{"id":1214,"date":"2010-07-15T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2010-07-14T23:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/?p=1214"},"modified":"2010-07-15T12:00:37","modified_gmt":"2010-07-14T23:00:37","slug":"flashback-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/flashback-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"FLASHBACK: Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"

From October 2006<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

If I learn nothing more from this year, it\u2019s 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 \u2013 or was \u2013 an idealist.)<\/p>\n

So. The first thing the Writers Guild told me when I joined three years ago? Don\u2019t work without a contract.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019ve I done in that time? I\u2019ve worked in good faith. It\u2019s 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 it.<\/p>\n

Sure, I\u2019ve had a few projects explode in my face, some of which has provided fodder for my writing. But for the most part, I\u2019m a trusting soul and I like to give the benefit of the doubt. This doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

As I shift towards projects with \u2018real\u2019 money, what I\u2019ve noticed is that the expectations and the contractual\/political manoeuvring move up a level. Besides my writing having to be more than professional-looking, 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\u2026 oi vey.<\/p>\n

All that stuff that was verbally agreed up front? Worth the paper it was written on. All the work that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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

From October 2006 If I learn nothing more from this year, it\u2019s 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 \u2013 or was \u2013 an idealist.) So. The first thing the Writers Guild told me when … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “FLASHBACK: 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":[],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting"],"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\/1214","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=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}