A director finishes a picture and wants to thank someone. An actor who did not get the part but stayed generous about it. A friend whose story gave her the idea. A teacher. She writes a line for the crawl: Special Thanks to Dana, whose story inspired this film.
It is a kind sentence, and it may cost the production its distribution deal.
What the sentence says
Somewhere in that production’s files is a Certificate of Authorship. The writer signed it. It says the screenplay is original to her, that she wrote it, that it is not taken from any other work, and that the production company owns it outright. That certificate went to the guild with the signatory application. It goes to the errors and omissions carrier next, and after that to whoever buys the film.
The crawl now says someone else inspired the story.
A lawyer doing diligence reads both documents and asks what Dana contributed and where her release is.
There may be no good answer. Dana may have contributed nothing at all. She may have told a story at a dinner table four years ago and never thought about it again. None of that matters at the moment the question is asked, because the production has published a statement that someone outside the certified authorship chain shaped the work, and it published that statement permanently, on screen, to everyone who watches.
Chain of title
Chain of title answers a single question: does the company selling this film own it. Everything else in the deal rests on that answer. A distributor will not close without it. An E&O carrier will not bind without it. A completion bond, a sales agent, a festival with a legal department, all of them ask.
The chain for an original screenplay is short. The writer wrote it, the writer assigned it, the company owns it, and the copyright registration proves the date. Two documents and a receipt.
The thank-you credit puts a person outside that chain and inside the story. It does not create a legal claim by itself. It creates a question nobody prepared for, arriving at the worst moment, in front of the person writing the check.
The cost is rarely a lawsuit. The cost is a delay, a request for a release from someone who has since moved to another state and stopped answering email, a purchase price adjustment, or an indemnity the producer has to back personally.
The version that works
Keep the gratitude and cut the attribution.
Special Thanks followed by a name is a courtesy credit. It has appeared on films for as long as films have had credits, it says nothing about authorship, and no diligence lawyer pauses on one. The director gets to honor the person. The name lives in the picture permanently. Nobody has said a word about who wrote what.
The clause after the name is the problem. Whose story inspired this film. For the inspiration behind the character. Without whom this story would not exist. Each of those is a sentence about creation, published under the production’s own name.
If the director wants to say the fuller thing, an interview is the place for it, or a note to the person, or a speech at the premiere. A line in the end titles is a permanent representation.
Paper the courtesy
When a courtesy credit goes to someone the production has any other relationship with, put a short provision in that person’s agreement.
The credit is a courtesy, extended at the production’s discretion as to wording, placement, and size, and subject to the distributor’s customary exclusions.
It is not compensation and forms no part of the consideration for anything.
It confers no right to any payment, participation, residual, or other remuneration.
And it does not constitute an acknowledgment that the person authored, co-authored, contributed to, or inspired the screenplay, any character, or any other element of the picture.
The last sentence is the reason to write the paragraph. It puts the person’s own signature behind the statement that the credit means what the production says it means.
Where the person is a performer, go one step further. Have her represent that she has not contributed literary material to the screenplay and claims no interest in it or in any character. The chain of title now carries her signature.
Before delivery
Read the crawl against the chain of title. Somebody should sit with the credit list and the authorship documents side by side and confirm that no line in one contradicts the other. It takes twenty minutes, and it is the only time anyone will look at both together.
And decide who approves credit wording. On most independent films, credits get drafted late by whoever is available, and a sentence written at midnight in a spreadsheet ends up on screen forever. One person should own that list, and that person should know which sentences create legal statements.
Alex Aldea is a Partner at Weiner Law Group LLP and Chair of the firm’s Entertainment Law Division, serving as production counsel to independent film and media companies in New Jersey. This article is general information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. He can be reached at 973-503-1881 or [email protected].