After attending the Sundance Shorts Lab at BAM this past Sunday, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of people wanting to write, direct, or produce a short and submit it to the Sundance Film Fest. For 8,000 submissions, there are only 80 films that …
The right of publicity is the right of individuals to control the use of their name and likeness in a commercial setting. You cannot place an image of another person on your brand of pickles without their permission. Celebrities can earn large fees from this right by endorsing products. Some …
There’s increasingly a lot of talk about Transmedia storytelling; the idea of taking pieces of a story and systematically putting them across different media touch points for the purposes of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. But why is Transmedia storytelling important for independent filmmakers in particular?
Legal issues may be the most remote worry that keeps independent filmmakers up at night. There are often more tangible and immediate stresses: finding financing, getting film festival screenings, building positive publicity and momentum for a film, and securing distribution arrangements. For filmmakers who have a few minutes to polish …
In early February, my small edit team and I relocated from my base in San Francisco to the fog-bound woods along the Mendocino coast. We were tasked with bringing our loose assembly of my doc-in-progress – which, at the time, clocked in at a dense and daunting 11-hours– …
As an entertainment attorney, I am often called upon to assist writers who have gotten themselves into trouble because they do not understand how their work may infringe the rights of others. A writer who learns the fine points of the law through trial and error is receiving …
Producer Peter Phok and I speaking on a panel at IFP’s Filmmaker Conference.
In the year and a half since Brian Newman wrote his very apt and memorable post, “Killing the Film Fest Panel,” panels haven’t improved much. In that time, I’ve spoken on or moderated over a dozen panels, …
I’m writing to you now from a screening room in TriBeCa, where we are in the throes of the 2013 Documentary Labs! The Labs are easily my favorite thing to do at IFP, so even though I haven’t seen the sun in hours, hiding here, its a good place to …