Winnie Wong is Vice President of Momentous Insurance Brokerage, Inc and has been helping independent filmmakers for the past 22 years. I thought Winnie had an interesting take on writing an independent film and invited her to write a guest blog.
Winnie specializes in independent features, television, reality, documentary and commercial films. She has taught entertainment insurance for UCLA Extension, International Documentary Association (IDA) and Film Independent (FIND), authored articles for various film publications and served as a panelist for the American Film Market (AFM) and Slamdance Film Festival.
As they say in Hollywood to make it in the biz you must start with a great script. Easier said then done huh?! As an entertainment insurance broker I get the pleasure of reading a lot of scripts for a variety of reasons. For me I enjoy the story… for my job, I have to pay attention to scenes where there are stunts – elaborate car chase scenes, fight scenes, pyrotechnics, and aircraft or watercraft exposures. I need to make sure proper risk management is in place to protect the film crew, actors, property and third parties when filming occurs.
The other reason is the content of a script may have identifiable people, businesses being slandered, there maybe issues regarding locations, artwork or music. As I am a lowly insurance broker, I am able to take care of risk management and cover exposures with insurance however, I am not an expert at determining if there are may be a legal conflict with the use of identifiable people, product or businesses.
What is recommended is that you have a script clearance report completed prior to the commencement of filming. This involves having a reputable script clearance company read and break down your script. They will identify items that represent possible legal conflicts this includes character names, business names, product names, organization names, locations, artwork, music, copyrighted or trademarked material.
Where a conflict exists, the script clearance company will point out inaccurate facts, alternative suggestions and solutions. For copyrighted or trademarked works, they will provide information to enable you to contact the rights owner and request permission to use it. Please know that this review will not dramatically change your script or the vision of your film.
A couple of examples why this is important would be:
- Filmmaker had a fictional romantic lead named John Smith (not real name) that lived in Alaska and had a flying business. Later the production company learned that they had inadvertently used the name a actual man who lived in Alaska and had a flying business.
- A script was based on the writer’s real life experiences and the characters were actually identifiable living people.
- There was an existing business that had issues with various statements made about its products.
Once you have the script clearance report it is advised that you have an entertainment lawyer review the analysis and follow their recommendations.
Along with the script clearance report you should have a title search done as well. This report is done to make certain that there are no marketing conflicts that could arise when using a specific title. This is done by searching the United States Copyright Office to check on the various uses in categories such as television, motion pictures, literature, video/DVD, books, plays and music.
These two elements will be come important when you are obtaining distribution for your production and obtaining Errors & Omissions coverage. This coverage is necessary to cover the producers and indemnify distributors from lawsuits that could arise from the content of your film. Some examples of lawsuits would be copyright infringement, defamation of character, theft of idea.
In the end, script writing is a lot of hard and arduous work, but it is worth it because your film has the potential to impact and influence an unlimited audience. Write on…
Disclaimer: The above response is a general overview of production insurance for discussion purposes only – it is not intended to apply to each circumstance. Each policy has varied wording, limitations, exclusions and conditions which affects the insurance coverage. You should consult your policy for complete details or contact Winnie Wong at wwong@mmibi.com for personalized service.
Print This
Tweet This
RSS of Show Me The Screenplay Blog
