2010Legal / Business Practices forum
Compensation and contract terms when productions reschedule or cancel bookings
16 years old. Gear and prices may have changed since.
DisputedParticipants disagreed and reached no conclusion. Read the findings as positions, not as an answer.
What the thread found
- Productions that push start dates days before filming can leave crew members with financial losses from turned-down work and equipment held on standby.
- A signed deal memo with specific contractual terms is essential for protecting crew interests; without a contract, producers have minimal obligation to compensate for delays.
- Some contracts include 'play or play' clauses guaranteeing payment regardless of scheduling changes, though major productions rarely accept these terms.
- Establishing a grace period threshold in contracts can clarify when compensation becomes due, such as requiring payment if pushes occur within a defined number of days before shooting.
- Agents can negotiate protective clauses into contracts, but enforcement remains difficult and many producers resist adding penalty provisions to agreements.
- Independently contracted crew should avoid shipping equipment ahead of schedule or should arrange for return shipping if productions push, as this eliminates leverage for compensation claims.
- Smaller independent productions often cannot pay penalties due to funding constraints, while larger productions view scheduling issues as minor crew concerns.
- Building goodwill with producers can be strategically valuable for career longevity, but this may conflict with financial recovery from actual losses.
- Insurance claims filed by productions for external events do not automatically obligate them to compensate crew for held equipment or lost work during production halts.
Depends on
- The discussion involves crew from the film and television industry and may not apply to other industries.
- Enforcement of contract clauses depends heavily on jurisdiction and specific legal frameworks.
- Experiences shared are anecdotal and reflect individual outcomes rather than industry-wide standards.
- Discussion occurred in 2010 and may not reflect current industry practices.
- No consensus was reached on what constitutes fair compensation amounts for delays or cancellations.