For sales agents and distributors, the window to secure deals is short. The last thing you want is for a deal to fall apart because your legal delivery package isn’t ready, complete, or compliant. The time to prep for film market season is now.
At Showbiz Consultants, we’ve seen that the difference between closing quickly and missing out often comes down to planning your legal delivery strategy in advance. Before you step into market season, here’s what you must prepare for.
- Define Your Propensity for Legal Risk
Every sales agent and distributor has a different risk tolerance.
- Low-risk approach: Requires a complete and airtight legal delivery. This often slows delivery but maximizes protection.
- High-risk approach: Require little to no legal delivery documents or don’t review them at all. This might be faster but only for a buyer who’s prone to risk. The bigger money buyers will require many documents and they may stall, or kill, your deal. If they spend their budget on the titles they know are “approval-ready” and low-risk your title is left out in the cold.
Your decision here will dictate your legal delivery timeline and staffing needs.
- Decide How Many Documents You Will Collect
More documentation means more security but can be heavier for filmmakers and slower to compile.
- Comprehensive package: Includes all production contracts, releases, E&O policies, music licenses, artwork clearances, and archival licenses. Offers maximum protection but takes time.
- Streamlined package: Focuses on essential or high risk documents. Easier for the filmmaker but if your supervisors or buyers want max protection you will need to go back and collect and review. That will end up taking much much longer.
Finding your balance between protection and efficiency is crucial.
- Determine the Depth of Your Document Review
Not all document reviews are created equal.
- Deep review: Examines term, territory, media rights, assignment clauses, remedies and risk in every document. Offers thorough protection but requires more time and higher legal expertise.
- Surface review: Confirms presence and basic compliance of documents without heavy analysis. Speeds up market readiness but may miss hidden liabilities.
Decide early how far you want your reviewers to dig.
- Assign Who Will Interact with Licensors
Whether you’re clearing footage, music, or artwork, someone has to negotiate with licensors and chase missing paperwork.
Options include:
- In-house legal/business affairs staff – Ideal for continuity and control but licensor hand-holding is often the #1 time waster and a busy staff member will get overwhelmed, perhaps even destroying the relationship with your suppliers.
- Specialist contractors – Faster for high-volume prep; ideal for temporary surges in workload, consistent interaction, and better specialized supplier relationships (some of whom already know and have worked with your suppliers).
Consider the complexity of your deals when assigning this role.
- Decide Who Will Review the Documents
Your reviewer’s qualifications directly affect risk management.
- Law firm: Most thorough and authoritative but likely overkill or cost-prohibitive due to incredibly high cost for a lower level and high volume task.
- Specialist contractor: Cost-effective and experienced in entertainment-specific needs.
- Low-cost assistant: Cheapest but highest risk of oversight and errors.
Your choice should align with your risk tolerance and budget.
- Assign Responsibility for Delivery to Third Parties
Delivering to distributors or platforms often means adapting documents to their specifications.
- This can require walking your licensors through substantive revisions, translating contract terms into summaries, or reformatting clearances. These need to be explained to licensors who are not legal savvy and takes time.
- Some distributors are notoriously demanding—adding extra time, redlines, and back-and-forth correspondence.
- At best, some specialists can negotiate some requirements out of the delivery schedule since they are familiar with the legal analysis and maybe even know the buyer from past history.
Plan for extra time and know-how to meet these demands without delaying delivery.
- Factor in Market Season Timing
Sales agents and distributors who start document prep early, preferably three to six months before market season avoid last-minute crises.
- Build in a cushion to allow your licensors to renegotiate problematic licenses or replace missing ones.
- Expect increased turnaround times when multiple productions are competing for legal review resources.
- Use a Centralized Tracking System
Legal delivery involves dozens of interlocking contracts and clearances. A centralized database or checklist prevents:
- Missing deliverables
- Version confusion
- Overlooked deadlines
LET THE SHOWBIZ CONSULTANTS SYSTEM DO YOUR WORK FOR YOU
Contact us here [insert link to contact page] and let our Showbiz Consultants “EZ Legal Delivery System” prep your “approval ready” projects for maximum protection with the least amount of stress.
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