySure, if it didn't get fully
(23:10):
financed, it just meant we wereeating our own income to a
degree which was fine for us.
But, like you, said it was areal budget and so that that
reframing is kind of whathappened from film one to film
two, ongoing from there it's.
That's why sometimes you see alot of director names, actor
names and sometimes dp names andother people in the executive
(23:30):
producer lines on movie credits,because that's essentially what
they're doing.
They're like this is my rateand this is how much I'm
actually paid, and right, noquestion yeah, and and if it's
properly accounted for, as itshould be, it should should
count.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
As say, if my rate's $100,000 and I'm going to take
50 in cash and have 50 in thedeferral, then if I want to
treat it, there's a couple ofdifferent ways you could do it.
One is I'm going to treat thatas if I put $50,000 in cash into
the budget, right, andtherefore I'm sitting here over
on the side of the investors tothe extent of my $50,000.
(24:08):
Because typically the proceeds,when they first come in, will
pay your investors back first,often plus 15% or 20% premium,
and then, after that's been done, they share in 50% of the
profits and you share in 50% ofthe profits.
So it depends on where you putthat deferral payback.
If you put that deferralpayback as comp, it gets paid
(24:31):
out of first proceeds before theinvestors get anything, because
it's a cost, right, there's nothing to give to the investors
until all the costs have beenpaid.
But then it's fixed at that$50,000 amount.
You get the other 50, you'redone.
Or you say I'm going to treatthis as an investment, which
means I may never get it but I'mgoing to get if I put $50,000
(24:57):
and the other investors put in$500,000, well then I'm going to
get 10% or 9%, whatever, ofeach bit of proceeds that goes
back to the investors and I hopeI'll get what I would have
otherwise gotten.
But I also might get more,because then I'm sitting in the
profit side.
If it becomes profitable, yes,and that's worth an executive
(25:19):
producer credit.
That's typically that structure, but, you're right, the
starting point included the fullappropriate rate for that
person and that's, I thinkthat's, I think, the key thing
to try to remember as you'reputting this together.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well, and what you're explaining is so valuable
because understanding that fromthe side of like this is what I
should be charging and it'sprotecting myself as the
filmmaker so that I can know howto negotiate, you know.
But it's also helpful whenyou're negotiating with
production houses, other keycrew, like you're saying you can
.
You can say, would you bewilling to adjust even name
actors, you know, adjust therates so that we're good on
(25:56):
whatever your contract andagreements are.
But you understand, we'reworking here with resources that
we may or may not have.
Yeah, that might help them beable to negotiate into a
situation where the movie getsmade, as opposed to where they
say, well, this is how much Icost, and you say, well, I can't
afford that, goodbye.
You might actually be able towork something out if they think
(26:17):
of it that way.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, and having an understanding of those little
nuances and how they fit intothe finance structure and
putting some skin in the gameyourself, so to speak, if you're
at a certain level, becomesrelevant and that can become a
valuable thing.
But again, all of that has tobe done in writing, has to be
(26:38):
properly documented, has to besomething that all of your
investors can see and agree with.
It's not like you're going toask your investors each time hey
, I think I might want to dosomething, are you guys OK with
this?
No, you do what you do, but bysaying this is how we're putting
this together, this is what I'mdoing, it gives them more
confidence that you do know, infact, what you're doing and
(27:01):
you've thought about it in orderto attract whatever it is
necessary to get a largeraudience, all of those factors
Right, so they all kind of playin together.
But you're right, it startswith having a reasonably
comfortable understanding of ofwhat it really takes to budget
and finance a film.
Um, you know, and that, I think, is that's one of the other
(27:25):
things that I try to stress tonew filmmakers is um, because
you're right, the way youdescribe, you know, shoot, shoot
, shoot.
Or the way I sometimes say youknow, get some money, shoot some
footage, go get some more money.
Or the way I sometimes say youknow, get some money, shoot some
footage, go get some more money, shoot some more footage.
It's very common and it's notnecessarily wrong given what you
(27:47):
do, but it does put you in acontinually limited You're never
going to get past here level ifthat's how you're always doing
a little.
You know, a lot of greatdocumentaries get made that way
because it's kind of thisguerrilla process over a long
period of time.
But these days so in Missouri wehave a new film tax credit.
There are 30, some odd statesthat have some form of a tax
incentive to attract a filmfinancing.
(28:07):
Here in Missouri and this ispretty common elsewhere you get
a percentage of the amount ofmoney you spend in the state
back in the form of a tax creditthat you use or can sell to
investors or whatever to helpfinance the film or return money
to the investors.
So what counts in yourstate-specific spend becomes
(28:28):
very relevant.
Right In Missouri, any moneyyou spend before you get your
tax credit approval letterdoesn't count.
So if you get some money, shootsome footage, get some money,
shoot some footage.
Oh, let's get a tax.
It's never going to work foryou.
(28:49):
You can still make the movie,but that fairly powerful piece
of financing structure is notgoing to be available to you.
So instead it elevates the roleof the producer to the front
instead of just alongside, alongthe way, the producer job,
assembling the team.
What's it going to cost to geteverybody lined up?
What agreements are ready to goin place?
Okay, we've got theseagreements locked up.
(29:09):
We've got a commitment fromthis lead actor, this director.
Within a window of time we canannounce they've agreed to be
attached for some level ofstructure and I need their names
to go out to investors.
Whatever is going on, however,you need to do that getting all
that in place without having topay for it yet, or keep the cost
that you pay to a minimum.
(29:31):
Sometimes you have developmentcosts that you're just never
going to get back.
But get it all lined up.
Then get the commitments forthe financing.
Then take that paperwork, go tothe state film office, get your
approval letter that says basedon what you submitted, we'll
approve a tax credit in theamount of $412,000, whatever.
It is OK.
(29:51):
Now you can start spending thatmoney.
Now you go to the.
You know so, but you have toput that together first, um,
which does change the sort ofstandard default go, go, go
mentality that you've alwaysbeen.
If you want to elevate up andput together projects that have
(30:11):
the potential for larger budgets, more significant financing,
tax credits in play, things likethat, you do have to do that.
Producer hustle pretty far downthe road, really, before you
start rolling cameras oranything else.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
So okay.
So I think that a lot of timesa first-time filmmaker making a
no-budget first film just to gettheir name on something and get
it out there, there's going tobe some obvious things that
they're aware of.
Like let's put a sticker overthis Apple logo so we don't get
in trouble and let's make surewe have rights to a song that we
want or a composer.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Or just avoid that entirely.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I think they're often using templates or, um sure,
platforms for their paperwork.
Uh, yeah, and then on the backend might be getting more legal
help for the yeah, yeah, becausethey just all they need is
really like eno insurance orwhatever, to get it distributed.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
It's like I've got my my diy contracts and I got my
eno at the end, and then I gotmy movie out and then they grow
into.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
You know more.
You know this becomes biggermoney on the line, bigger
investors and stuff like that.
I'm curious about how youapproach because you know we
have a way that we do it.
But I don't know, maybe it'snot good when you're doing the
contract for your investors.
They're not owners in the LLC,correct?
(31:41):
Well, often they are.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I mean you don't have to do it that way, but that's
the most common and it's oftenthe simplest.
But by being owners in the LLCthat doesn't mean they get
editorial control or managementdecision making, like that.
All of that's very clearly setout.
So you set up, you have anoperating agreement that governs
the operations of the LLC, notthe day-to-day business
(32:05):
management, not the product, butthe operational relationship
among the owners and how theyinteract with decision-making
Manager.
One of you would be the manager.
Manager makes all the decisionsright.
There's like three or fourthings the members get to vote
on and that's like majorcorporate changes that almost
(32:26):
never come up in this type of anenvironment.
So you're not giving up controlin that way.
Now you might have to negotiate.
If you've got a prettysignificant investor, or maybe
one investor for the whole thing, and they want to have some
level of input, you just have todecide am I willing to give
that for this person's money?
Speaker 1 (32:46):
So are you waiting to form the LLC until you have all
the financiers?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
No, no, no, no.
You do that.
First, the form the LLC is, youknow, 50 some odd dollars in
Missouri, a couple hundreddollars somewhere else.
It's an online.
It happens right away, butthat's only creating it into its
existence.
You still need the operatingagreement.
You need to figure out yoursubscription agreement structure
(33:13):
.
I would always recommend, ifyou have the opportunity to have
some kind of organicintroduction or whatever to
potential investors and theywant to hear about your project,
go ahead and have thoseconversations.
However you feel that, if youput together a deck or a short
or something to tease it up, ora proof of concept or treatment,
(33:35):
or if you've got a screenplay,whatever, you might have to
attract somebody.
Nothing wrong with beginningconversations like that.
But, before they, before theyagree to give you any money,
unless it's a unique person inrelationship, they're going to
want to see the documents andmost of the time they're going
(33:56):
to hand their documents to alawyer and an accountant who
don't play in the entertainmentworld.
Maybe they have some a littlebit, because this investor does
this regularly, but generallyspeaking, they're going to be
looking at it.
Just how does the legaldocument read?
Is the operating agreement inthe company structured correctly
?
Is this properly done fromaccounting and tax purposes?
(34:19):
So my view is always my job isto minimize the reason someone
can say no, right, so you wantto go talk to a potential
investor to put $100,000 intoyour film or whatever you want.
You know they, they first andforemost have to think it's a
(34:41):
good film.
You know, yeah, I can, I canvisualize that.
I can see that, uh, in my head.
Yeah, I think that's, I believeyou know.
Second, do I believe you canmake it?
Have you assembled the team orgiven me confidence and whatever
factors I'm going to measurethat you're actually the
filmmaker that can carry offthis vision and get it in the
(35:02):
can and up on a screen.
So those two questions arefirst, if the answer to either
of those is, I'm not sure, fullstop, you're never going to need
me.
But if the answer to those isyes, then the third question for
them is is there an audiencehere?
Have you convinced me thatthere's a potential audience
here?
That's at least as big as thebudget, or one and a half times
(35:24):
the budget, so I might actuallyget my money, and that's comps,
that's other factors.
That's minimum.
Gary D deals from a distributorahead of time if you've got
right names or whatever it is.
But somehow the third questionand remember the third question
doesn't care about your audienceif he doesn't like your film.
So these questions get answeredin order.
Yes, I want to see this filmmade.
(35:46):
Yes, I believe you could do it.
Yes, I believe there's anaudience.
Okay, here's the documents.
I can't have anything in thosedocuments that's going to make
their accountant or their lawyergo.
What is this?
This is a little off.
So we craft things that arevery common, understood both in
(36:07):
the industry, but also in almostany industry, because the
relationship in this structureis a very standard structure,
right, right.
So the risk or the exotic partof it is your story and you, not
the legal structure.
So I think any time you canpresent to anybody out there
(36:28):
that you understand and haveyour legal structure buttoned up
.
We have good counsel, we havesolid agreements.
Here's how they fit in thebudget.
This is our investment documentpackage.
Here's who our lawyers are.
All this stuff that says we'regrown-ups.
You know, we're legit, we're abusiness and all I have to do is
(36:50):
sell you on my product, not mycompany or not my understanding
of how even to wander throughthe world.
Right, you could be a brilliantfilmmaker and have no idea how
to put this together.
That's okay.
Partner up with somebody that'sa very good producer and can do
these things because, like yousaid, you know when you're going
(37:11):
, going, going, you got a littleof everything.
It's almost impossible to keeptrack of everything.
Yeah, right, and that's whereteams with people with different
right brain, left brainsuperpowers make a great
combination.
You know, lion producer, andthese days, now with the tax
credits, you've got to be reallymeticulous in your record
keeping and your invoicing andpayment structure as you're
(37:33):
paying through production,because you've got to hand all
that to the CPAs, they're goingto audit it and they're going to
send it out to the state andthat's going to determine what
you get back Right.
So again, that role.
If that's not you, then youneed someone who that, who can
do that and will do that.
Well, you know it just becomespart of your team.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
So and I'll mention this, on our first film we got a
lot of people asking like oh soI shot that film.
I'm a mediocre DP.
I'll just say that I'm awkward.
I totally get it.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I'm a below average guitar player.
Yes, all good.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yep, and so I work really hard.
But I work with you know, wehad a really good art person on
that film, claire, and we had areally, really good colorist.
And so people ask, like, what'dyou do?
We said, well, we did somecreative stuff with some cool
vintage lensing.
We worked with a really goodproduction designer and we had a
(38:32):
great colorist.
And when I work, especiallywith my colorist, I'll usually
sit with him and he's a greatpost supervisor.
He's a really talented editor,really good post guy all around,
but super good at anything post, especially color.
Every time I sit with him Ifeel like I'm getting like huge
masterclass crash courses andeverything he knows.
And no matter how many yearsI've worked with him, it's the
(38:53):
same story.
I I never will know as much ashe does about posts, because I
don't live and breathe it andyet, like I'm just so grateful
to have that that person in mycorner, you know, and so that's
kind of the sense I'm getting,even just from this conversation
.
It's like when you have someonelike that in your post corner,
in your color corner, in yourart corner, in your
cinematography, you get someonelike that in your legal corner
(39:15):
Because, like you said, I canmake, I could could make.
I could make $25,000 picturesor even $150,000 pictures almost
all day long, and I couldprobably DIY some of the
paperwork.
But I really want to crack themillion dollar picture stuff and
start to get into the one andthe 10 and the multiple tens,
you know, of millions, andthat's just going to be a
(39:36):
necessary relationship.
And as I make films with peoplewho know way more than me on
that stuff, I'm going to learntoo, you know, and so I start to
know.
This is the step.
We're going to take those stepsfaster the second time around
because we get it.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I'm not getting up to speed and, like you, said it
can cost you, for example, ifyou start shooting and you don't
know, you have to have your taxpapers in in advance for your
tax credit from your state andyou're counting on that to come
through and then you can't getit for what you've already spent
.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
You're going to miss out.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
You're going to waste money.
Or we actually like had someonewho was interested in investing
because we believed we could,that they could write it off tax
deductible.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Through section 181.
181, was it Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
And then their CPA and our CPA were like oh, I
don't think you can unlessthey're in the LLC and they're
actively working on it every day.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
And we hadn't set it up beforehand, early enough as
well.
There was a timeline thing thatwe'd yeah, anyway, because we
didn't really know how to makethat happen.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
We lost out on that opportunity.
So I do think that there arecosts to not having the legal
help in advance, and sometimeswe just think about like oh,
what does it cost me to get it?
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, but what does?
It is on me to price myself ina way that works for your
structure, right?
Speaker 2 (41:04):
The dollar amount may vary a little bit, as
everything does on certainprojects, but the structure
remains the same and we're linedup and pointing in the same
direction as you guys, and thatis.
Hopefully people recognize that.
That simple fact, which is therelationship between you and
your lawyer as one of oh, I onlycall when I need to, and it's
(41:27):
always expensive.
And my lawyer's talking to meand it's calls going on now for
I don't know how long.
But quit telling me about yourkid's vacation because you're
charging me for it.
Right, there's some part of thebrain that's dealt with lawyers
that has that going on all thetime and many types of legal
practice.
That's still sort of the bestway to capture the relationship,
(41:51):
but not here, right?
For two reasons.
One, it doesn't fit for you.
You need to be able to callwhen you need to be able to call
period, end of sentence, fullstop, without wondering whether
you should.
If your brain has said I wonderif I should call the lawyer, you
know the answer is yes.
You've already spotted theissue.
If there's any reason you don'tand it's because of my billing
(42:13):
practices.
That's a problem with mybusiness model, not your
thinking.
So we want to remove that right.
The second is think of it frommy perspective.
I can do things quickly andwell for you because I've spent
years educating myself andlearning how to do it and
putting time and effort to buildthe practice, to build the
(42:36):
relationships, to deeplyunderstand how this all works.
To build the practice, to buildthe relationships, to deeply
understand how this all works,if I only chart.
But because of that, I can dosomething in an hour that would
take someone else 10 hours.
If all I do is charge you formy time, I'm getting zero reward
or value from why I'm actuallyable to do it that well, quickly
and have it be correct.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah, there's no incentivize to yeah, it doesn't
make any sense more efficient.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
I'm stealing from myself and you're still going to
distrust my bill right?
Speaker 3 (43:06):
well, we got to we got to discard that and think
differently about how to do itand you know and I and I think
that diying it in the past hasserved me at least a little bit
to kind of, you know, learn somethings, but it certainly has a
ceiling, because I simply can'tget movies made if I'm spending,
you know, like you said, 10hours.
(43:27):
I could easily spend a wholeday trying to draft up documents
that I'm only going to set onedepartment and I've got to do
that for all the departments.
And I know this firsthand, likeI've drafted a lot of stuff
myself based on templates andthings like that.
And it also leads to someanxiety in today's litigious
culture when you think I'm doingokay, but I definitely didn't
(43:49):
go to law school.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Well, and I think you just hit on one of the most
important reasons.
One yes, you might actually notget it all right, that's
possible.
But more importantly, even ifyou did assemble it and there's
nothing wrong if you're a personthat likes to learn before you
get into something I really kindof want to understand what
you're getting into.
I'm going to hire a lawyer.
I want to know enough to knowwhether the lawyer's telling me
(44:11):
the truth or whether I can tellif this lawyer knows what
they're doing.
So whatever effort you've putinto DIYing it yourself over the
years has been valuable.
Taught you good things, butreally you get so many hours to
be awake a day and if you'redoing things that someone else
can do better, faster andappropriately and already
(44:34):
considered in the budget, thenget away from them, let them do
their stuff and go do the thingsyou need to do, and that frees
you up to do your craft, to knowthat you've got somebody on the
team that knows that part, andnow you've educated yourself by
doing the DIY to have enoughknowledge to recognize that they
are doing their job, and that,I think, is so.
(44:59):
I'm thrilled if I talk topeople that have already made an
attempt to put the contractstogether.
You've done some educatingyourself.
Yes, I know I gotta have peoplesign work for you know you may
know a lot more than you thinkyou know.
If you had to make a list ofall the things you know about
film contracts, you probablyknow a lot.
But noticing being able to tellwhen a particular document
appears to have you know, andparticularly wanting to get up
(45:41):
and punch up above their weight,as you just said, go up, you
know, add a couple digits toyour budgets.
Well, one of the ways that youcan hurt yourself is when those
bigger players ask you to sendyour contracts and they take one
, look at it and they can go.
That's LegalZoom.
Asked you to send yourcontracts and they take one,
look at it and they can go.
That's LegalZoom.
That's from somewhere else.
That's from somewhere else,even if they're right.
(46:03):
But if instead they all lookthe same, they've got your low,
your new little LLC logo on it,or name.
They're clearly drafted fromone.
Yes, they have all the stuffthey're supposed to have, but
they're all.
I mean even as simple asthey're on the same font.
There are no typos.
Reference each other properly.
You can send a package.
(46:23):
They can verify them.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, thatis a statement that you are pros
, you're going to be pros in thefilmmaking, but you're also
pros in assembling the necessaryparts of the team for the
business of making films, andthat sometimes it's little stuff
like that that just sends adifferent message.
(46:44):
Your contracts are part of yourbrand.
You know that may or may not berelevant in that many
circumstances, but to someextent it's always true.
If you have to send somebodythe contract that you want them
to sign, that is an expressionof you and your brand and your
professionalism.
Not just the terms but thecontract itself and is it the
(47:06):
right contract for thissituation, lined up correctly or
not?
Speaker 3 (47:11):
those are again part of your brand you know, that
makes me think of the fact that.
So I came at this, like youknow, just making short films
and stuff.
But then when we started, weneed to make money.
Um, you know what?
How do I make money doing this?
You know, at least for me, andI know a lot of people are in my
same boat I'm not gonna makemoney doing this, making movies.
So I'm gonna go make weddingvideos, I'm gonna make
(47:31):
commercials, I'm gonna worklocal businesses and whatever.
And what do you do?
You end up starting to make diycontracts for yourself and you
are adjusting those contractsafter 50 to 100 wedding films or
like a few dozen commercials,because you're realizing I ran
into a pitfall here with aclient, or this thing hurt me,
and and you, but, like, how manyof us have made, you know, 14
(47:52):
to 50 films?
You know what I mean?
Like to have that experience,to be like, okay, I'm avoiding
all these pitfalls.
So when you go into featurefilmmaking, which isn't a weeks
or months long endeavor, it's ayears long endeavor for each
film, it is nice to have someonewho's gone through this 50
(48:13):
times or a hundred times.
Sure, we, this thing is solid,like we get this as we know how
to navigate this with a, with acleanliness and a and a nice
efficiency, that that is reallyeffective, and and and that
makes a difference, because Ican tell you I'm working in any
industry, in any field,especially from, like a video
background.
Uh, you do, you adjust yourcontract almost all the time
(48:34):
because you're like, oh, likethey got mad at me for eating.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Okay, now my contract says I must be allowed to eat,
you know it's like you know likestuff like that and like
believe me, that is howcontracts get drafted and get
improved because of things.
Sometimes you're like like howis this?
Why is that paragraph there?
Because sometime, at one point,it wasn't there and something
bad happened.
Right, that's true, that's verytrue.
And listen, I do the same thingtoo.
(48:58):
I don't.
I don't want to give anybody theimpression that I've finished
learning.
I know everything there isabout it, not even remotely
close, but I have these basicprinciples that aren't going to
change close.
But I have these basicprinciples that aren't going to
change.
And we come at it from anapproach that recognizes we fit
into a budget that's appropriate.
And if we're too expensive foryour budget right now, then fine
(49:19):
.
If and when you're ready,you'll be ready and we'll be
here and you'll be a betterclient and I'll be a better
lawyer for you at that time.
Yeah Right, I'm not reallydoing you any good to give you
sort of half of something, right, and so you know, sometimes
it's a it's there is sort of adelayed response, if you will.
(49:42):
But I'm always learning.
Things come up, I add.
Sometimes I'll see othercontracts.
I'm like, wow, that is such amuch better way to deal with
this thing that I always have inthis clunky over here, easier
to read, easier to understandfor non-lawyers.
I'm going to just borrow thatand put that into my structure
going forward.
So I do the same thing.
(50:02):
Right, it's a very commonstructure.
But over time you start to see,okay, this category of things
can come up, so we're going todraft this way to capture all of
those things, so we don't haveto list each one, right, and
little by little you shape yourcontracts.
But the other thing is you knowsometimes you all is is in your
industry.
You might be working on otherpeople's projects because you're
(50:25):
that's another way.
You know filmmakers are alwaysworking on each other's projects
while they're putting togethertheir next one themselves.
Owns your craft, builds yournetwork, all those things.
But you might be asked to signsomebody else's paper.
It's a really good thing tolook at if you're also creating
your own contracts.
What am I being handed?
What do I think about that?
Oh, that's crap.
I know much better.
Or, wow, that's actually morecomprehensive than I'm doing.
(50:50):
The point is that it's aconstant learning process.
In any good endeavor, I thinkand this is no different we are
changing things that we wrote,even a year ago to deal with AI.
You know because how AI impactscopyright ownership and so what
do you need to make sure didn'tactually sneak in something
that undermines your copyright?
(51:10):
You know, just so.
It's always new.
Distribution models arechanging rapidly, radically.
You know how do you get thething on a screen?
You know used to be well,studios and festival and maybe
you get this or that.
Now there's a million ways toget on streaming.
(51:31):
But how do you figure out whatmakes sense?
How do you figure?
How do you know if you'regetting treated fairly?
Are you getting the moneyyou're supposed to get?
You know this new thing poppedup and it's shiny and it's oh,
something new dot com.
I'll just go there.
What's their history?
Who are they?
Those sorts of things we'realways there's always
uncertainty, right so, andprobably never be able to
(51:56):
eliminate it entirely.
But the more comfort you getwith not being afraid of the
legal side of things, educateyourself and then find somebody
that makes that, works well withyou and fits into your
structure and then know thatthat's going to be covered.
But continue learning.
If you get in a conversationwith somebody or you're at a
festival or whatever, you'retalking to other filmmakers and
(52:17):
they told you about somethingthat they had just done for the
first time.
It seemed to really work.
And you're not familiar with it, right, why not?
And if you were working with meand you came back and said, hey
, I was at this conference and Isaw this.
Have you ever heard of this?
Maybe I'm like, oh yeah, I justsaw something, or no, let me go
look.
But the point is it's a you areworking.
(52:38):
If you think of your lawyer assomeone on the filmmaking team,
well then that everybody on theteam can learn from everybody
else, including the lawyer canlearn from you.
And if you start thinking likethat there's a budget, okay,
everybody on the team's gettingpaid, right.
Well, now we just go do ourstuff, right, and it doesn't
(53:00):
become this thing that you fightagainst, or this fear that you
have, or this cost that you justwish you didn't have to have.
You know you need lawyers.
You have.
You know you need lawyers.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
You need insurance, you need a handful of things
that have nothing to do with thequality of the content yeah,
but they're necessary and don'tfight them, just find good
partners you know you say theyhave nothing to do with the
quality of the content, but ifthey come back and bite you, it
will affect, or it could affect,the quality of the content.
Yes, significantly, or even thequality of, uh, the content's
(53:32):
reach.
You know, because, like well,you can have the most.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
You can literally have the most fabulous content,
but if you can't get it on thescreen because you didn't do the
legal right, who cares?
exactly, exactly you know,somebody told me years ago and
I've always used this phraseit's not mine, but I I've
embraced it Please don't fall inlove with footage you can't use
and there's different ways thatthat can happen.
So figure out, okay, if I wantto use this footage, what rights
(54:00):
are involved?
Are those humans inside?
Do I need to get releases fromthem?
Are the logos here?
Where am I standing?
What am I saying?
When I'm done here, can I getit out in the public or will
there be barriers?
And if you're not sure, thenask Talk it through ahead of
time.
My early days working withproduction company and really
(54:23):
creative guys and they wouldfall in love with some footage,
and I would be thinking in myhead God, if you just move the
camera over here, all that stuffthat we're stressing over
wouldn't be in frame.
It's not necessary, but itlooked kind of cool at the time
because of the way the sun washitting, but because we didn't
block and tackle a little bitahead of time to figure out
(54:44):
those things you don't want.
These things are okay in theenvironment which you're
shooting, right.
So you don't want to blur abunch of stuff if you don't have
to or cut off your you know why?
Because you didn't think aboutand that's a super simplified
example, but some variation ofit is true, right, and so um it,
(55:05):
just so.
I always think it's a.
It's a revisited start of eachnew project.
Yeah, a quick call.
Hey, this is a new thing aboutwe're stretching this.
Here's some things that come up.
Is there anything we shouldwatch out for legally or
anything else we need to know?
No, no, sounds good.
You're going to use this?
Here's that?
Okay, when you're ready to go,standard, we'll do this fixed
fee, but it doesn't costanything if you want to call and
(55:26):
talk through your next projector it shouldn't, right, right,
this is just a conversationabout hey, we might be working
together in the future, buthere's a little bit where we're
at.
Can you tell me what I shouldprepare for?
What would your budget numbersbe to put you in the line item
when we go pitch?
We either need this or we don't, but if we do, what would it
cost?
Have those conversations withyour lawyer up front and you
(55:52):
might find out you're ready togo, you might find out you've
got more work to do.
But either way, that's not awasted conversation, right, and
you'll get better at them eachtime.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
Well, pete, I super appreciate the time you've taken
to talk with us.
I can tell right now first ofall, we're probably going to
want to do another episode withyou down the line.
At least a personal call Ialready have subjects, and that
was the second thing I was goingto say.
We might just be calling youjust for projects, because we
have one or two right on thehorizon.
So, thank you, I feel like I'velearned a ton.
(56:21):
I feel like I feel actuallymore empowered and a little more
focused, and a little morefocused.
And I think this came at a goodtime for us because of the stage
that our next project or two isat.
It's like, okay, this is theright time for us to have met
you and had this conversation.
So we hope that everyonelistening feels the same Like
okay, I know a little more aboutthis thing.
(56:43):
It's demystified, it's notscary anymore and because I can
tell you right now it was scaryfor me before this call like
there's things that people Ididn't want to talk to, because
I said that phone call is goingto cost me 200 bucks and it's
exactly what you said, exactlyso thank you so much for coming
on.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Yeah, no, you're well .
First of all, you're welcome.
Thanks for inviting me.
It's my pleasure, um, and Ienjoyed meeting you at the
festival.
Hope I'll get to see both ofyou guys in the future.
But, yeah, truly happy to havethe conversation.
And I really do, genuinely.
I love doing this stuff right.
Because I do it, because I loveit.
It's my passion.
I didn't do it right out of lawschool.
(57:18):
It took me a long time to workmy way back around it in a bit,
in a way that I could really bea professional at right.
So I care about it.
I love the industry.
I want people to be successful.
I'm excited about newopportunities in different
regions.
So if I can be useful, I'mhappy to do it and, like I said,
I really do learn fromfilmmakers and other lawyers and
(57:41):
everybody in the process.
It's always evolving, so happyto do it.
Yeah, reach out and if anybodyis, you know, catching the
podcast and is curious for moreinformation, how do we connect
with you?
Speaker 1 (57:54):
You know where should we send people.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
So the easiest way is just to go to the screen
lawyercom all one word, andthat's takes you to a landing
page.
It's got it'll connect you withmy law firm bio, all my contact
info.
It's got a link to my podcastand social media.
We've got a YouTube channel allof it under the screen.
Lawyer, and we, you know, wetalk, we interview guests.
(58:16):
We also talk.
I did.
I did an episode this morningon um uh for our podcast on the
Kendrick Lamar and Drakedefamation lawsuit and battle
and some of the weird nuancesbehind the legal side of that
very famous feud.
So sometimes the episodes aremore like that, like geeking out
(58:37):
a little bit on legal stuff.
But a lot of times I've gotguests who are filmmakers or
just I want to hear what they'redoing.
How'd you get here?
What's your story, what are you, what's next, what do you?
You know all of that, so I'llreach out to you guys as well.
Count on that.
Speaker 1 (58:51):
Yeah, we'd love to return the favor, so thank you
so much for your time and we'llput your link to your website in
the show notes as well.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Great yeah, thank you , and then just send me whenever
you've got it.
But I really appreciate it.
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (59:03):
Yeah, thanks, so much Thanks.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Pete, all right guys Take care.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
You too.
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