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?
The digital revolution …
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 …
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