short into feature?

[capnbringdown]

I'm considering letting a friend make a short screenplay I have into a short film, but I'm also curious in case I ever wind up listing something on inktip. If I let him make the short, do I still retain the rights to develop it into a feature? Is that a right I can negotiate for when we're drawing up terms? What if money changes hands (doubtful but still)? Or once I agree, does he just completely own the screenplay? Thanks.

[NikeeGoddess]

just draw up a contract that says you retain the rights... and they're still yours.

[nmstevens]

just draw up a contract that says you retain the rights... and they're still yours.


With all due respect -- contracts like these, drawn up between friends is how lawyers, further down the line make their living.

There are potential problems here because we are talking about what amounts to mutual ownership of the rights to the same material.

As a rule, when a screenplay is made into a movie, the rights to the screenplay are *subsumed* into the larger copyright of the movie. The two are no longer separate or *separable*.

You might have separable rights -- the right to write a novel, or adapt it to the stage, or do a TV series. Those are separable rights.

But if you're talking about taking the screenplay and using it as the basis for another movie -- those are "remake" rights -- and that's the right to "remake the movie" -- not to make another movie based on the screenplay.

That's because, once the movie exists, the screenplay, as a separate entity, has been absorbed into the larger work.

There simply can't be a situation where someone has made a movie without owning the underlying rights to the screenplay.

That means that he owns everything that's copyrightable in that screenplay. He has to, or he will not be a position to be able to sell the movie.

Which would make the job of turning into a feature mighty tough. It would be no different, at that point, from watching a short made by somebody else and owned by somebody and saying, "Hmm, I like that short. I think I'll simply expand it into a feature without bothering to pay for it."

If you couldn't legitimately do the latter -- you would not be in a position to do the former.

There may be a way to manage this. But it has to be a job for an entertainment attorney. Something would have to be drafted in some very precise language that would allow the filmmaker to own the material and be able to show and potentially sell the short -- and yet the original screenwriter would somehow be able to, if not retain, in some fashion re-acquire the right to "remake" the short as a feature.

NMS

[zeprosnepsid]

There has to be some way to manage it because this is similar to what happens at USC Film School. At USC, the school owns the short films you make. But you retain ownership of the idea. You are allowed to remake the film, and/or make it into a feature, because you retain the rights to the ideas. But they own the actual film you made.

One example of this was with George Lucas and THX-1138. He made it as a short while at school, and USC owns that short. But he remade it as a feature and didn't need their permission to do so.

This doesn't help you in any practical way, but I just wanted to note that this has to be possible in some manner, because it's what the school does.

[nmstevens]

There has to be some way to manage it because this is similar to what happens at USC Film School. At USC, the school owns the short films you make. But you retain ownership of the idea. You are allowed to remake the film, and/or make it into a feature, because you retain the rights to the ideas. But they own the actual film you made.

One example of this was with George Lucas and THX-1138. He made it as a short while at school, and USC owns that short. But he remade it as a feature and didn't need their permission to do so.

This doesn't help you in any practical way, but I just wanted to note that this has to be possible in some manner, because it's what the school does.

I'd be interested to see how the copyright notice reads on those films -- whether it reads: Copyright George Lucas or Copyright University of Southern California.

NMS

[nmstevens]

I'd be interested to see how the copyright notice reads on those films -- whether it reads: Copyright George Lucas or Copyright University of Southern California.

NMS

Well, thanks to youtube, it's actually online -- and it is indeed copyrighted by the University of SoCal.

So I imagine that they have opted to give their students certain rights back, simply because they are a University and not a production entity.

NMS

[NikeeGoddess]

because it's your friend making the short and not some university then i still think it's much easier than having to hire a lawyer to draw up papers and such. people make shorts all the time. they don't freak out about the rights and such. maybe if you turn into one with a george lucas success story then things change but i think you can deal with that when you get to that point. contracts can always be rewritten.

anyhoo - for legal questions i suggest you visit this site: http://www.marklitwak.com/

[nmstevens]

because it's your friend making the short and not some university then i still think it's much easier than having to hire a lawyer to draw up papers and such. people make shorts all the time. they don't freak out about the rights and such. maybe if you turn into one with a george lucas success story then things change but i think you can deal with that when you get to that point. contracts can always be rewritten.

anyhoo - for legal questions i suggest you visit this site: http://www.marklitwak.com/


And, for what it's worth, I have to reiterate my advice -- visit a lawyer.

Look, people enter into these loosie-goosie "hey, we're pals, we'll figure it all out" kinds of arrangements all the time.

And most of the time it doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, nobody actually makes any money.

And so long as nobody makes any money, it really doesn't matter and never will matter.

Just the same way that the countless thousands of garage bands where this guy is writing and that guy is writing and who owns what and who's really in the band and who isn't and who really owns the songs and who doesn't and "we're all in this together" and "we're all friends" -- almost always never really matters because the bands never hit it big and never make any money.

Except when they do -- and then all of a sudden, it does matter, and those little "friend" agreements scratched on the backs of napkins suddenly don't mean much -- and yeah, you can renegotiate the contract "afterward."

But renegotiating a deal "afterward" -- when there are millions of dollars at stake isn't quite the same as getting everything clear before. Suddenly, things are a little bit tougher and all that love and friendship and all the rest are out the window.

The last thing you want to do is to be staking your rights on advice that you're getting from people that you don't know on a website. This website or any other website.

If you don't care about the rights to your short script, then give them away for a dollar, or sell them and be done with it.

Or else talk to an entertainment attorney.

If you can't afford one, most states have what's known as a Volunteer Counsel for the Arts, where lawyers donate free or inexpensive legal services to members of the arts community.

Chances are, your state has one too. Check it out.

If this is something that is really important to you, then talk to an attorney.

There is always a stock answer to anyone who complains that getting a lawyer is too expensive -- and that is that if you think having a lawyer is too expensive -- try seeing how much *not* having will run you.

NMS