[Gav Bott]

Hi Mark,

running under different rules to the UK then – I was self employed doing production work for the company in question, not an employee.

I stil think that this means that they can keep the actuall tapes, but they have no rights to use them at all – under the same reasoning that I first posted about.

If it’s just clearance on performances I think they can get around the issues for the people in the videos – is it news worthy or educational? Answer “yes” to pass Go and proceed directly to fair use.

The Brit in Brisbane
The Pomme in Production – Brisbane Australia.

[Gav Bott]

Admittedly in the UK and in a very much smaller way I once asked a media lawyer a question that relates to this – mainly because I was owed a bit of money.

The “who owns” question when there is no contract in place.

The answer was pretty much immediate and definitive:- “Can you honestly stand up in court and say that you were employed by the client company for 4 years on the basis that you would hold all the rights?”

Basically, with no contract in place to say otherwise is falls to an implied “reasonable use” in the handshake agreement over 30 years. As has been pointed out several times already WM would never have employed this company had they ever thought that the footage belonged to anyone but themselves – no company would.

Maybe the US has different rules, but the lawyer and the situation we were discussing covered a lot of countries.

In my opinion Flagler is in a no win financial situation on this one. If they just want to get a few shots in at Wallmart they might score with some leaked footage to lawyers and people that are bringing cases, but this is likely to cost Flagler a lot more than it could ever gain them in money terms.

Flagler are unlikely to be able to position themselves as the White Knight whistle blower, for all the reasons already pointed out. They will look vindictive at best – even if their footage helps a few media friendly cases.

For Flagler it ends the company’s reputation, ruins them further financially in legal evil costs – and they probably don’t even get the satisfaction of slaking their thirst for revenge by scoring any really effective points against the Wallmart.

As usual, only the lawyers will win all round.

The Brit in Brisbane
The Pomme in Production – Brisbane Australia.

[Gav Bott]

Having done a few of these myself I can only agree with all of the above – I’d also add in a few more cameras if you can afford them.

One per performer on stage and one for the venue always worked well as a starting point for me, then cut back to what the budget can stand. You only get once shot at capturing the image, so a certain ammount of redundancey has to be built in at the outset, more cameras allows you to work around tape changes and batt changes without loosing the performance.

Get a recording truck for audio and leave that side up to them, lots of pre-prod chats about the number of channels, set lists and external effects can then be pretty much forgotten by you – so long as they are good.

Get a couple of runners too – ones that don’t mind wading through crowds with spare tapes / tripods / water bottles etc. at high speed.

The Brit in Brisbane
The Pomme in Production – Brisbane Australia.

[Gav Bott]

Thanks Rick,

A fast dual core and 2gig+ ram – couldn’t be clearer, or cheaper!

The Brit in Brisbane
The Pomme in Production – Brisbane Australia.

[Gav Bott]

I think that you need to remember how much knowledge you have about production – and then do the usual comparision of what you could do Vs what the budget will stand.

You know a whole tonne of stuff more than the client does about the production and shoot process.

The client saying “great camera angles and lighting” means almost nothing apart from “I want to look good”. So you work out how good you can make them look for the money available, booking a sesion to watch some of their favorite work-out vids might be a very handy way to get an angle on what they actually think is “good”.

As for hiring in freelancers – of course, do it, and you run the show – if the budget will hadle it then go Prod / Dir and let others cam op while you sit with the monitor checking the shots and directing the show.

The Brit in Brisbane
The Pomme in Production – Brisbane Australia.