Business and Legal Affairs

Course Outline

Participants will come away with practical knowledge, confidence and understanding of the various business and legal aspects of film & TV contracts and their negotiation.

It is designed to follow the lifecycle of a Film/TV project. The following areas are covered:

The Development Phase

Comprising agreements with scriptwriters, head writers and showrunners, acquisition of rights in underlying material like novels through Option and Literary Purchase Agreements as well as the clearance of life story rights for bio-pics or documentaries;

The Production Phase

Comprising cast and crew agreements, especially with directors, the dos and don’ts when negotiating with domestic and foreign agents, pay or play mechanisms, dealing with members of US guilds like SAG, DGA or WGA, as well as the aspects of right clearance, title reports and script clearance;

The Financing and Exploitation Phase

Covering the basic structures of film financing comprising single source financing for commissioned productions and production services agreements for streaming services, as well as the multi-source financing through a combination of sales and distribution agreements, pre-sales, public funding like subsidies, private equity and co-financing, until the dos and don’ts of international co-production and the relevant regulatory framework like the European Convention on Co-Production, bilateral treaties and the possibilities of supranational funding by Eurimages and the EU Media Programme. This segment covers also topics like cash flow management through discounting and loan agreements with banks, the necessities of completion bonds and collection account management structures.

Who’s it for?

We would be selecting approximately 15-20 participants, all of whom should have 2+ years experience and is aimed at those working in:

• Producers of film and TV. It will be most beneficial to producers who are on their third or fourth feature;
• Junior executives at a national or worldwide streamer or network broadcaster;
• Acquisitions executives in a sales or distribution company;
• Entry-level finance and legal executives in a private or public funding outfit.

The Institute is aiming for gender parity, so strongly encourages female teams. We are keen to promote equality across all its training programmes with a focus on inclusivity across gender, abilities, ethnicity and socio-economic status.