{"id":11,"date":"2006-10-29T19:26:40","date_gmt":"2006-10-29T07:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/?p=11"},"modified":"2012-07-27T13:21:45","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T01:21:45","slug":"contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following has been kindly reprinted by the New Zealand Writers Guild<\/a>. They didn’t commission it – it was a chest-clearing exercise.<\/em><\/p>\n

If I learn nothing more from this year, it’s that contracts are a sign of how serious things are. (To those of you for whom this is, like, so obvious, what can I say? I am – or was – an idealist<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

So. The first thing the Writers Guild told me when I joined three years ago? Don’t work without a contract<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And what’ve I done in that time? I’ve worked in good faith. It’s gone like this: the terms of the contract are verbally agreed in the early days; writing commences whilst a draft contract is bounced around; the script is finished; a contract is agreed and signed; and throughout, money changes hands. In the end, someone has themselves a script, and I was paid to write<\/em> it.<\/p>\n

Sure, I’ve had a few projects explode in my face, some of which has provided fodder for my writing. But for the most part, I’m a trusting soul and I like to give the benefit of the doubt. This doesn’t mean I’ve provided all the work to date with the copyright already assigned. I try to be reasonable and flexible; sometimes this has been interpreted as being easy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As I shift towards projects with ‘real’ money, what I’ve noticed is that the expectations and the contractual\/political manoeuvring move up a level. Besides my writing having to be more than professional-looking<\/em>, each gig is a potential career-maker or -breaker (or -extend-just-a-little-longer). The expectation as a writer I can deal with. But the contract shenanigans… oi vey<\/em>.<\/p>\n

All that stuff that was verbally agreed up front? Worth the paper it was written on. All the work that’s been done in good faith? Taken for granted and\/or leverage to get you to continue to work in good faith and\/or a very possible waste of your time.<\/p>\n

The earlier that contract is signed, the sooner everyone knows how to behave<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Negotiate and sign that sucker now<\/em><\/strong>. Work long. And prosper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following has been kindly reprinted by the New Zealand Writers Guild. They didn’t commission it – it was a chest-clearing exercise. If I learn nothing more from this year, it’s that contracts are a sign of how serious things are. (To those of you for whom this is, like, so obvious, what can I … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Contracts”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[274,18],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting","tag-contracts","tag-new-zealand-writers-guild"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2660,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/2660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}