THE COMMISSIONING CONTRACT
Contracts can be your best friend if you use them to your advantage. When I was at the beginning of my career, I was working for people who were also at the beginning of theirs. As such, the contracts that they provided me with were sometimes based on a template for other creatives such as the writer, director or designer. It's important to note that the contracts for composers contain some important differences. Here, I've provided below a basic template contract which you are welcome to use, either as a cross-check for the contract you have been offered or as a template for a contract (some young producers will not have a template contract for your work and will ask you to provide one). These templates are by no means exhaustive or the final word, but they do include some clauses which would not normally be present in the contracts for the other creatives but are nonetheless incredibly important.
Ideally you should sign a contract for a project prior to beginning any work on it. This may sound really obvious, but when I was starting out I was just so excited to be paid that I would often just start scribbling away before anything was signed on paper and as a result in some cases where the whole thing fell through I did a bunch of work for nothing. That pissed me off. So now, I try to make sure that it's a sure thing by having something in writing before dedicating any time to it.
At the beginning of my career I found this really difficult. If I'm honest I find it difficult even now. I get excited about projects and I can't help composing before anything has been put to paper. But if you have any respect for your own mental health and indeed for the well-being of the project you are getting involved in, make sure that you have signed a contract well before doing any significant amount of work on it as until the parties are contracted, no one is protected and no one is liable, which can lead to huge difficulties further down the line.
What are the ups and downs of a contract? Well the good news is that you're protected by the usual clauses designed to protect all the parties involved. The bad news is that if you suddenly think you aren't being paid enough for the work you've agreed to do, that's just too bad my friend, it's there in big fat writing. And right under that writing, there's a big fat signature. And that signature is yours. And you can't take it back. But that's ok. Just chalk it up to experience.
Of course you can always try and negotiate with the producer, but once your big fat signature is on that bit of paper you have basically zero right to ask for more money or to change the contract in any way. So it's important that you get it as right as possible from the beginning. Make sure you read the contract carefully, there are tiny words in there that can make the difference between a lot of money and no money at all. I'll go into some of those words in the other pages.
So here's a template contract for you to download, distribute and enjoy to your hearts content. Please note that in using this template I am taking absolutely zero responsibility for anything that happens to you as a result of it. If you happen to get hit by a bus whilst reading it that's your fault!
Please note that I would only use this as a starting point for your commissioning contract, I'd also go to the following page on the Writers Guild of Great Britain to check out the PDF of musical theatre guidelines. This is an extremely useful document and please ensure that you reference it for ALL of your agreements:
writersguild.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/WGGB-Musical-Theatre.pdf
Ideally you should sign a contract for a project prior to beginning any work on it. This may sound really obvious, but when I was starting out I was just so excited to be paid that I would often just start scribbling away before anything was signed on paper and as a result in some cases where the whole thing fell through I did a bunch of work for nothing. That pissed me off. So now, I try to make sure that it's a sure thing by having something in writing before dedicating any time to it.
At the beginning of my career I found this really difficult. If I'm honest I find it difficult even now. I get excited about projects and I can't help composing before anything has been put to paper. But if you have any respect for your own mental health and indeed for the well-being of the project you are getting involved in, make sure that you have signed a contract well before doing any significant amount of work on it as until the parties are contracted, no one is protected and no one is liable, which can lead to huge difficulties further down the line.
What are the ups and downs of a contract? Well the good news is that you're protected by the usual clauses designed to protect all the parties involved. The bad news is that if you suddenly think you aren't being paid enough for the work you've agreed to do, that's just too bad my friend, it's there in big fat writing. And right under that writing, there's a big fat signature. And that signature is yours. And you can't take it back. But that's ok. Just chalk it up to experience.
Of course you can always try and negotiate with the producer, but once your big fat signature is on that bit of paper you have basically zero right to ask for more money or to change the contract in any way. So it's important that you get it as right as possible from the beginning. Make sure you read the contract carefully, there are tiny words in there that can make the difference between a lot of money and no money at all. I'll go into some of those words in the other pages.
So here's a template contract for you to download, distribute and enjoy to your hearts content. Please note that in using this template I am taking absolutely zero responsibility for anything that happens to you as a result of it. If you happen to get hit by a bus whilst reading it that's your fault!
Please note that I would only use this as a starting point for your commissioning contract, I'd also go to the following page on the Writers Guild of Great Britain to check out the PDF of musical theatre guidelines. This is an extremely useful document and please ensure that you reference it for ALL of your agreements:
writersguild.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/WGGB-Musical-Theatre.pdf
DOCUMENT DOWNLOADS
| composer___lyricist_collective_-_commissioning_contract_copy.pdf |
| composer___lyricist_collective_-_commissioning_contract_copy.docx |
