Getting Your Film's Legal Stuff In Order

When to make the leap from DIY-ing agreements sourced from subpar legal templates, to paying an attorney a truckload of money to make sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot down the line.

Note: this was written late June 2023, two weeks before the SAG strike was called.

It’s summer and we’re melting here in The Netherlands! What’s more, we’re seeing some movement on my feature which is great but means that we need to get some things in order.

To illustrate, we have been casting the lead for my feature, Detain Me, for almost eight months now. It’s not out of the ordinary that it takes this long. But it also means that until you have your lead you can’t do much, because even though we’ve got plenty of eyeballs on this project, basically, everyone’s waiting to see who you cast before they commit.

When we cast our lead, things are going to move fast. And to make sure we’re set up for success, we have to get our legal affairs in order.

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