John August

Search Results for: youtube

Getting clearances

QandA, Rights and Copyright, The Nines

questionmarkI’m working on a series of web films that I fancy to self-produce and distribute through Youtube, etc. I’m curious: is there an easy (i.e. free) way to confirm I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes with the names I’ve chosen for characters, companies, products, etc in my story?

I know there’re entire businesses dedicated to tracing and checking this information for those in the industry, but I’m limited to typing the names into Google and hoping no results appear.

Is this worth worrying about, and is there an easy way to go about it?

— Russell Gawthorpe

answer iconWhat you’re talking about are called clearances. There are companies that do that for you (the [de Forest Report](http://www.deforestresearch.com/)™ is the best known), but for smaller projects it’s not hard to DIY.

As an intern at Universal, one of my assignments was handling clearances for the art department on the Kevin Costner film The War. They had a bunch of vintage signs, and my task was to figure out whether any of the brands or companies featured were still in business. This was pre-internet, so I ended up making a lot of phone calls.

When checking clearances, you’re hoping for one of two outcomes:

1. There’s nothing/no one with that name. You’re clear.
2. There are so many items or people with that name that no reasonable person would assume you’re talking about it/him specifically. ((But location and job might be a factor. “Bill Smith” is generic and ubiquitous, but if the character is a police sergeant in San Diego, and there is a real William Smith working for the police department there, you have an issue.))

But when you’re checking clearances, you often find yourself in a middle ground. There’s somebody or something with that name, or close enough to it that it might be a problem. If that happens, you can talk to the person and ask them to sign a clearance release. It’s a pretty generic “we won’t sue” form that your producer (or attorney) will provide.

In other cases, you’re presented with a logo or artwork that may or may not be someone’s trademark. To the degree possible, you avoid it. But a sizable percentage of clearances really come down to a judgment call: what are the odds someone has the rights and will care?

The Amway-like pyramid marketing company in Go was originally called American Products. We couldn’t clear that name, so we came up with a list of alternatives and checked each one. I picked Confederated Products, which I loved even more.

Clearances are standard procedure for making movies and television shows. Your “Errors and Omissions” insurance requires it. [Bad things can happen](http://www.piercelawgroupllp.com/articles/clearance-procedures.pdf) if you miss something.

But that’s for features and television. For your web shorts, you’re already doing more than most folks would. I wouldn’t stress out about it. If you feel like a little more due diligence, take screenshots of your Google results. Keep a file of everything you researched. The more documentation you have showing that you acted responsibly, the better protected you’ll be in the very unlikely case someone protests.

Finally, a word about YouTube: Thanks to the DMCA, corporations can get your stuff yanked without warning. It happened to me.

A Very Big Corporation felt the first trailer to The Nines infringed on their copyright to A Piece of Intellectual Property, and got it pulled from YouTube in less than an hour. They didn’t have to prove anything. AVBC and I have since hashed out that disagreement, but it was sobering to see that as the creator of the video, we had almost no recourse. If you attempt to appeal, YouTube repeatedly reminds you that you’re [an idiot for even trying](http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=185223).

None of this should scare you away from making your shorts. Avoid the names of real companies and real people — especially classmates from junior high. But you don’t have to make your films in a hermetic, brand-free bubble in which everyone is named Smith. Unless that’s the idea for your web series. Because that’s not a bad idea.

Whatever happened to litter?

Africa, Words

woodsy owlThis morning as I was walking the dog, I picked up a discarded McDonald’s bag from my neighbor’s lawn. As I carried it to the trash can, it hit me: whatever happened to litter?

Is there less of it, or are we just using the word less? ((Obviously, the third option is that neither one has declined, and it’s all my subjective experience. But a poll of my co-workers (Matt) suggests this isn’t the case.))

I grew up in the 1970s, and remember Woodsy Owl’s warnings to “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.” I remember my Cub Scout troop handing out plastic litter bags to hang over your car’s stick shift. I remember [that crying Indian commercial](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4ozVMxzNAA).

Litter, and in particular the act of littering, was a cultural meme.

But I don’t see anything like that now. Did recycling replace it? Is there just less random trash, and thus less need to call attention to it?

I wonder if the anti-littering campaigns of the 1970s were successful enough that behavior genuinely changed, thus making litter less common. In 2011, if you saw someone throwing a plastic cup out the window of a moving vehicle, you’d think “asshole,” wouldn’t you?

But was that true in the 1950s or 60s? We could interview our parents, but asking people to report on their behavior a half-century ago feels unreliable.

Since we don’t have time machines, maybe the closest we can come is developing countries. From my limited experience in Africa and South America, I’ll say I definitely noticed more random trash blowing around, and no particular urgency in cleaning it up. Some of that has to be attributed to limited government services; if you don’t have regular trash collection, you’re going to have more garbage lying around.

But I also suspect there is a virtuous cycle that happens once you start noticing and removing litter: you’re less tolerant of it, and the people who generate it.

2010, the year in film

Film Industry, Video

I’m perpetually amazed by mega-edits like this one from [@genrocks](http://twitter.com/#!/genrocks), which combines pieces of [270 movies](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wv-PfzG8aGp43ZF-vARPbcJaRRSJWJ8FXlMcQIrOiOo/preview?hl=en&pli=1&sle=true#) from this past year. Who has the time to do this? Are there pharmaceuticals involved?

One thing to consider: These are almost entirely American movies. You can look at this as a recap of the American film industry’s output for the year.

We make a lot of movies.

(/via [kottke](http://kottke.org/10/12/the-year-in-film-2010))

On the Amazon film thing

Film Industry

Earlier this week, Amazon announced the formation of [Amazon Studios](http://studios.amazon.com).

Whenever new money comes into the film industry, it’s cause for some celebration. The purse strings loosen a little, and more people find work. Since you can’t shoot movies without scripts, screenwriters are among the first to benefit.

Over the years, money has poured in from venture capital firms, foreign investment funds and entrepreneurs from other industries. ((My first reader gig was with a production company bankrolled by Little Caesar’s Pizza money.)) Amazon has a lot of money. It’s understandable why they might want to get involved with creation rather than just the distribution of entertainment.

Steve Jobs got involved with a little company called Pixar, and that’s worked out pretty well.

If Amazon Studios were a simple finance and production outfit like Relativity or Morgan Creek, there would be nothing more to say. But Amazon Studios has an [unusual strategy](http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2010/11/16/amazon_launches_new_movie_studio_run_by_roy_price_son_of_frank/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter):

> Amazon Studios invites filmmakers and screenwriters from all over the world to submit full-length movies and scripts, which will then get feedback from Amazon readers, who will be free to rewrite and amend. Based on reaction (“rate and review”) to stories, scripts and rough “test” films, a panel of judges will award monthly prizes.

Several readers have written to ask my take on all this. I won’t conjecture about anything beyond what’s on the press release and website, but I’m left with some pretty big questions. I have a hunch other screen-bloggers will be tackling some of the glaring ones, like copyright, authorship and the 18-month free option.

So I’ll just ask one:

**Do you really want random people rewriting your script?**

To me, this feels like the biggest psychological misstep of the venture. Sure, most aspiring screenwriters yearn for access to the film industry and the chance to get their movies made. That’s why they enter screenwriting competitions, including things like Project Greenlight, which feels like its closest kin.

But here’s the thing: each of these writers wanted to get *his movie* made. I’ve never met a single screenwriter who hoped anonymous strangers would revise him.

From the [FAQ](http://studios.amazon.com/getting-started):

> **Can I make it so that no one else can revise my original work?**
> No. But if someone makes changes that are bad, their version is not likely to get a lot of attention. And if someone comes along and makes your work better, you’re more likely to win a prize and get your project made. Sometimes other people can bring a different viewpoint or a different set of skills that take the story in a new direction or add new elements that make it even more compelling.

“Look, I know your script was about a blind cheerleader in Harlem. But ramsey22’s revision making the cheerleader an elephant is *so much funnier.* And blueGoblin has a good point: a safari park is a better setting for a story about elephants.”

In software development, the open source movement has succeeded in bringing teams of strangers together. But writing code is a lot different than writing a screenplay. A bad line of code is obvious; it doesn’t do what it needs to do. A bad line of dialogue is a judgement call. A thumbs-up, thumbs-down voting system isn’t likely to fix this.

Hollywood already has a bad track record of messing up projects by bringing in too many writers — and that’s when they’re paying people who have already written and produced movies. The idea that an undiscovered screenwriter in Wichita will rewrite someone else’s screenplay *on his own time* seems far-fetched, and to me smacks of spec labor.

I’m pro new ideas. I think you can make interesting, artistically worthwhile projects through crowdsourcing, such as YouTube’s [Life in a Day](http://www.youtube.com/user/lifeinaday). I love sites that leverage group energy, like Wikipedia and Kickstarter. I had fun with the [trailer competition](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/trailer-winners) for The Nines.

But I don’t see Amazon’s model working, for the reasons above and many others. My readership is pretty much the exact target audience for their venture, so I’m curious to hear your opinions.