Legal Advice in the entertainment industry?

Hi there,

I am an independent filmmaker and am going to start shooting my film within two weeks. I plan to take this to film festivals and do other things like that.
Legally I don't know what I have to do to prepare, I am funding this all out of my pocket. Should I get release forms? What should be written on them? What happeneds if a random person walks into my shot and I decide to use that shot. Are there things I need to be aware of? If someone is wearing a brand name clothing artical or there is a mcdonalds cup in the background could I get in trouble if I decide to take it to film festivals? stuff like this I really need some help with. Thank you!

My advice would be to do some legal research on your own.

A good place to start would be a treatise entitled, "Lindey on entertainment, publishing, and the arts : agreements and the law" by Michael Landau

This is a multi-volume set published by West Publishing Company. You can probably find it various law libraries.

Also try: "Entertainment, publishing and the arts handbook"

Also Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco publishes a law review entitled "Comm/Ent" containing pertinent articles. You may find issues of this review in a law library as well.

There are tons of books and web sites available for the independent filmmaker regarding laws and finance. Check Amazon and google.

Also, film festivals will be happy to provide the rules for their applications, which probably do (and certainly ought to) include paperwork where you certify that you have all rights to the material.

The filmmaker community is an active one - you should have no problem finding them and asking questions directly to those more experienced.