Legal & Contract Field Notes

Twelve clauses a video production contract needs: scope, timeline, payment, revision rounds, cancellation tiers, usage rights, raw footage ownership, releases, insurance, music, change orders, venue.

A certificate of insurance can be backed by a real, adequate policy and still bounce because the wording on it does not match what the venue, city, rental house, or agency actually asked for. Here is the exact language that clears review in Texas, scenario by scenario.

A signed deposit and a signed kill fee clause are two different numbers, and they rarely match by accident. Here is how GLM's three standard deposit structures actually line up against the cancellation tiers, project by project, so a producer knows before signing whether a cancelled shoot means a refund, a wash, or an invoice.

A regional cable buy and a national broadcast buy can share the same footage and the same crew, but the usage license underneath them is not the same document. Here is the exact bid language that separates the two, line by line.

A production company that collects a client kill fee but skips paying the crew it booked is keeping money that was never its cost to absorb. Here are the crew-side notice-window tiers in real dollars, a sample booking confirmation clause, and how to keep the two obligations tracking each other.

A COI request the week of a shoot is the most common way a booked production day gets delayed. Here is what a certificate of insurance actually proves, which coverages a location or client typically demands, and what it costs to carry them.

Delivering the video is not the same as getting paid for it. Net 30 on paper often means net 60 in practice once an agency's own client pays them first. Here is how invoicing, payment terms, and collections actually work on commercial production work.

A shoot on private property does not need a city permit. A shoot that spills one grip truck onto a public sidewalk does. Here is the real difference, what Dallas and Fort Worth actually require, and what belongs in a location agreement either way.

A signed contract isn't a guarantee a shoot happens. It's a guarantee someone pays for the work already done if it doesn't. The notice-window tiers, dollar scenarios, and Texas weather language that make a kill fee clause actually hold up.