Contracts Every Production Needs

A film is made by a lot of people, and every one of them is a relationship that can go wrong: pay disputes, unclear roles, someone claiming they own a piece of the movie. Contracts are how you set those relationships in writing before they sour — not because you distrust your collaborators, but because the friendliest handshake in the world doesn't answer "what did we actually agree?" a year later. And there's a second, quieter job contracts do that most first-timers never realize until it bites them: they're what let you legally own the film. Here are the ones every production should have.

Most of these are one- or two-page documents on an indie film. The through-line: they set the deal and confirm the production owns everyone's contribution — which is what makes you the legal owner of the finished film.

Work-for-hire: the clause that lets you own your film

This deserves its own section because it's the single most important legal concept in this chapter, and the one filmmakers most often miss. Here's the surprise: by default, the person who creates something usually owns it. A composer owns the music they wrote. An editor may have a claim over their cut. A writer owns their script. That means without the right paperwork, the people who worked on your film could each own a piece of it — and you might not have clean rights to your own movie. The fix is a work-for-hire arrangement (backed by an assignment of rights): language in each person's contract confirming that what they create for the production is owned by the production. Get that clause into every crew, cast, writer, director, and composer agreement, and all their contributions flow to you. Skip it, and you've built a film on a cracked foundation — exactly the kind of chain-of-title gap that stops a distribution deal cold.

The deal memo: your everyday workhorse

You won't draft a ten-page contract for every grip. The everyday tool is the deal memo — a short, plain agreement (often one page) that covers the essentials: who, what role, how much, what dates, and the key terms including work-for-hire. It's fast enough to actually use on a real shoot and complete enough to protect you. Have every paid crew and cast member sign one, built into the same check-in process as the releases from the Permits course. A stack of signed deal memos does two jobs at once: it prevents the pay-and-role disputes that poison small productions, and it quietly assembles your ownership of everyone's work.

Get them signed before work starts

The timing rule from the whole paperwork world applies with full force here: sign before the work begins, not after. Before someone shoots a frame, edits a cut, or writes a note, get the agreement signed. The reasons are the same as always — goodwill is highest before the work, leverage shifts after it, and an unsigned contributor who later disagrees about pay or ownership is a genuine problem. A few practical habits:

• Use templates, tailored. Start from a solid indie template (or the Contract Assistant) rather than blank pages — but have an attorney review your standard forms once.
• Sign in the company's name. Contract as your LLC (Chapter 7), not personally, to keep your liability shield intact.
• Everyone who contributes creatively signs. Especially anyone whose work carries copyright — writer, director, editor, composer, DP.
• Keep them with your clearances. Contracts, deal memos, and releases all live in the same folder — together they become your chain of title and clearance report.

That completes the three pillars — insurance, structure, and contracts. You now have the tools to protect a production from nearly every angle. Module 3 puts them to work in the messy real world: hiring people legally, managing liability on set, and handling it when, despite everything, something goes wrong. It starts with the legal side of hiring cast and crew.