Cinema and TV
SKW Schwarz has been rendering legal support for cinema and TV productions for a long time now. We can look back on a large number of national and international productions to which we have comprehensive advice.
Our work centres on providing steady legal support for a production, above all preparing contracts for production firms, TV stations and artists. Another key task is to ensure financing for cinema and TV productions by banks, film-promotion agencies and private investors. For example, we structure and support private-equity investments for the financing of international films. We manage already launched film funds and represent them in court. We advise film distributors and global distributors regularly and prepare production, distribution and licence agreements.
Numerous German film and TV production companies, a large number of “independent” production companies and well-known film and TV stars are among our clients. In addition, we regularly give advice to TV stations in the framework of their daily business and represent them in court to enforce their rights.
Examples
We gave comprehensive legal support to the German producer of the film “Desert Flower” (“Wüstenblume”), an international co-production which also involved producers from the UK, France and Austria and which had a budget of roughly EUR 12 million. We supported the German producer at all stages, from the project development and acquisition of story rights to the production itself and the distribution of the final version of the film. Our task was to ensure the financing of the film and to negotiate and prepare all production-related contracts, in particular financing, co-production and distribution contracts and contracts with all creative staff involved in making the film (such as authors, cast, director, composers).
During the production and sale of the cinema film “The Baader Meinhof Complex” we represented the film’s producer in all court disputes in front of different German courts – always successfully. The litigation centred on alleged violations of privacy rights of persons depicted in the film. Most of the proceedings were large-scale preliminary injunction proceedings which focused on right to publicity and general right to privacy issues.
On behalf of an independent TV producer we are structuring the financing of a large international event production based on a well-known best seller. First, there must be a decision on the question which countries are acceptable as home countries of co-producers. Then the filming locations must be decided upon. This requires comparing the benefits of different film promotion systems and analysing whether their characteristics can be aligned with the creative ideas of the producers. The chain of title must be examined and completed and the co-production contracts, distribution contracts and major licence contracts must be negotiated. Simultaneously, there will be talks with the financing bank and the provider of the completion bond. At the end the list of documents exceeds four pages – but the financing is secured and the production can go ahead.