Musings of Production

I remember the first time I had to make delivery on a film I produced. The blood, sweat and tears that went into production and post finally ended and I breathed a huge sighof relief.

The honeymoon however was short lived as I was handed a list of deliverables by my sales agent. This two page document would rule my life for the next several weeks and cause me to cry out in frustration. It listed items like cue sheet, sync script, and productions stills.

This first short article is an introduction to the concept of deliverables in general and the next section will cover them in depth. Keep in mind this is just a general guide and every agent, distributor, or exhibitor may modify their list to taste.

So onto the basic question of…. What the heck are deliverables anyways? The simplest way to put it is a deliverable something people who get your movie out there need to do their job. It includes marketing, sales, tapes, dubs, mixes, and a plethora of other items that you’ll just hate putting together.

Lets take a small example that most people have in their actor agreements. Before a company will distribute your film you must certify that every human (and sometimes animals) that appear on screen has their own contact granting you rights to do this. You need to know if they are union, non-union, or extras. That guy walking across the sidewalk in the shot you stole downtown that one day? You’ll need a waiver from him, go chase him down! Now most of them won’t require copies of all these contracts and ask you just to sign off on it, but it is not a liability to be taken lightly.

So a deliverable is basically hell for the creative film maker. All that stuff that people said you should do in production but you tried to sneak around? This is where it all comes, sneaks up on you from behind, and steals your wallet.

You MUST have your deliverable in place or no one internationally will buy your film. There aren’t any exceptions to this so prepare thyself accordingly and steel your will. Section two will continue with contracts and the basics of what you should be getting during production.