[Mike Smith]

I’d get a few other lab opinions if I were you.

DV blown up looks horrible, whatever your contact says. Ask her to show you some stuff projected on a cinema screen at her lab, and see for yourself. Ask her to project samples of other formats – 35mm. 16mmm, HD to film transfers for comparison.

You don’t need to buy a (16mm film) camera and lens set. You’d just need to hire or borrow one. The costs come in film stock and processing, and transfer to video for editing. Some places offer freebies to starting-out students if asked nicely and they like you and your project (Joe Dunton Cameras at Elstree might be a place to start, Samuelson’s is very big and has all you need). You can also try to beg stock from the stock companies – Kodak and Fuji.

If you shoot video on a stills camera, the video will be very compressed. If you can tether to a computer and capture that way, you should use an HD camera and a capture system like e.g. Cineform’s https://www.cineform.com or, probably harder for you, AJA or Blackmagi cards and a very fast disc array. Or could you could record to tape or disc (HDV is cheapest HD and a lot better than DV, but still hard to edit with).

You will then have the issues of editing high definition, where you do need lots of RAM, though be aware that 32 bit edit apps cannot normally address (use) more than 2 Gigabytes of RAM.

If you are in East Anglia, the fdmx project in Cambridge might lend you an HD camera and let you use their edit system foc if they like you and your project. http://www.fdmx.co.uk

[Mike Smith]

You could put your budget into filming on super-16mm film and having a transfer to video for your edit … leaving you with the possibility of going back to the negative / camera original to have a high-quality scan done for a fairly decent film out (Gosford Park?) at extra expense later. If you have only limited screen time to film and can keep your shooting ratio tight the costs needn’t be excessive. You’d want a decent camera and lens set, and of course a great story and perfomers … good luck with it.

[Mike Smith]

Physical ownership of the rushes will depend on your original agreement, and if you have delivered what was in that you have no legal obligation to deliver more – you are not mistaken.

Copyright: work for hire. So far as I know there is no strict UK legal equivalent of this provision, which in some circumstances can mean that the party paying for work by outsiders (not just by employees) can be the legal “author” of that work and own all rights in it.

This webpage is from a UK lawyer specialising in this area and covers some significant points for you

https://www.speechlys.com/copyrightandcontractors

[Mike Smith]

Thanks Chris.

[Mike Smith]

Hi Harry

Perhaps I should have been a little more careful in my original post – some of Walter’s concerns come here too.

What you have I think serves to underline potential issues. And it may help to be clear about separating copyright and physical ownership.

Who owns the tapes will be a fact of contract – if your contract does not specify that you hand over ownership and possession of the tapes, then she will not be able to enforce this. You can decide whether to be nice or not, and there are arguments on all sides.

The copyright, though, could be trickier.

UK copyright law gives first ownership of copyright to a work’s “author” – references at the bottom! Of course this can be the employer if the work is created by an employee as part of his employment.

But for collaborative works like video, “authorship” can be a tricky issue. The advice I have been given is that the author and copyright owner in the event of a dispute is normally taken to be the person who made the arrangements for the work to be created – the producer (not the person who pushes the record button on the VT in studio, nor the person who pushes record on the camera / one of the cameras).

So a person organising a production who hires and briefs a crew, organises their shoot and sends them off to film and return with a roll of tape (hard disc / optical disc / roll of film) would expect to own both the physical materials and the rights to them. A person hiring a producer to make a video is not in that position – they would have an implicit right to use the created work for its intended purpose, but might not own either the copyright or physical materials used in creation of the work unless specifically arranged in contract.

In your case, it seems you agree your client was the producer. If you cannot resolve this amicably you will want to take legal advice, but it seems to me that, in a dispute, she will very likely be found to be the copyright owner in the finished work.

You might be able to argue that although she was the producer, you were the author and so the rights holder, since the major creative and technical decisions on the moving image production side were taken by you, but to me it does not seem likely that you’d succeed with this, and it’s a lot of fuss for a very small production.

As producer, she is also likely be found to be the owner of any copyright in the rushes, though this is less clear-cut. Certainly she will own any rights in the choreography, and the performers will have performance rights. These were probably assigned to her in the performers’ agreements with her. So you couldn’t use the rushes for anything else without her consent.

All in all, one approach might be to explain to her that you have supplied what was contracted, and that the physical ownership of the tapes remain yours. Her rights as producer extend to copyright in the finished work, but not to ownership of subsidiary materials used in the creation of that work. You could offer to supply the tapes to her, either as a courtesy or for a small fee to cover tape costs, or indeed you may by now have wiped them and reused them ( this will come up a fair bit with solid state media).

Let’s hope, of course, that between you you have properly cleared the music rights in your recording!

All opinions are expressed as opinions of the author – legal advice should be taken in any legal dispute.

https://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/ukpga_19880048_en_2#pt1-ch1-pb2-l1g5
Authorship of work

(1) In this Part “author”, in relation to a work, means the person who creates it.

(2) That person shall be taken to be—

(a) in the case of a sound recording or film, the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the making of the recording or film are undertaken;

[Mike Smith]

Explain nice and gentle, like you have here.

You could take this as an opportunity to phone or call in, and ask exactly why they want your rushes – see if you can turn it into a business opportunity for you.

It may be no more than that a new person has started in your client department or in central services, and is wanting to implement a new policy. As the client, you can see that it’s good for them to have as much control over their material as they can – at least edit masters, better, perhaps better, edit project files, through to all source materials, rushes graphics and effects files. But if you did not agree to this in contract, you do not have to supply.

From past threads, it seems that many on this forum are happy to hand over all rushes and master tapes. Personally, I always refuse this request if it comes up: master tape at additional cost, rushes just no. But that’s up to you.

BTW, in UK law, you have a contract, regardless of whether they’ve signed something. It’s just harder to prove what was agreed if there’s nothing in writing. They invited you to tender, you made an offer of services (preferably in writing, with as much detail spelled out as possible, or at worst you kept a written record of what you offered, right?) They have accepted your offer, either verbally or in writing – your contract is formed. There’s overwhelming evidence of a contract in that they arranged with you for a work schedule, and they paid you. Any dispute would be not over the existence of a contract, but over just what was agreed – which is where your written offer of services will be important. If you have a written acceptance or a “let’s get started” e-mail so much the better, but you won’t need it.

As you say, in UK law the rights to all materials generated (including the delivered programme) will rest with the producer unless your contract specifies something else.

[Mike Smith]

You have already quit. There is no reason to sign anything – you could just as well be the one trying to require the firm (the other party in your contract) to sign up to additional terms after contract completion. Like you, they would very probably not comply.

If they want to offer you an additional contract with additional payment or other consideration in return for your NDA or anything else, you could consider the offer and its benefits to you.

Once a contract has been struck, neither party to it is in a position to impose additional terms without the other party’s consent. Your contract (written or otherwise) was struck when you first agreed terms and started work; since then, any changes in terms offered either by you or by the employer would need to be agreed by the other party.

[Mike Smith]

Have you tried a Procoder conversion ?

[Mike Smith]

Some more reading from
https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use40

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

[Mike Smith]

Not without permission from the rights owner.