4
DEVELOPMENT
CREATING, ACQUIRING, AND MANAGING THE FILM PROPERTY
During development, ideas and concepts are turned into screenplays; literary rights are acquired; life stories are purchased. In short, this is the stage of a film’s life cycle in which the film property first takes shape.
No matter what kind of audiovisual production a filmmaker wants to make—a narrative film, a television commercial, a documentary, an industrial video—the filmmaker will need to have the legal right to tell that particular story. To put it bluntly, this is one of the most important legal issues facing filmmakers: a distributor will not pick up a film for distribution if the story rights have not been obtained!
Of critical importance during development is the protection ...
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