Entertainment Law was a class that taught us students the legal aspects of any business. It’s a class that taught the legal affairs that are involve when starting a business. As for this class, we had to do a leadership assignment in which we had to research potential legal counsel for our Business Plan Development Company and interview them. In addition to that we were to look for an attorney who has the necessary education and skills to assist us with our business endeavor. In choosing whom to interview for my project, I chose to interview Mark Schneider.
Mark Schneider is an attorney at Costa Abrams and Coate, LLP. As an Entertainment Attorney, Mark Schneider’s practice focuses on film and television. However, his main job is to deal with producers of film and television shows. In his line of job, he oversees legal documents such as creating the company entity, cast contracts, crew contracts, and distribution contracts. Also if there were any legal matter he would be the person that the producer calls to ask advice from. Like for example he worked on films like Extract and Monster in which he took care of any legal paper works and issues. In his company some of his previous clients include but are not limited to Lucy Liu ("Ally McBeal," "Charlie’s Angels"), Bob Marley Music, LLC, The Black Eyed Peas, Pissant Productions/Amy Sommer.
In interviewing Mark, we discussed different topics about entertainment law and production companies. One of the topics we discussed about is the relationship that an attorney has with his clients, in specific the ones he has with Television and film producers. In discussing this topic, Mark explained that you really have to try to keep a positive relationship with your clients because most of the time you don’t deal with them in person. Due to everyone’s busy schedule, most of the time, you deal with through emails, and phone calls. As an entertainment attorney, his job is to make sure that I get what my clients need so that they can avoid legal issues. Moreover, your relationship with each client will be different from one client to another because each one has different needs. He stresses on the fact that it’s important to try to keep a good relationship with clients.
In talking to Mark, Another topic I discussed with him is how an attorney works clients. In talking about this, Mark explained that he works with his clients by doing anything they need done legally in regards to things like business matters, intellectual property law, contracts and agreements. However most of the time, clients come to them with the agreements that have been negotiated and all they have to do is put on paper as a contract. Also, depending on the project and difficulty of what they have to do that determines the prize of how much clients have to pay.
In my interview with Mark, an important part of our discussion that I really enjoyed discussing with Mark had to do with the subject of Intellectual properties. When I asked him what he considers a production company’s intellectual property and ways to protect it. He responded by saying that from his experience in working as a Entertainment Attorney what he considered important intellectual property for production companies are Logos and script. In regards to protecting a logo, he said that you should get a trademark protection for it so that no one can use it or steal. Then in protecting scripts, he said that production companies usually get it copyrighted. However, there are usually terms in which it agreements are made upon. But it differs from each contract.
Moreover, When I asked him how he assist production companies in obtaining rights to scripts. Mark explained that there are 2 ways in which he comes in and help out. The first way is basically the producer goes out and negotiates with the writer about getting the rights to script and then goes to him to give him the information about the agreement so that he can put it in contract. Then the second way is for the producer to go to the entertainment attorney and ask him to go do the negotiation and processing of the agreement. Mark also mentioned that the time it takes to obtain rights to a script varies for each one.
In addition to this, Mark also gave me advice about starting my own production company. He stated that I should learn as much as possible from different people to get ideas and inspiration from then. In addition to that, he stresses on getting an attorney because they will help you deal with legal matters and avoid legal issues. Last but not least, Mark stressed on being strong and never giving up because it’s a very tough industry.
All in all, I felt that this leadership project and the interview with Mark was a really good learning experience. I learned a lot from talking to Mark and in listening to what he had to say. The topics we discussed really opened my eyes and provided me valuable information that would be really useful to me in starting my company. After talking to Mark, I feel that the knowledge he gave me would really be useful because of the fact that there’s so much legal aspect involved with starting a business and acquiring materials for a project.
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